Heard on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this week: ‘The French people could have seen the Notre Dame fire as a story of despair and destruction, but instead are seeing it as a story of resurrection and renewal.’ This was not a ‘Thought for the Day’ by our Holy Week and Easter preacher Canon Angela Tilby (to whom grateful thanks are due for her profound and eloquent series of addresses) but the comments of a secular reporter.
Read MoreIn the End, God…
The Christian faith is in decline in Britain with a majority claiming to have no religion. This year’s Holy Week talks and sermons by Canon Angela Tilby will address the reasons for this loss of faith and explore what the cross and resurrection might mean today for those who persist in believing - and for those who would like to believe.
Read MoreOne of Portsmouth’s oldest buildings and one of its newest small businesses are teaming up for a Rum Festival in Portsmouth Cathedral on the evening of May 11th.
Celebrating the best of local, national and international Rum, and featuring live music, a Rum Shack and food to buy on site. This promises to be an amazing event in unique surroundings.
Read MoreOne of the great untruths of the modern age is the idea that all time is uniform and equally empty of meaning. Secular time asserts that one day is much like any other: nothing but an expanse into which a certain amount of activity can take place. Without a sense of divine direction, purposeful events or progress, modern societies find it difficult to assess any meaning in time and its associated activity beyond a sense of productivity and time wasted.
Read MoreThere is understandable uncertainty, insecurity and fear among many people at the moment on all sides of the multi-faceted Brexit debate. In the midst of it all, we cannot pretend that everyone agrees with us, and that makes it challenging not least in church, where people come together from a variety of backgrounds and opinions, and yet we still want and need to pray together. What better moment than Mothering Sunday to be reminded that families do not always agree, do not always even get along, and yet are held together by the act of mothering and being mothered?
Read MoreTen years ago a small group of us met with Lord Adonis huddled in the Junior Library at Salisbury Cathedral Choir School. The meeting managed to release government funds for cathedrals to take choristers out into local primary schools, to share their love of singing to a lost generation of young singers. Out of this meeting came Sing Up! which ran for four years from 2007 with a government investment of £4,000,000.
Read MoreOn the final weekend of March we will be lighting the Cathedral lantern green and switching off for one hour from 8.30pm to 9.30pm on Saturday 30th in solidarity with global efforts to shine a light on climate change and biodiversity loss.
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I looked at the calendar of events and it seems like we are journeying a lot at the moment, and because I am always thinking of songs to fit every occasion, a phrase from the hymn “Brother, sister, let me serve you” sprang to mind: “we are pilgrims on a journey, we are brothers on the road”. There’s a lot of journeying in Lent. We contemplate the temptation of Christ and journey with him to the cross. At the moment, people of all ages are preparing for baptism and confirmation, rituals that mark different stages in a Christian’s journey.
Read MoreThe new Dean who will take charge of Portsmouth’s Anglican Cathedral will be installed in a special service on Saturday 16th March.
Canon Dr Anthony Cane will become the new Dean of Portsmouth – the most senior clergy person at the cathedral – during the installation service. He will also be the second most senior clergy person in Portsmouth’s Anglican diocese after the bishop.
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The next week marks an exciting new moment of adventure for the Cathedral, as we welcome Anthony as our new Dean. To use a metaphor from our Gospel reading today, the Cathedral has faced the wilderness period of vacancy, and we can now embark upon a new period of ministry.
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‘Shriving’ – a word I can’t quite believe is real, and yet for some strange reason I’m glad it does for I take great pleasure in saying it. In shriving, a person confesses their sins and receives absolution for them. It’s a very old tradition indeed. Over 1000 years ago a monk wrote in the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes: ‘In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him.’ Try and say that last bit 5 times and very quickly!
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As our national political life becomes ever more fraught, it is perhaps a good moment to be reminded of the need to remove the log from our own eyes before we see and judge the speck in our neighbours’ eyes. It is also a good time to be reminded of the importance and impact of trading fairly with others, in particular for the poor. Fairtrade Fortnight starts officially tomorrow.
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I am not sure that anyone who knows anything about church structures and governance would describe either the electoral roll or elections to chapter as a highlight in anyway!
However I do want to draw your attention to the changes detailed in these notices to our Cathedral Chapter. In their simplest form the changes are that Chapter will now have:
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We have choristers progressing to the next stages within our Cathedral Choirs this week. Tonight Jacob, Rafferty, George, Thomas, Nick and Eli are receiving their medallions as Senior Choristers and Eddie receives his Chorister medallion. In addition, James Lomas will be installed as a new bass Lay Clerk – although he has been singing here in fact since October. Also, with the Cantate Choir tour to Iceland coming up at half-term from 19th to 24th February, two of our Choristers, Lily and Miranda, will have been installed and vested in their surplices at a Cantate Evensong in the week. The choristers arrive to rehearse at 8.00am on school days, some of them attending Cathedral services four times a week to sing.
Read MoreMusic and Mental Health
The beginnings of written-down music was within ancient Christian liturgy. This most beautiful of all music, plainsong or Gregorian chant is the foundation of all Western Music. With roots in the Jewish faith, it is a music idiom that transcends time and still inspires composers today who will weave its shape into contemporary works. And of course it is still sung world-wide within the church services in the Anglican and the Roman tradition.
Read More“Haunting, beautiful, very moving”: these are some of the words that a recent visitor to the latest arts installation at Portsmouth Cathedral had to say about local artist Pete Codling’s ‘Soup of Souls’.
The exhibition by Portsmouth based artist Pete Codling was created and inspired during an artist residency project in the summer of 2018 as part of the Portsmouth Cathedral Annual Theme for 2018: TIME.
Read MorePortsmouth, 26th January 2019
The Bishop of Portsmouth has appointed Canon Peter Leonard to be the next Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight.
Peter is currently Canon Chancellor at Portsmouth Cathedral, and has been acting dean there since the retirement of the Very Rev David Brindley last summer.
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According to the media, last Monday was Blue Monday, because it is the most miserable day of the year. The excitement of the festivities has worn off, pay day is still too far away and the bleak, wintry weather feels as though it is here for ever. Blue Monday itself is a construct by a travel company to encourage folks to book holidays in the sun to cheer themselves up. However, clever marketing aside, this time of year can be a struggle. Liturgically, we are still in the season of Christmas, but it doesn't often feel like it.
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I cannot but help feeling a sense of despair at the moment in regard to the state of British politics: the events in Westminster this week seem to present our country as a bit of a shambles. Too many in politics appear to put party interests and unity first, and refuse to properly govern and make decisions in the wider long term interests of the nation and for the welfare of society.
Read MoreThe Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is traditionally observed from the 18th to the 25th January. Portsmouth Cathedral will observe this event at our Sunday Eucharist on Sunday 20th January, 10.30am, with a sermon by The Revd Dr William Adam, Archbishop of Canterbury’s Ecumenical Adviser and Ecumenical Officer at the Council for Christian Unity.
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