I’m looking forward to ‘doing a wedding’ today when James and Anna get married in St Vincent’s Chapel in Edinburgh
As always it reminds me of what I miss. I used to do lots of weddings – could probably have gone in without the script and been entirely at ease. And now … well I hope James and Anna will be too busy being happy to notice … I fumble around a bit. I’ve lost that liturgical facility which comes when you live inside the liturgy because you do it over and over again,
So just in case I haven’t mentioned it before. …… There are huge privileges and great riches in episcopal ministry. I’ll tell you about them another day. But there are impoverishments as well. For example:
As the parish priest, you can massage difficult relationships and situations day by day and week by week. You can take your opportunities to move things along. The bishop has a meeting date in the diary and it has to be addressed and sorted there and then.
People are always somebody else’s people. You don’t have that elemental ‘priest and people’ connection cemented pastorally over months and years. Or, as I sometimes say, you aren’t part of the soap opera!
You aren’t part of the important moments in the lives of people and their families