• Sunday’s Sermon on Vocations

    Here’s what I said on Sunday about vocations

    [Sorry about the poor audio. We’ve some major problems with the sound system that are going to take some weeks to sort out – however, the Vestry are well aware that Something Needs to be Done].

    The Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church have asked the whole church today to reflect on vocations. The idea is that on this Sunday, when the readings tend to reflect on the idea of Jesus as the great shepherd of the flock, we think about the notion of calling. So we must think about how we discern God’s calling and what we might make as an appropriate response.

    I am aware as I begin to open up that subject that we are stepping on sacred ground and must mind where we go. Immense amounts of sadness and disappointment have been the result of vocations, and not exclusively clerical vocations, which the church has not been able to affirm and rejoice in. On the other hand, this is, as the gathering place for the diocese, a place where vocations are delighted in and celebrated in ordination services and in various ways of thanksgiving for lay ministry, including the Ministry Celebrations Service in the summer.

    But I do with caution. And I begin with my own experience. (more…)

27 responses to “Can you backdate a marriage?”

  1. Colin Backhouse Avatar
    Colin Backhouse

    If a man and woman from England were married in a Church in the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus with a proper ordained anglican minister can that marriage be registered and recognised retrospectively back in england?

    1. Kelvin Avatar

      I doubt it, but I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know.

  2. Stephen Clark Avatar

    Am interested to note that the Register in your post seems to be of the Commonwealth of Australia…we are now happily within the marriage equality fold (after a tortuous process).
    At lunch recently with a fellow priest we both agreed that while the laws of Australia may have changed, neither of us (he 70+ and I, 65) will live to see The Anglican Church of Australia allowing marriage equality; being as we are totally bullied by the GAFCON politics of the 4 or 5 Evangelical Dioceses led by the Diocese of Sydney (I would suggest that they are happy to call everyone to scriptural fidelity…whilst the first to breach the call to NOT call sisters and brothers to the secular courts…and then to bring the blessed Owen Dowling to the secular courts…because he chose to ordain women!.

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