Whitsunday, and the warmth has finally returned to the land. The sun shines and the temperature rises, the fiery ball in the blue sky reminding us of the tongues of fire that descended upon the disciples at their early morning worship. “These men are not drunk – it is only nine in the morning!” That cry would not have been proclaimed so heartily in some of the streets of Wenchoster the morning after the night before.
Siting in the cool interior of St. Sylvia, the Sunday morning life of Wormingdale is the other end of the spectrum from that of 1st century Jerusalem. No jostling crowds, just the clatter of a bicycle as it whizzes past the east end on the gravel path – Mavis Buttershaw on her to collect the Sunday papers. Shortly we hear her wheezing her way back up the hill to Goldilocks Lodge, her breathless panting an accompaniment to our Matins psalm.
Mid-morning, and a breeze from the south-west blows the Spanish warmth across the village. The blossom on the elder tress is yet to arrive, but a few more days of this and the yellow plates of flowers will waft their incense along the lanes, ripe for harvesting and turning into cordial that will cool us in the summer months. My trusty old Volvo sits on the drive and bakes, the inside an oven. The leather seats are hotter to the touch than when they were still an animal’s hide and warmed by pulsating blood.
The skylarks have returned to the meadow, and they wheel about in the air, speeding acrobats, feasting on the myriad of small insects the sun has brought out. In the eaves of the roof of the vicarage there are numerous small holes where the birds nest, returning year upon year to their natal home. The golden rape fields shimmer like an earth-bound sun, the crop an illustration of the spiritual fire that rains down on this day. The larks rise, not towards a literary Candleford, but into the shimmering air until they are invisible and unseen music-makers, before dropping like stones to swirl around the heads of the unwary residents.
Afternoon, and Sunday ramblers stagger past, heading for refreshment at the pub. They have a long-weekend to indulge, and tomorrow’s Bank Holiday will see more travellers walk our lanes. Far above a glider from the field at Pimple Farm makes a white cross in the blue, a reminder that this day is a Holy Feast.
A group of Sunday ringers hurry to cool off in the church where a flat brass knight and aged ladies keep an eye on them. A few minutes later St. Sylvia’s bells ring out across the countryside, much as they have done for centuries. A stranger calls asking if I can identify anyone in a yellowing photograph of the church choir. I reply that it was taken long before my incumbency, but I send him off to talk to Harold Snedge who kept the village shop for many years. His father sang in the choir, and the grinning teenager on the left of the group has a look about him that reminds me of Harold. It could be his father. Behind the surpliced choir one can just glimpse the altar frontal with the embroidered words "Holy! Holy! Holy!" Next week, Trinity Sunday, it will be in use once more, the red velvet bare in places and several repairs where the mice have had a feast-day of their own.
John Meade Falkner, the author of the wonderful book “Moonfleet”, had his own opinions of the “ordinary Time” that follows this season:
We have done with dogma and divinity,
Easter and Whitsun past,
The long, long Sundays after Trinity
Are with us at last;
The passionless Sundays after Trinity,
Neither feast-day nor fast.
In the vestry preparing for Evensong I look at the series of framed parsons and wonder what they did all day. There were few outside interests, and communication between Wormingdale and the metropolis of Wenchoster were infrequent. No telephone summons to a meeting in the Chapter House; no email asking me to chair a gathering of ordinands later that day as the DDO has gone down with a virus. Their concerns were with village life and village people. They were amateur dispensers of pills and potions, ancient remedies concocted on the kitchen table by the “wise woman”. When I moved in I found an antique pill roller stuffed down the back of the pantry shelves. Nowadays I take the infirm into the city by car to get their potions from the Pharmacy. Rectors past taught that photographed choir to sing the notes of "Holy! Holy! Holy!” and they lived for ages before being laid among the cowslips under a flat stone inscribed with Latin.
And then it will be Corpus Christi — forgotten by Meade Falkner — and I will walk to Holy Communion, smelling the warmed summer earth.
 Well there are some who say that I must breathe a sigh of relief when we get hinto this season of Trinity just because I don’t ‘ave to change the vestments, frontals and ‘angings from the green for weeks on hend doesn’t mean that there’s no hextra work haround the cathedral during the summer months to begin with there’s the hendless stream of visitors that need watching or helse they will go hastray in the transcepts (creating more mess to clean hup) then there’s the guest celebrants and preachers from hall round the Hanglican Communion you’s think that they’d hall know ‘ow to ‘andle a maniple wouldn’t you but oh no sir I’ve seen some pretty rum things done in the sacristy I can tell you mainly by members of the Church in Wales my nearest hand dearest Mrs Grindle is preparing summer treats in the Refectory hand no doubt the new menu will be published once it’s approved by Wenchoster Public ‘Ealth. So you see hit’s a busy time.
Right! That’s it! No more rubbing Brasso hinto the ‘Onourary Canons!
MAY
23. THE DAY OF PENTECOST: WHIT SUNDAY
24. Diocesan Fashion Show at Rubbery
25. Feria
26. Feast of St Indigo of the Rue
27. Feast of St Edgar the Youngest
28. Feria
29. Society of St Ennodius Annual Festival
30. TRINITY SUNDAY
31. Feast of the Visitation
JUNE
1. Feria
2. Feria
3. Feast of Corpus Christi
4. Feast of St Olive the Unsteady
5. Feast of St Gregory the Hirsute (transferred)
6. FIRST SUNDAY IN TRINITY Wenchoster Cathedral Pilgrimage
7. Feria
8. Feast of St Constance of the Infirmed
9. Feria
10. Feast of St Nestorius of the Ark
11. Feria
12. HM The Queen's Official Birthday
13. SECOND SUNDAY IN TRINITY
14. "Nine Bells" Sausage Festival, Privy Street
15. Feria
16. Feast of St Clement the Chastiser
17. Feria
18. Wenchoster Cottage Hospital Gift Day
19. Feria
20. THIRD SUNDAY IN TRINITY Human Sexuality Sunday
21. Diocesan Cricket Competition begins
22. Feria
23. Feast of St Laura the Tiresome
24. Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist
25. Holy Martyrs of Wenchoster
26. Petertide Ordinations
27. FOURTH SUNDAY IN TRINITY
28. Feria
29. Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, apostles
30. Feast of Saints Simon and Toby (unattached)
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