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Reflections on a day in the life as a priest part 2

So following on from my previous post here's my reflections on day 2 of me shadowing my parish priest.
The morning started the same as the day before, in church praying the office of readings at 9am.  It really is relaxing. You definitely feel the presence of God whilst doing it.
We then celebrated morning mass, this was the monthly years mind. It was sobering to think of the sheer number of people we recalled during the prayers of intercession. Let light perpetual shine upon them, may they rest in peace and rise in glory.  
The rest of the morning was spent at the church's charity shop and it was a nice hour and a bit. I had a good chat with the ladies running it and managed to get myself a new shirt for a quid too!   It was interesting to see that way of fundraising. On that particular day it was quite dead but other days it is heaving. It's very important to be a presence there as the parish priest as it lets people clearly see the purpose of the store, and it was good to see that there were some regulars who recognised him and they could have a chat.
After the charity shop. We went back to the vicarage via sainsburys (as even Priests need to find time to do some shopping) and we had a nice lunch and did some more paperwork.  
In the afternoon I went to the local hospice to be given a tour by a member of the spiritual team. It had top of the range facilities there and the attitude of staff to patients was wonderful.  I'm not sure I could hack it as a hospice chaplain though. I know full well I'd cry far too often. I'm far too soft!  Hospice faith teams provide a variety of services to the patients and their families. One of the more heartbreaking ones is providing weddings for the terminally ill. My parish priest was involved in one such  wedding which is why he has such close ties to this particular hospice. The woman was only in her mid twenties and she passed away 12 hours after the ceremony. Truly sad, but also sweet that they managed to get married in time.
We headed back to the church to pray vespers then to the vicarage to carry on with some paperwork before having tea.   Then it was round to a parishioners house to discuss the plans for the Sunday school with the Sunday school leaders.
A great deal of thought goes into planning it. My parish priest creates a booklet covering the next few months Sundays. Each Sundays readings are there along with a reflection about what the text is telling you about.   From that baseline the Sunday school team decides how best to run each session, the activities to do and how to make it engaging for the children.   There are a set of books produced with ideas for each reading as well that were used.
It was a very intensive evening, it was meant to last 2 hours and ended up closer to 3. We didn't manage to get through all the Sundays in the leaflet but it did get planned up till September.
We returned to the vicarage and said good night and I headed home feeling quite buoyed by my experience.   I definitely feel I do want to pursue this vocation. I can't think of anywhere else that you get to do such a varied amount of activities and meet as many people on a daily basis.  Obviously it will be hard work, but it is hard work that you feel fulfilled by.  I especially enjoyed having  specific times of the day set aside for prayer. I currently struggle with finding time for it in my daily life.
Thankyou again to my parish priest for arranging it all for me, you know who you are and I am eternally grateful for all you do for me.
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