What a wonderful day! It started well as, on my drive to Brentwood, ClassicFM announced the welcome news that composer Karl Jenkins is to be knighted. Last year I was fortunate to attend a marvellous concert of The Armed Man, coincidentally also in Brentwood. Jenkins' Mass is such a wonderful, beautifully crafted piece, it is difficult to believe it is only 15 years since its first performance. The live performance has stayed with me as one of life's memorable experiences.
And so to Brentwood Cathedral for an ecumenical study day given by the Rev Professor John Morrill on Luther and Calvin and the modern church. A marvellously learned speaker with the appropriate amount of humour, he started with a slide comparing Sepp Blatter and Fifa to the late 15th century to mid 16th century popes and the state of the Catholic church at the time.
I thoroughly enjoyed the study day, despite a numb bum and having been verbally accosted afterwards by two from the audience who took exception to my suggestion that there is a (fortunately very small) minority of catholics who still appear to worship rather than venerate Mary. I decided I rather liked Luther, although not Calvin. Luther, I felt, would not feel too uncomfortable with the modern catholic church under Pope Francis. He would have liked the way that the catholic church rediscovered itself with Vatican II, and Pope Francis' continuation of this with his challenges to the church and its clergy.
On the way home I stopped in for a cup of tea with a friend, and finally had a phone call from my husband who had set sail last night on the Fastnet qualifier race from Burnham to Ostend. Apparently he had spent most of the journey delighting his fellow crew members by being violently sick over the side of the boat. Apparently the 23 hour trip (yes 23 hours land lubbers) was a particularly rough one with one boat registering Force 9 gusts. I think not taking the seasickness tablets at the beginning of the race rather than after he felt ill was a more likely explanation. But then I've sensibly been on dry land for the last day and night.
And so to Brentwood Cathedral for an ecumenical study day given by the Rev Professor John Morrill on Luther and Calvin and the modern church. A marvellously learned speaker with the appropriate amount of humour, he started with a slide comparing Sepp Blatter and Fifa to the late 15th century to mid 16th century popes and the state of the Catholic church at the time.
I thoroughly enjoyed the study day, despite a numb bum and having been verbally accosted afterwards by two from the audience who took exception to my suggestion that there is a (fortunately very small) minority of catholics who still appear to worship rather than venerate Mary. I decided I rather liked Luther, although not Calvin. Luther, I felt, would not feel too uncomfortable with the modern catholic church under Pope Francis. He would have liked the way that the catholic church rediscovered itself with Vatican II, and Pope Francis' continuation of this with his challenges to the church and its clergy.
On the way home I stopped in for a cup of tea with a friend, and finally had a phone call from my husband who had set sail last night on the Fastnet qualifier race from Burnham to Ostend. Apparently he had spent most of the journey delighting his fellow crew members by being violently sick over the side of the boat. Apparently the 23 hour trip (yes 23 hours land lubbers) was a particularly rough one with one boat registering Force 9 gusts. I think not taking the seasickness tablets at the beginning of the race rather than after he felt ill was a more likely explanation. But then I've sensibly been on dry land for the last day and night.
