Right Let's Do This

I am fed up with the number of people telling me they're away over Easter. The way the day falls this year seems to be playing havoc as the entire parish goes on holiday, and who will be left to keep the Sacred Triduum I don't know. I suppose it's better than last year when Easter Day coincided with the clocks going forward, and getting up for the Dawn Mass was positively painful.

I shared my concerns with the local Methodist minister at our Wednesday morning shared Morning Prayer. 'It always feels like that', he said comfortingly, 'But it turns out all right.' I am not at all convinced.

I am trying to remember (among other things) that I, our curate and God will be there and anything else is a bonus, but I'm not sure I really believe that. Il Rettore used to call the reprehensible habit of looking back through your registers to see how attendance at a service compares with what you got last year as 'the sin of multitudinism', but one does like to feel one isn't entirely wasting one's time.

It did occur to me that the holy Sisters at West Malling begin every Office with the words from Psalm 34: the cantor sings 'O magnify the Lord with me', whereupon the other Sisters reply with 'Let us praise his name together'. I like this as it creates the impression that one person is inviting the others to take part in their act of devotion. I may even introduce it as part of our vestry prayers. Very comforting!