Anniversaries.

Your scribe and his brother pointedly refuse to smile for the camera.

Unlike everybody else!

Edward has the right idea.

Beats Burger King. Whatever that might be.

Chris is, of course, used to the camera.

Ged and Irene.

My Sister in Law is called Elizabeth but I am not called Mary, so that blows any chance of a reflection about how today has been similar to the Visitation which we keep today. Like Mary, though, I went to spend time with my family, to celebrate my uncle and aunts fortieth wedding anniversary. I am sure that you were probably all thinking that now there are, theoretically, four contributors to this blog that I might stop going on about my days out, but none of it, I am afraid. Today was, though, an anniversary for Ged and Irene and it is an anniversary for us as well, because that is why we remember the Visitation. Holy Days and Saints days are all anniversaries and they will, I am sure, coincide with your anniversaries as well, of death, birth, love and loss. The faith is, at it's core, domestic. The Roman Christians tried to find parallels with the Roman household Gods to ease the transition of the light over the darkness, the Faith over (well meaning) idolatry. We are in a domestic world, living domestic lives, following the pattern of holy days marked by domestic lives.

This faith of ours is played out by men and women just like us, on the backdrop of their very ordinary lives. The Apostles lived a Pastoral life, following their friend and redeemer for most of their early lives, then set on fire by the Spirit they journeyed on, teaching the faith to new people, much as Priests and the Priesthood of all believers do to this day, every day, in the most ordinary places. There is joy, of course and the root of love, which feeds our domestic life, but it is in such days as these, shared anniversaries, that our faith mirrors our life. We journey from cradle to grave stepping on the anniversaries of others, creating our own and keeping those of the Church, following the patterns of holy Men and Women of old and setting our pattern in step with theirs. Sometimes, we find that God is in the Ordinary Time and in the domestic routine of life and we are walking where He and others inspired by His call have walked before us. Thank God for anniversaries, for joy and remembrance and thank God for the time that we have been given.