Te whare karakia matua o Pita Tapu ki Waikato
I recently attended a service of spoken (i.e. not sung) eucharist (or, communion) at St Peter's church. St Peter's is the Waikato Cathedral, perched atop a hill in the centre of town. Knowing not one person there, I was able to just be my self by myself, responding to the experience of what, years prior, I would have described as a musty, dull and uninteresting service. For me, the service itself became a carrier of beauty and truth, a truly divine encounter: beautiful, in its words, its symbols, its place and via the connection to God through his spirit and through the beauty of scripture. A homily (the sermon) asking the question posed by Christ himself, "And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?". This became a truly special space, curated and inhabited by the clear, real presence of the Creator. I found myself struck - in fact, blessed - by the practice and liturgy of communion itself, laden with symbology, colour, art, beauty, s...