Collating Fr James

To Hyndland this afternoon for the collation of Fr James Milne as Rector of St Bride’s Church. (For those who care about ecclesiastical arcaniana, a collation happens when the bishop is the sole patron of the charge, whilst an institution happens in almost all other cases).

It was a splendid occasion. Over a hundred and thirty packed into St Brides and filled both bits of the church, which is as asymmetrical as Ms Quant’s hairstyles.

It is good to be able to wish James well. I’ve known him since we both trained for the priesthood together. In the end, I was ordained sooner than he was as he kept getting sent off on jollies (to places like Melanesia and Milton Keynes). He is a good priest and the people at St Bride’s would be wise to love him and keep him.

It was nice to hear James Macmillan’s A New Song sung by the choir which originally premiered it. They also sang the lovely setting of Darke in F.

St Brides is one of the nearest neighbours to St Mary’s. Up the hill in Hyndland, they take their faith seriously and gloriously. This collation marks a new start for Fr James and a new start for all of them, and it is not difficult on a day such as today to wish them blessings all round.

(BTW, does anyone know why we were invited to St Brides’s, Kelvinside rather than St Bride’s Hyndland? I thought for a moment when looking at the invitation that there must have been a schism).

Comments

  1. St Bride’s was founded as St Bride’s, Kelvinside in 1891 and remained so even after the church moved (literally – the original wooden building was towed by steam traction engine) from the original site in Beaconsfield Road to the new site in Hyndland in November 1899. And “St Bride’s, Kelvinside” we have been ever since according to our Constitution, despite the fact that many official bodies get it wrong.

  2. Kelvin says

    Thanks JCL – the steam traction engine pulling the church to a new site is a marvellous image.

  3. Perhaps we need more ‘steam traction engines’ to ‘pull’ the church to a new place.

  4. Kelvin says

    My grandfather worked for a company which built steam traction engines. I never realised before that they had a liturgical purpose.

  5. Zebadee says

    Just as a historical note your grandfather actually worked on the last steam fairground engine produced by John Fowler and Co. He was always keen to show anyone the parts that he actually made.

  6. Kelvin says

    He showed them to me. (Probably more than once).

  7. Kelvin says

    http://david-howse.fotopic.net/p24025917.html will give an idea of the subject under discussion.

  8. When the bishop asks at the Senior Staff (gaiters) meeting tomorrow ‘ how do we move the church in this diocese forward?’ I will say ‘steam traction engines ,My Lord’ – and then duck for cover!

  9. More history:St Bride’s was the church where I discovered I longed to be part of a church – even before I’d fallen off my donkey! (That happened a month later, in the Cathedral of The Isles. Singing has a lot to answer for)

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