Dodgy Catechism

I should point out that the link to this page was emailed to me ages ago, I wasn't searching the site or the subject matter!

From this website relating to Catechism of the Catholic Church we see the following:

By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.  The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose. For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

Force of acquired habit, eh.  So let me get this right. If you masturbate then that's wrong in the eyes of the Roman Catholic church, but if you're addicted to masturbation then it's OK?

Discuss!

Bunnies

Happy Easter!

Come and crucify Stainer

OK, I know t'InterWeb is global, but if anyone reading this is local to the west central belt of Scotland, sings, and fancies a go at the cheesy but strangely excellent Crucifixion by Sir John Stainer, then you could probably do worse than come along to Thomas Coats Memorial Church in the High Street in Paisley on Good Friday where there will be a Come and Sing The Crucifixion event happening as a fund raising exercise.

The choir rehearsal is from 3.30pm until 6pm, and tickets for that cost only £3 (or £5 including a copyright-free version of the score to use - not the Novello edition).

Or if you don't sing, but fancy listening, you could come along to hear the performance at 7pm that evening. Tickets for audience members are only £5 (£3 concession). And you probably still have to be fairly local to make it a realistic proposition!

Further information and a booking form for singers can be obtained from Matt Edwards, the conductor, who is the director of music at Thomas Coats Memorial church.

And I should mention that it's a particularly fine building, and well worth visiting for architectural reasons alone!

Why not give it a go? I'll certainly be there.

Poetry of the prayer book

A recent posting on Can Bass 1's Blog reminded me of the sheer poetry of the Book of Common Prayer. How about this for starters from Compline:

Brethren, be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith.

Doesn't that just conjure up the most fantastic image?

And how about this, the general confession from Evensong, a particular favourite of mine:

Almighty and most merciful father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us.

But thou O Lord have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent. According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord: And grant O most merciful father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous and sober life, to the glory of thy holy name. Amen.

Poetry, sheer poetry. And there are so many more examples from which to choose.

Nedivity

I originally created this post on 19th December 2007, almost exactly a year ago, but I like the image so much I think it's worth bringing back to the top of the pile for now, particularly after my recent post about Glasgow Neds.

Happy Christmas folks!

Perspective

And just to put the previous post into perspective, the image on the right is of St Mary's Cathedral and the red arrow points at the corner of the parapet where I was standing looking up to take the photo earlier that same day.

You can see the statue of St George in its niche just above the arrowhead. I guess it's probably more or less life size.

The parapet is about three feet high or so, pretty much waist height, and it looks a longer way down when you're up there than it looks from the ground!

St George

Statue of St George, on St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow, originally uploaded by Lay Clerk.

I like this image. It's one of the statues at the top of the tower, which is the bottom of the spire, of St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow's Great Western Rd. It looks roughly north west I think.

The chance to go up the tower arose unexpectedly the other week when a friend, who happens to be a bellringer, was going up to do some maintenance work, so RE and I, and another two, went up with him, and then continued up past the ringing chamber, up past the bellchamber, and out onto the parapet. Quite a view from up there!

Unfortunately I only had my old wee Olympus Mju camera with me and not my new Finepix one, but I think I managed one or two reasonable shots, of which this is probably my favourite.

Superstition

Friday 13th today. Probably best just to stay in bed.

But work calls, and I don't think superstition would be reason enough for them to allow me the time off!

The image? I just think it's funny in a thought provoking way, and it was the closest I could find on my hard drive to the theme of superstition! If that makes sense.

Can't remember where I got the image, it was somewhere random on t'InterWeb, so I can't credit it properly, sorry.

It's a Catholic thing

Seven Deadly Sins

Any questions? No? Good. It really works!

I've seen this image on so many sites on t'InterWeb that I have no idea where it originated. If anyone can clarify that I'll be happy to attribute it appropriately.

Easter Eggs and genuflecting Provosts

Well, according to the first official guesstimate there were about *8,000 motorcycles there yesterday, and the money collected (as of half an hour ago which was the time the site was last updated as at the time of writing this) was £21,300 raised. Apparently at this point last year £16,000 had been raised and last year's final total was over £30,000 so it looks good so far!

The image on the right, taken by Stewart D. Macfarlane (thanks Stewart) shows me with RE riding pillion, next to the Provost of St Mary's Cathedral, the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, who it has to be said is looking slightly dishevelled with his Cope at rather a jaunty angle. He must have had a bit of a rush of blood to the head, since he genuflected as we arrived in front of him outside St Mary's where he'd been standing waving at the passing bikers exactly as he did last year too. It's nice to know that a senior clergyman knows his place when it comes to BMW motorcycles and their riders/passengers!

I think he ended up with RSI of the arm too, because he was waving for a long time, which probably explains the Cope dishevellment.

