• 10 Things to Remember about Corpus Christi

    corpuschristi - new

    1. It is on Thursday 19 June 2014 this year.
    2. It is always on a Thursday.
    3. It is one of the most extravagent and lovely religious festivals that human beings have devised.
    4. 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.
    5. It is about gazing in wonder – and we don’t do that nearly enough.
    6. Our Lord himself comes and wanders amongst his people – just like in real life!
    7. Abraham (as Bishop Kevin was always wont to say) would have understood this feast
    8. We scatter flower petals hither and yon to make a suitable pathway for God to come amongst us
    9. It smells. Lovely.
    10. 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

4 responses to “Here is the sermon…”

  1. Beth Avatar
    Beth

    I remember that workshop being done as part of an LGBT group meeting. I was slightly skeptical about it in the beginning, but ended up getting a lot out of it and thinking about God in ways that I hadn’t consciously before.

  2. Tim Avatar

    FWIW, in order to dot some `t’s and cross some `i’s, my sensibly heretical book The Five Gospels colours all the speech black apart from the saying about women grinding corn (which merits a grey, at best). Ie, none of the text goes back to any historical Jesus, with the apocalyptic context added by the gospel authors; the `thief in the night’ is an Christian saying of the early churches (witness other epistles, written before Matthew, where the image appears) and therefore probably planted, in that order, in Matthew.

    I guess taking what you most charitably will out of the passage is entirely reasonable, then. ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. Tim Avatar

    (I had to read that, and a bit from Romans at church up here, too… was “interesting” turning a blind eye to it. ๐Ÿ™‚

  4. Tracey Avatar
    Tracey

    Thanks for that Kelvin. When I read that Gospel at the 8:30 service, i remembered the severe fundamentalist church I was brought up in as a child, and it made me uncomfortable. Reading your comments, I remember my first few visits to an Episcopal worship service and remembering how joyful and non-scary it was, and being amazed by the fact that I didn’t have to be afraid of God. Thanks for the reminder.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Sunday Worship – Radio 4

    You can here this morning’s Sunday worship on Radio 4 by following this link to the BBC iPlayer. Some feedback from those who live in other countries would be welcome. We know that those overseas can hear BBC Radio 4 streamed live but we are uncertain whether the iPlayer works for radio when you are…

  • More Morning Prayer

    There you go. I’ve added some more Daily Prayer bookies to the Daily Prayer Page. You now have Week B (which starts tomorrow) and Week C. Hurrah!

  • Signing the Petition

    Earlier this week when it was fresh and new, I signed the petition which is being presented to the Scottish Parliament which urges the Scottish Government to amend the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977 to allow two persons of the same sex to register a civil marriage and a religious marriage if the relevant religious body…

  • Taking Children to Church

    I’m on holiday at the moment, and will be until Friday. This last weekend, I was in Englandshire staying close to one of the places I lived when I was in secondary school. I had a whole new experience of church. I got to do something I’ve never done before – I got to take…