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Continue reading →: Division at ordination
An interesting and, for the Church of England, very significant correction has appeared in the latest issue of the Church Times. A copy appears above. Those who attended the ordination of deacons at Manchester Cathedral (see this earlier blog post) were informed in the order of service that all candidates…
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Continue reading →: Washed in the blood?
While working as the senior prison chaplain in a maximum security prison I overheard a prisoner ask an evangelical visitor to the prison chapel if she was a Christian. ‘Yes,’ came the reply, ‘born again, Spirit filled and washed in the Blood.’ Curious (as indeed was I), the prisoner asked…
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Continue reading →: A curious event at an ordination
I was delighted and moved to attend the ordination as deacon of my dear friend and former colleague Kenson Li, at Manchester Cathedral on 29th June. It was lovely to see him, after years of working and training, arrive at this moment, witnessed by family and friends. God bless him…
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Continue reading →: Denying Communion?
A priest whose area of work covers several parishes told me he was having great difficulty in finding priests to cover for Eucharists in his parishes over the Summer. He had therefore approached the Bishop to ask for permission for the laity to take services of Communion, in which they…
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Continue reading →: The Church’s future: Lessons from parish work
A dear friend, when he retired from church ministry, told me it pleased him to think that each church he had worked in was stronger, numerically and financially, when he left than when he had started there. Now, in my retirement, I remember my late friend’s words, and it gives…
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Continue reading →: Embrace the Joy: 50 Days of Easter Celebration
40 days of Lent gives way to 50 days of Easter. Christians make so much of the season of Lent – giving up things, fasting, praying, Lent books, extra worship, and other worthy things – some of them good, some of them pretty heavy going. By the time Lent is…
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Continue reading →: With the saints in Easter glory
Sung Evensong was a feature of the weekly worship schedule in many rural churches when I was a boy. In my local church this usually involved a congregation of about 10 to 12 people singing hymns, the versicles and responses, and also the canticles to a familiar chant. This was…
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Continue reading →: Seven little altars
Now I am retired I am able to do several things that I couldn’t when working as a parish priest. Today, for the first time, and probably the last time, I went on a seven church pilgrimage on Maundy Thursday – sometimes called the Visita Iglesia. The aim is simple,…
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Continue reading →: At the Royal Maundy
The Yeomen of the Guard moved through the nave of Durham Cathedral and as I saw them I smiled and thought of Gilbert and Sullivan. Their colourful entry began the processions for the Royal Maundy service. I was so pleased to have received a ticket to attend. Mayors and mayoresses…
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Continue reading →: Putting Chrism at the centre
Chrism Masses today are unusual and unsettling for me. What are they about? Until the 1950s and 60s the answer to that question would have been straightforward. The Chrism Mass is when the Bishop consecrates the sacred oil. In the older rite, found principally in the Roman Catholic Church, the…
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A Retired Rector's Reflections 