Tag Archives: Scotland

To the edge at last, in Donegal.

church, poetry, saints, , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday we commemorated St. Columba. It was the Sunday of the Blind Man in the Orthodox Church, and I was getting ready to chant-read the prayers of the 3rd and 6th Hours before Liturgy. Usually on Sundays there are two changeable parts of those readings called troparia, always one for the Resurrection, and often another for the feast or saint of the day. There was another sort of hymn, a kontakion, for the Blind Man, but there was not a troparian hymn in the lectionary for that event.

So our rector said I might read the troparion to St. Columba, which I did. I can’t find the text of it anywhere online now; I read it in the Horologion, or Book of the Hours, which is a big book of texts used, mostly by the reader or cantor, in liturgical services of the Orthodox Church, both the fixed and movable parts.

He also suggested that I take home a copy of that tome, to spend a while familiarizing myself with it. Occasionally over the years someone instructs me, in a very hit-and-miss fashion, on how to find what I need in the Horologion, but I seem to be dense when it comes to learning anything that I have to read standing, at a lectern, for example. So I’ll be glad to bring the book home and read at my leisure through the church calendar, with its treasures of saints and feasts.

Fr. Malcolm Guite was remembering St. Columba yesterday, too, and tells the story of how his mystical connection to the saint was renewed in his youth, “Columba and My Calling,” on his blog. An excerpt:

“One evening, St. John’s Eve it was, right at the end of my journey, I came round a headland at sunset into a beautiful little bay and inlet on the west coast in Donegal, just as the fires were being lit around the headlands for St. John’s Eve, and there was drinking and fiddle playing and dancing round the fires that evening. And I asked where I was, and they said Glencolmcille, and I felt a sudden quickening and sense of connection, as though a memory stirred. And they asked me my name and I said ‘Malcolm’, and they said, ‘Ah that is why you have come, because he has called you’, and I said ‘who?’ and they said ‘Colm has called you, Malcolm, for this is the place he fought his battle and gathered his disciples and from here he left for the white martyrdom and Scotland.” 

St Columba’s Church, Gartan, Donegal.

He has written a touching sonnet in honor of his saint and that “small epiphany,” from which I took the title of this blog post.  You can read “Columba,” and/or listen to him read it: here. It’s one of the poems in his book, The Singing Bowl.

St. Andrew — and then December.

Christmas, church, saints, , , , ,

Attending Divine Liturgy on the feast of St. Andrew — what a life-giving way for me to start the day. It was a long and busy day that had me driving back and forth and all over, which is why I am only now getting to the computer to tell about it, now that we are, liturgically, in the following day.

It was a chilly morning, in the middle of the week; the little church was cold in its bones and for the first half hour I stood so close I was almost touching the wall furnace. Who would come on such a morning for a relatively unimportant commemoration? The rector came, of course, with joy. The choir director led a choir of four singers, including a nun from the monastery in the next county.

Two men named Andrew and Andrei were there, because it is their saint’s day, and who would want to miss that? One mother of an Andrew came to remember her son’s saint.

St Andrew's Day is a day of celebration in Scotland (Getty Images)Saint Andrew, the first of the men whom Christ called to be His disciples, eventually became the patron saint of Scotland, and Mrs. Anderson came in her tartan plaid skirt to remember that aspect. She also pointed out to me that her married name means Andrew’s Son.

I myself like to participate for the sake of the Scottish ancestors that both my late husband and I have; not only that, but two of my grandsons were born on this day, and that makes it special to me. Six or eight more people were present who weren’t obviously tied to this specific feast, but I’m sure all of us were happy to receive the Eucharist and be united to Christ in that way.

Mrs. Anderson had yet another reason to be there: She was very close to a very dear parishioner named Constantine, who died on this day more than ten years ago, and every time we celebrate the feast of the Resurrection with Divine Liturgy on November 30, we also sing memorial prayers for him. She made a small portion of the memorial dish of boiled wheat, called koliva, for us to eat together in his memory at the end of the service. You can’t see the wheat in this picture because she topped it with lots of dried fruit and fresh pomegranate seeds. It did make a good breakfast.

