Business as Usual.

Before Mass this morning.

The full devotional candle stand always gives me hope that God will answer our prayers and cheers me in that we are praying to Him through His Blessed Mother.

Anglican Wanderer, Church Warden and literary critic Ken Savage mentioned today that this blog has become a little heavy going of late, with a need to lighten the tone. Tones shall be lightened on Monday Ken, however it goes. And how is it going, you ask? Well, this morning, as synod met for Mass, we sung High Mass in our own little Church, realising that, through our adherence to Christ's teachings and love for His law, we are being ourselves persecuted by our fellow clergy in the Church. Terrible things are being said about us in private, that we seek to keep a male only enclave or power base, that we are mysogonists, that we are outdated. We seek only to be obedient to Christ, for the simple reason that this is how we can spread the message of the Kingdom of God. However, there were one or two things said as well which are more suited to the cheese course of a dinner party than to Synod as well by people on our side, so let us, as always, pray.

As I sit here typing and the thunder rolls outside the window and lightning strikes the hill, I am aware of the good work done by Archbishop Sentamu this morning, when he denounced GAFCON and all her works, defending our saintly Archbishop of Canterbury in the process. We also see that the two Bishops involved in 'secret talks' with the Vatican are Beverley and Fulham, announced on National TV this morning. We see also that this afternoon as Synod convened once again at 2,30, the agenda is Church Tourism, so there is a calm before the storm of tomorrow afternoon. It seems as well that the Parson's Freehold has had it's death knell sounded yesterday and will die a natural death over the next twenty or so years.

The jury is still out however on whether the Synod will be able to decide the Women Bishops issue, and our future, at all. An indication that the ordination of women bishops may stall in favour of further discussion came when an influential member of the Synod, the Venerable Norman Russell, Archdeacon of Berkshire, said that any legislation would eventually need a two-thirds majority of each house of the Synod - clergy, laity and bishops. 'There is no point in putting time and money into the development of legislation which has no hope at all of gaining the two-thirds majority,' said Russell, who recommended that the group responsible for drafting the legislation further explore the idea of 'men-only' churches. I repeat, vote and vote for the issue, along with good provision for us, who in conscience cannot accept this innovation and let us all get on with ministering in the Church of God. And for the rest, tomorrow will tell. This is it, unless there is further stalling and fudge, the end of the line for debate is a day away.