What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Change your life

    [This post is reposted from a previous year. No-one who has ever kept the triduum with me has ever told me that what I promised fell short of their experience].

    Every year I make a promise to people. I say that if they keep the triduum with me at St Mary’s then it will change their life and change their faith.

    The Triduum is the three days from Maundy Thursday to Easter Day. Although the various services take place over several days, it is really one big feast, which is what makes it so extraordinary when you keep it in one place and experience the whole thing. It really is life changing stuff.

    I blogged a bit about it [one] year, and it might be worth pointing people to those blog posts:

    Maundy Thursday
    Veneration of the Cross
    Three Hour Devotions
    Good Friday Evening
    Holy Saturday – all hands on deck!
    The Vigil

    I’d say you’d kept the Triduum with me if you come to the Maundy Thursday evening service, two of the three services on Good Friday (try for the three hours if you can), the clean and polish on Saturday and the early fire Vigil and the main Festival Mass on Sunday.

    It really is life-changing if you do it all and there are people around who will testify to just that.

6 responses to “Liturgy Online & the Papal Mass”

  1. stew Avatar
    stew

    I found the Bellahouston event very moving and there seemed to be a lot of fervour – did you watch it?

    I’m not sure of the relevance of comparing the ‘fervours’ but maybe I missed your point.

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Hi Stew – glad to hear that you enjoyed the Bellahouston event. I did watch it, online.

    I was simply drawing attention to the difference between the two papal visits, which no doubt tell us as much about changes in the UK as in the UK Roman Catholic Church since that first visit.

    Reply
  3. David | Dah•veed Avatar
    David | Dah•veed

    JP2 seemed delighted by the roaring response.

    I noticed that your Queen had a rather sour puss in all the photos that I have seen of her welcome to her fellow Head of State. Was that to be interpreted as any form of commentary from the Supreme Governess of the Church of England or is she soured upon all the world of late. Perhaps she needs more prunes in her diet.

    And El Papa looks like he has just been released from his padded room with those crazy, staring eyes and windblown hair.

    Reply
  4. Peter Avatar
    Peter

    A reaction to two of the elements of your post, Kelvin

    First, the questions you raise about online liturgy are very similar to the questions I struggled with when I was working in higher education. It’s taken 40 years of trying and we still don’t have a fully satisfactory way of teaching equally to local and remote audiences. Some of the best work is being done in your own city – I could give you some names.

    “a Problem Like Argyll” – depends on where you stand (I hope the locked church was not in Argyll!). If you had been able to join me over the past 3 weeks with faithful congregations (mostly tiny) witnessing in Iona, Ensay and Eoropaidh – as they have done centuries – you too might see it as humbling and encouraging experience. See Bishop Mark’s blog http://www.moray.anglican.org/index.php/bishop/ for a flavour. No hope of seeing them online because two don’t even have electricity, let alone broadband!

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Thanks Peter

      No – last Sunday’s experience was not in Argyll, but somewhere with similar geographic challenges.

      The existance of small vibrant congregations is great. If they didn’t exist there would be no Problem, so its a good Problem to have in some ways! I don’t doubt the existence of the church there. (I’ve had excellent experiences of the church in Argyll and The Isles and, it has to be said, one or two trickier experiences of the church over there on other travels).

      Reply
  5. Liturgy Online – again | What's in Kelvin's Head

    […] I want to return to a question that I began to raise a couple of weeks ago regarding liturgy online. […]

    Reply

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