The short trip across to the wrong side of the road was fun too, passing between moving cars on the way over, and moving buses and cars on the way back to join the other riders!

Last night we saw a few other photos of us on the run, so if and when I get any copies I'll post them here, with the gracious permission of the photographer(s) hopefully.

The verdict then on the Easter Egg Run? It was a lot of fun, and we'll be there next year for sure.

*update 4th April: I now believe the official police estimate was around 7,000 bikes.

Poetry

Apparently the following is from a sermon on death delivered in St Paul's Cathedral on Whitsunday 1910, while the body of King Edward VII was lying in state at Westminster. The author, Canon Henry Scott Holland (see picture), also wrote the hymn, Judge Eternal Throned in Splendour, which I rather like, but I suppose that's at least partly because it's a good tune.
Anyway, I find the following very helpful.

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effort, without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral.

Requiescat in Pace

Been busy lately visiting my gran in the nursing home to which she moved a couple of weeks ago after falling ill on, I think, Christmas Eve and spending a few weeks in hospital.

Sad to say though that after a short illness (short in comparison to her relatively healthy previous 87 years that is) she passed away last night. In no pain, and as comfortable as she could be.

I'm glad to have managed to spend some time with her in her final days, as obviously have other family members including my brother who, with one day of notice, flew over from his home in California on Friday to see her, and returned home yesterday morning. I'm glad he managed it. It was good to see him, albeit in those circumstances. Other family members have been magnificent in the time they have devoted to gran, and not just in the past few weeks. But I suppose that's what families do, isn't it?

Rest Eternal grant unto her O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon her.

But not too bright a perpetual light thank you very much, if that's OK, because she couldn't stand bright sunlight in her eyes.

Just had a call to say she will be taken to church on Monday afternoon and the funeral is on Tuesday. Work are very understanding and obliging, and so I think I'll take both days off.

Don't feel much like Blogging just now, funnily enough. Got choir practice tonight to take my mind off it, hopefully. More in due course.

Gunpowder, treason and plot

Last Monday, 5th November, was bonfire night, when in the UK celebrations are traditionally held over a failed plot to blow up the houses of parliament in 1605.

The Gunpowder Plot, as it is known, was an attempt by English Catholics to blow up the Protestant King James I of England and VI of Scotland and his largely Protestant aristocracy.

Guy Fawkes, who as an aside was baptised in the church right next to York Minster, was the explosives expert who was to set the charge. But he got caught. And executed. But not before he was tortured by his captors, a fate which could only be authorised directly by the King or the Privy Council. The King wrote in a letter:

"The gentler tortours are to be first used unto him et sic per gradus ad majora tenditur, and so God speed your good work"

So Fawkes and his co conspirators were to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

Now, every year on 5th November, bonfires are lit, Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy and fireworks are launched, all to keep up the tradition of killing Catholics.

The photo was taken by me last Monday from a bridge over the River Clyde, looking towards Glasgow Green where the council had their annual fireworks display.

And its colours they are fine

I was out for a ride on the bike on Sunday. I found myself passing Holytown in Lanarkshire and decided to stop off to spend a moment or two at the grave of my great grandparents, Sarah Shaw and John Henry, who were originally from Carrowlustia, Calry, Carbury, County Sligo in Ireland, and came over to Scotland, via a stay in Liverpool, some time before 1906.

Their grave is the one bottom centre of the photo at rather a jaunty angle.



I never knew John Henry, he died 8 years before I was born, but I well remember my Gran Henry, who died in February 1975, when I was 13. She was a formidable woman who, despite having been away from Ireland for 70 years never lost her broad, lovely, Irish accent.

All her days she was a member of the Orange Order, and I believe that in her latter years and confined to a wheelchair she was pushed along in various annual processions in Lanarkshire. I make no apologies for her in that regard. She was an adult and clearly had decided that this was something right for her and despite my opinions on this I have no right to say she shouldn't have been involved in it.

Anyway, as I was standing by their grave, I took the photo above and somehow it seemed right that people were marching past behind the Union Flag. OK, it wasn't the Orange Lodge, but a group of Boys' Brigade members, but I still can't help feeling that Gran Henry would have been happy to have that flag borne past her final resting place.

Amazon

If you've used Amazon you'll know that they make recommendations based partly on items you've bought (suggesting similar books/dvds etc) and partly based on other things bought by other Amazon customers who have bought the same sort of things as you (if that makes sense, which I suspect it doesn't). I bought a Spike Milligan book recently (the last in his war years autobiography, it is a comedy as you might expect from Milligan) and the following is an email I subsequently received from Amazon:

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk,

We've noticed that customers who have expressed interest in books by Spike Milligan have also ordered Health Monitoring of Structural Materials and Components: Methods with Applications by Douglas Adams. For this reason, you might like to know that this book is now available. You can order your copy for just £66.50 by following the link below.

