What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Palm Sunday

    There’s no sermon from yesterday to upload. It is the only Sunday in the year when we have no preaching and simply let the story do the work. It is our custom on Palm Sunday to read the Passion story – that’s the story of the end of Jesus’s life from whichever gospel we have been reading through the year.

    Here at St Mary’s, the congregation, who are the body of Christ, read the words of Jesus whilst two people at the front narrate the rest of the story.

    Yesterday is probably the chilliest Palm Sunday on record. Here in this part of the world, we usually associate Holy Week with a growing sense of spring. New life is all around us. This year, it feels as though it hasn’t quite arrived.

    However, that’s a reminder that Holy Week is celebrated in all kinds of contexts. I struggle a bit working out how people could celebrate Easter in the autumn, but that, of course, is what happens in the southern hemisphere. There must be places where Palm Sunday is always held in the snow and it is hard to imagine what that is like.

    As it was yesterday, there was not much snow here. Much of the rest of the country was covered in it but it was a clear, if bracing day.

    I found myself taking to liturgical gloves.

    Brrr.

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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