David's Daily Diversions

A Family Affair

Because our Eucharistic community only meets once a month, we don't have services today. We won't be visiting anywhere today, if for no other reason than it is Forgiveness Sunday.

It's not that the extended service would be difficult for the sprogs. They do have enough difficultly getting through the entire Liturgy, even with liberal use of the kitchen as a holding area. But it's the sort of occasion that belongs to a parish.

The year we were received in the Church, we happened to visit the Shrewsbury parish on Forgiveness Sunday. I don't think I realised at the time that's what it was. I remember how uncomfortable I felt as everyone asked everyone else's forgiveness for offences committed in the previous year. You can't really participate with people who you see maybe once a quarter, and with whom you have no common community committment, nor they with you. Sure you can go through the motions, but what's the point of that? As I recall, we slipped out not long after the forgiving bit all began.

That is not say I remove myself from the process altogether, or that I (or we all) shouldn't seek forgiveness beyond the bounds of our local ties and those with whom we regularly share the same chalice.

And though reading a blog is certainly nothing like the fellowship of entering into the heavenlies together in the Divine Liturgy, and most of you I have never even seen in the flesh, if I have offended any of you in the past year, I ask your forgiveness.