- Good results for Nigel Farage following the English local elections in May. Terrible results for Conservative Party.
- No progress towards the marriage of same-sex couples in the Church of England
- Turbulent year for WordPress, which powers about half of the internet.
- 2025 will be the hottest year on record.
- No trade deal for UK with US. Increasing talk of re-aligning economy closer to EU.
- Ceasefire in Russia-Ukraine war but no long term solution.
- “Assisted Dying” aka doctor assisted suicide becomes legal in at least one of the jurisdictions of the British Isles.
- Turbulent year for economy but stock market higher at end of year than beginning. (FTSE currently at 8,173)
- There will be fewer Commonwealth Realms (ie countries which share the monarchy) by the end of 2025 than there are now.
- Philip Mountstephen.
8 responses to “I seem to have been spared”
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Glad to hear you are feeling better. May you have a good illness free Advent for you and your congregation. (Is blue or purple the Advent colour at St. Mary’s?)
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The colour is purple, though sadly we don’t have a full high mass set for this time of the year.
In my former congregation, we kept what people called “sarum colours” – blue in advent, unbleached linen in Lent.
I believe the term sarum colours to be historically incorrect, but I rather liked the distinction between the two seasons.
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Hi Kelvin, glad to hear you are feeling better. In respect to “sarum colours” may i suggest this website, http://anglicanhistory.org/essays/wright/sarum.pdf
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Thanks for the distinction. One of the local churches (non-denominational university with one episcopal priest out of three ministers) here uses blue but I seem to have recalled purple from other places. I’m not sure where they got the blue candles though, they are a very odd shade.
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Speaking of Sarum, were there medieval uses peculiar to Scotland, Fr Kelvin? Presumably there may have been something like a St Andrews Use.
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Yeah, I think the Sarum rite sounds fabulous, but Advent candles should obviously be purple and pink :-).
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I presume that there was a St Andrews Use, though I’m no medievalist and there may be people better qualified to comment about it than I am.
There certainly seems to have been a very spectacular Use at the collegiate church of St Mary and St Anne in Glasgow. There is some speculation that St Mary’s (with its side chapel dedicated to St Anne) might have some significant roots in that congregation, which met in a church where the Tron theatre now is.
The ceremonies (and endowments) of this church were lavish. There is a little about it on wikipedia.
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Use of Aberdeen is very well recorded in FC Eels book on King’s College Chapel, rather like Sarum and Bangor.
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