During Lent, members of the clergy at St Mary’s are giving addresses at Choral Evensong on the theme “If I had just one more sermon to preach…”
Here’s mine:
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
If I had just one more sermon to preach, I’d tell people that God loved them.
The truth is, (more…)
Living in Ireland – at one time not too far from Knock – it always astonished me when driving through the village how those who had just visited the shrine seemed to think that it had made them invincible! They’d wander into the middle of the road and totally ignore the traffic streaming around them!
A bottle of Knock holy water in the shape of Our Lady sits behind me as I type – next to a similar one from Lourdes and a knitted Orangeman bedecked with a collarette proclaiming him a member of LOL 1, Portadown! The juxtaposition is deliberate! (I wonder if + David has one on his shelves from the "support Drumcree" shop?!)
Which leads to the question "How do holy water taps work?" – theologically, that is! What is blessed to make it holy? Is it the reservoir (but that is constantly replenished and so eventually, after being diluted for a long time, the water becomes "unholy". Is it the tap itself and the water is sanctified by passing through it?
Discuss!
Holy Water Taps
Perhaps the water becomes holy when it is applied by the believer to the cat.
Holy water and questions about pilgrimage
Hmmm, yes I can see the dilemma…I guess the female ordaindees (not a word really, apologies for my attack on the English language) are excluded – though would it be possible to construct a small al fresco altar and hold a ceremony of your own? Pilgrimage places become so because people believe something, not just the ecclesiastical hierarchy, I think? If we don’t go then it is like saying ‘ok, you have that site of devotion then’. (Yikes I sound so serious, which I am, but I really do mean my statements to come out as questions…not commands.)
As to the cat, holy water, and the believer – maybe all the water is holy and we just think we play a role in making it so? Alternatively, maybe the cat is the believer and the water is transformed through a great mysterious purr.
The Cat in Question
As for the cat in question, she is not a believer as such. Rather, she thinks that she is the only proper object of veneration.
One of the big differences between the theological training that I received from the university and the theological training I received from the church was that the former was interested in heresy and the latter wasn’t interested at all. It may be that things are different now, I don’t know. But quite a lot of…
Here’s the sermon I preached on the Road to Emmaus story.
I see that at his diocesan synod, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Michael Perham has made a very passionate plea for even more “gracious restraint”. “My own view is that what is needed in the Church at present is gracious restraint. We need a cool and calm period in which to explore the…
I’ve been watching the various debates about whether “we” live in a Christian country with interest over the last 10 days or so. I’m inclined to agree with the notion that the UK clearly has such a great heritage from the Christian tradition that it makes sense to speak of it as having been a…
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