We should have gone to Bridport today; but their battle with dry rot continues, and rather than importing more, they have asked me to defer my visit until the church is back in use.  So Jane and I went to a favourite spot, St Martin's Salisbury.  It was a happy accident.

There was a large group in church from St Michael and All Angels, Sanibel, Florida.  They have been staying with parishioners before flying off on Tuesday for their Pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  Accompanying them as Chaplain will be Fr Bruce Duncan, who assists at St Martin's.  It was he who celebrated and preached this morning.

He spoke movingly and well of the whole concept of Pilgrimage; how as Christians we have here no abiding City, but are strangers and pilgrims.  There was a music group which gathered around the chamber organ at various points in the liturgy; they sang the Missa Sancti Joannis de Deo of F. J. Haydn, and very beautiful it was.  Altogether a memorable Sunday Eucharist.  Then after Mass a conversation over coffee concerning the Ordinariate.  It was good to find many in the congregation very excited at the prospect; and some very cross at the way (as they saw it) SSWSH has tried to hijack the agenda.  So we look forward to some lively exchanges at the Forward in Faith Assembly at the end of the week.  Meanwhile I am off to Walsingham for the FCP priests' retreat, to try to get a little balance back into my life.

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