Churches I've visited this year

[JW]

I thought it was time to give a thank you to all the churches that I've had the priviledge of visiting on my travels over the past few months. It's easy to spend time criticising, we don't seem to do encouragement too often; so, focusing on the good things:

St. Austell, Cornwall - I love the architecture - the semi-circular layout really works for me. A really prayerful celebration. As I was there in May, I liked the extra-curricular final hymn at the end to Our Lady - I last did that about 25 years ago (May Our Lady, June, Sacred Heart) but might resurrect it.

Keswick, Cumbria - Interesting sermon with a gentle sense of humour. I spoke to the organist afterwards and understand that the PP provides the resources for the music at Mass - great.

Burnham Market, Norfolk - Lovely little church, reminded me somewhat of an non conformist evangelical church, I liked the ship's bell calling the faithfull to Mass. The Sunday I attended, there was a stand-in priest - he and the server must have seen over 150 years of life between them - well done and thank you for the prayerful way Mass was celebrated. The absolute gem for me was to find copies of the Schubert German Mass in the pews and then to be able to actually sing it in parts.

Walsingham, Norfolk (National Shrine of Our Lady) - Gatecrashed a weekday pilgrim Mass. Prayerful liturgy, complemented by incidental music on the digital organ before and after. The relative simplicity of the building (modelled on a Norfolk barn) came as a pleasant surpise.

Fakenham - (Saturday evening Mass) The organist kept us singing at a good rhythmic pace - thank you. The priest gave the impression of really wanting to encourage the parish onwards. I was fascinated by the characters in the congregation - seemed to be a friendly community - thank you.

[Anne]

Walsingham. I went to the new Catholic Church in the village of Walsingham this summer - I think it has only been opened a few months. There was no liturgy going on, but I was very taken with the layout of the church. On entering the church, the first thing you come to is the Baptismal Font with water in it - I work in a university Chaplaincy, and at the beginning of term one of the students brought a holy water font from Lourdes as a gift for the chapel in the Chaplaincy. When I asked if anyone knew why we bless ourselves with holy water as we go into a church, I got a variety of interesting explainations, but none of them said it was to remind us of our Baptism. So to have the Baptismal font as the first thing people come across in a church is a great visual aid. Also, in the same church on either side of the altar are two stands, one for the tabernacle and one for the Word of God. I thought this was a great reminder that God is present in a real and profound way in both the Blessed Sacrement and in the Word of God.

[Anne]

One more thing about the new church in Walsingham, It has a big solar panel on the roof, and is carbon neutal