What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Change your life

    [This post is reposted from a previous year. No-one who has ever kept the triduum with me has ever told me that what I promised fell short of their experience].

    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.

    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.

    I blogged a bit about it [one] year, and it might be worth pointing people to those blog posts:

    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.

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

4 responses to “St John of the Cross”

  1. fr dougal Avatar
    fr dougal

    I love the Dali but thought it was much better in the St Mungo than Kelvingrove. SJC was the poetry/spirituality of my High Church youth.

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Actually, I prefer it in Kelvingrove though that may be something to do with the memory of going to see it as a child.

    I think I heard that they are shifting it again from the end of the long collonade, which I think would be a shame, particularly as it was hung in contradistinction to Stephen Conroy’s magnificent self portrait (at the end of the nearest next collonade) which I suspect most people don’t realise is also a crucifixion.

    http://www.artfund.org/artwork/9674/self-portrait-1

    Reply
  3. Ruth Avatar
    Ruth

    When I saw it in Kelvingrove in August, it was in a small room. Although I waited till the sardine tin crush of no more than a dozen people had left, there was still no space to stand back and appreciate it – the lighting wasn’t helpful either. It was so much better at the end of the long corridor.

    Reply
  4. fr dougal Avatar
    fr dougal

    I think it had the space at St Mungo and you had plenty of room to sit on the sofa and gaze at it. But hey, it’s still a wonderful art work.

    Reply

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