Celebrations galore for All Saints Day

Our first service over the All Saints-All Souls weekend was an ecumenical celebration of the Eucharist in the chapel at the Protestant Cemetery in Testaccio on Saturday 1 November. Willy Haag of the Church of Sweden presided, assisted by our chaplain and by Peter Bouman, minister of the Ponte Sant'Angelo Methodist Church. Many of the prayers and all of the hymns were in Swedish, but the English contingent participated with lusty enthusiasm.

The second special service was the 10.30 Sunday Eucharist, which had been moved to 11 to make it easier for members of St Paul's congregation to join us. This was our main celebration of our Patronal Feastday and we had the pleasure of Pierre Whalon as our preacher. He is bishop of the American Convocation in Europe and assistant bishop in our diocese. His sermon touched on saints as sinners and all of us on the way to sainthood as needful of God's love and of each other's. At the moment when visitors are asked to stand up and say where they are from, a woman representing two married couples from the diocese of New Hampshire thanked Jonathan for his fulsome prayer for Gene Robinson, to be consecrated that same day in the USA.

The last event of All Saints Sunday was the first Organ Vespers of the season played by Wijnand van de Pol followed by a traditional solemn Evensong, beautified by the participation of the Campion Quintet. Notke Wolf, head of the Benedictine order preached, and touched on many of the same issues raised by bishop Pierre earlier in the day. Many ecumenical friends were present, including a group from Ogni Santi on the via Appia. Refreshments followed, organised by Jane Castrucci and Sandra Annovazzi.

Remembrance Sunday

The Women's Luncheon Club jumped the gun on Remembrance Sunday by holding their monthly luncheon event at All Saints on Wednesday 5 November. The chaplain celebrated a Remembrance Service before our war memorials and Sara Brain (who else?) provided the lunch, with some assistance from Cherry Caldato, Catherine Homer, and Jane Castrucci.

Remembrance Sunday itself included the full schedule of traditional events: two Eucharists at All Saints, and in between a service of Remembrance at the War Cemetery in Testaccio at which the chaplains from the British churches in Rome participated. Our head warden looked starched and ready for any emergency in her Red Cross uniform as she and Martin laid the wreaths at our war memorials. The trumpeter brought tears to several eyes with his rendition of the last post, and one child in the Sunday School had his whole chest covered with poppies.

The chaplain's Salt

A photo in a recent issue of the Church Times shows a priest from Blackburn diocese on horseback as he blesses some 50 horses which had gathered for that very purpose. I don't know that we are in danger of seeing Jonathan on a horse, however much our junior warden might like the idea, but it is possible that he will call a gathering of the dogs, now that he has become the proud owner of a tiny dog called 'Sale'. After all, it would only require a swift slight of hand to pull her out of a cassock pocket, since at present she is no bigger than a prayer book.