On Friday 19th August, St. Mary’s Monmouth was filled with music and song, rose petals and incense, to welcome Philip Chatfield’s statue “Our Lady of the Waters.” The statue had been carried along the River Wye on a catamaran, brought by a relay of rowers from Hay-on-Wye to Monmouth, to draw attention to the high levels of pollution in the river. Philip and Father Richard Williams, an Anglican priest from Hay-on-Wye, shared their vision that the spirit of Our Lady should be invoked as a spiritual cleansing and a reminder of how badly humankind has failed in our stewardship of God’s world. The special Evensong was led by Rev’d Dan Damon, who quoted from the Canticle of the Sun attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.”