A New Beginning

Surrexit Christus Alleluia!

After three blissful years with Blogger, I've given into the wily and altogether more sophisticated charms of Wordpress and have moved my blog across there, where it is, you'll be pleased to know, business entirely as usual.

The URL is www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.wordpress.com.

See you on the other side!

It's not Easter Saturday!

It is amazing how many people I met on my travels yesterday who think that today is Easter Saturday.

The person who served me in Halfords swore blind it was Easter Saturday and nothing I could say or do (including showing him my liturgical calendar on my phone) would persuade him of anything different.

Today is, "trust me I'm a priest," not Easter Saturday but rather Holy Saturday - the day before Easter Sunday which is the day before Easter Monday which is the day before Easter Tuesday which is a few days before, you guessed it, Easter Saturday.

Anyhow, some may be wondering why I was in Halfords on Good Friday (which was yesterday, not Easter Friday which is next Friday)? Well, so I can recommend a fine product to all you soft top convertible owners out there.

Being Good Friday and after church, I was naturally in a mood to consider the washing away of my foul deeds and wrong-doing. And so I thought I'd start with my neglect of the roof of the Swedish Stunner. These things, for the blissfully ignorant, start to get moss etc growing on them and lose their colour through what may best be described as natural atmospheric conditions.

So, I grabbed myself a special "By Royal Appointment," no less, Auto Glym Cabriolet Roof Cleaning Kit (pictured) and you know what, it has done a great job!

Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same about my attempts to convince the salesperson as to what day it actually was.

Good Friday

The most haunting day of the year for the Christian family throughout the world.

By different means, and by using different ceremonies and none, the death of Jesus of Nazareth once more becomes the central focus of the living memory of Christian people.

For some Christians the cross gives (sometimes a glib) meaning to human suffering. For others it is nothing less than the means by which human beings are saved and set free to be whom they really have been created to be. For others it is worthy of veneration in and of itself as the central focus of devotion for the faith. For others it is a prism through which new light can be shed on their own experience of life and pain and death.

I see all these approaches and understandings of the suffering of Jesus of Nazareth as valid. But it is on the last of them that I am concentrating especially today.

The public re-telling and indeed representing of the sufferings of one man turned my mind again to that classic of the Christian tradition - Henri Nouwen’s 1970’s book The Wounded Healer.

In the final chapter of the book Nouwen disucusses how the wounds people experience in their own lives can in fact be a great aid in the serving of others who have been wounded themselves - in body, mind, spirit or “estate” as the old phrase had it.

He says of it:

Ministry can indeed be a witness to the living truth that the wound, which causes us to suffer now, will be revealed to us later as the place where God initiated his new creation.

Maundy Thursday

Today is the first day of the Easter triduum - the three holiest days of the Christian faith's entire year.

All around the world today (or more sensibly on other days this week or even in previous weeks) priests of every hue, some of whom are not even recognised as priests by those of other hues, meet to renew the vows they made to a Bishop at their ordination near or long ago, and to receive from him or her the holy oils for use at times of illness, death and also new life in their congregations.

I always found such get togethers among those of my own particular hue to be fascinating occasions, often uplifting and usually insightful, if not a little incestuous at times.

And then tonight in many congregations sees the celebration of the mass to remember the institution of the holy communion at the Last Supper. I'm taking part in such a Maundy Thursday mass myself, a service which has at its heart the washing of hands. In the good old days (whenever they were) it was always feet which were washed (in imitation of Jesus' actions at the last Passover Meal he celebrated with his apostles). But I guess washing and drying the hands of others rather than their feet is a little more congenial, if a little less intimate, among people of a certain age and disposition than whipping off the old socks with goodness knows what to be found underneath!

The symbolism however remains constant - namely that there is still huge fulfilment and joy to be found in a lifestyle which seeks at all times to serve others rather than seeking to be served oneself.

