It was a long day and a little frantic at the end to get ready and be open at 3pm. But we got there, and the multisensory stations was up and running. Over the first day 12 people came and walked the way of sorrows, and the feedback was very positive.
I have taken some nice photographs and so when I am involved in today’s Stations (opens at 3pm until 9pm folks!), I will start people off more staggered, so there is no clashing of activities, which appeared to be the only hitch in the whole thing. Coffee and doughnuts were very well received and we had a visit from one to whom Jesus would reach out to: a young man clearly in need of a cup of coffee and a sane chat, and although he didn’t do more than one Station, we made an outreach to him. There is always a space for the bizarre, the outcast and the otherwise unwelcome, because in an echo of that bracelet – it’s what Jesus would do.
I hope and pray that word-of-mouth will start to catch this thing alight, and more people will come and experience it. It takes a lot not so much financially, (as MP3 players aside, it costs less that £50 to put on) but emotionally. If it brings one person closer to the heart of God, then it will be a worth it.
I plan to use the time between people to work on my seminars at the Lancing Weekend. The Liturgy is sort-of-sorted, and Jo at CJM has largely stamped her seal of approval on it. Only one or two major changes to go. It looks like there will be no extra video work done for the Children’s Pilgrimage as it is too close and too hemmed in by Holy Week to have anything special. Oh well, words will suffice; it will be fab anyway, as we all know how well Fr North puts on a children’s show. This means I can worry more about what I have to say to anglocatholic clergy. The executive summary is this: you can do mission, you can be creative and we have the best story ever to share using the best visual aids possible: the mass. All this technology is only a tool for bringing that mass into their midst in a context which speaks to them. The rest, well, the rest is just icing on the cake.
The best bits of Blesséd, like the best bits of these Stations are not what you hear or see, but what you experience: touch, smell, feel and engage with. Every priest, every evangelist, every youth worker in the country can do that. My task is to remind them that they posess in their midst the greatest of evangelistic tools, a unique resource with which they are already intimate with: the Mass, and they as the ikon of Christ are the medium for that message, and it is around that that commnity is formed. Any faith community which does not break bread together cannot be said to be an authentic Christian Community.
You can communicate this powerful truth, you can make in real and present in new, exciting and challenging contexts and the eucharistic heart of the Gospel will shine out and bring others into a sacred encounter.