Wednesday 12 October 2016

Pastors should visit come rain or shine

pastor shepherdI've recently started visiting regularly in the parish. I was doing this a few weeks back when it was warm and sunny and I jokingly said to an elderly couple that the Summer is great for visiting. Their response: "you lightweight; pastors should be out come rain or shine!" I was a bit taken aback by their criticism especially as the couple in question only come to church on special occasions (perhaps I should have responded "and parishioners should be in church come rain or sun!") Anyway I was reading Chaucer's description of a pastor and noticed that like the elderly couple, he thinks a good pastor visits whatever the weather. This is from prologue to the Canterbury Tales:

Wide was his parish, with house far asunder
yet he neglected not in rain or thunder

In sickness or in grief, to pay a call
on the remotest whether great or small

Perhaps I should be out come rain or shine!