The reports for the AGM are available here online.
Sermon preached by Cedric Blakey on 1 November 2015
John Doyle: The St Mary’s ‘Company’
Cedric and Kelvin kindly allowed me to shadow them each for a week to see how St Mary’s functions and these are some of my observations.
We all experience the beautiful music and liturgy at services and worship – but what happens behind the scenes to make this happen so seamless, and what about the day to day running of a place like St Mary’s ? My immediate impression was that it is run like any other small company and, like any other company, it has to promote itself, sell a product, and keep afloat keep financially.
St Mary’s promotes itself in its own unique way, through the style and quality of its music and preaching, and its commitment to being welcoming, open, and inclusive. St Mary’s promotes itself in other ways too, making full use of twenty-first century technologal advances. It has its own website, which is constantly updated and kept ‘fresh’, and also uses social media and networking. Doors Open days allow individuals to pop in and see the building, ask questions and, hopefully, become more interested in the ‘company’ and its product.
The St Mary’s company, like any other, has to be innovative and diverse. As well as selling its main product, it has to make full use of its premises in other ways such as hiring out the building for concerts and exhibitions. Like any other company, accounts and reports have to be prepared and produced so that ‘shareholders’ know what is happening, know how St Mary’s is performing, and are aware of plans for future developments.
Observing the workings of the ‘company’ was both interesting and informative. I saw how Jo the administrator prepares the liturgical pew sheets containing the order of service, the praise, and music. I became aware of the seasonal changes to the kyrie, eucharistic prayer, and blessing, and that settings for the Propers change once every six weeks, and the Collect changes every week. These sheets are prepared some weeks in advance and involve a lot of hard work and time.
Then there is the logistics of producing the Sunday services, something which again is no mean feat, and entails a lot of organisation. There is what is called the ‘Cast’, a list of all the participants in the performance and every member has to tick his or her name on arrival. Some of the ‘performers’ are the celebrant, the deacon, the sub-deacon, the preacher, the MC, the crucifer, the acolytes, the thurifer, the lesson reader, the intercessor, the eucharistic assistants, and the welcomers.
Beyond the Sunday services there are other numerous other activities and groups going on such as the study groups, choir practice, visiting the sick, pastoral visiting, and Faith in older people (FIOP), where an elderly person who cannot come to church regularly is visited by a member of St Mary’s. There is also the Contact Group, which organise visits to individuals with particular needs, such as hospital visits and the like.
I was allowed to sit in on meetings with Kelvin, Cedric, and Jo, where everyday issues where discussed and plans for future developments were brain -stormed. What came across was that the ‘company’ of St Mary’s realises it cannot ‘rest on its laurels’ and has to be insightful and innovative to remain successful. It also came across that everybody has his or her own interests and remit and that, although it is their responsibility to carry out that duty, there appears to be flexibility. Importantly, there is a good sense of humour, which helps the working environment and light relief when needed.
Successful companies have, among other things a good and committed ‘workforce’, and St Mary’s has an abundance of this. There are approximately one hundred and fifty volunteers helping to make this company work. The obvious ones are the choir, the stewards, the open church volunteers, the hospitality volunteers, the bell-ringers, the young church volunteers, the welcomers, the servers, and probably others whom I have missed out. I spoke to a number of individuals who volunteer at St Mary’s and have done so for many years, and the success of the company is very much due to their energy and commitment, and to the efficient way their work is managed.
Then there are the working groups of St Mary’s such as the Compliance Group dealing with health and safety; the Property Group dealing with the fabric of the building; the Finance Group dealing with money, and the Core Group dealing with future development. Like any company, St Mary’s needs money to survive, and every year there is a Stewardship campaign asking individuals to review their giving and to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of the building and its salaried personnel.
Further entrepreneurial spirit is also revealed in the rental of the parking bays at the front of the building to local businesses, and of space in the spire to a telecommunications firm where they have installed their aerial.
You have probably noticed the main product this company sells has not been mentioned so far, and this is its CEO – God! Yes, St Mary’s is like many other small companies and has to run in a business like way, but the big difference between St Mary’s and other companies is that it is not in the business of making financial profit, but in the special business of promoting and worshipping God.
Gifts and Skills – Week 4
The final session will be a time of integration when we reflect on our learning over the previous weeks and discern our path forward.
Sermon preached on 25 October 2015 by John Riches
Gifts and Skills – Week 3
In this session we will think about the abundance of our talents and skills – God’s gifts within us. Are some more valuable than others? What is God calling us to do in the world?
