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Holy Land thrill
A GROUP from our parish has recently returned from the Holy Land. It was a first visit for all of us, and we had the most astonishing seven days. Among many amazing events, nothing equalled praying at Christ’s tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at six o’clock on a Sunday morning.
Surrounded as we were by the liturgies of many churches, and especially the haunting music of the Copts, who were singing morning prayer just behind the tomb when we arrived, time seemed to stand still.
Ours was a group of diverse backgrounds and ages — from early teens to mid-eighties, from new hesitant Christian to committed believer — but we were united in prayer and delight at seeing this most holy of sites.
The fact that it was Mothering Sunday, and there was not a daffodil or “all-age” sermon in sight, only made the experience all the more exquisite.
Burden of guilt
YOU DO NOT understand the meaning of salesmanship until you have tried to go shopping in the Middle East. “You must haggle,” we were told in Jerusalem; “never pay anything like the asking price.” So haggle we did.
For the polite English abroad, it is all a bit of a strain, having to trade offers of shekels, and to endure hearing that the seller cannot feed his children and, if you want, he will send his son with you to the cash machine (no, thank you).
“I lose money on this,” one man cried, as I tried to buy a reversible stole. He had initially wanted £60, telling me that this was already a bargain and that poverty-stricken nuns had hand-stitched it.
We agreed on £25 after he tried to stop me leaving the shop, but he then chased me down the street shouting “OK, £40 . . . you rob me . . . £30 . . . £25 . . . my only offer . . . think of my wife and children.”
I now have a lovely stole, embroidered with Jerusalem crosses, but I cannot quite get out of my guilt-ridden, middle-class mind the idea that I have in some way robbed the shopkeeper — or, at the very least, caused nuns across Jerusalem to starve.
Hearing nature’s call
I DO NOT know at what age it happens, but for the older members of our party the only question regularly asked throughout the Holy Land was: “Where are the toilets?”
I felt that I must have a fibreglass bladder in comparison with some of the party, who seemed to lurch from one water closet to the next. The constant need to relieve oneself — “You’ll be old one day, Father,” shouted one parishioner, after I commented on her endless departures for the ladies’ room — must come at about the same time in our life cycle as the conviction that everyone speaks too quietly.
Is galloping deafness something especially prevalent among Christians? In church, it is invariably the deafest people who sit at the back, apparently oblivious of the fact that this is asking for trouble.
In my previous parish, the greatest compliment you could get for your sermon was: “We could hear every word, Father.” This would always be said in the most glowing of terms, and was clearly the highest lay approbation.
Delighted that they could hear, I none the less felt that some comment on the content would not go amiss.
“But did you like it?” I would ask.
“Oh yes, Father. We could hear every word.”
The sincerest flattery
APPARENTLY, all the teenagers in my congregation now do a splendid impression of me. It all started when muggins here had the bright idea of a youth sleep-over on Holy Saturday, aimed mainly (I will admit) at guaranteeing some servers for the fledgling 5.30 a.m. Paschal vigil and first mass.
As 4 a.m. approached, and unholy noise continued to emanate from the church, I marched in for the umpteenth time to shout, with mounting hysteria, “For goodness’ sake, shut up!”
I also uttered all those phrases that my parents used, and which I swore I never would: “Don’t come running to me when you’re exhausted at mass. . . I’m really disappointed in you. . . That sleeping bag’s for sleeping in, you know.”
Suffice to say, my increasingly violent imprecations did not work, but, despite exhaustion, everyone had a fabulous time — even the curate — and we all feasted mightily on smoked salmon and scrambled eggs when it was all over.
Now, the church regularly echoes with teenage voices screaming “Shut up!” shortly after I pass by.
Confirming dates
FOOTBALL, remarked the Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, is not a matter of life and death — it is more important than that. This is something a Merseyside parish discovers when it schedules a confirmation for the night of a Champions League match against Arsenal.
Numbers were down at the service, and, inexplicably, there seemed to be a larger proportion of women than men. We even had to announce the score in the notices. Happily, a joyful atmosphere in church was made electric by the city’s 4-2 victory; but next year I will be sure to check more than just the parish diary before inviting the Bishop.
One confirmand was delighted because he had not received the Bishop’s letter a week before the confirmation (“Does that mean I don’t have to come?”); and another wanted to know how long the service would go on (“so I know whether I can get to a big screen in time”). And the most extraordinary thing? All these people were adults. . .
The Revd Robert Mackley is Assistant Curate at Liverpool Parish Church.
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