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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 18, 2012 9:27:50 GMT
I think she can hear you!
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 18, 2012 12:04:07 GMT
Me? Didn't say a word ...
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 18, 2012 19:18:33 GMT
It's like that Mel Gibson film where he can hear what the women are thinking!
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 19, 2012 11:45:37 GMT
That wouldn't half speed up confessions ...
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Post by tangent on Dec 19, 2012 15:35:37 GMT
You do confessions, Fr G?
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 19, 2012 19:19:01 GMT
Fetch... the soft cushions!!
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 19, 2012 23:05:41 GMT
... and the comfy chair ... ... and Old Possum's Book of Practical Penances ... You do confessions, Fr G? As part of a pastoral process - if someone came in off the street and expected to get it all over in one hit I would be concerned that they were not really completely clear about what needed to be attended to. Sorry - that might be too subtle an answer ... or vague ...
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Post by tangent on Dec 20, 2012 1:15:28 GMT
I ask because as far as I know, our vicar does not do confessions. At least he never advertises the fact. (Although we do confess our sins, in penitence and faith, firmly resolved to keep God's commandments every Sunday at 8 o'clock.)
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 20, 2012 8:00:38 GMT
I suppose there is a line here somewhere between having someone to talk to about such things and the official thing with the split cubicles. I would have thought that most vicars would be accessible on a general basis for such things to their parishioners, but probably not to the point where it took up too much of their time. I personally try to keep sinning down to a minimum in the first place!
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 20, 2012 15:23:30 GMT
Well indeed so ... not least because in Anglican practice confession is made in open chapel with the two sinners sitting next to each other! The RCC in England is having to think of doing something similar, or maybe using glass walled cubicles because of the safe-guarding issues.
I expect that your parson would be quite happy to talk over the state of your spiritual life, Mr. T., and he would probably do exactly the same as we all do ... except use the word confession! The Anglican rule is based on the direction in the Book of Common Prayer, all may make private confession, many do, some bleepin' well ought to.
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Post by tangent on Dec 20, 2012 20:09:46 GMT
Highlighting the confessional highlights the sin and makes it a significant event. It ignores the myriad of sins that are not brought into confessional. A Methodist minister once told me that the fringe of his congregation didn't think they ever sinned. They had never murdered anyone, they hadn't had an affair, they didn't fiddle their taxes. And yet each of us, if we look deeply, sins twenty or thirty times a day in tiny almost insignificant events. This to me makes the confessional anomalous because it doesn't, indeed it cannot, deal with life's everyday little sins. Do you think that matters?
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 20, 2012 20:35:39 GMT
Copyright infringement is a sin... they'd be inundated with YouTube alone!
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Post by tangent on Dec 20, 2012 21:37:49 GMT
"Forgive me Father for I have sinned, I copied a photo and posted it on FaceBook."
I don't want to belittle the confessional but I think we delude ourselves if we think it solves anything.
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 21, 2012 11:34:21 GMT
Ah! But you have already made the important point yourself - naming the sins forces us to confront the denial of sinning, like your fringy Methodists for example: sitting down with the spiritual director (the essential preliminary) and talking through the state of a person's inner life brings into focus the real issues of their spirituality - and I bet your priest is actually doing that all the time - now, the the fact that you could make your last post suggests to me that you are reflecting already on the condition of your inner life and therefore are on the way to being sufficiently self-reflexive to fall into the first category (anyone can) that I mentioned earlier. Those Methodist folk sound like they may be in the third category (needing to go three rounds with a good confessor).
In other news - Disaster! Calamity! Or At Any Rate A Degree Of Inconvenience! The Rector is poorly and has had to be written out of the rota for the next three weeks! What a time for it to happen but there that is the strength of working in a mixed team as we do (three priests, a deacon, three readers and other authorised lay ministers) such a blow is something that we can ride through.
(Fr. K there's a pm for you about the Rector.)
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 23, 2012 23:10:53 GMT
I did the silliest thing today - wrote a sermon for this morning's masses and forgot to take it with me - so I had to preach from the preparation without a fixed text: always makes me edgy but it seemed to go well in both the oral versions. The text is preserved for prosperity here - it's one of my social justice rants mixed in with a good helping of sin and the Advent themes of heaven, hell, death and justice ... with some spice from the great Mayan Calendar resetting issue ...
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 28, 2012 18:05:38 GMT
Right agriculture here we come! The nice people next door to the presbytery are going away so I am on chicken herding duty for the next couple of days (with collection rights on the free range eggies) ... this does not really involve much effort - just unleashing them in the morning and closing the run at the end of the day - they take themselves home a little before sunset and settle down for the night.
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Post by Kye on Dec 28, 2012 18:12:54 GMT
Sounds easy peasy.
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Dec 29, 2012 19:00:58 GMT
Indeed so - and the Feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury was duly celebrated today by the grateful reception of three eggs! We also had a wedding in the parish, two older members of the congregation had their wedding today at noon, his third, her second, very brave to enter a new relationship in their seventies.
But tomorrow ... tomorrow ... is the last day of the celebrations for the 950th anniversary of the founding of the parish - I think I am unlikely to see its millennium but it was special to see this anniversary. We do have an Hon. Curate who was present at the 900th anniversary but he was very young then and I am not!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2013 11:43:03 GMT
Wow, the 950th birthday, that's amazing!
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Jan 2, 2013 12:26:16 GMT
All the parishes round here have very ancient roots: the mother church of the deanery was founded more than 1300 years ago. One of the nicest lollipops my colleagues have given me is that I have now been able to say mass at the altars of the four oldest parishes and also the two newest.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2013 21:02:24 GMT
That does sound very impressive. The Baptist church we used to go to was very new. Boring new. It wasn't even in a proper church, it was a boring, white, small building with a flat roof.
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Jan 3, 2013 22:13:21 GMT
What no pointy bits?! How on earth did you manage! Our newest one was built in 1958 and is really nice - like a really swish cinema to be honest - but no straight lines ... curved front to the raised sanctuary and a lovely barrel roof, all very tastefully painted.
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Post by Alvamiga on Jan 4, 2013 8:46:34 GMT
Chesterfield managed straight, pointy and curved!
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Post by tangent on Jan 4, 2013 11:23:51 GMT
#Nice one Colin, nice one son. Nice one Colin, let's have another one!#
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2013 12:24:52 GMT
That looks weird to me!
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Jan 4, 2013 12:29:31 GMT
That would be because it is weird!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2013 12:39:54 GMT
Well, I didn't want to sound offensive.
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Post by Fr. Gruesome on Jan 4, 2013 16:52:04 GMT
As if you ever would.
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Post by tangent on Jan 4, 2013 16:53:46 GMT
Hey, it's a national heritage
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Post by Alvamiga on Jan 4, 2013 19:04:07 GMT
It looks Photoshopped in the picture, but it does in real life, too!
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