Mary-Cate Garden: On Being Away
This week’s article comes from someone who was part of the St Mary’s congregation when living in Glasgow a few years ago, reflecting on that experience and on the impact that St Mary’s has made on her life since.
On being away: thinking (always) of St Mary’s:
I first came to St Mary’s at the end of a November. I’d had a bit of a bad go in another parish and I needed to find a home. The very first night I came—a little uncertain—I forgot my keys behind on a pew when I left after Evensong. Unable to get into my house and without my mobile I called the number listed on the bulletin from what had to be the nastiest, oldest phone booth in all of Partick. It took a while to connect with the Provost because he was out with the choir and servers but eventually we connected and keys and I were reunited.
A few weeks later when I came to speak to the Provost about coming to St Mary’s to perhaps join this congregation we met in the Parish office in the dark of late November/early December. As we met in his office I could hear fireworks going off for St Andrew’s day and as I left the sky was lit up. The very next Sunday—my first official day—coincidentally we had ‘champagne’ (it was fizzy and alcoholic) after the service and I knew that this was a “GOOD” place and a place for me.
It was in those first moments when I fetched up at St Mary’s, a bit wounded and needing to be there but also needing to be by myself with space around me, that I knew that St Mary’s was a place that offered welcome. Later, I came to understand that St Mary’s knew how to welcome, that the congregation had space for me. And this is, in a few words, is one of things that I remember most about St Mary’s: ‘welcome’ and ‘houseroom’. When I came to that first Evensong I knew that there was a place for me and for everyone else who found themselves at the Cathedral’s doors. A measure of that welcome, of that community, of the hospitality that St Mary’s offers is that it doesn’t just happen on the first day or in the fact that people say hello to you when you’re new. It happens all.the.time, over and over and over again.
For me—now that I am far away from St Mary’s and from Glasgow—what I remember best are the things large and small that come to me all the time. It’s that wall of noise that rose up when, after many tensions and a lot of worry, that first moment of coming together as Bishop Gene Robinson and the clergy, choir and servers processed to the altar on that glorious occasion when we all came together as God’s children and when the work of the Holy Spirit was made manifest in joy and in song. It is knowing that the list of the names of loved ones remembered on All Souls is kept close on the High Altar and in the body of the Church throughout all the year. It’s that amazing cacophony of sound on Pentecost as the many voices are raised up in their own languages. It’s the laughter before, after and sometimes during the services. It’s being welcomed into St Mary’s with prayer and it’s learning about prayer each and every Sunday. It’s about walking from my flat in Partick up the hill, over the river until I caught that first peek of the steeple and knew that I was coming home. It was about finding a place where I knew I could be most myself before God.
St Mary’s was where I grew in my own faith as I was both embraced and challenged. Challenged by different ways of doing and thinking about liturgy and worship but, at the same time knowing that we were all there for the same reason and that we knew why we had come together. Many times this came in everyday ways when the Holy Spirit was at work in quiet, ordinary ways. Sitting with a knitting group of an evening; that commitment to practical faith seen all the time and in so many and manifested in walking, meeting and doing; and seen in the ever-present sense of community, Whether community came in sharing a sleepy early Easter morning as the Paschal fire was lit and the smell of incense mingled with the smell of bacon cooking our breakfast or whether it came in the vision and mission of the Cathedral ‘open, inclusive and welcoming’ found everywhere from bulletin to website to the hearts of congregants.
Beyond that gift of welcome and community St Mary’s also gave me another gift. It was at St Mary’s that I was able to begin to articulate something that increasingly demanded my attention. St Mary’s was where I came face to face with my vocation, with my own call to priesthood. At the time I knew only that St Mary’s, as many places had, formed me. Since then I have talked about St Mary’s to others, used it as an example of a healthy, vibrant, loving, and growing church. St Mary’s has always had a place in my heart; now I use it in my vocation and formation. It was at St Mary’s that I learned what a Cathedral could and should be. It’s that ‘standard’ that I’ve set as benchmark for other cathedrals: for being community and for being in community
I’ve always thought it was significant that it was Advent Sunday when I first properly came to St Mary’s. As Advent is the beginning of the Church year, so Advent Sunday was the beginning of my journey with St Mary’s. Not only was it the beginning it was a time both of the season and in my own faith journey that was a bit dark. And as the fireworks lit the sky when I met with the Provost, so there was light in the dark and for me St Mary’s will always be remembered as being that light.
