Easter Sunday 2012, just an ordinary Catholic parish in Leicester (really?)

Sunday morning mass at St Joseph's, Leicester is scheduled to start at 10.30. It doesn't really get going until about ten or even more minutes later. The colour of the congregation shifts from white (pink really) at 10.30 to all a much more multi hewed rainbow by the time the entrance hymn starts. Almost immediately after the incensing of the altar and the first greeting, the children are gathered on the sanctuary being sent off to their liturgy with a blessing. My sense is that no matter what number set out MORE come back. Which they do after the adults have heard the lessons and listened to the homily. The celebrant's homilies are models of crafted, scholarship digested, arresting moments, sometimes heart stopping always challenging. Then come we call the 'bidding' prayers which puts me in mind of www.paddypower.com doing the odds on the next pope. Anyway, the prayers are jewels. The final petition is always to Our Lady, sometimes she is addressed as "a Jewish woman" which, of course, she is.

The Children return with the fruits of their work - objects, music, words. On Palm Sunday they came into Elizabeth Poston's 'Jesus Christ, the apple tree'. Two Zimbabwean boys solemnly carrying a large cross with  post-it notes from the children. It can be heart stopping as the children and their teachers re-renter the children and make their way to the sanctuary. It seems as if twice as many return as set off. It can be hard to stay dry eyed as they straggle in.

The current project to build a holiday structure for some of the children at the Mother of Peace home for children with HIV in Zimbabwe is well under way. To have such a concrete link with other children in Zimbabwe is a fine way to learn that we are all part of the human race and that the human race has HIV and needs to deal with it.

The mass continues. The acolytes, male and female, are models of how they should be. We are incensed as we should be. The moment of the peace is always slightly held back by the celebrant bringing to mind a place where there is no peace, or not yet, or what we can do to bring peace: Peace be with you! The greeting between the people is not too much over the top. This is Leicester, after all!

The communion is heart stopping, as it should be. The people of God gathered around the altar table with their priest in a moment of great thanksgiving. It is solemn, human, divine, deeply deeply moving, ordered but not over ordered.

There is no rush to escape at the dismissal.  Ite, missa est. Go, the mass is ended. We go. Usually, the angelus bell is chiming as it is midday.

The music goes from strength to strength. The choir and organist are much closer to the heavens than the rest of the people of God. The combo of the grand organ and the keyboard work well. For me it would be best for the musicians to be next to the sanctuary and facing the congregation. Also if we had an animateur for music discreetly encouraging would help. My fave are the Easter bells! We knew that Jesus was risen today as we sang our hearts out. The bells are such a joy. But when are our Zimbabwean friends going to sing drum and dance the offertory again?

Music, for me, makes the liturgy alive and especially the Eucharist the great thanksgiving that it is.

Afterwards, some gather to talk, some sit, some talk to the priest, some drink coffee, some go home alone, some meet with their compatriots from their home lands to talk talk talk of course.

Just an ordinary Sunday mass in a suburban Leicester parish? Well yes, but also a glimpse of what it means to be a Catholic Christian in 2012 here in the UK. We are part of a huge family of people gathered together in our differences in the big house where the A47 crosses the Ring Road. We do not all agree on everything, in fact some of us disagree pretty strongly with other of us, but we recognise that we are more alike than we are different even if we look a bit different. We are united in human solidarity that points to the presence of the divine in our lives. That is what it is to be a Catholic Christian in St Joseph's, Leicester on Easter Sunday in the year of our Lord 2012. Thanks be to God.