The Priory Church, St. Bees

Click here for page one of the winter programme

Click here for page two of the winter programme 

Tim Taylor planned and led a special service with an emphasis on youth last Sunday.  We had a local youth worship band join us at our 10:30 service.  They played very well and were well received, leading in worship and singing some songs for the congregation.  Thanks to Tim and to Waymark for coming along.  We’re going to have them back again.  You can visit their web site by clicking on this sentence.  

Friday night the Friends of the Priory hosted a supper and quiz around a 1940s theme.  The food was prepared by Colin and Joan Wadey using World War 2 recipes.  Colin’s source for the rabbit meat in the rabbit stew was top secret.  I suspect, like during the war (apparently) the peddling of wild meat was a tricky business.  The food tasted great.  The quiz was run by Alan and Sandee Hawkins.  The vicar and his wife continued their rather successful parasitical streak by picking the winning team in advance and joining them.  We were crammed into New College Hall due to roof leaks in Old College Hall.  Below are some photos from the night (h/t to Ian McAndrew for the photos).

The Mellors came in authentic attire thanks in part I’m sure to the drama department at St. Bees School.

 A Boy Scout and the Warbricks (with a couple of gas masks withheld and hidden in the attic after the war–I’m not sure what they were expecting).

 Vicar clothing doesn’t change much.

 Colin and Philip dishing out the food to the orderly queue (but it looks as though Philip is casting a sharp glance at one of the over eager Boy Scouts outside the photo).

Heavenly Avarice [1]

The Theology of Prayer

By The Rev’d Dr. Robert Crouse

A Paper from a Western Canadian Theological Conference,

published in Dr. M. Treschow, ed., The Lord is Nigh: The Theology and Practice of Prayer

(Kelowna, B. C. Sparrow’s Editing, 1997), pp. 74-78.

 (h/t to The Parish of Petite Riviere and New Dublin)

I. Prayer as Human Desire

Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks:so longeth my soul after thee, O God.My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God:when shall I come to appearbefore the presence of God? (Psalm 42:1-2)Regarded from the standpoint of human psychology, and as a phenomenon of universal religious practice, prayer appears to be simply the articulation of human desires, human longings and human aspirations. “My soul is athirst for God,” cries the Psalmist, and it is indeed that thirst, that desire for God, which­ whether acknowledged or merely implicit ­underlies and impels every quest of the human spirit.

“All men by nature desire to know,” says Aristotle at the beginning of his Metaphysica.[2] But what is it that they desire to know? They long to know the reasons of things, the causes, the truth of things; finally to know that truth by which and in which all things have their truth. Thus Dante, in the Paradiso, compares the intellect’s desire to a wild beast’s racing to its den, where alone it can find rest.[3] What are all our sciences, what are all our fragments of knowledge but droplets from that fountain of which we long to drink in all its fullness? “My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God.

“What is our quest for happiness, but a desire for the good; and what is that good we seek­ whether knowingly or not­ but some participation in the pure and perfect good which is God himself? What is our quest for liberty, but our longing for God’s own city, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is above, and is free, and is the mother of us all? “My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God” (Ps. 84:2). What is our quest for beauty, but a longing for that pure and perfect beauty which belongs to Sion; and what are all our fragmentary images of beauty, whether in music, or painting,  or sculpture,  or  poetry, or whatever human arts, but pallid reflections of the unimaginable beauty of the countenance of God? “My heart hath talked of thee, Seek ye my face: thy face Lord, will I seek. O hide not thou thy face from me: nor cast thy servant away in displeasure” (Ps. 27: 9).

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St. Bees Parochial Church Council

Minutes of the meeting held on Monday 3^rd November 2008 at 7.30pm in New College Hall.

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When I was a child and teenager (and young adult) I loved setting things on fire. Fire is one of my most favourite things. I used to spend time figuring out which household chemicals burned with the most interesting light. I used to spend a lot of time simply burning things that I found lying around the house. I also spent a lot of time being grounded by my parents and scaring myself. I set fire once to a ceiling light switch string and was amazed at how quickly the fire sped up the string towards the light fixture. Luckily I had a glass of water on hand to extinguish the fire. I usually planned ahead in order to avoid catastrophe, but one time (at least) I thought I had extinguished a fire in the forest behind where I lived, only to return later to see evidence of the fire department having sprayed everything down… Read the rest of this entry »