4 April 2025 We have seen mothers in wartorn Gaza grieving over the deaths of their children or sitting in the hospital beside an injured child. We have seen mothers in refugee camps making an hospitable home out of basic materials. We have seen mothers carrying children for miles in search of food and water. And mothers devastated by the earthquake in South-East Asia. But we have also seen mothers in our own land who for one reason or another have been devastated by the lack of care which they and their newborn children have experienced in our hospitals. Childbirth which is one of the most natural things that happen in the world has become fraught with danger. Last autumn, it was reported that 131 families had suffered the loss of a baby and catastrophic injuries to infants and mothers in maternity units across Scotland in recent years. This was two years after the Royal College of Midwives warned the Scottish Government about the crisis in staffing and resources in maternity un...
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3 April 2025 On Sunday, I visited Pittenweem Church to speak to the congregation as Interim-Moderator. I had been preaching elsewhere and entered the kirk just in time for the sermon. I sat in a pew looking out at some beautiful stained glass on the south wall of the kirk. The one featured the ‘Parable of the Sower’ and the other the ‘Stilling of the Storm’. The colour was vivid and the sunshine illuminated the features perfectly. I especially noticed the faces of the characters painted onto the glass. They reminded me of two windows that were commissioned in Logie Kirk during my ministry. They had each been designed and crafted by John Blyth. However, the windows in Pittenweem were not his although the faces looked like his artistry. They had been designed by William Wilson. His last commission was in Pittenweem. However, towards the end of his working life, he began to lose his sight as a result of diabetes and had to get a couple of his colleagues ...
2 April 2025 One of the major liturgical changes at the Reformation was the removal of the altar and the introduction of tables into the Kirk. This was in keeping with a different theological understanding of the Sacrament of Holy Communion. It became known in some quarters as ‘The Last Supper’ and this gave the game away. It was a meal served on a table rather than a sacrifice on an altar. Whilst we would be more nuanced now and recognise the symbolism of both, the table is greatly favoured in the contemporary church. Ever since the Church of England moved away from the High Altar fixed against the East wall and moved the altar into the nave, the table has been favoured in some quarters. We saw an excellent example of it in Lichfield Cathedral. It has an exquisite wooden table sitting in the nave. It had a simple white cloth on it draped at the sides but not on front and back. In this way, we were able to see the wooden carving on the front of the table. It was a ‘Tree o...
1 April 2025 There are no relics of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. Various locations in the Cathedral are associated with him in particular the place where he was slain, his first resting place in the crypt and his shrine behind the High Altar. Nothing remains of the shrine but a lit candle. Curiously, in the nearby Roman Catholic Church of St. Thomas, there are two relics of the saint. The one is a finger bone and the other is a piece of his vestment. They are displayed in a beautiful reliquary. Nearby, there are relics of another saint – Archbishop Oscar Romero’s alb and colourful stole. Oscar Romero was shot whilst celebrating the Sacrament in San Salvador on 24 March 1980. He is one of our most recent saints, canonised by Pope Francis in 2018. His last words were reputedly, ‘May God have mercy on the assassin.’ Shortly after the murder of St. Thomas Becket, miraculous things began to happen and people began to make their pilgrimage to Canterbury. At the...
31 March 2025 In Leicester Cathedral, there are two beautiful new stained glass windows. They have been created by the artist, Thomas Denny. to commemorate the reburial of King Richard III’s bones in the Cathedral. They are called ‘The Redemption Windows’. Over the years, there has been a lot of controversy about the hunchbacked King of England not least in the possibility that he murdered his nephews in the Tower of London in order to secure the crown for himself. A less favourable opinion was set by Shakespeare in his play about Richard III. Contemporary historians are more inclined to err on the charitable side or live in that space which holds what is known to be true without casting judgement on what cannot be proven. In designing the windows, Thomas Denny did something really interesting. He reframed what was known about Richard III in such a way that his story would connect with our common humanity and be illuminated by the life of Christ. One ...
30 March 2025 When we visited Leicester Cathedral, we saw the place where the bones of King Richard III had been buried. They had been discovered in a car park belonging to the Social Work Department and buried in the Cathedral ten years ago. Nearby, there was the Chapel of Christ the King. In the Great East Window, there was a memorial in stained glass to those who perished in the First World War. The central image is of the ascended Christ. There are some saints – Joan, Michael, George and Martin, the patron saint of the Cathedral. In one light, you can see the burning of Ypres in the background and St. Joan of Arc comforting a little girl who has become a victim of the devastation. Where is she going to find shelter for the night? This touching detail was created by the artist Christopher Whall. As we were looking at this window, an office-bearer approached, engaged us in conversation and explained all the detail of the window. It was very illuminating. I took him to b...
29 March 2025 When we visited Coventry Cathedral, we were in time for the weekday ‘Litany of Reconciliation’. It is said every weekday at 12 noon. Other churches associated with Coventry Cathedral join in especially on Fridays. The brief act of worship was led by a young woman and a group of students from Yale University were in the congregation. The Litany was devised in 1980 by Canon Joseph Poole. It was loosely based on the seven deadly sins – anger, gluttony, greed, envy, sloth, lust and pride. After each of the petitions in the Litany, the congregation was invited to say together, ‘Father forgive.’ All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class – Father forgive. The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own – Father forgive. The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth – F...