Ready for Anything

Last Wednesday we finished the five sessions of the Lent course I’d put together, the first time in several years that we’d done anything of the kind. I wanted to do something that both encouraged and equipped laypeople to take on more of the spiritual management of the church if no ordained people were available. Say a church at the Catholic end of the spectrum has no prospect of an incumbent for some time, and visiting priests coming in on a Sunday now and then: what can laypeople do to maintain its spiritual life? I did sessions on the nature of the Church and its mission; how the Church relates to society, and society to it (somewhat sobering, bits of that); the Church calendar; the building as a house for prayer; and shoehorned in something about faith-sharing for the last one. The diocese will be pleased with that, anyway. I pointed out how ringing the bell is easy, and each session got attenders joining in with a plainchant psalm, because having experienced it I think getting your head round plainchant can really increase people’s confidence. It was a bit of a rod for my own back, but I did each session twice, once on a Monday afternoon and once on a Wednesday evening, to give as many people as possible a chance to attend. Not everyone managed to get to all the instalments, but I was pleased with getting roughly thirty souls along.

When I described the idea, more than one member of the congregation took it as a signal that I was thinking of leaving, which is not the case, but it does rather suggest that they’re a bit scared of that happening. Which maybe means I should! The whole concept of the thing was to reduce laypeoples’ dependence on clergy in general and me in particular, but will that happen in any way while I’m still around?