Blog

  • All Saints and All Souls

    One of the things that I have to be aware of at St Mary’s is that there are always quite a lot of people there who have not come from an Episcopal background. That means that when it comes to festivals, there are folk who don’t know what to expect. (Former Roman Catholics are exceptions.…

  • What's a-happening

    People connected with the Scottish Episcopal Church who go abroad sometimes tell me that they find the blogs a great help in keeping in touch with what’s going on back home. Here is today’s news. Fr Dougal has been posting about the scandal of Rowan Williams (and others) not speaking out about human rights abuses…

  • Anglican – RC conversion figures

    Does anyone know whether there are any estimated figures anywhere for how many Anglicans convert to being Roman Catholics and vice versa over any period of time? In the light of the Pope’s trawl for disaffected Anglicans, I’ve been reflecting on the fact that it has always a two way street. I’m aware of quite…

  • Sermon – Creation

    Oops, I forgot entirely to set the video camera up this morning, so there is no recording of this sermon, I’m afraid. I did not realise until well into the service that the camera was not there. It is perhaps time to think about gathering a team of people who could be resonsible for dealing…

  • Gay Marriage in Church in Sweden

    The Church of Sweden, with which the Scottish Episcopal Church is in Full Communion, has just voted to open marriage to same-sex couples as well as straight couples. The word equivalent to “matrimony” will be used for all couples. Something to welcome. Something to celebrate.

  • Clocks Change

    Don’t forget that the clocks change this weekend. On Sunday morning at 2 am, clocks go back 1 hour to 1 am. You have an extra hour to plan turning up late to St Mary’s tomorrow.

  • Who chooses the hymns?

    I’m occasionally asked who chooses the hymns at St Mary’s. We have an extraordinarily wide repertoire. I can’t remember now how many sets of hymn lyrics we use, but I know that we have over five hundred tunes in regular use through the year. I think that the choice of hymns is one of the…

  • Ooh look, its our Mel

    Take a look at the Inverness Courier site today and you’ll find a profile of our Mel. It contains this comment: “he has also become diocesan piper” Who knew? Would I be right in thinking that bagpipes are things that (like wedding photographers) are ungoverned by Canon Law and perhaps ought to be?

  • It isn't all the fault of Rowan Williams

    When I was a theological student, we used to learn about early doctrines that came to be regarded as heresies. You had to learn all about who had condemned whom and for what at which Council. Most of the controversies were over who Jesus really was or the nature of God in the trinity. Eventually,…

  • NSM History?

    Can anyone point me to a concise summary, preferably online, of how and when and where Anglicans began ordaining people as Non-Stipendiary Ministers? [Note that I’m not interested in polemical publications arguing for one form of ministry or another. Its facts I want to mull over, and I don’t know them].