Not for the first time, I find myself thwarted in an attempt to do an assembly at the local primary school. This time, they gave me the wrong time, so I turned up an hour after the assembly had happened. In the past I have turned up only to be told that on one occassion the children had all gone to the theatre and on another they were having their photographs taken instead.
I wonder whether people realise that doing a school assembly is one of the very hardest things a priest has to do and demands more thought that anything else I ever do, including preaching and speaking at political meetings.
Today I had unearthed St Francis from his place under the apple tree to take him in so that I could talk to the children about him. (This being the week in which his Feast Day falls). I was so Franciscan about the whole thing too – plucking off the earwigs and slugs and placing them carefully back into the garden just as the saint himself would have done.
I didn’t preach to the slugs, but I did consider it.
Re: Unearthing St Francis
Oh you poor thing. I can sympathise as I hate doing children’s sermons and it takes forever to prepare them. Schools which do this do not deserve chaplains. I’d take in the slugs next time and set them free in the staff room if I were you.