Cathedral High Mass

The Blue Pub at 6.00pm, yes 6.00pm in Methven.


















The Rakaia Bridge getting ready for a bungie Jump?

















An interesting view of the Cathedral Sanctuary

Good day to you all. Well last Sunday I celebrated a Sunday High Mass with a choir and small orchestra for the first time in my life, at the cathedral here in Christchurch. Though I didn’t presume to sit on the bishop’s imposing Chair. It made me understand why the bishops in the old days were treated as the princes of the Church. One can imagine all the solemnity and the other priests all around the bishops with deacons, sub deacons and a vast army of altar servers, all fussing around him. Bobbing up and down and bowing and scraping as they used to do; no wonder the bishops were seen as the royalty of the Church. However, there I was alone with just two altar servers in the vast sanctuary, I looked just like an insignificant blob on the landscape. Actually it was quite humbling and made one feel how great God is and how small we are as human beings. Yet for all that God treats us as his children. The choir and the orchestra sang and played very well and everything went well with no hitches, and I even got to sing a solo and let New Zealand here my dulcet tones.

Afterwards while reflecting on the proceedings I just felt that there was something missing. At first I could not put my finger on it and then it came to me. The whole Mass in some way was more of a performance rather than a celebration. When I celebrate Mass in a smaller parish Church, even if it is one that I do not know the congregation, there is an intimacy that some how gets lost in a big cathedral,. There is an eye contact with people even a small smile now and then, especially when things go a bit off key. In the cathedral, for the priest anyway, the people are in the distance there is no eye-contact and there is very little inter-action. There is a feeling of them and me. Though there is nothing wrong in celebrating Mass in this way I would not want to be doing it every week for the rest of my ministry. So I have decided I don’t want to be a bishop and I am very happy to be a little priest in a parish where I know everyone and they know me and that we can celebrate the Mass together as friends with Jesus, just as He did at the Last Supper.

On Saturday 18th I will have only ten weeks before I come home and only eight more weeks here in New Zealand. I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone. It seems to have flown by. Though saying that I will be glad to get home to Crowthorne and Sandhurst. I was talking to a priest about this who has been on a sabbatical for a year and is the same age as me. He said that we are getting to an age where we want things to be stable and regular in our lives. We want and need the familiar things around us. I understood exactly what he said and meant

Because my time is short here Uncle and myself are going to have a weeks holiday touring around the north of the south Island. I have hired a motor home for eight days so that we can spend some time alone together and also to write down his war time experiences of the build up to D-Day and the aftermath of those day and his trip to Australia and New Zealand. (Does anyone know of a good speech to text programme for the computer?) Hopefully the weather will be a little better than it has been over the summer and the autumn will be as nice as it was in the UK last year.

Uncle is looking forward to the holiday and eight days will be enough for him. He and aunty Evelyn were great campers in their day. He told me they would get in their old Morris with three gears, with all the camping stuff piled high on top and off they would go for three weeks with the two girls. Happy days. So we are doing it a bit more relaxed and in comfort which he deserves. Uncle said something very nice to me. He said that one of his cobbers told him that since I have been here Arnett looks a lot more healthier, happy and bright. And as it is so do I. Its been really good for us both to spend a lot of time getting to know each other and enjoying ourselves and company.

Hope you are all ready for the beginning of Lent on Wednesday and that you have your spiritual reading prepared. This year I am going to make an effort of reading the whole bible. I did it once before when I was in the monastery and I found it helpful and spiritual, though Leviticus and Numbers were heavy going. Well that is all for this week.