• The Past Tense

    Sometimes museums are terribly annoying. I found myself getting all worked up about this thurible.

    image

    Well, It wasn’t exactly the thurible that got me worked up but the card next to it.

    image

    The caption uses the past tense. “Censors were used…”

    Censors are used. It somehow felt so frustrating to look at an object that I could pick up and use in my daily work and which seemed to me to be in as good a state as when it was first made and yet see the caption speaking about the use as being something in the past.

    As I looked around the same gallery, all the references to anything liturgical were expressed in the same way:

    “Music was important in the Christian liturgy…”

    There’s no was about it.

4 responses to “Sermon for Michaelmas”

  1. Eamonn Avatar

    ‘breaking open the same word of God and finding it feeds us all according to our earthly needs and god given personalities’.

    Ought to be emblazoned over the door of every church.

  2. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    Azrael – is that not the named fourth great archangel?

    1. Kelvin Avatar

      Oh, I knew someone was going to get picky about other Archangels.

      I deliberately said something about them being named in the bible. Raphael sneaks in because of Tobit.

      I think if you want to bicker you’ve a better case with Uriel than Azrael.

      Azrael is better know in Islam and Sikhism (oddly) than in Christianity. Uriel meanwhile gets a singsong in the Creation. However, Raphael, Gabriel and Michael have got a bit more of a secure biblical foundation.

  3. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    The more archangels the better, mind you …

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