"Business as usual"

Sunday 20th January 2013

After the service at St Peter's Falstone

At the pre-agreed time of 7.15 the BBC Radio Newcastle Breakfast programme telephoned to interview me about a rural parish priest's Sunday morning in the snow.  I had said that I don't cancel services because it's so important for the Church to be reliable: if we have promised to provide something, then people must be able to trust us to do so.  The irony was that my potential 9 o'clock congregation rang to tell me that the service should be cancelled because none of them could get there!  (I would probably have managed by the main road, but they were unable to reach the main road.)
    Anyway, the 9.30 Parish Communion at Bellingham and the 11 o'clock one at Falstone went ahead more or less normally, as well as 3 o'clock STARS for the under-5's with their parents.
     Then two couples who were booked in for marriage preparation telephoned to postpone because of travelling difficulties.
     Incidentally, the picture of Falstone church above is a colour photograph though it may not look it.  As it happens, it's rather suitable for today's Gospel reading which was about Jesus turning water into wine when the drink ran out at a wedding reception.  Water into wine, black and white into colour, sorrow into joy  --  all these, like the whole of Jesus' ministry, are signs of the exuberant, creative power of God.