Therefore We Before Him Bending

Evensong & Benediction for Corpus Christi 2018 at Swanvale Halt took place amid heavy rain and oppressive heat. We first did this in 2016, you remember, when the celebration came at a particularly opportune time: perhaps it always does, as we perpetually need to be called back to the recollection of the presence of Christ, a point which this service makes most powerfully. For two years three souls have gathered for it, including me, but this year there were seven - a revival! - all of us the parish's 'usual suspects', admittedly, whose names I could have written in advance. As I knelt in front of the sacrament on the old high altar and we joined in 'Of the glorious Body telling' the plainchant behind me sounded so much the better for a few more voices singing it. And then the thunder rolled: it could hardly have been more dramatic. Come to our hearts, O Lord.