‘Opportunity’: what Bishop Patrick saw from the Cathedral door at Night Fever

Before going out onto Derby Road to invite strangers into the Cathedral, a young woman asked Bishop Patrick to pray for her. She had never done this before.

He told her he had been nervous too, the first time he went out. “It really is what the Lord does in and through us,” he said. “It’s not so much us.”

She was one of a group of young people inviting passers-by into the Cathedral that evening. “I think one of the greatest ways of reaching out to others is the peer work,” Bishop Patrick said. “This was student to student, young person to young person.”

He put the question a passer-by might ask: “Who are these young people who are inviting us to come in and light a candle in a beautiful cathedral that we’ve walked past many times? There must be something about them. They look ordinary. They sound ordinary. They like the same sort of music, and so on. And I think that’s attractive.”

He saw “young people responding to young people”, and for the young people themselves, he added, “It’s also empowering.” This is the Mission Plan’s call to Go, Make Disciples at its simplest.

Inside, the Cathedral was lit by candles and filled with music. It was Saturday 31 October, and Jesus Youth was hosting Night Fever. At the heart of the evening was the Blessed Sacrament on the altar: the consecrated bread of the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is Jesus Himself.

Bishop Patrick opened the time of adoration, which is prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, then took his place at the door with the young people.

It was also Halloween. “There were a lot of people in particular dresses and styles of stuff,” he said. “It was good fun, actually, watching them and the way they varied.” Some were “highly embarrassed about what they were wearing coming into the cathedral”, but what stayed with him was “the openness of people as they came through into what is a very beautiful cathedral.”

“I think it’s important to me to support these initiatives as the bishop,” he said. Night Fever reaches “people who walk past the cathedral day in and day out”, many of them students. “Everybody has things on their heart, things that worry them. It’s still early days in terms of new students coming into the city. There’s anxiety.” An invitation to light a candle meets them where they are: “It’s simple. It’s gentle.”

One man at the door apologised for having had a drink, then insisted he was a Christian. “He’d been into the cathedral before, and he really liked it,” Bishop Patrick said. He sensed in him “an instinct for God, for religion, for peace and quiet that can be found in a place like the cathedral.”

So why put the Blessed Sacrament at the centre of an evening for people who might never go to church? “Because at the heart of what we would call evangelisation or reaching out to people, inviting people to come to know Jesus, is the person of Jesus,” he said. “It’s not what we can do to open people’s hearts up to the Lord, it’s what the Lord Himself present in the Blessed Sacrament can do.”

On other occasions, he has watched people come “clunking in down through the cathedral” to light a candle. “They’re about to clunk their way out again, but they don’t. They turn, they go into the bench, and sometimes they kneel, which really surprises me, or they sit,” he said. “Something happens.”

For parishes wondering whether to try it, his advice is practical: “get in contact with the cathedral or a few other parishes who’ve done this,” he said. “There’ll be support there.” If numbers are short, he suggests parishes “cluster with neighbouring parishes”, because “you’re also giving some of the people from those nearby parishes an opportunity that they might not otherwise have had. So, it’s win-win.”

And for anyone nervous about the street: “Never go out on your own. Always go out in twos and threes.” If someone says no, “you say, ‘That’s fine.’ Be polite and be respectful of other people’s views.”

Asked to sum up the night in one word, he chose “Opportunity”. People who walk along Derby Road have told him, “We didn’t know we could come in.” Night Fever, he said, is “making plain to people” that they can. On Saturday, standing at the door, he told them: “And you’re welcomeback anytime.”

If Bishop Patrick’s words have you wondering whether your parish could host a Night Fever, start with a conversation. The Cathedral would be happy to talk it through: email cathedral@dioceseofnottingham.uk.