• Sermon preached on 4 August 2013

    I used to work in a church with murals. Well one mural. It wasn’t this church and it wasn’t these glorious murals. It was somewhere else entirely.

    (By which I mean Edinburgh).

    Throughout the late fifties, the sixties and early seventies, a sustained period of liturgical reform had happened. The altar had been pulled away from the wall. The priest now faced the people. The peace was shared and communion started to happen every Sunday. Those of you who have been around for a bit might remember that story from all kinds of contexts. Those who are new to Episcopal worship might be surprised to learn that how we do things is not in fact as old as the hills at all.

    Anyway, these liturgical reforms in this church had left a big space to fill. Somewhere along the way, the East Window had been bricked up and whitewashed over and now there was a giant wall to fill.

    And, of course, just as we can be sure that someone was heartily trying to encourage the congregation to sing Kum By Yah. so, inevitably, someone got to paint a mural.

    Unlike Gwyneth Leech’s paintings, which surround me here in this church. this was a rather less successful piece. (more…)

6 responses to “Carol Service”

  1. Ritualist Robert Avatar
    Ritualist Robert

    Fr Kelvin, is there a link to a pdf of the order of service so we can all see it?

  2. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    I’ll try to post a pdf later today. I need to pick it up from the office and then bring it home to change it to pdf format. I also need to correct a couple of mistakes before I forget what they were.

    I can’t post everything that was in the people’s hands for copyright reasons, but I’ll see what I can include.

  3. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    It was something like this, Robert.

    Carol Service pdf file

  4. Layclerk Avatar

    In the service sheet, verse 3 of In the Bleak Midwinter has the wrong words.

    The words as used by Harold Darke, and as sung as a tenor solo last night, from memory are:

    Enough for Him whom Cherubim worship night and day,
    A breast full of milk, and a manger full of hay,
    Enough for Him, whom angels fall down before,
    the ox and ass and camel which adore

    OK, I shall remove my anorak now!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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

Previous Posts

  • Keeping the Feast

    I’m not at all sure that we really lived up to the Feast of Corpus Christi this morning. I was rushing around just before the service looking for bread and wine and wondering how on earth we were going to celebrate this particular feast day without them. I’ve a feeling that Thomas Aquinas who thought…

  • The Convent

    Enjoyed watching The Convent last night. [Reality show where 4 women go live in a convent for 40 days and 40 nights]. I know it can be a hard life in monastic orders, but obviously a satisfying one. Wish more people did it.My only regret was that the programme was not called Big Sister.

  • Photoblog started again – see here: photoblog.thurible.net

  • Sinjoro, malfermu niajn lipojn.

    You can have 5 points if you know what this is:                  Sinjoro, malfermu niajn lipojn.     Respondo. Kaj nia buŝo deklaros vian laŭdon.     Presbitero. Dio, rapidu nm sa vi.     Respondo. Sinjoro, ne prokrastu nin helpi.