Anthropax's Old Blog

Lovely Sunday today, both in terms of weather and activities. In the afternoon, the family (minus Father) popped up to the local landmark, the Kymin (a hill overlooking Monmouth), which has a roundhouse at the top where the gentlemen of Monmouth could relax and play cards with a superb view. It also has a small Naval Temple dedicated by Nelson. We hired a croquet set, and had a couple of jolly good games, enjoyed even by my younger brother who dismissed it as 'silly' and 'sad' simply because I have affirmed my fondness for it more than a few times, after I started playing at University.

The other major departure from the norm was attending Solemn Evensong at St Mary's followed by a service of Benediction. I don't normally go to evensong on a Sunday, as after a nice sung Mass in the morning, evensong lacks lustre, but because it was a nice spiky service I nipped in. I did however get asked to read the second lesson (Hebrews 8), something I haven't done in a long, long time, and was more than a little nervy about. I got it over and done with though, popping up just after a good chanted Magnificat.

Then, on to the Exposition and Adoration! I had hopped to take a quick photograph, but it didn't seem quite right, and it would have been rather tricky to do so with one's head bowed in reverence! Sadly, hymn-wise, we didn't go for my favourite "Oh Sacrament Most Holy, a Sacrament divine!", but had this as the MBS was incensed:

Therefore we before him bending, This great Sacrament revere; Types and shadows have their ending, For the newer rite is here; Faith our outward sense befriending, Makes the inward vision clear.

After Benediction, we had the lovely Divine Praises, which have, among other things, a fair chunk on the Most Blessed Virgin Mary affirming the Immaculate Conception and the Glorious Assumption, as well as the chastity of St. Joseph (take that Cath Mac!). All in all, a good day.

Yes, it's time for that good old post genre: 'What has come my way recently book & other -wise' Two from Hereford Cathedral Library, but I can't seem to find them on Amazon, so I'll add them in a bit. From Waterstones (Three for Two - great shopping!):

I read it when it was first published, and wanted my own copy for re-reading pleasure


Partly because it was simply there, and partly to lend to Bridget at a future date


You know when you leave a book somewhere halfway through reading it? My first copy of this was left on an Olympas Airlines flight from Athens. Along wit ha rather nice scarf as it happens. I also wanted to find out what happened to the Vikings in Greenland. It seems they died.

From Amazon itself:



Everyone needs a little bit of Trollope in their life. And it gives you a fine chance to say the word 'trollope' in real life. A simple pleasure, but a good one.


"What now for man raised by Puffins?" What now indeed.

I only just recalled that today is the feast day of the above, parents of Our Lady. I had lunch today here, a place that works very well, considering that it's a cafe inside a church. What makes it even better is that the Church itself is quite high, with a good big statue of our Lady in a corner with votive candles, and a little statue of Our Lady of Walsingham in the chapel holding the blessed sacrament (nicely away from those unlikely to genuflect to Jesus). The cafe's also vegetarian, just like the early Christians were. I also picked up a good few books, some from the Cathedral library, and others from Waterstones. I also had a good rummage in the SPCK, but couldn't find the texts I wanted. I'll go into books in another post.

I've written quite a bit about my feelings on mediums, here and here (oddly, the starting point being The Da Vinci Code), and was therefore delighted with the post that popped up on Bloglines from John Walker, about all sorts of rubbish, the two that caught my eye being about Mediums and Cold reading

She can tell people things about them that she couldn’t possibly know! “I know how to do that too,” I replied. She was excited. “No,” I said, “I mean, I know how to cold read. I can do that trick. I know how you’re tricking people, and how you make it appear that you’re revealing that information.” At last she didn’t nod in agreement. After a couple of beats she went back to the magic of the universe, and the nature of energy, and how the cards can channel this. “No,” I repeated, “It’s cold reading.”

She then did a little bit of cold reading, not very subtly, as I brought up the next subject. Mediums.

It was fairly obvious I wasn’t about to be very tolerant of this one. She began slowly. “I do… I don’t… I have some. I have quite a few friends who are mediums, but I… I… I don’t believe in it.” I felt like this was permission for me to say, “Good, because it’s the most wretched, inhuman foulness I’ve encountered, preying on the recently bereaved to make money out of their grief. It disgusts me.” This was in no small part a reference to something she’d said earlier about how her clients are often, “Willing to try anything when they’re bereaved so will consider alternative therapies”. She said this as if it were a wonderful thing. I was then told about how she believes that once we “move on” we are completely moved on, and that you can’t speak to the dead. “I mean, I don’t need a medium to do it. I can speak to my dad. Not have a conversation!! But I can talk to him at any time, and he’ll reply. You know, a sign, a really clear sign.”