Eucharist and feet-washing go together powerfully - Brother Alois of the Taizé Community, where I began this holiday, has said of them:  Are we sufficiently aware that the Eucharist and the washing of feet are anticipations of the Kingdom? They open a horizon of hope at the heart of the world.

The Last Days

I will be spending some of the last few days of this quite mammoth Easter holiday (and it's not even nearly Easter yet) across the choppy waters of the North Channel on the dear old Emerald Isle - or at least in quite an Orange part of the dear old Emerald Isle.

I will be travelling to Northern Ireland for the first time with the Swedish Stunner on that terribly exciting fast Seacat from Troon. As far as I know it is actually the first time that she will have needed her sea legs in her remarkably long and so far mainly happy life.

Let's hope that she enjoys a pleasant enough journey, if not the weather when we actually get there.

Yes indeed, the forecast of a wet and cool north-eastern Ireland makes it no place at all for a topless car.

Eucharistic Prayer G

It's always a pleasure to be asked to assist in our local church and especially at this time of the year.

Our Rector asked me recently if I could celebrate the Eucharist for Palm Sunday using the canon of the mass below.

It is, to the unitiated, the beautifully named "Prayer G" (no relation to the Ali of the same name) from Common Worship of the Church of England.

And, I must confess, there are some lovely phrases in it for this ecclesiastical season.

The passage which contains the words: He offered his life for sinners, and with a love stronger than death he opened wide his arms on the cross has, I think, some quite beautiful cadences in it.

In a rather disparaging comment on the prayer as a whole, Bishop David Silk wrote: Prayer G is a very attractive text and has much to commend it. But it has the disadvantage of following the pattern of Eastern Eucharistic Prayers and this raises devotional issues.

I can't say, being more used to a set of eucharistic prayers which follow the Eastern Tradition rather than the Western, I can take on board what he is saying. And for me the rest of the prayer has a great power, as well as moments of tenderness about it:


Blessed are you, Lord God,

our light and our salvation;

to you be glory and praise for ever.

From the beginning you have created all things

and all your works echo the silent music of your praise.

In the fullness of time you made us in your image,

the crown of all creation.

You give us breath and speech,

that with angels and archangels

and all the powers of heaven

we may find a voice to sing your praise…



How wonderful the work of your hands, O Lord.

As a mother tenderly gathers her children,

you embraced a people as your own.

When they turned away and rebelled

your love remained steadfast.

From them you raised up Jesus our Saviour,

born of Mary,

to be the living bread,

in whom all our hungers are satisfied.

He offered his life for sinners,

and with a love stronger than death

he opened wide his arms on the cross…



Father, we plead with confidence

his sacrifice made once for all upon the cross;

we remember his dying and rising in glory,

and we rejoice that he intercedes for us at your right hand.



Pour out your Holy Spirit as we bring before you

these gifts of your creation;

may they be for us the body and blood of your dear Son.

As we eat and drink these holy things in your presence,

form us in the likeness of Christ,

and build us into a living temple to your glory.



Remember, Lord, your Church in every land.

Reveal her unity, guard her faith,

and preserve her in peace.

Bring us at the last with all the saints

to the vision of that eternal splendour

for which you have created us...

Curse of the Starving Class

An engaging night at the The Lyceum yesterday to see this amazing tragic play written by Sam Shepard and first performed in New York away back in 1978.

Intensely dark, the production was well balanced with moments of great pathos as well as side-splitting dysfunction which all in all made for a really good and entertaining night out.

And then of course the true star of the show: "Sam, the Lamb" - a real life lamb who endeared himself to the entire audience, being on loan from the nearby Gorgie City Farm for the three week run of the play and who was, I must say, excellent throughout. He never missed an entrance.

When just before midnight we left the theatre and a meal afterwards for the joys of the Lothian Road there was similar pathos and side-splitting dysfunction to that which we had just seen on stage on display, but this time in real life and with real people.

I know, I know, I must indeed be getting old if I find dodging people throwing up on the pavement distasteful.