Farm street beauty

I was booked to interpret for a Deaf priest at a Deaconate ordination last week. (Yes I am a sign language interpreter).

The ordination was at Farm Street Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Mayfair, London. A Jesuit place - but don't let that put you off.

What a church! Amazing. I was immediately awestruck upon entering this magnificient house of God. Built in the early 19th century, before man's clever mechanical devices and internet-based architecture-software packages and screwfix catalogues, the church stands like a cathedral hidden away down a fairly residential ordinary road not far from Bond Street. (I say ordinary - in the upper-middle class, too much money to spend on our 1.2 children & room for a pony, kind of ordinary).

I was fairly stressed as I ascended the outside steps. I was supposed to be there at 10.30am ready to start interpreting at 11, when the Bishop was to commence the ordination Mass. I needed to be sitting in the sanctuary, hidden behind a pillar, in view of the Deaf priest, my client, who would be sitting opposite me, on the other side. I would also need some minutes to familiarise myself with the order of service, the names of the candidates, and the litany of Saints. Vital preparation time for a sign language interpreter, let me tell you.

I left home well in time to have arrived by 10.15. Loads of time. No stress. I hate to be late.

However, at 10.50am (ten mins before kick-off) I was still sitting (or rather standing up) in the over-packed train crammed full of disgruntled football supporters and crying fed-up children, miles away from central London. The train was going nowhere, my fellow passengers had been tutting and sighing for over45 minutes, and the guard was apologising every 10. I was beginning to sweat profusely, and had worn out all charitable peaceful thoughts and was now offering prayers of desperation and impatience. Finally, the blasted train gets moving....but backwards. All the way back to Wimbledon Park where we had to get out and get a tube. I arrived finally at the magnificient Farm Street church at 11.30...and had to 'sneak' on to the sanctuary in full gaze of 50 priests, one Archbishop and an African Congregation. Whoops. Just in time for the litany of Saints.

The rest of the service went by without a hitch - except when one of the candidates started addressing the congregation in Swahili. (I don't understand Swahili, so was unable to interpert at this point) with me having to remind myself to use Catholic signs, rather than the Protestant ones I am used to using (there are more Deaf protestants it seems, than catholics).

Anyway, when it came to an end, I afforded myself a few minutes to wander around the church. Here was a temple that reaches towards Heaven. A place which causes you to look up and with awe. Isn't that what a church should be? A place that speaks of the majesty of God, rather than these Ikea-style modern monstrosities that pass off as Catholic churches today but draw more attention to man than to the Most High.