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Good morning Today and tomorrow, during what’s called the Petertide weekend, hundreds of candidates will be ordained in churches and cathedrals across the country. So it was with added interest that I grabbed a last-minute ticket at the Chichester Festival Theatre last week to enjoy Stephen Beresford’s latest play, The Southbury Child. A superb cast is led by the ubiquitous and wonderful Alex Jennings. He plays David, a local vicar struggling with questions of life, death, and grief, whilst precariously balancing his faith with some kind of hope for the future. In an interview last week, the dramatist asked: “who would be a vicar, who would do this for a living?” As the drama unfolded, I was struck by how realistic this portrayal of modern ministry wrestling with faith and doubt proved to be. It’s what I experience most days on the ground in parish life. People continue to ask profound questions. Faith is far from dead. The spiritual self has somehow assumed more importance in recent times. I’d argue that there has been a cultural shift in many people’s priorities. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is what we have all just lived through and continue to experience. The pandemic made us realise something about both the gift of life and the inevitability of death. For instance, being involved, talking about and then saying goodbye properly to a loved one has achieved a new level of importance. Dame Deborah James has left a strong legacy in terms of how important it is to face death positively with honesty – however difficult the journey may be. But it is still against a backdrop of doubt that many deal with life’s issues. And being a priest or any kind of religious leader today demands that we listen openly to people’s experiences and try to be alongside them. Tomorrow, as it happens, is St Thomas’ Day – otherwise known as doubting Thomas. And Beresford’s new play almost perfectly articulates that fine balance between dealing with doubt - without losing hope: that’s where faith can play its part. As St Augustine wrote: “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of faith is to see what you believe.”