Quite a varied day today with some disappointment this afternoon. I was up early this morning and after a breakfast of a bacon roll and tea I drove into Salisbury to Church House where, as part of my ministerial development, I attended a training session on giving Communion by Extension - that is being trained and thereby authorised by the bishop/archdeacon to distribute the sacraments at a public church service without a priest being present. This can be quite useful where, in a multi-parish team like ours in Clarendon, there is a need/desire for several Eucharists on the same Sunday (e.g. Easter or Christmas) but not enough priests to go round. The idea is that the deacon or lay minister (who cannot consecrate the elements) can attend a service where two sets of elements are consecrated - one set for the church service where it is being done and another set for the deacon or lay minister to take away with him to distribute at another church. This is why it is called Communion by Extension - the second service is an extension of the first in a different place. A letter of authorisation will be sent to my Training Incumbent so if the need ever arises and subject to the approval of the various PCCs (it has never happened in Clarendon to my knowledge) I can give public Communion by this means to a congregation within the Team. I found the session really interesting from both a theological and practical aspect especially as I had felt extremely privileged to have given private Communion with reserved sacraments to the folk at Stratford Court with Tom the curate at St. Francis's. After this training session Thom was dropped off by Sara by Church House and he and I drove to Southampton for the afternoon game at St. Mary's Stadium against Cardiff City - a game we expected to win quite easily as the clubs are at opposite ends of the Premier League table. Today was the closest Saturday to the 25th Anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and every football game in the major leagues commenced at 3.07 p.m. as the infamous game at Hillsborough (Liverpool v. Nottingham Forest) was stopped at 3.06 p.m. This allowed for a one minute's silence to be observed immediately before games commenced. I also hoisted the Saints flag today (as usual) but with the Liverpool flag below it at half-mast as a mark of respect for those 96 fans who died that awful day in 1989. As for the football game today - Saints started brightly enough but simply couldn't get the ball in the back of the net. Masses of possession but no results. With 20 minutes to go Cardiff scored with Southampton all over the place. The end result - Saints 0-1 Cardiff. Really poor performance from Saints. tonight Arsenal beat Wigan Athletic in the first semi-final of the FA Cup on penalties. Tomorrow sees Hull City takes on Sheffield United. The winner of the clash is now almost certain to end up in Europe next season.
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