What is in Kelvin's Head?

In just three days…

12/04/2025

Every year I make a promise to people. I say that if they keep the triduum with me at St Mary’s then it will change their life and change their faith. I think that keeping the Triduum helps make sense of all that we do in church for the rest of the year. In just three days, you can learn things about the faith and why Christians believe the things that they do that are much harder to learn during the rest of the year.

The Triduum is the three days from Maundy Thursday to Easter Day. Although the various services take place over several days, it is really one big feast, which is what makes it so extraordinary when you keep it in one place and experience the whole thing. It really is life changing stuff.

A few years ago, I blogged about it, and it might be worth pointing people to those blog posts. There’s a few things we do a bit differently and I’ve changed my mind about one or two things too, but these blog posts do capture the essence of what we are up to.

Maundy Thursday
Veneration of the Cross
Three Hour Devotions
Good Friday Evening
Holy Saturday – all hands on deck!
The Vigil

I’d say you’d kept the Triduum with me if you come to the Maundy Thursday evening service, two of the three services on Good Friday (try for the three hours if you can), the clean and polish on Saturday and the early fire Vigil and the main Festival Mass on Sunday.

On Good Friday in the evening there will be a simple sung service of Night Prayer called Compline. On the Saturday evening we’re going to try something completely new. My colleague Maggie McTernan and I often go to a folk singaround in a local pub. We’re going to be leading a session of singing on the Saturday evening of Songs of Hope and Lament. People can bring a song to sing or simply come and listen to the singers and join in the choruses. (Only rule – no alleluias until Easter Day).

This year we are having a revival on Easter Sunday and there will be a number of people who will be baptised at the Easter Fire Vigil.

This is all open to anyone. You are just as welcome to participate if you have been at St Mary’s all your life or if you’ve never been. Some people come to keep these days here with us because their own church isn’t keeping them like this and they’ll be going back to their own church once Holy Week is done. That’s fine too. I’m also happy to answer questions as we go through these days about what it is all for. (The Saturday morning is a good time to talk).

It really is life-changing if you do it all and there are people around who will testify to just that.

Easter, Good Friday, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, singaround, triduum, vigil

18 responses to “Six reasons why [some] cathedrals are doing well”

John McIntosh

26/11/2014

A most interesting piece and your comments on music are apposite and timely. Thank you.

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Christine McIntosh

26/11/2014

I agree. With you, and with him!

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Bob Faser

26/11/2014

This is a brilliant post. While the direct context of this article is about Anglican cathedrals and parish churches in the UK, the implications are also relevant to congregations of other denominations and in other contexts.

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Rachel White

26/11/2014

Inflation of church titles: rebranding a church as a minster may help to get away from the toxic c word, but does it necessarily indicate a movement towards missional work?
What about when those currently leading a minster try to rebrand it as a cathedral (cf Southwell and Notts). Does this indicate a movement away from missional work and if so what are they aiming to move towards other than personal aggrandisement?
Cathedrals sucking in resources and giving little back: Jesus said “Go OUT and make disciples … ” yet three if not more ordained clergy can be involved in any given cathedral service whilst their colleagues in parish ministry may well be trying to pastor at into the teens of church congregations on any one day. This does not seem to me to be a satisfactory or helpful use of scarce resources.
Cathedrals may well be places of beauty in both visual and choral terms but Jesus himself set his focus on reaching out to the outcasts and those regarded as the unbeautiful. That is not to say that we should not aim to be the best possible but rather that we should be concerned with the bigger picture rather than concentrating a disproportionate level of resource to beautiful places.

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1. Bob Faser
  
  27/11/2014
  
  But however, Rachel, in my experience, those cathedrals, parish churches, and other congregations which are places of beauty and centres of excellence in worship are also contexts in which authentic outreach and ministry happens. Conversely, congregations in which “any old thing will do” in worship are also settings in which not much happens in outreach and ministry.
  
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  1. Christine McIntosh
    
    27/11/2014
    
    In support of Bob’s comment, I’d like to add – at the risk of repeating myself ad nauseam – that I became involved in Christianity only because of the beauty and solemnity of worship in the tiniest cathedral in the country – a place which struggles to keep going financially and practically now, but in which, in my lifetime, every effort has been made to ensure that the music is fine, the worship sensitively and beautifully achieved and the building cherished. If I had to listen to the pathetic music and slapdash liturgy that is a feature of some parish worship, I’d have scarpered long ago.
    
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2. Nigel Coates
  
  27/11/2014
  
  Rachel’ I think there is a misunderstanding here. Southwell minster made no choice to re brand itself as a Cathedral. It was made so in 1884 and has no authority to change that! In the last decade The diocese chose to be renamed as that of Southwell and Nottingham rather than Southwell and the minster remains the Cathedral church. We are entirely at ease with keeping a longstanding title of minster believing like you it underlies our calling to be outward looking and to serve our local communities as well as our wider diocese and some 80,000 visitors a year.
  
