Gerry Lynch’s Blog

Sermon Preached at St Mary Magdalen, Oxford, 3 November 2019

Posted on November 3, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

Sermon Preached at Sung Mass at St Mary Magdalen, Oxford, 3 November 2019 (All Saints’ Day transferred) Gerry Lynch

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

That was a great hymn we started with this morning, wasn’t it, For All The Saints? And there’s more to come later. All the same, the hymn that I’ve always found most appropriate for this season of All Saintstide isn’t in the hymnbook used in this church, the New English Hymnal. At the moment, the New English Hymnal is being revised and I hope they might make space for my favourite All Saintstide hymn in the revision. Can you guess what it is? You’ll all know it. It’s the one that goes:

♪ Oh, when the saints! ♫
♫ Oh, when the saints! ♪
♪ Oh, when the saints come marching in! ♫
♫ I want to be in that number, when the saints come marching in! ♪
[Yes, I did break into song from the pulpit… and even had a wee dance.]

Now, the reason for that – that performance – from the trainee preacher from vicar school was to ask you all a question: do you want to be in that number when the saints come marching in? Do you think you have it in you to become a saint? Is saintliness something that we should aspire to? Or does sainthood instead represent an impossibly high standard, and the attempt to achieve it leave us doomed to failure at best, and at worst arrogantly claiming to be far better than we could possibly be, smugly looking down on the rest of humanity from a pedestal so high that it gives everyone else a clear view of our many and obvious faults? Continue reading →

Posted in Christianity, sermons | Tagged all saints, all saintstide, christian, christianity, heaven, religion, revelation, saints, sermon, sermons | Comments Off

Weird Travel: The German Soldiers Commemorated in A Country Where They Committed a Genocide

Posted on September 17, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

Swakopmund always feels a little odd, like a piece of Germany somehow teleported into Namibia’s remote and thinly populated Atlantic Coast. Even in that context, the presence of the Marinedenkmal in the centre of town feels utterly weird.

The statue memorialises the German marines who died in the suppression of the uprising of the Herero and Nama peoples in what was then German South West Africa in 1904-5. Although the plaque states that they “Mit Gott für Kaiser und Reich Kämpften” (fought with God for Kaiser and Empire), it is widely accepted that the German suppression of the rebellion was the 20^th Century’s first major genocide. German troops killed not only indigenous fighters, but non-combatant men, women and children in intentional acts of collective punishment. Others were driven into the desert to die of thirst and exposure, or simply allowed to die of exhaustion. Survivors of the massacre were put into forced labour camps. Around 50% of Nama and 80% of Herero died in the revolt and the three years of collective punishment which followed. Continue reading →

Posted in Travel | Tagged africa, colonialism, namibia, war, war memorials | 4 Comments

Sermon at Christ the King, Johannesburg, 8 September 2019

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

Sermon Preached at Christ the King Anglican Church, Mondeor, Johannesburg (Diocese of Christ the King) on Sunday 8 September 2019 (Twelfth Sunday After Trinity)

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple”. (Lk 6.26)

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes even the most Bible-based of Christians encounter a passage of Scripture that offends much of what they take as given about the Christian faith. Often it is a saying of Jesus Christ Himself. When that happens, there are two natural reactions: one is to try to minimise the importance of that passage; the other is to try and rationalise away the obvious meaning of the words, to somehow force them to fit a more conventional understanding.

This morning’s Gospel reading contains just such a phrase, and I ask you to avoid either of those temptations, and to allow for the possibility that Jesus Christ will have known exactly how disturbing and uncomfortable these words will have been. They will have been disturbing to the devoted and strong families of both the Jewish and Roman Imperial cultures of his day. Beyond that local context, this passage is offensive and disturbing to people across the vast chasms that separate us from the world that Jesus Christ walked, for these words strike at the heart of the closest human relationships that are most treasured by people in every place and time. God can only have inspired these words as Holy Scripture knowing them to be offensive.

