I conducted my first experimental Zoom Eucharist on Sunday. I’d only just joined up to the video conferencing software the day before, so the way it worked was completely new to me. But we muddled through. Some people were unable to find the “meeting”. Others couldn’t find the mute button so that the words of our Lord, “do this in remembrance of me” were superimposed with the sound of various domestic goings-on, with contributions that some may have wished to have edited , especially had they known they were being broadcast to the rest of the congregation.

The chap who did the intercessions sipped from his mug of tea in the silences between his prayers. A couple joining in on the sofa at home realised that the nude painting behind them might not be entirely appropriate for church service broadcast. In a way I have never experienced before, church space and domestic space collapsed into one another in the zoom Eucharist. And the potential for comedy is high.

Even so, I loved it. I can imagine that when we are back to normal — if, indeed, there will be a normal to return to — the idea that the sick and the housebound will be able to join in our Sunday service from home is something we will want to continue. But it still felt odd giving the Eucharist out to nobody but myself. Even odder to invite the e-congregation to say along with me the words of the post-Eucharistic prayer: “we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood …”. Can we get bread and wine and hold it up near the computer screen, someone asked, that way you can consecrate ours at home? That felt like a clear no to me, but I’m not sure Eucharistic theologians had ever considered anything like that. So many questions, so few answers.