Blog on the Learig

  22 December 2025 For centuries, the Latin Vulgate was the official   version of the Bible used by the Church in the West. St. Jerome, who was commissioned to translate the Bible into Latin by the Pope in the late fourth century, translated the Greek, ‘Rejoice, highly favoured one’ as ‘Ave gratia plena’, ‘Hail, full of grace’. As a consequence, Mary was considered to be full of grace and having such a plenitude of grace was able to share it through the prayers of the faithful. But notice what has happened here. Instead of being the focus of God’s choice, the one who is highly favoured by God, she becomes the focus of other people and through her misappropriated plenitude of grace is considered worthy of their worship. Mary’s sanctity is not in being filled with grace. It is to be found in her obedience to the Word of God. Despite her perplexity, her fear and the uncertainty of   what lies before her, she says simply, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be...

  21 December 2025 We were in Perth on Thursday evening to hear the Dunedin Consort perform Handel’s ‘Messiah’. Under the direction of John Butt, leading from the harpsichord, they work with minimal resources. The chorus, which contained the four soloists, numbered a dozen. The soprano, Nardus Williams, and the bass, Dingle Yandell, sang effortlessly. Their posture was restrained. Clearly, they saw themselves as instruments, allowing the music to be heard without becoming a distraction to the audience. By contrast, the alto, Lotte Betts-Dean and the tenor, Joshua Elliott, were much more animated, using not only their voices but their bodies to bring out the drama of what was a religious opera staged without costume and set. This was a story full of intense dramatic action and insight revealing events of cosmic significance. The oratorio reaches a climax when the trumpets and the timpani join the consort in the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. This is sustained throughout the third and ...

  20 December 2025 I have a book called, ‘Refuge’, a place of safety. It features Mary and Joseph and the Christchild. They are making their escape from the wicked King Herod. The book has been written from the point of view of the donkey for 3-7 year olds. I bought it in 2015. Underneath the title, there is a sticker. On it, there is the logo for ‘War Child’. Round the sticker   it says, ‘£5 from the sale of this book will go direct to War Child’. This book has just been reissued to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Although the book is   more expensive and the logo is just the same, it says that ‘£1 from the sale of this book will go direct to War Child’. Today,   there is even greater need. ‘War Child’ is   ensuring a safe future for every child affected by war. Over 3.7 million children in Ukraine are internally displaced. Over 6.3 million children live in other countries as refugees. In Gaza, over 42,000 children are injured, 21,000 have been left ...

  19 December 2025 On Wednesday night, the kirk at Pittenweem was invited to worship with the local Episcopal Church. They had organised an evening service of lessons and carols based on the famous Kings College,   Cambridge nine lessons but with a welcome reduction to six. The service was well-attended with some young people in scout uniform in attendance too and everyone carrying candles. We were sitting near the front and noticed the nativity neatly located at the foot of the Communion Table. There was something odd about it. The figure of Mary was quite different. She looked as if she had wandered off from an olive wood nativity for the other characters were colourfully ceramic. The priest revealed the secret. Last year, the congregation lost its Mary and had borrowed the kirk’s Mary for the night! A fitting ecumenical initiative. I remember the beautiful olive wood nativity which I found in a cupboard in Stenton Church. The figures were all wrapt up in newspaper a...

  18   December 2025 In Charlotte, North Carolina, a pastor and his congregation have displayed a nativity scene in front of their church. The usual cast has been arranged in their traditional places. In addition to the Biblical figures, some life-sized contemporary government officers in black are there too. They have been strategically placed behind the nativity figures creating a menacing presence. They are Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers or ICE Officers. They are here to question or even arrest our Christmas cast. In a video, a man in a van gets out and approaches the nativity. He is respectful of the Biblical characters but he shows no respect for the USA government officers. In fact, he knocks them down to the ground and kicks at least one of them when he is lying flat. It is clear that he is not happy with this mixture of piety and politics. The pastor is unsympathetic. The Christmas scene has been constructed to make people think. But in this case,...

  17 December 2025 We attended a Christmas service in which a poem by UA Fanthorpe was read. It is called, ‘Cat in the Manger’. It begins, ‘In the story, I’m not there.’ And continues to ask the question and insist that a cat was an obvious occupant of any stable. The cat who is the narrator of the poem, blames ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, /who got it wrong, /Who left out the cat’. Certainly there is no mention of a cat in the Infancy Narratives. But, come to that, there is also no mention of a donkey, an ox or a cow! There is a legend about a cat in the manger. It is said that the baby Jesus was crying because he was cold. Mary for all her saintliness couldn’t quieten him. The cat in the stable jumped into the manger and snuggled into the baby giving him warmth and a constant purr which soothed him to sleep. Sounds plausible but, of course, there is no record of such an event in the Gospels as the poet acknowledges. Does it matter? There are two ways of looking at this. ...