Back blip. Ecumenical Sunday! Candlemas.

We went to our church yesterday morning and after lunch had the usual Sunday relax. 
A friend had invited us to the Candlemas service at Lichfield Cathedral in the evening. 
I've attached a link if anyone is interested in the origins.   
I love the Cathedral and its soaring fan-vaulting.  
The bells were ringing out as we approached the great West door on a cold night, when our breath could be seen.
    Once inside the vastness always fill me with a sense of awe.When we were seated half way down the nave, we could hear others still coming in as the organist was playing a piece by J.S. Bach. 
Everything was hushed as the clergy, choir boys, and men, and two girls, processed slowly down the nave to the front, singing. The sound is so intricately beautiful. 
   Towards the end of the service the candles we had been given were lighted one by one, and the congregation then processed to the Font where the Paschal candle was lit, signifying a  turning towards Easter.  
Simply "One last look back to Christmas, and now, turning  towards the cross of Easter" 
   As I listened to the choral pieces which were sung during the service and as we ourselves sang some of the beautiful old congregational hymns, which are so well-known to me, having sung in my local Parish church choir from 8yrs old to 16yrs old, up in Lancashire, I was moved. 
    There is something about being in a centuries old cathedral which speaks of all that has gone before in its walls.    
   The hands that built it, the craftsmen who carved the wood and stone, the stained glass. All the people who had worshipped there..........
    We were once in the Abbey of Sénanque in Provence, France, sitting quietly in the absolute silence, when it reminded me of a line from another old hymn,
"The silence of Eternity.........." and that is exactly how it felt. 
 
http://projectbritain.com/year/candlemas.html

 Apologies for the photos, taken with my mobile.