It perhaps surprised me today that almost half of the normal Sunday worshippers were in church today for Ash Wednesday. There would have been a time here, not so long ago, that Ash Wednesday would barely have been noticed, and certainly the imposition of ashes were seen as a "Catholic" thing and something we proddies just didn't do! Times change! Although the imposition of ashes is an optional thing, and is offered only to those who want it, 90% of both congregations today came for it!

I read today of Church of Scotland charges increasingly using McMillan's St Anne's Mass, and sense, in Christendom, a coming together of different extremes in some kind of commonality. In St Augustine's they didn't have candles 15 years ago!

Perhaps Pope Benedict isn't helping this process much, but Roman Catholics are attending St Auggie's quite comfortably these days, and attending their own services too.

Some of our repentance today, on Ash Wednesday should surely be about the divided Church of God, but perhaps the mainstream denominations, at least, are celebrating the things within each others traditions which are helpful and worthwhile.