They were quite still, staring up at him with real interest. Go on, man, he told himself, you’re doing fine. But what was he to go on about? Christ, he thought, I’m back where I started. Only now, I’ve brought in churns of milk, rockets to the moon. “All these things don’t matter,” he went on; “we have them, whether we believe or not. But each one of us has the choice of something more. No one can choose for us, and all we have to go on” – he lifted his arms to emphasize it, and the pain made him gasp – “is that Christ said, ‘If any man keep My word, he shall not see death forever.’” And with arms still painfully extended, he turned around to grope for the altar.

The movement took them by surprise. They stayed sitting as he drew the chasuble with trembling hands up over his head; then he heard the hurried rumble as they stood up for the Creed. They moved into it as if in relief, taking over from him even as he began the first verse.

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things, visible and invisible...”

How had he slipped up? Not even in his first sermon had he made such a hames of it. As he freewheeled through the prayer, his voice drowned by the crowd’s confident singsong, he tried to think of what he should have said – “Everyone that is of the truth, heareth my voice”? No, not quite, but there were dozens of texts that he should have called on; not called on – they should have come to him unbidden, as they had once come. What was wrong? Why could he not lift his right arm?

The crowd was nearing the end of the Creed now, turning the corner into the straight, the finishing post within sight of them ahead:

Together with the Father and the Son He is adored and glorified. He it was who spoke through the prophets. I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. I profess one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

They rumbled snugly into their seats, sitting back for the Offertory, to let him get on with it. Well, he would get on with it, he just had to get on with it, accepting the wine and water from the server, keeping his hand in close to his side so that no one would know.

And get on with it he did, conscious of nothing but the effort of lifting the chalice, of breaking the bread, of extending his arms in the blessing. “The Lord be with you.” When he left the altar at last, he felt the satisfaction of having survived, just barely survived, in spite of them all.

*