Monday, August 31, 2015
Coffee...
after Sunday Mass at Precious Blood Church, London Bridge, saw us busy discussing various arrangements for the Ordinariate Festival (see links below). One of the (many) things that I enjoy about the Ordinariate is that the refreshments include real coffee...and before you sneer, just think about it: why have so many Catholic parishes, groups, associations, and schools, come to assume that it should be standard to offer orange/brown powder topped up with hot water to form a nasty brown liquid? Why not big pots of tea and coffee, jugs of milk, and volunteers serving and pouring and handing-round and washing-up? An informal working group tackling refreshments for this year's Ordinariate Festival has organised the transfer across London of the neccessary jugs and equipment to serve decent coffee to 200-300 people at Westminster Cathedral Hall. It can be done. We did it last year and people arrived from across Britain to be greeted by fresh coffee and tea and doughnuts..
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3 comments:
You are correct, commitment to craft and quality is an act of humility. I am convinced that the Ordinariate, committed precisely in that way and already distinguished by the many sacrifices of its members (especially its clergy), will constitute one of the greatest legacies of the Pope Emeritus and fills me with hope for the salvation of these islands.
I hope that Ordinariate members know how deeply they are cherished by those of us who have not been called upon to make their sacrifices and to exercise their courage. The seed has been sown and the harvest will be glorious, however long it may take - and the mere passage of years is as nothing.
Your unstinting work in favour of this magnificent act of reclamation of the English Church does you credit.
You make a good point. We too easily accept that an under-maintained, social security office style decorated building with plastic stacking chairs and cheap stacking tables shall be the church hall, and we serve instant coffee and biscuits. Little touches can help, for example I once bought brown sugar globules of the type they serve at top end restaurants for a church event. It only cost a couple of pounds for the packet.
You do have to be realistic, however. A lot of parishes can't organise after Mass coffee at all. We certainly don't have it (no hall).
...real coffee isn't typically part of Anglican patrimony, though! It's quite rare. I suspect a lot is down to the parish priest's own taste!
:-)
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