This month we are 'betwixt and between'
the two main 150th Anniversary Celebrations of the laying of the
cornerstone of Holy Trinity Church. We have celebrated Trinity Sunday
on the 31st May and we are now looking forward to the main Christ the
Cornerstone celebration yet to come on Sunday 5th July. So maybe this
is a month to relax a bit and gather our strength. Far from it! In in
this 'gap month' there are several important celebrations, falling on
consecutive days, which can help us put the 150th anniversary of Holy
Trinity Church into a wider context.
On Friday 5th June we celebrate St. Tudno's Day, the Patronal festival
of our parish and of the ancient church of St. Tudno itself. On this
day we are taken back to the sixth century and to the very beginnings
of Christianity in this place as we celebrate the coming of Tudno and
his companions to the Great Orme. There, they established a community
of monks dedicated to prayer and to the preaching of the Gospel of
Christ to the local inhabitants. All that has happened in the Christian
life of Llandudno ever since then has built upon this ancient
foundation, including of course the founding of Holy Trinity Church
many centuries later. Please join us for our Eucharist on that day and
if possible for the pilgrimage walk which includes the blessing service
at St. Tudno's Well.
On the day before this - Thursday 4th June - we keep another feast day
which takes us back even further than St. Tudno's Day does. This is
Corpus Christi, the Thanksgiving for the sacrament of the Eucharist
given to us by Christ at the Last Supper. Each time we celebrate the
Eucharist we are, in a sense, taken back not just to the Last Supper
but to Good Friday and to Easter Day, to the very foundation events of
our Christian Faith.Without them - the coming of St .Tudno in the 6th
century and the laying of the cornerstone of HolyTrinity Church in the
19th would not have happened.
So on Corpus Christi - on St Tudno's Day - and indeed in our 150th
anniversary celebrations at Holy Trinity Church next month - we will be
doing a lot of 'looking back' to events in the past. But beware -
looking back in these ways is pointless unless we are acknowledge the
present reality to which all of these point - the presence of Christ in
his Church today to be experience and responded to here and now in
2015.
When St.Tudno came here he was responding to the call of Christ to him
in his own time.When the people of this parish in the 1860s realized
the need to provide a new church for visitors to their town they
responded to the call of Christ to them at that time. And so in 2015,
building on these events (and many others) of the past we hopefully see
the need to respond to what Christ calls us to do in our time. To
discover what he wants us to do.
The feast of Corpus Christi helps us in this. On this day we certainly
look back to the Last Supper and to the death and resurrection of the
Lord. But as we celebrate the Corpus Christi Eucharist (and indeed
whenever we celebrate the Eucharist) we also experience the present
reality of the living Christ.When we receive the sacrament of the Body
and Blood of Christ we share in nothing less than the fullness of his
Life - here and now.And surely this puts all our 'looking back' all our
celebrations of past events into their proper context.
Let's enjoy all the event to come in the next weeks - but let's also be
open to the call of Christ today.
Fr.
John
