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Continue reading →: What do you do with your palm cross?
The people were given palm crosses, they were blessed and a procession into church started. So the Palm Sunday Mass which I attended began. This was in a small rural setting, but the action would have been the same in a larger church. In this way the Mass for many…
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Continue reading →: A Cup of Tea in a Bus station
A priest friend and I were sitting waiting for our bus in Newcastle’s Eldon Square bus station last Friday. My friend is currently reading Iris Murdoch’s novels in order of publication, and we began discussing his little project, and whether or not Iris Murdoch’s style changed as the years went…
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Continue reading →: At Home: Ash Cross
On Ash Wednesday I took some ash home. During lockdown days at my church we had blessed ash, made the sign of the cross on cards with ash and posted the cards, with suggestions for observing Lent at home, to our church members. This small gesture was very much appreciated.…
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Continue reading →: A Bed of Hope
Are you a person that likes to visit country churchyards and read gravestones? If so you may come across me doing the same. I wonder if sometimes you’ve come across words that challenge or inspire you. Memorial inscriptions in churchyards as well as giving some details of the deceased person…
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Continue reading →: Church Safeguarding and the mire of incompetency
I wish the Church of England well in its efforts to address its crisis in safeguarding. A crisis, which I believe is not so much at the parish level, where I see so many parish safeguarding officers taking great care, nor is it often in diocesan safeguarding staff, but rather,…
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Continue reading →: 7, Hackworth Street
At the beginning of the twentieth century the prominent north eastern ironmaking and mining company, Bolckow and Vaughan, re-excavated the closed Dean and Chapter Colliery at Ferryhill, County Durham, and re-opened it in 1904. At the same time they set about building over 800 houses for their workers, to the…
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Continue reading →: Ice
I enjoy looking at lists of books. There seem to be no end of them being produced. Lists of prize winning books, lists of influential books, lists of forgotten books, and so on. All very interesting, I find. I have a record of all the novels I’ve read since I…
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Continue reading →: Say one for me
Just before I began my pilgrimage to Lourdes last September I was celebrating Mass in a church not far from home. After the intercessions in the Mass had been said I mentioned to the people that the following day I was setting out on a pilgrimage which would culminate at…
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Continue reading →: Mungo and the Robin
The Times published this iconic painting in Glasgow by the street artist Smug On St Mungo’s Day (January 13th). The painting honours the patron saint and alleged founder of the city, St Mungo. It portrays the saint in modern dress and illustrates a legend told of him in his youth.…
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Continue reading →: 20+C+M+B+25
One aspect of christian life and practice which I feel churches, especially the Church of England, could help people to explore and develop more is visible expression of faith in the home. Sometimes this can be done by drawing on old traditions and expressing them in ways fitting to life…
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A Retired Rector's Reflections 