• Sermon preached on 26 August 2012

    Here’s what I said this morning:

    Jesus said, This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But whoever eats this bread will live forever.

    In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

    I was trying to think how to relate to this idea of the bread of our ancestors and I remembered a childhood holiday.

    For some reason, my parents had taken my sister and I for a holiday on a farm in south-west Wales. It was a great place to have a holiday. Lots to do on the farm and lots of places to go in that lovely area.

    And I remember my father getting a notion.

    He decided, quite out of the blue that if we were on a farm, then we needed to bake our own bread. I’m not quite sure how his logic worked because the farm in question was in the business of breeding pedigree Hereford bulls. But that doesn’t matter. He decided that bread needed to be baked and bread on the table we would have.

    So we went off to an old working flour mill to buy flour because my father didn’t do things by half when he got a notion in his head.

    And back we came to bake the family loaf.

    There was kneeding. There was proving. There was shaping. There was baking. There was a wonderful rich smell. (more…)

8 responses to “Mitre over the parapet moments”

  1. Kimberly Avatar

    Thanks for linking +David’s post. I’d read it, and the first few comments, but missed that later discussion. It represents a new level of blog dialogue in the SEC, I think.

  2. Rev Ruth Avatar

    Who’ll be next, do you think?

  3.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Thanks for the episcopal summary – I take back my previous criticisms about the bishops. They are being rather splendidly thoughtful at the moment. As was Archbish Sentamu on Radio 4’s question time 🙂

  4. bishop david Avatar

    Kelvin – thanks for your linking and attention-drawing activities. It’s hard not to be aware that there is a common thread linking all of those ‘over the parapet’ contributions – which is that the tone of recent contributions from our Catholic colleagues has been unfortunate. But now that we seem to have some momentum, I hope we can move on to be a bit more successful at shaping an agenda rather than simply responding to others.

  5. Duncan Avatar

    What’s the clergy equivalent of a mitre over the parapet?

    A biretta over the altar?

  6. Stewart Avatar

    …only when it is snowing!!

  7. kelvin Avatar

    I can see snow on Cruachan. Birettas may be worn.

    (See number 79 of my 100 things if you’ve no idea what Stewart is alluding to).

  8. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    I am afraid the discussion with +David on his blog came to a sad end….have another look!

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