[Image Credit:www.freeimages.com / Ni Rocha]
Sermon preached on 18 October 2015
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Forum on Icons with Michael Dimi Lekakis
Sophie Agrell: In the steps of St Ninian
The cathedral was dim, a far cry from its Sunday brightness, as we, warmly dressed and sensibly shod, put down our bags and rucksacks and gathered in a circle of friends and strangers around the altar. We prepared ourselves to journey towards the sea with St Brendan’s prayer in preparation for setting sail, the prayer of a man preparing to leave all he knew for a strange land as so many did in the early centuries of the church, and so many thousands do today.
“Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea? Towards the elements, the noise, the wind, the spray, the hostility, the misunderstanding, the abuse, the ridicule, the uncertainty, the fear, the isolation?”
Unlike early Christian explorers or modern refugees, our journey was not a final departure laden with fear and supported only by trust in God but a day pilgrimage to Whithorn, undertaken in modern comfort on a luxury coach by our group of 32 pilgrims, led by Rev Cedric Blakey and Rev Kirstin Freeman.
It is a surprisingly long way to Whithorn, particularly when a closure on the A77 sent us on a winding diversion through many extra miles of the beautiful countryside of the south west of Scotland. When we arrived at Whithorn, we were very thankful for the thoughtfulness of the kind people at the Whithorn Trust visitor centre, who had arranged tea and coffee in generous quantity in an upstairs room. Some of us – me among them – felt an imperative need for cake after the early start and long journey and were not disappointed. The baking in the visitor centre cafe is notably good!
Suitably refreshed, we were driven out beyond the town to our first real ‘destination’ – St Ninian’s cave. Like so many other figures in the early church and since, Ninian is said to have spent time in a cave on the beach, seeking quiet and space to pray and meditate away from the community in which he lived. Approached through a wooded glen, the bay gives a tremendous sense of peace even today with no houses visible, just the pebble beach with sea-rounded stones in a variety of colours.
The cave itself is small and narrow, marked by centuries of inscriptions from visiting pilgrims, some of whom have also left stones from the beach or small crosses as symbols of their prayer, intent or presence. The site has been a place of pilgrimage for over 1000 years, with the earliest carvings (now in the Whithorn museum) dating from the 700s or 800s.
We gathered in a circle outside the cave for a very simple short Eucharist, led by Rev Kirstin Freeman. A central element of the service was the idea of laying down the burdens of worry, anxiety for self or others, the need for forgiveness that we had carried on our pilgrimage. In turn, we each poured out a little water from a glass as a symbol of all that we were relinquishing and laying down in God’s care. It was very peaceful with the sole accompaniment to our prayers the rapid rhythm of the waves sweeping onto the rocks in front of the cave and the slightly softer sound as each wave ran up the pebble beach.
Thus spiritually refreshed, it was time for bodily sustenance and we scattered to find picnic spots and enjoy the surprisingly warm sunshine and the beauty of the sea. For many people, this quiet relaxed time on the beach was the highlight of the day – certainly it was for me.
All too soon it was time to return to the bus (pausing to pick brambles) and to Whithorn itself where the group again separated to make the most of the warm, sunny afternoon as seemed best to them, whether eating ice cream, taking a guided tour of the archaeology or heading for a pub to watch Scotland’s crucial game against Samoa (Scotland won!) in the Rugby Union World Cup.
I explored the ruined priory, built to house the relics of St Ninian. The Romanesque ruins we now see form part of what became a far larger structure, a combination of cathedral, priory and parish church, although it is hard to get a sense of the scale of the mediaeval structures, so completely have they vanished beneath the old graveyard, itself full of old stones telling complicated stories of families’ misfortunes, long lives or the kindness of friends.
Earlier stones, mostly dating from the tenth and eleventh century and unearthed in Whithorn and the surrounding area, form the core of the priory museum. While the ‘Latinus stone’, Scotland’s earliest Christian monument with a Latin inscription and a chi-rho symbol is probably considered the ‘star exhibit’, I particularly enjoyed some of the stones with ‘Celtic’ interlace patterns – not least because the carvers made mistakes! Seeing the points where a curve had been carved in the wrong direction or a mistake made in the rhythm of the pattern made the long-dead carvers human and living for me in a way perfection could not.
After tea, more delicious cake and a brief service in the priory ruins, it was time to head north back to Glasgow where eventually tired pilgrims arrived, enriched by history and the beauty of Whithorn and St Ninian’s bay.