In early 21^st Century Christianity, family values have come to be seen as being at the very heart of the faith. I do not for a moment wish to decry strong family values. Those of you who live in homes shaped by them are truly blessed – give thanks to God for your fortune and pray that he will guide you so that this will continue. But there is a strong warning here that we must not make an idol of our families and, indeed, that we must not make an idol of any of our preconceptions of what living as a Christian means. None of us can ever perfectly and completely understand the message of the Christian Gospel – that perfect knowledge belongs to God alone. We Christians are not perfect, and there is a great temptation to pick out the parts of Scripture that are comfortable for ourselves. It is a natural temptation to pretend that we already at least very close to what God wants us to be. Instead, cherish these difficult parts of Scripture, and allow God to provoke you out of your comfort zone, driving you forwards to become ever more like the people he has made you to become. Continue reading →

Posted in Christianity, sermons, South Africa | Tagged anglican, christian, christianity, family, sermon, xenophobia | Comments Off

The Mosque of Bohoniki

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

The mosque at Bohoniki is one of the last places of worship of the Lipka Tatar community which still survives as it has since the late 14th Century in what are now the borderlands Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus.

The mosque was built at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries, probably in 1873 to replace an earlier mosque destroyed in a fire. During World War II, the mosque was destroyed by the Nazis, who organised a field hospital on the site. After 1945, the mosque underwent several renovations several times. In 2003, the roof was renovated; the tin roof was changed to shingle roof. In 2005 a general renovation was carried out.

It is a simple wooden building built on a rectangular plan with dimensions of 11.49 m × 8.03 m. It has been restored with the help of the Polish and Turkish governments and the European Union.

This is the minbar, a pulpit in any mosque, where the imam stands to deliver sermons, as well as delivering a wider range of readings and prayers. Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Islam, Photography, Reflection, Travel | Tagged Architecture, history, photography, poland, religion, tatar | Comments Off

Cathedral of the Theotokos, Vilnius

Posted on June 15, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

The Orthodox Cathedral of the Theotokos in Vilnius. Originally built by architects from Kievan Rus’ in 1346-8, commissioned by Grand Duke Algirdas for his Orthodox wife, Uliana of Tver. From 1609, it was used by Eastern Rite Catholics until it was abandoned after a major fire in 1748. It was reconstructed in 1785 only be wrecked nine years later by the Russian army in the Kościuszko Uprising.

In 1808, a local prelate sold the neglected building to the Vilnius University. After that, the building hosted an anatomical theatre, library and other university facilities for half a century.

The old cathedral was confiscated and transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church during the mid-19th Century Russification campaign in Poland and Lithuania. The Russian architect Nikolai Chagin was responsible for its reconstruction from 1865 until 1868 in a style imitating medieval Georgian architecture. The cathedral was damaged during the Second World War but was restored in 1948-57. Today the cathedral belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church and was once again renovated in 1998. Its services are attended mostly by members of the ethnic Russian and Belarusian communities of Vilnius.

Posted in Photography, Travel | Tagged churchcrawling, lithuania, orthodoxy, photography, religion | Comments Off

Vilnius Cathedral

Posted on June 14, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

Vilnius Cathedral, West Elevation The Cathedral Basilica of St Stanislaus and St Ladislaus of Vilnius (Lithuanian: Vilniaus Šv. Stanislovo ir Šv. Vladislovo arkikatedra bazilika) is the Roman Catholic mother church of Lithuania.

The coronations of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania took place within its confines. Many famous people from Lithuanian and Polish history are buried there During the Soviet period the cathedral was converted into a warehouse. Masses were celebrated again starting in 1988, although the cathedral was still officially called ‘The Gallery of Images’ at that time. In 1989, its status as a cathedral was restored.

