Page 51 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

The atmosphere at the conference was staggering. Everyone keen on Christian churches
working together was there under one roof. Meetings and services were planned so that
every member could experience and contribute something of their personal experiences
and beliefs.
Genuine progress we all felt was being made at last to not only understand our individual
methods of worship, but to also understand why.

Many moving experiences happened to me during that week end but one startling episode
will forever remain indelibly in my memory.
On the Sunday morning various different forms of worship were being held so that we
could take part and actually experience the feelings of our companions in their own forms
of worship.

I was passing by one particular room when a Nun of about 30 years of age came out quite
abruptly shedding gallons of tears. We virtually bumped into each other and I asked if I
could help.

She explained between sobs how she had been so ashamed that in the service conducted
by her own religion, Christians from other denominations had been refused the Holy
Sacrament.

She felt so badly about the situation when we were all together worshipping the same God
and she had been given the Holy Sacrament in a service conducted by a different
denomination.

She was inconsolable and I felt that she needed to speak to the most Christian man I knew
of at that event. The leader of the United Reform Church, a man who had impressed me
frequently with his calm masterly control of frequently rumbustious meetings of mixed
denomination representatives.

Fortunately, I was able to find him speedily and left the unfortunate lady in his tender care.
But I will never forget how deeply unset she was by her own personal experiences of those
other intransigent members of her own religion.

I might add that at this present time (2017) here in rural France my wife and I have been
welcomed to worship at our local English speaking Roman Catholic Church.
The priest in charge is a genuinely Christian man who was once an Anglican priest in
England and at one time of great flux in that church he decided to leave and was
subsequently accepted as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church.

He allows us to take the Holy Sacrament and is undoubtedly a man of sincere religious
belief. The French Catholic Church in fact does many practical things to aid ecumenism
and indeed is quite prepared to share their own churches with other Christian
denominations.

Back to our story in Lincoln and Bishop Simon retired shortly after this special conference.
His place was taken by a younger more enthusiastic man but ecumenism stalled and