The Equality Network has just published a great resource as part of the final push towards the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Scotland.
It is called Six Reasons to Support Same-Sex Marriage. It can be found for free online but there are also nice printed versions available from the Equality Network too.
Here’s a pic of the cover.
What’s that? What’s that you ask?
Oh, you’re asking who that is on the front cover between the Proclaimers and Alan Cumming?
No idea.
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.
When the women set off for the tomb on that sad Sunday morning so very long ago, they were a devoted, if disappointed and disillusioned little group. They set off in the first light of day to anoint the body of their friend. The one who had been taken. Taken. Tortured. Mocked. Crucified. Buried. The…
Up with the dawn for the Easter Fire liturgy. +Idris blessed an excellent fire which blazed at the appropriate point in the service thanks to an appropriate application of finest walnut oil. (v. west end!). Then into the church to fling water around and celebrate the resurrection with smoke, candles, bread and wine and 360…
Holy Saturday is always such an odd day. Began this morning with Morning Prayer. I don’t think that I’ve ever prayed the office on this day before – it always seems a like a day when to pray in words is impossible. However Psalm 88 did the trick this morning. Highlights so far this week…
Let us take a break for a moment or two from the events in Jerusalem. Let us consider a couple of images of the crucified one from closer to home. A few weeks ago, I took a funeral. After the service here in the Cathedral, we went to Clydebank Crematorium. I got there just before…
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