The Archbishop at St Peter’s Church. (Amit Datta)

The world’s most influential Christian leader after the Pope made Sunday mass special for the city’s churchgoers, delivering sermons soaked in simplicity and sending out a message of goodwill and hope that came from the heart rather than the pulpit.

Metro tracked Rowan Williams through a busy second day in town when he presided over church services on either side of noon, interacted with the congregation and visited homes for the aged and HIV-affected children.

EVENING MASS

Where: St Paul’s Cathedral

Turnout: 1,000-plus

Kannita Biswas, 11, was jittery all afternoon thinking about what she would do if she forgot her lines at the most important mass of her life. “I am so very happy and honoured to have read out a part of the service at the archbishop’s mass. We practised for a week to get it right,” said a relieved Kannita.

She was not the only one overwhelmed by the occasion. Each seat at the cathedral was occupied long before the thanksgiving service began at 5pm. For Reimar Volker, the director of the Goethe-Institut, it was his first experience of a sermon by the principal leader of the Church of England and the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

“I had never got the chance to attend a mass led by the Archbishop when I was in Germany or England…. To finally experience it in Calcutta is unbelievable,” he told Metro.

The theme for the service was “World day of prayer for millennium development goals”. Archbishop Williams kept it simple and sweet. “Millennium development is all about life and spirit, mutual generosity and tactfulness,” he said.

So what did the audience take out of the mass? “It felt like the world had become even more close-knit. I found the sermon inspiring,” said a faithful.

MORNING MASS

Where: St Peter’s Church on Oxford Mission ground, Behala

Turnout: Around 400

Williams set the tone for morning mass by urging everyone to “reach out” to give rather than take. He said the world would be a better place if everyone lent a hand to heal.

Sermon over, the archbishop, who had allowed kids to even tug at his beard and pinch his nose during a visit to Shishu Bhavan on Saturday, interacted with the congregation outside the church hall. Parish members lined up to touch the clergyman’s feet as a mark of reverence even as others went click-click on their cellphone cameras.

As she waited for her turn, 76-year-old Pushpa Nath’s mind wandered back to a day in 1986 when she had felt similarly overwhelmed.

“This mass reminded me of the Pope’s visit to Calcutta (on February 4, 1986). I am very lucky to have attended both the Pope’s and the archbishop’s church service. During the Pope’s service, my brother-in-law had played the violin and when the church choir performed today, I was reminded of that occasion,” she told Metro.

For Payel Ghosh, a 13-year-old student of St Elizabeth School in Thakurpukur, listening to the archbishop gave her an insight into friendship and Christianity while his silver beard left her “intrigued”.

Williams later met HIV-infected children at Arunima Hospice. “I am delighted that it has been possible to fit in a visit to this vitally important work. What you are doing here is address one of the biggest crises in today’s time… We are easily paralysed by fear and we deal with it by pushing away those who make us feel uncomfortable. But this place must proclaim: do not fear,” he said.

The Archbishop inaugurated the Memorial Music School for children of Arunima Hospice and Snehakunj, a home for the HIV-infected children.

He next visited Shanti Nivas, a home for the aged, and attended a programme organised by Sister Florence College of Nursing.