- It is on Thursday 19 June 2014 this year.
- It is always on a Thursday.
- It is one of the most extravagent and lovely religious festivals that human beings have devised.
- Thomas Aquinas is said to have invented it to bring the focus back to Jesus Christ in churches which were rather keen on his mother.
- It is about gazing in wonder – and we don’t do that nearly enough.
- Our Lord himself comes and wanders amongst his people – just like in real life!
- Abraham (as Bishop Kevin was always wont to say) would have understood this feast
- We scatter flower petals hither and yon to make a suitable pathway for God to come amongst us
- It smells. Lovely.
- The service takes place at 7.30 pm in St Mary’s on Thursday evening – please bring flower petals to the sacristy by 7 pm if you can
10 responses to “Triduum #6 The Vigil”
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Oh suppose the sleep over! The bible readings to read – the stories to tell! The living re-tellings it would invite.
And suppose the exhaustion on Easter Day… and Monday
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Thanks Rosemary.
BTW, after you had finished polishing the eagle this morning and had gone, I discovered that we have a pelican.
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The pelican has not been polished, however, Rosemary, none of us being quite that tall.
I do suspect I would like the all night vigil if we ever did it.
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Where is the pelican??!! Up somewhere?? Oh, I would love to polish a pelican.
I’d love to sit up half the night reading aloud and telling stories – but I fear the exhaustion. But I would never, ever resist if invited. As long I was invited and allowed to read and tell stories. It could be so fabulous. Unique. Deep. Newsworthy. (and those are all the lures I have to throw.)
You do realise my first words are now liable to be not ‘alithos anesti’ but ‘where is the blessed pelican?’
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I think that those of us who know where the Pelican is must keep our counsel and give Rosemary the pleasure of Pelican Spotting on Easter Day.
What treat could be more lovely?
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Still pelican searching – it is tough on those N rather than S – if you see me with my monocular don’t laugh – oh. all right then, go on, do laugh!
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Ooh, is it a Pelican in its Piety, which I gather was a popular Christ-symbol in medieval europe and also amongst the Larry Graysons?
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Not only is she a Pelican in her Piety but I actually found that we have two.
I also found that it’s possible to Pelicans in their Piety right under Rosemary’s nose and she won’t necessarily see them.
Someone suggested to me a while ago that we should have an inventory of the flaura and fauna represented in the iconography of St Mary’s. I suspect such a task would be a revelation. There’s a badger, for example, which few see but me.
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I am chronically unobservant – I notoriously fail to see things right under my nose. Last week I failed to see the pepper grater. It was upright on a table of less than two foot diameter. There was a table lamp, a plate and the pepper grater. I could not see it. It is sad on one whose speciality is religious architecture, isn’t it? But Low Sunday shall be find the pelican day.
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Rosemary, I’d have nudged you in the right direction yesterday morning if I hadn’t rudely run off just as our conversation got to pelicans. (The pleasure of the hunt is all well and good, but it can get to the point of being an exercise in frustration.)
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