Weekly Reflection – There’s No Place Like Home …

Last week I was in Rome, ostensibly on holiday but the friend I was travelling with was one of those folk who never like to stand still. And so it was that I found myself tramping from ruin to ruin all over that great city from morning to night, always avoiding the bus because my friend preferred to do a route march through the streets rather than risk the pickpockets on public transport, and clocking up an average of 30,000 steps a day. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the temperature reached a high of 34 degrees centigrade along with 60% humidity. By the time I exited the plane at Heathrow at the end of the week, not only had I ended up with swollen feet – which is why you might see me hobbling around the cathedral – but the temperature had dropped to 8 degrees centigrade. I’d gone from incineration to cryostasis in just a few short hours.

Now, it may seem as though I hadn’t enjoyed myself whilst away, and it’s true that I feel as though I need a holiday from my holiday (though my colleagues might have other opinions on this), but it was good to get away from all the hustle and bustle of daily life and do something completely different for a few days. And despite the sore feet and the blazing sun I saw some amazing sights and had a jolly good time. And part of me didn’t want to leave.

But the thing about a holiday is that one always has to return home. There’s a sense of arriving where we started and knowing it for the first time, to paraphrase TS Eliot. When I returned to Wakefield suddenly the trees were golden-hued, there was a crispness in the air, and the supermarkets were full of autumnal squash. Summer was no more. Everything had changed in my absence.

This sense of coming full circle and seeing things anew is present in the cathedral too. We have arrived at the start of another choir year, and the liturgical life of the cathedral has begun to rouse itself after the lull of the summer break. We begin to look ahead to our feast of title at All Saints, and beyond. Servers are busy training, the choir are learning new music, the various special services for the coming months are being prepared, and the Precentor’s keeping the vergers busy. There’s a new sense of purpose in what we’re doing. It’s good to be back again.

I do hope that you had a break over the summer. But I also hope that you will come and join us, as you are able, as together we journey through the coming months and experience the worshipping life of the cathedral with new eyes.

In Christ,
Canon Kathryn