Pentecost Triptych

Like the Paschal Liturgy, Pentecost Day presents another challenge - at least it does at Swanvale Halt, where I've adopted the practice of transferring the full-scale Blessing of the Font from the Easter Vigil to Pentecost Day, celebrating the Church being equipped for its mission by the coming of the Holy Spirit. Of course at the moment, as with everything else, I'm doing it on my own and so the 8am mass required me to carry my phone through the church from its now-customary station near the high altar to the font where the ceremonies took place. At least the journey presented fewer trip hazards than my adventures on Easter morning. Instead of a homily I described what I was doing and why for the benefit of the video and those bold souls who might be watching it - the Litany of the Saints, the scattering of the water, the Sufflation and infusion of the Oils, dipping the Paschal Candle in the water, and the Commission of the (absent) People. Apart from the phone slipping and so not being exactly positioned where I wanted, it all went fine.

It couldn't last. Having put my potatoes in the oven to roast for lunch, after about twenty minutes I was disturbed by a mysterious odour whose nature I couldn't quite tie down. I then remembered I'd been trying to get grease off the roasting dish, and had left it to soak, so the aroma was the combined perfume of heated vegetable oil and washing-up liquid. I prepared new potatoes. A shameful waste, I know, but I couldn't think of them in the same way.