Wednesday in Holy week

A very busy but fulfilling day. I rehearsed the St Luke Passion with Adrian Adams. It was a beautiful day so I enjoyed the walk up to St John's with a pause at the spot where Mum and Dad's ashes are buried in the Calvary garden. Then to the Centre for Spirituality at the Cathedral for a day led by Fr Paul Fox from Chelmsford. He has worked with disabled children and now with prisoners. He spoke of how our sins can be recycled and transformed by God into something good. This is a powerful message and he spoke too of the humanity of Jesus. To deny this is to deny the Incarnation. I took the opportunity to make my confession - always a difficult thing to do! I made the Stations of the Cross using Fr Cormac Rigby's excellent booklet and I found a quote from Fr Gerard Hughes in this week's Tablet which matched Fr Paul's comments so well. The Lent group followed on with a passage from Philippians as we met for the last time and we welcomed 2 newcomers making a group of 7 this time. We are all asked to fill in evaluation forms and I was pleased that many gave me their contact details for the interfaith group. Served at Mass and the lay clerks sang Palestrina Lamentations. Fr Slawomir gave a fine homily.
To Southwark cathedral to hear Peter Wright play Dupre's Le Chemin de la Croix. The original poems were read in French before each station. The ending is very beautiful and as Peter said the chord in the last piece is the same as that in Durufle Requiem In Paradisum 15 years before Durufle used it! Compline was sung in the choir.
The quote from Gerard Hughes (Tablet 31 March 2007 page 11) As human beings there is very little we can change. We cannot change others.We can change very little in ourselves, but that very little is "infinitely more than we can ask or imagine". What we can change is how we perceive things. That is what we have been trying to do during Lent, to recognise God at work in all things, in all people, the God who weeps in us and the God who is continuously transforming us.