What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Wind News

    It feels a little bit like the Day of Doom here at St Mary’s this morning what with the weather. I’m going to proceed on the basis that it isn’t but here are some of the things I’ve been hearing via twitter and social media in the last half hour or so.

    • Level crossing destroyed near Carstairs
    • There are people on trains that are going no-where.
    • Plane arrived at Glasgow airport from Canada (ie through the wind) only for a delay in getting them off because they couldn’t connect the bridge to the aircraft.
    • Airports now closed.
    • Glass falling from ceiling at Central Station in Glasgow – everyone evacuated.
    • No trains running
    • Red alert for roads – ie don’t drive and pull over if you are in a high sided vehicle

4 responses to “Politics of Pilgrimage”

  1. Avatar
    Anonymous

    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!

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Holy Water Taps
    Perhaps the water becomes holy when it is applied by the believer to the cat.

    Reply
  3. Joan Avatar
    Joan

    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.

    Reply
  4. Avatar
    Anonymous

    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.

    Reply

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