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Suzanne Bryden

27/11/2014

Point number 4 resonates with me (as a lapsed church goer).

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Bruce Neswick

27/11/2014

There are many thought-provoking ideas here, but some careful editing would help the message. “There’s a lot that about … ?” Ouch.

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Meg Rosenfeld

27/11/2014

Kelvin, I wonder whether, during your visit to the West Coast, you were in California; and if so, whether you visited Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. As relatively new buildings go, I think it’s quite lovely in a very traditional manner, and the murals which portray the spread of the Gospel all the way to San Francisco are both unusual and informative. Here’s the bizarre twist: “Grace” is almost never identified, in any sort of news or interest story, as a cathedral of the Episcopal church; as a result, most non-Episcopalians are very surprised to learn of its denomination. This (to me) weird practice of deliberately omitting the E word was inaugurated by the Bishop previous to the present one, in hopes that people would come to feel that it’s everyone’s cathedral. I have no idea whether or not this has worked. I do know that my own feeling about “Grace,” based on nothing but gossip and ignorance, is that it’s a very snooty place where only the in-crowd goes to worship, and where all sorts of “innovative” (imagine sick-noises soundtrack) worship prevails on Sundays, although the Thursday evening sung Evensong–which I have often attended– is quite traditional. Being at present the entire alto section at a very small parish in the Haight-Ashbury, I haven’t got Sunday mornings free to go visiting at “Grace” or any other local church, but while I found your latest post fascinating, I can’t test the local reality against your findings. It’s made quite an impression, though, and I will probably re-read it a few times, especially the part about getting people involved, which resonates strongly with my immediate family.

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1. Kelvin
  
  27/11/2014
  
  Perhaps you should go to Grace Cathedral before making comments like this about it online, Meg.
  
  You can hear the sermon I preached when I was living in residence there a couple of years ago online and make your own mind up as to how innovative it sounds.
  
  http://www.gracecathedral.org/cathedral-life/worship/listen/detail.php?fid=145
  
  If I’m honest, I was surprised how traditional Grace Cathedral was.
  
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2. Christine McIntosh
  
  27/11/2014
  
  I loved my one visit to Grace Cathedral 8 years ago – we were warmly welcomed on the Saturday when we walked up the hill to rubberneck, and enjoyed every aspect of the Eucharist on the Sunday. The ‘welcomer’ was amazed that I recognised the Samuel Seabury panel on the mural.
  
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  1. Meg Rosenfeld
    
    28/11/2014
    
    I’m glad you had such a good experience at Grace Cathedral! The murals have always fascinated me because, so the legend goes, the models were members of the parish staff and congregation. What fun it would be to have provided the face for an Anglo-Saxon queen, or a Spanish conquistador! I would guess that having someone come in and identify Samuel Seabury is a very rare treat.
    
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    1. Christine McIntosh
      
      28/11/2014
      
      All the pisky churches in Scotland I’ve been involved with have that very picture somewhere about them. In ours, it hung on the wall just inside the door for many years. Can’t think if it’s still there …
      
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      1. PamB
        
        28/11/2014
        
        I had the same experience in Grace Cathedral some years ago. When the tour guide heard I was from the very congregation where Seabury was consecrated I got a round of applause from the group, and was treated like royalty. I did not manage a service, as I was just on a stopover, but the beauty of the place was breathtaking, and I expect the standard of liturgy and music was just as high.
Meg Rosenfeld

27/11/2014

You’re absolutely right, of course. Some day I shall go to a regular Sunday Mass. I quite enjoyed your sermon, and as I’ve never had to cense the altar, can only say that that is the one thing which all new members of the altar party here at All Saints fear the most–and I can certainly see why! You certainly know how to use a good dramatic pause! Did the lid fall off, or did the wee sparks jump out through the little ventilation holes?

Another interesting “take” on the rich young man is that, unlike some of the other rich people in the Bible, he seems to have been obsessed with his belongings and the concomitant responsibilities, and getting rid of them could have freed him.

It’s very interesting that so many people from other Protestant denominations, especially the more evangelical, have been drawn to the Episcopal Church because of its liturgy, pageantry–as you aptly put it, its beauty. Thank God that they have, bringing with them their enthusiasm and energy, because there seems to been a great exodus of cradle Episcopalians. I always wonder where they went.

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1. PamB
  
  28/11/2014
  
  Not sure about you use of the word “pageantry”, Meg. Suggests an element of triumphalism and showing off that is not, despite our joking about it, actually there. Ceremonial is rooted in symbolism, and the best stays close to that remit.
  
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  1. Meg Rosenfeld
    
    28/11/2014
    
    “Pageantry” doesn’t have that connotation to me; I’m a theatre person and to me, performance is sacred. There’s no fakery involved, at least in my mind. No intention of being offensive.
    
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