Sunday 27 July 2025
Our Lady Immaculate
Something had happened to the pews this morning.
I took my usual spot, with the restricted view, and knelt to pray, only to notice I was almost jammed into the space between the seat and the kneeler. I’m no stranger to backache while kneeling, but this was a different kind of discomfort.
Like in many churches, our pews are bolted to the floor. So they can be undone and pushed aside for what I guess are things like barn dances, and I don’t know what else.
But the pew in front of me was not bolted. It was undone. Its angle had shifted slightly, from 90 degrees to, say, 75. What’s more it was occupied.
At 5 feet 7 inches I’m not normally a victim of a lack of leg room. But to kneel down required a kind of half-sitting position. When I did sit, I had to exend my feet over to the far side of the kneeler. This would’nt do.
Then I remembered the nice lady in front was responsible for the Offeratory. So when she got up at the start of the Mass, I saw my chance.
The bench moved easily on the wooden floor. I nudged it forward with my leg, stopping short of where the bolt should have been fastened as an act of Christian Charity towards the nice lady who was about to retake her seat and perhaps sense something was different.
But she didn’t notice. In any case I still had to waddle over the kneeler when climbing out of my seat.
—
My Sunday routine has become standard over the months. At around 7pm I drive my step-daughter back to Canterbury after dinner, then listen to the Universalis podcast on the drive back.
This excellent podcast about the liturgy, saints, and other things, is anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes long.
I wrote to Martin explain my predicament.
If the episode is 15 minutes, I said, I can drive home direct. If it’s closer to 20 minutes I take the longer route, around the university campus, through the woods, then into Whitstable from the far side, so I can finish the episode before reaching my house. But if episodes went on longer I might have to consider the bus.
But when it’s 22 minutes, like this past weekend, some creativity is required. In this case an additional circuit around a housing estate, and a steady speed some way off the speed limit.
I was approaching home on Sunday, he recounted this story in the latest episode. I found myself suddenly hearing, living,
I was living the anecdote I was listening to on the podcast after emailing it.