Cathedral Connexions
Sunday was a day of extraordinary comings and goings at the Cathedral, with a range of visitors showing the fascinating links between the Church and the world. At 10.30 Mass we welcomed two special guests, His Grace Archbishop Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, and His Grace Archbishop Concessao of Delhi, India. They are in London to join a deputation to Downing Street today to campaign agaisnt world poverty; they will then travel in Europe, and end by reporting to the Holy Father in the Vatican. Both spoke to the crowded congregation, encouraging us on Vocations Sunday to consider our own vocation, and to challenge young men and women to hear the Lord's call as priests and religious.
At lunch, I suspect a first; our two guests were Hassan Jameel, a Muslim from Saudi Arabia, and Yoram Allalouf, a Jew from Israel. They are close friends, and were delightful company - a wonderful sign of interfaith co-operation. They are shown above: Hassan next to Fr Michael Seed, and Yoram (or 'Yo-Yo') next to Kalman Sporn, another Jewish friend who joined us for a tour of the Cathedral. nnn
I had carefully checked with our sisters that we were not serving Pork for lunch!
2 comments:
It was a marvellous service yesterday. The homily was excellent. That tricky Poulenc was mastered wonderfully and the talks from the Archbishops were moving and profound - truly the Church Universal. And the Cathedral was fuller than usual, why was that?
The only jarring note was set by the protestors for female ordination outside. To be honest, if they feel they have a calling to the priesthood there is an episcopal church that will take them: the Church of England. But they don't want that, because they don't feel that the CofE is a 'real' church whereas the Catholic Church is - mainly because it doesn't change according to the latest fashion by adopting the ideology of the moment: such as the ordination of women to the priesthood. A bit of a Catch 22 for them.
Delighted to read about the interfaith meeting!
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