This is always an exciting moment on the second weekend after Easter as is our custom. I am getting ready for setting off to Calais, getting on the ferry to Dover and driving up to London. I will probably find my usual parking slot (free over the weekend) near Westminster Abbey and camp overnight in the van.
On Saturday morning (29th April), Bishop Damien Mead will celebrate Mass (Votive of the Holy Ghost) and it will be as solemn as we can make it. As most years, it will be at Westminster Central Hall facing Westminster Abbey, and there will be an organist and a nice little mixed-voice choir. Everyone is welcome to attend the Mass and hear the Bishop’s Charge to Synod.
In the afternoon, we will have our Synod meeting and discuss all the new developments in our Church as well as things that need improving in one way or another. I intend to stand for re-election as a clergy member of the Bishop’s Council of Advice, and we’ll see how the Assembly will vote. I appreciate being able to serve our Church in whatever way I can.
Our Diocese celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary this year. Things haven’t always gone smoothly as I was able to observe in 1995-96, and as I heard from a distance in 1997. I rejoined the ACC in 2013, and the transformation was total. We now have a Diocese built to last and sincerely serve God in selfless dedication and determination. I celebrate four years of being a priest in our Diocese, and I intend to stay put.
I will not be at the Provincial Synod this autumn in the USA – I can’t afford it, but I take a great amount of encouragement from the movement of convergence of the four main Continuing Anglican Churches. I will be following it as best as possible from a distance. Synods aren’t just meetings, but real manifestations of Communion. These Continuing Anglican Churches are comparable in size and coherence to some of the smaller Orthodox Churches.
Back to getting things ready and making sure nothing is forgotten…
The Blue Flower 
“I will probably find my usual parking slot (free over the weekend) near Westminster Abbey”
Father, if on street, do doublecheck your parking-slot. Some streets near the Abbey now have Saturday morning (until 1pm) restrictions. Should be up to date info on WEstminster City Council’s parking website.
Thanks for the heads-up. Where I will be going is in sector D4, and so the parking is still free on Saturdays provided it is not in a residential permit part.
Watch out for the guys with bags of knives in that area – Stay safe !
Nice to hear from you. Calais is better policed and guarded by the army too, and probably not much will happen before 7th May (when Mme Le Pen might win the election). Westminster is going to be very policed, but as you imply, à la grâce de Dieu. I imagine that policemen on duty in that area are going to have to be armed. What a world we live in!
I have often talked with my Bishop about Synod and Council meetings being held outside London. Two years ago, in was in Bolton up north. Ideally, we need to be outside a city and there are former convents become hotels where we could rent rooms and the chapel.
PS. I have just seen the news article about the man with the knives. His appearance is something of a stereotype of the “religion of peace”…