Marion the curate presided at communion for the first time since March this morning, at what is now our standard time for the main service of 10.30. I wasn't sure whether I should stay given that I didn't have anything positively to do, but there was a notice to give out about the forthcoming Annual Parish Meeting, so I sat at the back - it's also the closest Sunday to the date I became rector, now 11 years ago, so it was good to be there. In other years I have renewed my ordination vows with the churchwardens, but didn't this year as it would be an unnecessary addition to the mass. As it turned out, the person designated to read the first Bible reading forgot so I stepped in, and there was nobody to ring the bell, so I did have some function after all.
I realised that this is the very first time in eleven years that I have sat out a Parish Eucharist in my own church. Despite the weirdness of receiving the Host and taking it away, consuming it either en route to one's seat or once there, I had a great sense of being upheld by a network of prayer all around me, which was rather lovely.
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