This and That.

Thanks to a kind donation we now have unbleached candles on our Holy Souls altar and the icons are being painted as we speak. I am hoping that we will be able to dedicate them in the month of the Holy Souls. All we need now is a new lectern, a missal stand and I need to source some good, golden self adhesive letters to attach the motto to the top step. We get there, though, slowly but surely. Much like my bathroom, begun in May, now all it needs is the new flooring and the light fitting installed.

What's going on here then? Ignore the ten tall candles put out for All Saints and the two reliquaries which stay out all year save in Lent, Advent and for Requiems, Benediction etc and ignore the thought of the four tall reliquaries that are not yet out. Imagine the six tall, permanent, candles only and a poppy wreath in front of the crucifix. The black cloth is in fact our coffin drape but it is, as this hastily thrown on picture shows you, almost the same size as the altar. If it were put on properly, under the three cloths and the thick, hard mat on the mensa surface and arranged better, we thought that it would look quite striking for Remembrance Sunday's High Mass. I shall endeavour to have pictures taken of the Mass so you can judge for yourselves. We used to have a couple of altar frontals but they perished a number of years back, mainly through being kept in the cold, damp back passage. I think, personally, that the altar looks rather good anyway, but we would like a green and a gold frontal, the plain wood then being perfect for the two seasons of Lent and Advent. Personally, I favour the damask stretched over a wooden frame variety, but again, we end up with problems of where to keep them. With rolled ones they could be kept under the altar in a box when not in use.

Yesterday morning was frosty, freezing and foggy. I went out about my business in the morning into the freezing fog after dropping my car off at the garage for it's service and MOT and attendant repairs to cajole it through the MOT. I always wonder if I am being slightly ripped off at the garage but not having the necessary technical expertise, you are left with very little choice but to say 'gosh, that sounds bad' and stump up. Of course, each time something goes wrong you remember it and read up about it so that if that happens again you can say 'ah, but can you not just.....' but, of course, the same thing rarely goes wrong twice, on account of it's having been fixed the previous occasion, so some new and hitherto unencountered jargon is remembered and entered into google later.

The Bible study group next week was going to look at feminist theology but we have shelved that subject for a while to have an hour or so explaining in detail where we stand at the moment with reference to the wider Church and scripture and to begin praying for the renewal of the dawn which will break upon us next Easter which we will start searching for now by looking for the bright morning star throughout this season before Advent which some are calling the Kingdom Season, for reasons which are plain but unnecessary, in my opinion. Feminist theology will have to wait until January before it enters our schedule again, as it has before.