By then, the church was warmed up, but we could not linger as long as we might have liked. Out we went into the sunny day, and to all of our responsibilities. One of mine was going to the dentist, and I’m glad to get that out of the way. Afterward, I had the fun of shopping for special ingredients — and more butter– for baking Christmas cookies. The boys at the checkout stand got to talking about how they used to put out cookies for Santa. And here it isn’t even December yet! Although it likely will be before you read this.

So I wish you a December that is peaceful and bright.
(And don’t eat too many cookies before Christmas!)

We feel the flaming wet romance.

nature, quotes, , ,
gl G Chester rain
GJ in Chester, England, 2005

More on rain from GKC:

“There is a wild garment that still carries nobly the name of a wild Highland clan: a clan come from those hills where rain is not so much an incident as an atmosphere. Surely every man of imagination must feel a tempestuous flame of Celtic romance spring up within him whenever he puts on a mackintosh. I could never reconcile myself to carrying all umbrella; it is a pompous Eastern business, carried over the heads of despots in the dry, hot lands. Shut up, an umbrella is an unmanageable walking stick; open, it is an inadequate tent. For my part, I have no taste for pretending to be a walking pavilion; I think nothing of my hat, and precious little of my head. If I am to be protected against wet, it must be by some closer and more careless protection, something that I can forget altogether. It might be a Highland plaid. It might be that yet more Highland thing, a mackintosh.

gl DSCN0006 Highl rain
Rainy day in the Highlands 2005

And there is really something in the mackintosh of the military qualities of the Highlander. The proper cheap mackintosh has a blue and white sheen as of steel or iron; it gleams like armour. I like to think of it as the uniform of that ancient clan in some of its old and misty raids. I like to think of all the Macintoshes, in their mackintoshes, descending on some doomed Lowland village, their wet waterproofs flashing in the sun or moon. For indeed this is one of the real beauties of rainy weather, that while the amount of original and direct light is commonly lessened, the number of things that reflect light is unquestionably increased. There is less sunshine; but there are more shiny things; such beautifully shiny things as pools and puddles and mackintoshes. It is like moving in a world of mirrors.”

— G.K. Chesterton, “The Romantic in the Rain.”

 

In spite of our lack of macintoshes, I believe that Pippin and I did feel the romance of our visit to the Highlands and other damp British places, and Pippin gets credit for the photos.

St. Andrew and His Cross

church, history, saints,
Where we sang this morning

Happy St. Andrew’s Day! I had the honor and joy of celebrating the feast in church this morning. Added to the usual liturgy and communion were prayers and song lifting up one of our dear elderly parishioners who died in the Lord early today. Now the memory of his repose will always be tied to this feast.

Andrew was the first of Jesus’s disciples, and centuries ago became the patron saint of Scotland and other countries. I wore my tartan plaid skirt as I always do on November 30th, and this year I had a new purple Celtic scarf to wear, recently brought from Scotland by Pearl.

Some of you might remember that I wrote about this years ago; I’m sorry to say that while trying to repost those thoughts this morning I deleted them instead. Ah, well, it turns out to be a blessing, because the accident caused me to find that just today John Sanidopoulos has written a thorough history of how it happened that the Scots chose this saint for their patron, and his cross for their official national flag.


This form of cross is called a saltire and is linked to St. Andrew because he was crucified on a diagonal cross in the first century. I learned that the first use of the X-shaped symbol was on medieval soldiers’ clothing, probably a white image on a black background. And today there are many Scottish nationalistic garments and items that hearken back to this design, like this belt buckle.


It was only in the last decade that Scotland made St. Andrew’s Day an official bank holiday. The nation also has another flag you might be more familiar with, the Lion Rampant, the unofficial national flag that belongs to the kings and queens of Scottish history. And there is the Union Flag of the entire U.K. Time was, Scotland could not legally fly its official satire on its national holiday of St. Andrew, but that sorry situation has been rectified of late.

These national days and flags have been part of the cultural consciousness since the 14th century, a consciousness that naturally changes from generation to generation. The original and deeper meanings of this cross are probably lost in the background fog of the mind of the nation.  It is encouraging to think that even if they have largely forgotten him and their Christian heritage, St. Andrew continues to pray for the people of Scotland.