Book Description
This book covers the health monitoring of structural materials and components, and is split into three main areas: 1) loads identification 2) in situ damage identification (diagnostics), and 3) reliability prediction (prognostics). This book appeals to newcomers to the subject and those with a greater understanding, and application of the technical skills involved, such as practitioners and researchers, who wish to have a reference text to address current and future changes in this emerging field. The introduction itself consists of a definition of terminology, a review of the current state of the art technology, and the approach to health monitoring of structural materials and components that is adopted. The second section comprises ...

I thought, it's by Douglas Adams and he wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so it must be a comedy and that's why it's been recommended. No, it's not. It's what it looks like from the title and description. It seems to be written by Douglas E Adams, who is not the same person as Douglas Adams.

It's obvious that Amazon's clever system of working out recommendations doesn't account for people being interested in more than one topic. Clearly there is a Spike Milligan fan who is also a structural engineer, but that doesn't mean that every Spike Milligan fan loves structural engineering. And I should say I'm not really a big fan of Milligan except for his war years books. In fact I probably like structural engineering more than I like Milligan's other books/poetry/TV etc.

On an unrelated topic, it's Sunday morning and I'm getting well used to not going to church, although funnily enough I'd rather not have had a ruptured Achilles Tendon. I've stopped missing church in fact. Not that I have ever missed morning services, they mean less than nothing to me, but I don't miss Evensong either.

Passion

This week would seem to be the right time to watch the film.

Particularly the DVD extras.

The division bell (end)

At this time of division in the Anglican church we could all do well to take on board the inspirational message contained on the right. Discuss.

On an unrelated topic, a rather excellent website has just been relaunched by a friend, RS, which lists pubs and eateries frequented by members of Cathedral choirs. Have a look, particularly if you're going to be paying a visit to any of the cities listed.

Affirming Laudianism

RN sent out a link to an excellent Website tonight. Have a look, it's very good!



I haven't quite worked out yet just how far into their cheek the creator of the site has his/her tongue! I sympathise with a lot of the ideas put forward though!

Happy New Year!

I've just returned from a short trip to Berwick upon Tweed. Passed it loads of times, passed through it several times, but never stopped there before. It's a nice wee town just inside England on the east coast (about two miles south of the border with Scotland) and it has a lot of history within its walls.

At short notice I was invited to spend New Year with a friend's family, so we went down yesterday and I came back today, leaving my friend there until tomorrow. It was a good time, and I even enjoyed the two walks round the walls/ramparts in the very high, very cold wind!

We even went to Evensong at the local parish church, one of very very few which were built during the Commonwealth period (i.e. Cromwellian). Interesting service! When we arrived there were nasty "elevator" style carols being played through the sound system. The vicar then arrived and noisily clumped his way down to the front where he essentially flicked a switch cutting the (shite) music dead. He was wearing a longish black Crombie style overcoat over which he wore a black stole (i.e. no cassock). He started the service by saying that for various reasons the organist/choirmaster couldn't be there so there would be no music. He went on to say that his daughter was having contractions at that moment and he had to get back to the house ASAP to look after children while she went to the local hospital, two people from the congregation were in hospital "passing over" by which I guess he meant in the act of dying, several people were unwell, it was awful weather, and basically he was sorry the service was going to be cut short, but thanks for coming anyway (which came across about as insincere as I suspect it was meant). He sang the Ferial responses very flat and of the 8 in the congregation I suspect I was one of the few who sang them back to him (couldn't quite decide whether to alter the flatness but in the end thought it'd be easier not to rock the boat, notwithstanding any flatness with which I normally sing!). At one point he announced we would now say the Song of Simeon, the Nunc Dimittis, before almost shouting "Oh no, I mean the Magnificat" just as I was wondering why we were missing out the first canticle! OK he had other things on his mind, but rumour has it that this performance was not entirely out of character! Oh, and we had communion at the end of Evensong from the reserved Host. Bizarre. No communion service, just a request for anyone who wanted it to come up to the altar where we said the "we do not presume to come to this Thy holy table ...." bit, which despite it being probably more than 10 years since I took part in a service with that form of words, I remembered word-perfectly. Good old Anglican Pavlovian response!

Today we took a trip across the causeway to Lindisfarne, the first time I'd been, which is slightly strange because I lived in Northumberland for a few years but never got round to visiting. It was a getting a bit too dark, a wee bit too cold and a big bit too windy to have appreciated it properly but I saw enough to make me want to go back for another look during a better part of the year (two pubs!).

Anyway, just back, so need to chill out a bit after the drive (in the wind!).

Happy New Year to everyone!