I have arrived home this afternoon after several days at Our Lady’s shrine in Walsingham where I was attending a conference entitled ‘Leading Your Church Into Growth’. Well prepared, well intentioned and well delivered it contained some useful tips and ideas for ensuring your church is mission oriented. Thus there was much that was positive and informative with the only slight negative being an over reliance on the anecdotal and a refusal to enter deeper waters which might have stretched the intellect a little.
In attendance were several chums from the Anglo-Catholic wing of the church. Pictured above at the famous ‘Walker’s diner’ in Thetford Forest are Fr. James Mowbray and Fr. Clive Jones who accompanied me on the journey from Kent. We met up with many others including the current master of SSC, Fr. Kit Dunkley. This company ensured that the Bull was great fun in the evening and that much gossip was shared…all offered as material for our prayers of course! More photographs and feedback to follow but now I must away to unpack, sort the mail, unburden the ansaphone and download the emails…..tomorrow will be busy!
It was good to meet you, co-tribesman. I thought the course was excellent too, with perhaps, similar reservations to yours. Too many FiFers present, though, determined to make the others feel unwelcome. Would you believe that one of them actually said to me over lunch that he hoped the present pope would die soon, so that someone more ‘modern’ might be brought in? This was said to much nodding in agreement from his FiF chums.
Is that the famous bacon butty stop Fr?
but of course….
I think you might mean AffCaffs….no Forward in Faith member that I know EVER wants the present Pope to die!!! But certainly I share the sense that it is getting increasingly apparent that the disunity within the wider church is manifesting at the local level which is pleasant for nobody.
I’ll not name the man in public but certainly no Aff Caffer. The poor chap was felt that HH’s laudable program of liturgical reform was pulling the rug from under his feet. Poor diddums.
How ever many of these Fr Tomlinsons are there reading this blog?
Judging by your recent post about young master Benedict growing at an alarming rate it probably wont be long before he joins you in such a delicacy!
I’m Fr Tomlinson
No, I’m Fr Tomlinson
Somewhere, in the deepest parts of our being, we are all Fr Tomlinson
Made me laugh out loud! It is certainly true for me…. ???
And me…