Juxtapositions

Last Saturday we had Messy Church and over eighty people attending. I and the children told the parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders - with actions ... I went straight from that to arranging the church for Passion Sunday, putting up the Stations of the Cross and doing the veiling.

That morning I heard that Margaret had died. Margaret was our sacristan, an ex-nun who'd given the better part of her life to the service of the church in many ways, and had managed with increasing pain, in and out of hospital over the last year and more, until her body was just worn out with illness, pain and medication. She never liked the tradition of veiling crosses and images in Passiontide much, but still made a set of veils for the church. I thought of her as I did the veiling, and the sign of mourning it represents seemed all the stronger.