In a wrap-up to the ‘renunciation of orders’ saga, this morning I received a very gracious email message from the Bishop of Chicago, acknowledging that the terminology should be refined, and thanking me for my ministries back in the States. So that’s sorted.
This week Margaret and I have arranged a complicated pattern of attendance and participation. She has grown into the life of our local parish, St Bride’s, after starting out with me at the cathedral. We expect to go each to our own services tomorrow night; then each of us is participating in Good Friday services, I reflecting on John 19:8-12, and Margaret on the Last Word ‘Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani’ (we were hoping we’d get the same assignments so that we could devise a reflection together, but it was not to be). We’ll go to the evening Easter Vigil at St Bride’s, and the Easter Morning service at the cathedral. The Glasgow Rocks basketball season is winding down, and I wasn’t fired up to go last week when game time came around, so it’s either the Easter Sunday match-up against the Essex Pirates or 22 April against the Durham Wildcats.
Your example of Holy Week negotiations leads me to ask how it works for the two of you generally to be involved with different parishes? I occasionally daydream about going somewhere else on Sundays but fear that it would have negative consequences on people’s perception of my husband the rector. He’s the one on the payroll but it’s pretty clear that attendance is mandatory for me and the children as well! Obviously your situation is different but I’m curious about how you negotiated it together.
Catherine, it just sort of happened. First, I had lived over here for a year before Margaret arrived, and I was already deeply rooted. Margaret started out going to the cathedral, and the Provost invited her to help teach the inquirers’ class last fall, but she has come to feel more at home at St Bride’s (where most people didn’t encounter her first as ‘AKMA’s wife’ but more as her own person). She comes to the cathedral on and off, but more often stays at St Bride’s, where she’s developed roots of her own.
I’m non-stipendiary at the cathedral, so I don’t think there’s as much of a pressure that the spouse of the sixth priest on the list of staff should have to be committed to this particular congregation. People like her and ask about her — she’s certainly very welcome and well-liked — but she and I are less subject to the proprietary feelings that often attach to The Rector and The Rector’s Wife (especially, alas, ‘the wife’ in many instances).
Sigh, yes, it would be nice to be someone other than “D’s wife the twins’ mother” — I can see the appeal! And also the appeal of the truly local parish.
A blessed Holy Week to you both!