What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Palm Sunday

    There’s no sermon from yesterday to upload. It is the only Sunday in the year when we have no preaching and simply let the story do the work. It is our custom on Palm Sunday to read the Passion story – that’s the story of the end of Jesus’s life from whichever gospel we have been reading through the year.

    Here at St Mary’s, the congregation, who are the body of Christ, read the words of Jesus whilst two people at the front narrate the rest of the story.

    Yesterday is probably the chilliest Palm Sunday on record. Here in this part of the world, we usually associate Holy Week with a growing sense of spring. New life is all around us. This year, it feels as though it hasn’t quite arrived.

    However, that’s a reminder that Holy Week is celebrated in all kinds of contexts. I struggle a bit working out how people could celebrate Easter in the autumn, but that, of course, is what happens in the southern hemisphere. There must be places where Palm Sunday is always held in the snow and it is hard to imagine what that is like.

    As it was yesterday, there was not much snow here. Much of the rest of the country was covered in it but it was a clear, if bracing day.

    I found myself taking to liturgical gloves.

    Brrr.

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

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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

Previous Posts

  • Sermon – 13 November 2005 (Remembrance Sunday)

    Rather than preach as I usually do this morning, I am going to talk you on a journey that I made last week – a walk in London when I was on holiday down there last weekend. A little pilgrimage, if you like. We will start in on of the churches that I was visiting…

  • Sing along now

    We are a gentle angry people And we are singing for our lives We are a gentle angry people And we are singing, singing for our lives. (Holly Near)

  • Feast Day

    Martin of Tours today. I found myself cheek by jowl with some of his relics a couple of years ago. Bits of jawbone. At the time, it was kind of moving, but right now it seems kind of odd. After all that has been done to my jawbone, I rather hope mine is kept as…

  • Organ delivery

    A certain amount of excitement today as the new organ is installed in St Saviour’s. It is a 20 stop digital instrument from Wyvern. Things would have been simpler if the roof were not leaking above the organ chamber. However the organ is in church and will be used on Sunday. The temporary instrument is…