So today went exactly as planned, everything promised was delivered and all went well.
The funerals and funeral visits were what they should have been.
The new dementia-friendly Communion, was very different from other places I visit and was enjoyable, effective (I hope) and promising. Looking forward to the next one and already engaging in reflective dialogue with it.
There was an unexpected opportunity to visit and pray with someone in the final stages of life (always a privilege).
A pastoral encounter, with the opportunity for another of a rather challenging kind being added to the diary for later this week.
An opportunity to run an errand.
Copy to be written and sent off and some writing to be done.
Plus of course Morning prayer and the opportunity to stop people in the street and engage with them and pray for their needs and circumstances with them where they were, when they were with me (I wonder whether I get away with this because of the dogcollar or despite it some days- yet always blessed when people say ‘yes’ and open up).
And now - the day is finished and all that remains is my examen dialogue and focus.
When you look at the things done, anyone could deliver the things contained in today in terms of doing it, but we need to see within it the calling to be something other than a mere deliverer of parts and consider the calling contained within and the impetus it gives.
Each of us have a calling. It might be priestly, it might be diaconal (something we need to develop more of), it might be something else (which although we call this ‘lay’ sometimes causes us to forget we are all laity). Please reflect on this and ask God the question, “Who and what would you have me be?”
Pax
1 comment:
Great post.
I have found my way to Licensed Lay Ministry, which has provided many opportunities to engage wider than the Church I serve. I had two and half years on License and am now on PTO. I do so many different things that I never thought would come my way and it is virtually a full time vocation, because I am engaged with it six days a week, with a day off which I devote to family.
God decides these things, places opportunities in our paths and encourages us to discern them and to engage. The most recent was when the editors of our Parish Magazine went overseas for a three year mission opportunity, nobody volunteered to take over, but suddenly I got the idea, "you could do that" so it was and is. Now, three editions later I am getting into my stride. I had never used Publisher software, so a steep learning curve, but with some help and our parish administrater I have managed to print and issue them all by the 1st of the Month. Success, not yet as there were some minor issues, but hopefully the January issue will be without blemish.
And I am doing it guided by the need to engage with people who don't come to church, so I sell it as our weekly parish coffee morning and charity sale, rather than just in church. I also take copies to a local Christian Bookshop and Community Cafe and leave them for people to take free of charge.
Who knows, what God will do next, I don't know. My incumbent is encouraging me towards funeral ministry, but I have had two siblings die in the past two years, so am not yet, quite ready for that particular engagement, albeit, I am verger for church funerals. A step along that path.
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