This evening, the Parish of Abingdon-on-Thames will install its first new rector in about twenty years, the Revd Dr Jennifer Brown. I’ll be there in the background, probably not doing anything important, but supporting the goings-on as Mother Jen’s associate, and still the only other cleric licensed to the parish. I think my interval as the ranking, if not the sole, licensed priest has been conducted with restraint and gentleness. No vulgar-grandiloquent press conferences, no destruction of parish property to make room for pet projects (although really, there ought to be an office for the Associate), no unspeakable animated videos. And as of this evening, I relinquish even the tenuous claim on authority that the days since Fr Paul’s retirement have dropped in my lap.
To prepare for the excitement, I took my usual morning run (not raining today) at a slowish average pace. Then coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, and home again for coffee and toast. Might indulge in another cup of coffee; this second cup went by very rapidly.
While I was at church, I ran into one of our churchwardens with a priest from Christ Church who was scoping out churches for possible inclusion in the pilgrimage route focusing on the Shrine of St Frideswide. He alluded to the possibility of a shrine of St Æthelwold (which caught my attention, since St Ethelwold’s House draws on the saint’s identity and mission, but without a shrine or veneration. Maybe we could develop a shrine to complement the ministry of St Ethelwold’s House….