I’m writing this full of grateful thanks to everyone who came and supported me at the ordination service on Sunday afternoon. It was wonderful to have so many people from the St Mary’s family there; thank you also to those who were not able to attend on Sunday but who have been praying in the lead up to that moment. It is a privilege to serve you, now as one of your priests, and I am so thankful to be part of this community of radical inclusion and thoughtful faith.

On Sunday, I will preside at the Eucharist for the first time. As I have been reflecting and preparing for this, I have been most struck by the beautiful ordinariness of this moment. We have a celebration of the Eucharist almost every day at St Mary’s: very soon my first time will give way to my second, third, fourth time, and so on. The elements we use for the celebration of the Eucharist are the things of ordinary life: bread, wine, water. They are held within the context of a meal among friends, the liturgy a formalised conversation. This is holiness which is profoundly embedded in our normal human experience.

But hidden in this ordinariness, like a nut held gently inside its shell, is the most extraordinary gift. However many times we attend or even preside at a Eucharist, we only ever participate in one. Every celebration of this meal is a participation in the one meal that Christ shared with his disciples, to which we and all creation have been invited. We are not recreating or re-enacting the Last Supper. We are re-membering it: in other words, re-bodying it, (or, to use a more down-to-earth phrase, ‘giving it legs’). We are giving our bodies and our attention over to participating in this glimpse of Jesus’ presence with us. This presence pierces the distances of space and time like a needle through folded cloth, drawing us together – drawing us to the altar, to the table, to the bread, and to the wine.

So come on Sunday, if you can – it would be wonderful to share this moment with you. But if you are not there, or if you can’t join us in person at the moment, or if you are worshipping with a different church community now, know that you are part of us and we are part of you, through Christ who has called us all to his table.