What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Florence Li Tim-Oi – Celebrating 70 years since her ordination

    I’m just off to celebrate a Eucharist because it is a Feast Day – the Conversion of St Paul. The standard, if rather weak, in-joke is that one is going to pray for the Conversion of St Paul rather than simply remember the Conversion of St Paul – not least because Paul had things to say that have not been terribly helpful to a modern world where women and men are equal.

    As I celebrate the feast today I’m going to be remembering with thanksgiving this woman: The Rev Florence Li Tim-Oi and celebrating 70 years since her ordination.

    Florence Li Tim-Oi

    She was the first woman to be made a priest in the Anglican Communion and today is 70 years since it happened. It happened in wartime when there were no men around and it happened secretly and without the permission of synods and decision-making bodies simply, I suspect because they couldn’t meet at the time.

    The most extraordinary thing about Mother Florence is that once the war was over, she gave up her license to act as a priest (but not her orders) until such time as her church accepted the principle that women and men could equally be regarded as priests. In her part of the world, that meant waiting until 1971.

    I can’t imagine what it was like to wait so many years to be treated as an equal.

    No, wait a minute.

    I can.

    , ,

32 responses to “Sign seen”

  1. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    What was the character of the debate? If one believes that the admission of women to the threefold ministry of the Church was an extension of an existing doctrine, not a doctrinal change, and that the dropping of the ‘filioque’ clause from the Creed wasn’t a doctrinal change either (nobody is compelled to deny that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son), the change to the doctrine of initiation was the most important doctrinal change made by the Scottish Episcopal Church not just in my lifetime but perhaps even in the SEC’s history. It amazes me that it seems to have been so uncontroversial.

    Reply
  2. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    (I don’t say I necessarily disapprove of the change. I’m quite happy not only for the unconfirmed but also for the unbaptised to be admitted to Holy Communion and would turn away no-one – except perhaps ++Judas Williams, and even then probably not – from the altar. But I can’t understand how a Church can teach two contradictory things at once.)

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      To a certain extent, saying two contradictory things at once is part of the consequence of having old liturgical formularies alongside modern ones, I think.

      (If you are not going to say something new, what’s the point in producing something new after all).

      The modern descriptions of marriage in the 2007 marriage rite don’t seem to me to be entirely consistent with the marriage rite of 1929, for example.

      It is the way we live now.

      Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Well, as I said, there were several of us who spoke against the change, for one reason or another but it was passed by a fairly high majority, I think.

    It seems to me that there is just about every view about initiation into the Christian church that has ever been held is currently also held and practised in the Scottish Episcopal Church. Indeed, there are varieties of practice and procedure within congregations and even within families.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Fauré Requiem

    The choir sang the Fauré Requiem at tonight’s service. We have an annual requiem on All Souls’ Day at which it is our custom to remember by name those who have died who are being remembered by the congregation. It is always the most moving occasion. Last night I knew that it was drawing together…

  • On visiting Perth

    I enjoyed my visit to Perth on Sunday evening. Several things stuck me which are worth comment. People seemed in good heart in the diocese. The mission review that Bishop David has been getting them to do seems to have got people thinking and even got some of them excited. I’ve still not seen it…

  • Ordination Sermon – Perth 28 October 2007

    Christine. Just over 10 year’s ago, I sat where you are sitting, waiting to make my own response to the same questions which in a few moment’s time will be put to you. As I think back to that time, I remember an incident which happened to me in my training before I was ordained.…

  • Don't forget

    Don’t forget that British Summer Time ends tonight. Clocks go back 1 hour. We get an extra hour in bed. I’ve a preaching gig in Perth tomorrow evening at St Ninian’s Cathedral. An ordination, the installation of a dean and three people being made canons. We’ll need that extra hour, I should think. If you…