It would seem that right-wing blogger James Skinner is crossing the pond to study in the States. Good luck to him and all that, and I can't help feeling that his political views would be seen as less extreme over in the USA

Well, England's voted to allow women bishops, something that has really thrown a spanner in the works of relations with Rome and the East. I'm reminded of John's rather hyperbolic post on the subject of female bishops here, and the very interesting discussion that went on in the comments section.

Living in Wales, however, means that I'm in a different church to those over the boarder, and the vote doesn't apply here. My contact near to the Bishop of Monmouth has told me that the bish thinks it very unlikely that the Church in Wales will follow England any time soon, partly because we're 'higher' overall than England, and partly because we're so small, with only a handful of Bishops anyway, none of whom seem like they'll depart this mortal coil any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Anglican, Women Bishops, Wales,

I attended a funeral today - not anyone I knew, but just to gain a better idea of the 'behind the scence' things that go on. I've also got around to asking J&M Sewing to send a catalogue (with fabric samples - I never thought that would be a relevent part of my life! to think!) around so I can choose my first cassock (and alb, but a cassock is far more fun), I've just had a bit of a windfall from the sale of some land somewhere, so I can take a bit out of that to pay. The email that I recived tried to poke me in the direction of a cassock-alb, but I'm having none of that sort of thing!

I also asked my vicar about a conference that I saw advertised in the Church Times recently, for men thinking of a vocation to the priesthood. It's in September at St. Stevens House, and sounds like a rather good thing to go along to. The only thing is, that there'll be a load of Forward in Faith-type chaps there, who I feel slightly intimidated by, what with special Bishops just for themselves. Sam may be interested as well, but I'll have to contact the new DDO (the old one having given up the job), the only problem being that I'm not quite sure who he is...

Technorati Tags: Funeral, Cassock, Alb, Staggers, Forward in Faith, Vocation

...and havn't been telling you, my dear readers, what I've been up to. To remedy this, I'll go over my past week in an informal way. Enjoy.

Saturday - Ordination at St. Woolos Cathedral in Newport of David McGladdery (see here for press release and picture), followed by reception at Monmouth School. (*edit* - I've just found another blogger who went to St. Woolos - his account's here)

Sunday - Father McGladdery's first Mass, celebrated at St. Mary's (this is a little out of date - the statue of Our Lady is now bigger than life size and carved of stone, but, alas, not crown yet for our Queen of Heaven), followed by yet another small reception

Monday - Shift at Oxfam Shop

Tuesday - Meeting with DDO, starting with him giving an assembly at a local Church in Wales school about pilgrimage (Our Lady of Walsingham was brought up - get 'em young!), followed by a long chat about the state of the Church over coffee - Canon Pain would go RC if the communion split, but thought the idea of a 'Celtic Orthodox Church' sounded interesting. He suggested my purchasing of an alb and cassock, which would seem to suggest a distinct chance of my eventual acceptance! I'm meeting him on Monday at St. Thomas', where he's conducting a funeral, and wanted me to go along.

Rest of Week - Shifts at Oxfam, shifting books about, as well as various other things.

Last year I was walking through a market in Hong Kong, when a friend heard on a stallholders radio that there had been a small gas explosion in London, but it probably wasn't anything important. It was. I'm not going to go into what happened (try here if you can't recall, or here for a bloggers account of the time a funny thing happened on his way to work), who has died because of it (both due to bombs and other things) or what has changed (not much, compared to the impact of September 11th). Being out of the country meant we had to follow events over Television (notably Deutsche Welle and CCTV) as well as Newspapers (see below).

...I havn't updated for a few days. I am not, repeat, not dead. I am, however rather tired after a hectic few days involving Ordinations, Oxfam and (pre-)Ordinands. If you can stand the excitement then a catch-up post may be in the works.

We are also in the middle of a heatwave. This makes me lethargic (even more so, as some wags would note...) and a bit grumpy and sweaty. I won't post a picture. I've also been reading Foucalt's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, to while away the ennui.