And again the Germans are leading the way.
With Chancellor Angela Merkel giving the green light for churches to reopen.
Worshippers will have to wear masks, respect social distancing, and there will be no singing.
Which will, alas, be taking the best bit out of the service.
Signs of peace are out and you will have to keep to your own marked territory at communion.
Pray de Cologne
Cologne Cathedral will be their guide with only 122 people allowed in for its reopening ceremony as opposed to the 20,000 who visit every day.
Now I’ve spent a bit of time in German churches.
Not as much as I’d like… wherever I travel I love to go where the locals play and pray.
This year I was meaning to go to Oberammergau for the ten-year resumption of the Passionsspiele https://www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/home.
Passion of Bavaria
But the reenactment of the Passion of Christ which the villagers first put on in 1634 as a thank you to God for ridding them of the plague has been moved back to 2022.
Thankfully I did get to join the Bavarians at play as part of our walking holiday with www.topflightforschools.ie and www.topflight.ie.
When they had the drapes out for the 2020 Oberammergau which was due to start on May 16.
But they were that day celebrating a landmark anniversary of their fire service.
By dressing up in traditional lederhosen and parading through the streets.
With their buildings adorned with murals depicting their plague history.
Simple Christianity
Their churches by contrast are fairly simple affairs with small wooden crosses, a lectern and an inviting Bible on a seat when you enter.
Which I did, taking a detour from the people milling through the streets and villagers to find a place of worship with its doors open.
Remember that!
Now while it seems like 40 days and 40 nights since we last did Mass…
It’s as nothing compared with the resilient and God-fearing Dresdeners.
Dresden, a city rebuilt
Who saw their Frauenkirche levelled by the Allies’ firestorm in 1945.
And left in rubble all through Communist rule until the Saxons started rebuilding it when they got their province back.
Which you can read about in Dresden’s renaissance and https://www.dresden.de/index_en.php.
It’s an inspirational story, one of endurance, patience and redemption.
Here in Scotland it’s our Catholic Church rather than the reforming church which is first out of the blocks on lockdown xx (yes, the great resistors).
And of course in the absence of live sport never since the Holy Spirit dropped in on the Apostles will transubstantiation feel so exciting.
When the church doors reopen.
MEET YOU IN THE PEWS
