So - countdown continued through the weeks of Lent.
The Cathedral closed for public worship but our great West Screens were opened wide, our chairs spaced out to ensure social distancing and we gladly welcomed in those who wanted to come and sit and grieve or hope or pray.
We had agreed to offer prayers on the hour - and this soon began to feel like the most significant ministry that I had offered since I arrived here, a moment when the Cathedral came into its own as the praying heart of our city.
There was an overwhelming sense that those who came in brought with them all the concerns of wider society, and that as we prayed for all whose lives were overshadowed by the pandemic, for the sick and the scared, for those offering care and those researching cure, we were articulating something that needed to be named and offered again and again.
While there were a smattering of familiar faces who found their way in day by day, nearly all those who prayed with me were not regular worshippers with us, or, it transpired, anywhere else in the city.
"This seemed like the right place to be" said one lady.
"Your words helped me feel we might not go off the rails" said another.
Not my words at all, actually.
I mostly read a psalm or two.
"Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to another"
"God is our strength and refuge, a very present help in time of trouble"
I edged those dear familiar words around with faltering links of my own,
I told those present that they had been a precious stepping stone for others before us, negotiating their way through times as uncertain and challenging as those we were facing ourselves.
I told the story of the Cathedral to all who came, with the reminder that for Provost Howard and his congregation in 1940 the morning after the blitz must have been heavy with grief and with dread.
No sense for them then of the new future, quite unlike the past, which was waiting out of sight around the corner.
I talked about the difference between faith and confidence...That at the moment confidence is hard to find but that faith is the underlying motif that has held us steady through generations..suggested we might pray that Lord's prayer together (finding myself automatically using the traditional form of words, as I always do at funerals, although the Cathedral generally opts for modern language), and, hour after hour, prayed a blessing - often this one.
"May the love of the Lord Christ go with you wherever he may send you
May he guide you through this wilderness, protect you from life's storms,
May he bring you back rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you,
May he bring you back rejoicing once again within these doors".
At home that first night, I picked up a novel - a recent acquisition from the charity shop - and a bookmark fell out.
On it, those self-same words...
It felt, by some mad and magical thinking, to be an endorsement of my prayers - maybe even a promise that we would regather in this space "after the dreaful flood was past".
Of course life is always uncertain and precarious.
The covid19 pandemic has simply forced we, who thought we had somehow insulated ourselves from the ills that flesh is heir to, to confront our assured mortality.
In the face of that, the instinct to pray, and to entrust ourselves and all whom we love to One who has never deserted fickle humanity, is alive and well as it has not been in my lifetime.
Stepping into that stream of prayer was a privilege I will not quickly forget.
The Cathedral closed for public worship but our great West Screens were opened wide, our chairs spaced out to ensure social distancing and we gladly welcomed in those who wanted to come and sit and grieve or hope or pray.
We had agreed to offer prayers on the hour - and this soon began to feel like the most significant ministry that I had offered since I arrived here, a moment when the Cathedral came into its own as the praying heart of our city.
There was an overwhelming sense that those who came in brought with them all the concerns of wider society, and that as we prayed for all whose lives were overshadowed by the pandemic, for the sick and the scared, for those offering care and those researching cure, we were articulating something that needed to be named and offered again and again.
While there were a smattering of familiar faces who found their way in day by day, nearly all those who prayed with me were not regular worshippers with us, or, it transpired, anywhere else in the city.
"This seemed like the right place to be" said one lady.
"Your words helped me feel we might not go off the rails" said another.
Not my words at all, actually.
I mostly read a psalm or two.
"Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to another"
"God is our strength and refuge, a very present help in time of trouble"
I edged those dear familiar words around with faltering links of my own,
I told those present that they had been a precious stepping stone for others before us, negotiating their way through times as uncertain and challenging as those we were facing ourselves.
I told the story of the Cathedral to all who came, with the reminder that for Provost Howard and his congregation in 1940 the morning after the blitz must have been heavy with grief and with dread.
No sense for them then of the new future, quite unlike the past, which was waiting out of sight around the corner.
I talked about the difference between faith and confidence...That at the moment confidence is hard to find but that faith is the underlying motif that has held us steady through generations..suggested we might pray that Lord's prayer together (finding myself automatically using the traditional form of words, as I always do at funerals, although the Cathedral generally opts for modern language), and, hour after hour, prayed a blessing - often this one.
"May the love of the Lord Christ go with you wherever he may send you
May he guide you through this wilderness, protect you from life's storms,
May he bring you back rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you,
May he bring you back rejoicing once again within these doors".
At home that first night, I picked up a novel - a recent acquisition from the charity shop - and a bookmark fell out.
On it, those self-same words...
It felt, by some mad and magical thinking, to be an endorsement of my prayers - maybe even a promise that we would regather in this space "after the dreaful flood was past".
Of course life is always uncertain and precarious.
The covid19 pandemic has simply forced we, who thought we had somehow insulated ourselves from the ills that flesh is heir to, to confront our assured mortality.
In the face of that, the instinct to pray, and to entrust ourselves and all whom we love to One who has never deserted fickle humanity, is alive and well as it has not been in my lifetime.
Stepping into that stream of prayer was a privilege I will not quickly forget.
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