What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Back from Retreat (all perky and ready to go)

    Just back from a week on retreat in a Jesuit house in sunny Spain.

    It is a while since I’ve made a retreat and four years since I went to this particular place. Like before, I’ve come back all perky and ready to go.

    I realise as I look back over the last few weeks that much of the blogging has been quite technical church synod stuff. Normal service begins again here.

    It has been interesting reflecting on my life here at St Mary’s recently. I didn’t particularly go on retreat to do this but inevitably, one thinks about where one is coming from and in conversation with other retreatants, you do find yourself thinking a lot about the life you have as you hear of the lives of others.

    This retreat wasn’t a silent one – it consisted of mostly imaginative Ignation exercises and group sharing in the morning, siesta/sun/snooze in the afternoon heat and then a Jesuit examine style of prayer in the evening before mass. Quieter in the mornings. Chatter later in the day. It was just what I needed and I’m very grateful to those who make this kind of thing happen. The theme, by the way, was Mentoring.

    No doubt I’ll have lots of emails and messages to deal with when I get back into the office this afternoon.

    I’ve just checked the cathedral website to realise that this Sunday is one of those bumper ones which make life around here so wonderful. It is the last blast of the West End Festival this week and so we’ve a special Choral Service in the morning (Darke in E) and then the extraordinary spectacle of an Orchestral Choral Evensong in the evening.

    Yes, you heard that right – Orchestral Choral Evensong. A very big choir and an orchestra and music that you know and love:

    Orchestral Choral Evensong
    sung by the Cathedral Choir and St Mary’s Festival Chorus,
    accompanied by St Mary’s Festival Orchestra
    Introit: I was glad – Parry
    Responses: Rose
    Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd – Howard Goodall
    Canticles: Stanford in A
    Anthem: Greater Love – Ireland

    , ,

3 responses to “Power needs to be baptised by love”

  1. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    A very good and thought-provoking sermon. I’ve always thought of the Ethiopian eunuch as a man of great power and authority, and of great learning and devotion too, which points me to your third interpretation. But what startles me about the story – partly because of my thinking of the eunuch as someone of great power and authority compared to Philip, and partly because of a tendency on my part to be dogma-bound – is the sheer simplicity of how Philip welcomes him into the Church.

    There is no complicated initiation process. There are no doctrinal tests. The eunuch sees water, and asks Philip in a businesslike way if there’s any reason why he shouldn’t be baptised. Philip’s answer couldn’t be more direct and straightforward: “If you believe with all your heart, you may be baptised.” And the eunuch’s response couldn’t be more direct and straightforward either: no lengthy creed, no question and answer interrogation, but simply, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

    No doubt the eunuch continued his studies after his baptism, being that sort of man. But in a complicated world and (sometimes) a complicated Church I often turn to this passage for reassurance that it needn’t always be so.

    Reply
    1. Father Ron Smith Avatar
      Father Ron Smith

      Thank you, Father Kelvin. What a lovely and refreshing new insight into the identity and provenance of the ethiopian Eunuch! Philip’s acceptance and Baptism of the Eunuch reflects the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19:122, where he speaks of 3 types of eunuch; made so by others (the Ethiopian, castrati); those who become so for the sake of the Kingdom (monks, nuns, celibate clergy);
      and then, of course; those so ‘from their mother’s womb’ (intrinsic Gays).

      Reply
  2. Aleks Avatar
    Aleks

    Really profound. You’ve given me a lot to think about.

    Reply

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