The Blog of the Provost of St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow
When you come up to communion this evening, you need to keep your eyes open. There’s plenty to look at near the front of the church – lovely decorations, candles, baubles and twinkling lights. But keep your eyes peeled for a couple of strange, ethereal, beautiful creatures standing on either side of the altar.
Strange, ethereal and beautiful.
And I’m not referring to Cedric and myself. [Read more...]
here’s the video of yesterday’s sermon (complete with a little coughing and wheezing)
One of the nights of my life which I most remember is the night that I was ordained as a priest. It was in our cathedral in Perth and was very magnificent. Someone preached a great sermon. The music was as good as it could have been. The crowd was large and their welcoming of me as a priest in the Church of God was warm and wonderful.
But I remember a little exchange that took place which I want to use as my starting point for this morning’s sermon as we consider what it means to keep the Feast of the Saints.
Just as I was preparing to leave the cathedral that night, someone came up to speak to me with a message. She was someone married to a cleric of some significance in our church but whose own approach to Christian faith was, well, not quite as orthodox as others. [Read more...]
I wonder what is the first thought that comes into your head when you open an invitation and find yourself invited to a wedding.
Do you say a wee prayer of thanksgiving for the couple?
Maybe you do.
Do you rejoice that two people have discovered that they love one another and give thanks for the places in your own life where you have known love too?
Maybe you do.
Or, upon reading that invitation, is the first thought that comes into your mind, [Read more...]
Somehow I managed to mess up the video camera settings on Sunday, and for that reason, I’ve no video or audio copy of the sermon that I preached. However, I do have the written text I was using. You’ll just have to imagine the delivery, if you were not there….
In the name of God, creator, redeemer and sustainer.
There is something of a Back to School feel about the West End of Glasgow this week. I noticed it when I was trying to use one of the banks this week and found that there were nine students (all from China) trying to open new bank accounts in the queue in front of me.
If you’ve blown into St Mary’s on the breath of the new academic year that has just begun in our great colleges and universities, you are very welcome. The new student group for folk connected with St Mary’s begins after Evensong this evening.
I want to begin what I have to say this morning with a strong “Back to School” moment that I had a couple of weeks ago. I realised that my old Primary School – Bearsden Primary School was having an open day and inviting everyone in.
Now, I’ve not been there since I was 11 and so decided to head off up the road and have a look.
It was completely fascinating. [Read more...]
Here’s the text of the sermon I preached on Sunday 7 August 2011. I’ll try to get the video up later in the week when I can – I’ve had loads of stuff to try to get from one format to another this last week or two – inspires print and e-mail, pics on the church website and the stuff I create like this too.
This sermon seemed to generate quite a lot of chatter on Sunday and has been much discussed with me since. It might be a bit apophatic for some, but clearly that speaks to people……
But the Lord was not in the earthquake, the wind or the fire. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is clear why the Old Testament reading and the Gospel have been chosen to go together today. There are common elements – the wind and storm and then sudden peace. For Elijah, it came after earthquake, wind and fire. For the Peter in the boat on the stormy sea, peace comes when he puts his trust in Jesus, cries out to him and takes his hand.
They are both stories that people are quite fond of. And they are both stories that people preach on quite readily. There is a fairly standard narrative about each of them that is common in sermons. You get nice pious sermons about how we need to draw closer to God. Not in the hustle and bustle of life will we find the Lord but when we hear the sound of sheer silence. When we put aside time to be with God. When we cry out to Jesus to help us. When we reach out to God, we will find God is reaching out to us.
So far. So pious. [Read more...]
Here is this week's sermon, which was great fun to preach.
Here's the preaching of the resurrection from this morning's Great High Mass.
If Christ were not risen, we would not be gathered here. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A number of years ago, before I came to St Mary’s, I was engaged in the business of celebrating Easter. There I was trying to get people excited about the Easter Vigil – that’s the service that we celebrated early this morning here at St Mary’s. Its full of drama – of that there is no doubt. You get a fire lit in the middle of it, from which we light the Pascal Candle which burns so bright and clearly amongst us now. The other thing you do is take some coal from the fire, slip it into the thurible, the brass thing on chains that Beth came in with at the front of the procession this morning. You put on a teaspoon or two of incense, waft it about and the whole church smells of heaven.
Anyway there was I trying to enthuse some young people about coming to this exotic service. One particular teenager I remember. He had an interest in serving at the altar in church and I did the obvious thing and did a deal. [Read more...]
Here is what I had to say this afternoon during the three hours. It was the sixth of six devotional addresses all given by clergy from St Mary's.
You can catch up with them all on the St Mary's website by clicking here.
In the name of God the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A couple of weeks ago I took a brief holiday in London. It was a sly, sleekit weekend break to enable me to recharge my batteries before Holy Week. And it worked. I came back refreshed and ready to go.
But I spotted something in London that is my starting point for this final sermon this afternoon. [Read more...]
Here’s what I had to say in the pulpit this morning:
In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Lifegiver. Amen.
A long time ago now, I took myself off to study theology. I was not a priest or clergy person. I did not even belong to any church. I just had religious questions and for me that was how I tried to answer them.
I enjoyed my studies very much and eventually I started to understand the questions that I had and began to work out which of them might be answered and which were never going to be answered by which were instead pathways into wonder and mystery and delight.
But there were never complete answers. Nothing was ever completely sewn up. Indeed, the number of things I could be absolutely certain of became fewer rather than greater the longer I studied. [Read more...]
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