Yesterday I went on my only regular pastoral visit to a man who lives between Burneside Road and the Windermere railway line. Many of you will know him from the Thursday Club and elsewhere. He is dying, but calmly so on the whole, so we have the sacrament of the sick and a cup of tea and possibly one of his daughter’s cakes, which are always very good, and a chat until he gets too tired. He seems to benefit, but I do too as it is a little bit of usual pastoral life among the strange life we are all living at the moment. Please keep him in your prayers.
After that I had to check that the work on the church roof had patched up the hole in it. This means climbing up a runged ladder 5 metres high inside the church (too scary for me), flipping open the trap door at the top, climbing out into the roof over an A-frame, and then finding the light and walking a plank holding onto the beam above (otherwise you go through the church ceiling.) I am glad to say the hole was patched, but I do know why we do not check it very often. There was someone down below, but I am not sure he would have caught me. I must have missed the ‘climbing into the church roof’ course at seminary. Clearly Mr. Webster who built the church in 1837 had not read the Health and Safety rules.
Kendal Catholic Priest 