Maundy Thursday

Another very full day today with it being Maundy Thursday - one of the most important in the Christian Calendar - the day in which Jesus Christ celebrated the Last Supper with his friends.  It has, therefore, become a significant Christian Festival and one which I look forward to each year (although last year I felt it had been over-complicated at Farley).  Today is also the day in which all church ministers are invited to confirm their vows in the Cathedral (bishops, priests, deacons, lay ministers, lay pastoral assistants and lay worship leaders).  Salisbury becomes full up with clergy from all over the Diocese.  I drove Cynthia from the Clarendon Team with me and we parked in the Cathedral School grounds (the old Bishop's Palace) and she went off to robe up in the Chapter House.  I joined the curate's wife, Sarah, and Mary from Alabare and sat at the front in the southern aisle from where we had a reasonably good view of proceedings and the pulpit. The service is known as the Chrism Service for the various oils used are consecrated - oil for baptism, oil for the sick and last rights, and oil for ordination.  This ancient rite has its origins in the Catholic Church.  Lay Ministers, not being ordained, re-affirm their canonical vows of obedience but are not blessed with oil. Following on from the service, in which the Bishop spoke in his sermon about the importance of the church's role in a society where food banks are now becoming an important norm, there was coffee at the west end of the cathedral and a chance to chat with fellow students, clerics and tutors.  A really nice service.  I took Cynthia and Judith home afterwards via Waitrose to pick up a pizza for Thom's lunch.  This evening I attended the Maundy Thursday service (the Last Supper) at St. Francis's led by Paul.  A very simple and moving service.  The chairs were arranged in a circle around the altar in the middle of the church.  We shared a granary loaf and real wine and each person read a sentence from John's Gospel.  There was no foot washing but water was poured into a bowl as a symbolic gesture.  We ended the service by going out into the grass area behind the hall where the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane was performed.  We then quietly dispersed just as the disciples would have done after the arrest.  Simple but meaningful.  No vigil.