It is believed that in pre-Christian times, the Baltic pagan god Perkūnas was worshiped at the site of the cathedral. It has also been postulated that the Lithuanian King Mindaugas ordered the construction of the original cathedral in 1251 after his conversion to Christianity and appointment of a bishop to Lithuania. Remains of the archaic quadratic church with three naves and massive buttresses have been discovered underneath the current structure in the late 20th century. After Mindaugas’s death in 1263, the first cathedral again became a place of pagan worship. In 1387, the year in which Lithuania was officially converted to Christianity, construction began on a second Gothic Cathedral with five chapels. After several burnings down and restorations, the building substantially reached its current form in works were completed in 1783 (exterior) and 1801 (interior), according to the neoclassical design of Laurynas Gucevičius

The Cathedral and the belfry were thoroughly renovated from 2006 to 2008. The facades were covered with fresh multicolor paintwork, greatly enhancing the external appearance of the buildings. It was the first renovation since the restoration of Lithuania’s independence in 1990.

This article incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.

Posted in Photography, Travel | Tagged church, churchcrawling, lithuania, photography, roman catholic | Comments Off

Cathedral of St Nicholas the Wonder Worker, Białystok

Posted on June 13, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker is the Orthodox cathedral in Białystok, and the seat of the Bishop of the Białystok-Gdańsk in Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Białystok is the tenth largest city in Poland, and the largest in the north-east, which has a relatively large Orthodox population compared to most of this predominantly Roman Catholic country.

The 40 metre high edifice was erected in 1843-46 as a parish church, following eastern Poland’s ‘partition’ into the Russian Empire, and both an anti-Uniate persecution campaign and migration from other areas due to the industrialisation of Białystok, which led to a rise in the Orthodox population in the city. It was built in a neo-classical style typical of Russian Orthodox architecture in the late 18^th and early 19^th Centuries.

It became the cathedral of the Białystok-Gdańsk Orthodox Diocese in 1951. In June 1991, Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral as part of his official visit to his native Poland.

Posted in Christianity, Photography, Travel | Tagged christian, christianity, church, churchcrawling, photography, poland | Comments Off

Holy Cross Church, Vilnius

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

The history of the little church of Holy Cross, Vilnius, dates back to 1543, when a chapel was built on the site to commemorate the martyrdom of a group of Franscians in the 14th Century. In the 16th century, a Gothic chapel of the Holy Cross was built here by the Bishop of Vilnius Povilas Alšėniškis and soon the adjoining house was converted into a Baroque church. All this had to be rebuilt in 1737 after a disastrous fire, when the current late baroque interior was installed.

In 1976 the Church was converted into a concert hall by the Soviet authorities, and was in secular use until being returned to the Roman Catholic Church after Lithuanian independence in 1991.

The Mary Immaculate Sisters of the Poor have a house on the site, which is Simonas Daukantas Square (map) within a few hundred metres of the office of the President of Lithuania.

Posted in Photography, Travel | Tagged Architecture, baroque, christian, christianity, churchcrawling, lithuania, photography, roman catholic, vilnius | Comments Off

The Bright Field

Posted on May 21, 2019 by Gerry Lynch

Late on a summer evening, as I took photos from the summit of Divis (478m above sea level) the highest of the Belfast Hills towards Lough Neagh, suddenly a shaft of sunlight broke through and illuminated the fields on top of Budore Hill, about 4 km away. Clearly visible on Lough Neagh is Ram’s Island, and in the distance, the countryside around Brockagh and Ardboe in County Tyrone, gradually rising into the Sperrins and South Tyrone uplands.

I was put in mind of verses from the priest and poet RS Thomas:

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Posted in Anglicanism, Christianity, Northern Ireland, Photography, Poetry, Reflection | Tagged anglican, anglicanism, belfast, belfast hills, christian, christianity, divis, photography, poetry, reflections, religion, rs thomas | Comments Off

Blogging Staggers Day Three: Sunset Skies

Posted on October 2, 2018 by Gerry Lynch

Truly spectacular sunset skies at St Stephen’s House this evening. This is, like, where I actually live and stuff. The church is St John the Evangelist, Iffley Road.

Posted in Anglicanism, Christianity, Photography | Tagged christianity, churchcrawling, photography, religion | Comments Off