September

In the past year I have been looking through the treasures, and occasionally irrelevancies, stored and stashed in our parishes. Cheque stubbs from the 1950s and 60s stored in a tin box were among the less interesting and relevant finds. One find was a self-published Tract by Fr. David Walter, regular worshipper here until last year and formerly editor of the liturgical calendar. The pamphlet is entitled, A Tract Against Ministry Areas, and was published in 2018. As we all know the Church in Wales has since then thrown itself fully, head and feet into this experiment. One of our Churchwardens in Hay recently gave an update on matters here and stated that this is the new reality. My own personal reflection is that a commitment to the concept was made and little thought to the intricacies and existing organically developed webs within the Parish system as was (perhaps still is..) occurred at the time. Clergy from across the Diocese have said that time and energy is absorbed by structures and inward-looking activity rather than that which is the Missio Dei.

Much has been said of the gender of the new Archbishop of Wales, some of which is plain nasty. One can hold an opinion on the nature of Holy Orders and on what God has ordained to be in accordance with His will whilst still being courteous and kind. What strikes me, and hasn’t drawn much comment, is that Archbishop Cherry was not trained by the Church in Wales and has spent most of her ministry in the Church of England. In other words, she is an outsider. This is striking as the Church in Wales has her establishment and doesn’t always give much creed to criticism or ‘outside’ thought, such as can be seen with the Ministry Area experiment. Hopefully Archbishop Cherry will open the way to some more honest reflection in this area.

In his pamphlet Fr. David Walter wrote the simplest yet most relevant sentence. ‘The parish priest celebrates Sunday Mass with his flock.’ This is the reality as seen on the ground in much of Wales, in evidence here in our parishes, and is expected as such by both regular communicants and those who rarely cross the threshold. It is from this that we are all fed and nourished to participate in the Missio Dei. Graham Leonard, Bishop of London during the 1980s, wrote, ‘In this sacramental act, the people of God as the royal priesthood set within creation to speak God’s praises, brings the world’s joys in thanksgiving to God from whom they come, and its sorrows and needs in supplication, praising God for His redeeming love by which alone they can be met  and healed.’  Here, on the ground, we shall maintain ourselves as Eucharistic people, in parish Churches with an eucharistic culture, living out that which God asks from us.

Please God, let it be that the Blessed Saints, most particularly Our Lady, continue to pray for us!