It's Petertide, when we ordain new vicars. Here are three:
Matthew Trick with his wife Sarah. Matthew was with us for a year as placement student from St Mike's Llandaff, and will be part of this year's Furnace team at New Wine Cymru.
Richard Wood, who has been a good friend for ten years is hiding behind Archbishop Barry here. Richard's wife Naomi was of course Children's Worker here before Kirsty. Appropriately for the ecclesiastical season, at St Davids, where he was ordained, four of the seven were called "Peter". 
And Wayne David used to be our oirganist here at St Catherine's, and is now NSM in Merthyr. He was ordained priest (unlike the other two who were made deacon) - which is the free upgrade you get after a year if you behave well & don't thrown into prison. It took me eighteen months, of course, but that's another story.
This is me & Gill Tuck before the St Davids service, after enjoying ice cream & chips (a local delicacy - North American readers need to get a translation matrix in to realise I just said "ice cream and fries") in the sunshine. Lovely. I spent three years in this diocese, 1996-99, and barely recognised this cathedral... but then I worked at St Michael's Aberystwyth before Stuart Bell was made a Canon, so I guess in those days he barely recognised it...
And here are Gill, Stewart and May painting the town red after the service. Honestly, such reprobate behaviour. We had a great trip out. Seriously, it was a wonderful day - to be there for Wayne, laying hands on him as he was ordained, to support Matthew who looked really in awe of the whole experience, and to be with Richard who has been such a good friend for so many years.
My favourite moment of the whole day was at St Davids. As the communion started, the first person up was Richard's mum, and she received the bread from the Archbishop, and then the wine - from her newly ordained son. I was sitting just to the side and saw the look on her face, and the hesitation, and the immensity of the moment well up within her & threaten for a second to overwhelm. It was a wonderful and holy sight.
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Not navigated this on my own before so may come up 3 times! But then 3 is a pretty good number!
Re The Ordination.............
Yep, that was a Wow moment.
Another weekend highlight for me was listening to my curate son's first sermon at Aberaeron. The Gospel passage was Peter's confession of Christ.....(is that always so at Peter-tide asks the Baptist?)......a pretty good place to begin. The bit I'll remember as his Mum was hearing him say, after 3 years of thological training and all that entails, "one of the reasons I love Jesus, and there are many,is......... So simple but straight to the nub!
A glorious weekend, and all the glory from and to God!
Pam - lovely to hear from you! And lovely to see you on Saturday. Who'd have thought when we first met in Aberystwyth ten years ago eh?
Actually, I never doubted it. Except, I was completely amazed at his reading Isaiah in Welsh! He really does want to be a bishop. And he'll get there before me. Save me a seat for that one, please!
Lovely to see Matthew Trick 'done'. But why can't we have more of a celebratory note in the service? Were people all inwardly glowing? I wanted to give him a big hug in the middle; not enough liturgical time given to that I think!
Esther - that was one of the best Ordination services I have seen at Llandaff!
I do think that Barry can appear a tad on the mechanical side. When you ordain someone, it might not be too much to ask to have learned the script and actually look at them...
The counter argument is that Barry looked really tired, and I think was very concerned about his dear friend the bishop of Bangor who died on Monday morning. So perhaps that infected the way he conducted himself.
However I agree: an ordination should be a celebration, and with all the non-Christian family and friends that are bound to be there, you can be forgiven for wanting to say that neither church nor God are always so solemn!!!
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