Author: pilgrim

Friday Frivolity: Songs of Praise

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The BBC, or “The Beeb” as they’re affectionately known, produce a TV programme back in the UK called “Songs of praise”.  It is a fairly middle-of-the-road religious programme which is broadcast from a different church each week.  The show is usually composed of interviews with local figures, a snippet of that week’s sermon and lots of footage of people singing very energetically and piously for the camera… 😉

This week, the programme is broadcast from St. Stephen’s…

"Blessed are the peacemakers…"

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Next week is the anniversary of the death of Brother Roger of Taizé in France. If you have never heard of this man then you have really been missing out…

Although he lived much of his life in France, Brother Roger was originally from Switzerland, the son of a Protestant Pastor.  In 1940, after studying Reformed Theology in Strasbourg and Lausanne, Roger felt God calling him to go to Taizé, a small town south of Paris.  For two years he lived a life of prayer and helped those fleeing from the Germans into unoccupied France.

Founding of a community

After being forced to leave Taizé, Roger returned in 1944 where he began to found a group of men living together in community.  This eventually flowered into the ecumenical monastic community which forever after would be associated with the name “Taizé”.  The focus of this community is prayer, silence, peace, social justice and reconciliation.  Brother Roger wrote many books on these topics.

Monks in the “Church of Reconciliation”

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"May they be all be one…"

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Below is the reflection I gave on 22nd January 2005 during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in response to the follow passage of Scripture:

After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said:

… Consecrate [those you have given me] in the truth; your word is truth….I pray not only for these but for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me.

May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.  I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one.  With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you loved me.

…. I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them – John 17:1, 17-23, 26

Introduction

This is the week of prayer for Christian unity, so I intend to speak for only a couple of minutes so we can get back to the business of prayer.  I wanted to say just a few words about the reading that was chosen for tonight’s service.

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V2, We Love You: Introduction

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As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m planning on offering a series of blog entries about the “Ecumenical Council” commonly known as “The Second Vatican Council”, or simply “Vatican 2”.

Most Catholics will be able to tell you that Vatican 2 was important, but, in my experience, fairly few are actually able to articulate well why it was important.  Many are not able to explain what exactly Vatican 2 was, what it actually taught and why it is important in the history of the Catholic Church.  It is my hope that this blog will help shed a little light on these issues.

I think that it is best, before I get stuck into the meat of Vatican 2, that I attempt to give something of a general introduction to the concept of councils in general, and ecumenical councils in particular.

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V2, We Love You

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At the moment I’m reading through the documents of the Second Vatican Council in preparation for what we will be covering in the JP2 Group towards the end of the year. I thought it would make sense to do a few blog posts about what I’ve been reading.

The Second Vatican Council is probably one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented Councils of Church history, together with the Council of Nicea and the Council of Trent.

I can’t think of Vatican 2 without remembering an incident that happened back in England when I was a member of our church’s hospital visiting ministry.  Each week, two members of our group would go to the local hospital and visit all those patients who had written down “Roman Catholic” on their admission forms.  We would visit each of them, offer them something to read and check to see if they wanted to receive Holy Communion the following day.  It was a large campus and it took us several hours to cover the entire hospital.

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Friday Frivolity: Baby Got Book

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Happy Friday!  I don’t know about you, but for me this week has simply flown by.  It’s now only a few hours until it’s time to hit the beach, but to get you through those remaining hours, here’s a little bit of Friday Frivolity….

“And if you’re Catholic, there are even more…” 😀

Oh, and for those ladies looking for a new Bible, I can thoroughly recommend the new RSV New Testament Study Bible which has commentary from Dr. Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch 🙂

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