Jolomo (John Lowrie Morrison), who will paint 'Jesus is raised from the dead'.

The Archdiocese of Glasgow Arts Project (AGAP) said a record number of artists have signed up to take part in the annual art exhibition which takes places during Lentfest.  The festival, which began as a pilot in 2007, has been hugely successful in attracting the participation of a wide range of supporters.  Lentfest 2012 boasts a strong line-up with artists such as Peter Howson, Jolomo (John Lowrie Morrison), Anne Devine, Sandy Moffat and Richard Demarco joining the ranks alongside regular participants like Sarah T. Bookless, Brendan Berry and David T. Collins.

Lentfest Director, Stephen Callaghan explained: “The popularity of the exhibition topic illustrates the timelessness of Biblical subject matter and the diversity of the artists will no doubt ensure a wide range of interpretations.  We’ve never had so many artists take part and not all of them are Christian so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

The Stations of the Cross and Resurrection are a set of 28 images which are traditionally used in the Catholic Church to reflect upon the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  “The “Via Crucis” (Way of the Cross) is better known, but there is evidence of a tradition called the ‘Via Lucis’ (Way of Light), which takes us up to the Descent of the Holy Spirit and this deserves our attention too because the Christian story does not end with suffering and death but with hope and enlightenment.”

Archbishop Mario Conti, the festival’s patron, added: “I am delighted that we have the support of the University of Glasgow Chaplaincy for this exhibition and I hope that many will take advantage of the opportunity to visit the exhibition during Lent and use it as a means of reflection and prayer.”

The twenty-eight artists who will depict the Stations consented to have their names entered into a draw to be allocated their particular subject.  The twenty-ninth artist is sculptress, Kate Robinson, who is working on a three-dimensional reflection on the Crucifixion. This will complement an installation featuring ancient Roman nails, of the type used in the practice of crucifixion, which are housed by the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow, and which will be on display in the exhibition space during the exhibition.

The full list of participating artists and their subjects is available on the AGAP website.

“To be free is to be in love, is to be in the truth of God. The one who loves because made free by the truth of God, is the most revolutionary person on earth.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1932.

Pastor Bonhoeffer in Germany, circa 1930s.

In Lent, which this year runs from Ash Wednesday on February 22 to Holy Saturday on April 7, Christians go on a journey of deepening reflection, prayer and discipline which leads them to the great festival of new life at Easter.

In this year’s Lent study course, devised by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland in partnership with BBC Radio, we are invited to think of this journey as leading towards the true freedom of living in love towards God and others, and what this freedom means for ourselves, our churches, our local communities and our world today.

The theme is taken from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian executed in 1945 for his part in the resistance to Hitler, whose thoughts continue to challenge us on what it means to have faith and to be the church in a dangerous world. In 1944 while in prison he wrote a poem Stations on the Way to Freedom. The ‘stations’ he highlighted are: discipline, action, suffering and death.

The course does not involve studying Bonhoeffer as such but simply taking some cues from him, and each week asking what ‘freedom’ means for us in our context today. Bible studies will be an important part of the material.

• Full details and resources can be found at the CTBI website.

'Let Justice Prevail' by Hanna Cheriyan Varghese (1938-2009)

This year the World Day of Prayer is on Friday 2nd March and will focus on women in Malaysia with the theme Let Justice Prevail. Women account for nearly half of Malaysia’s population of 28.7 million. There are around 6.8 million non-Muslim women.

More and more women are working full time. Many of them have children and find it hard to balance the demands of their domestic and professional lives. And women who are full-time mothers can sometimes question their vocation. Whatever their circumstances, many face emotional pressure and need spiritual guidance.

Music, Powerpoint presentations, publicity materials and other resources are available on the World Day of Prayer Scotland website..

The Scottish Bible Society is supporting a multi-year Bible engagement and literacy project to help women to develop strong spiritual foundations and healthy families based on the teachings of God’s Word.

• Find out more at World Day of

Prayer Scotland and the Scottish Bible Society.

During the meetings stewards will work in the areas of worship, conference room, documentation, press office, sound, and other administrative and support tasks.

The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches meets every 18 months to monitor and set directions to the Council’s work. The meeting brings together about 150 church representatives, advisers and observers from WCC member churches and associated organizations worldwide. Twenty-five stewards will help to make this event happen.

Before the meetings, stewards follow an ecumenical learning programme which exposes them to the key issues of the ecumenical movement worldwide. The last phase of the stewards programme, following the meeting, focuses on designing ecumenical projects which stewards will implement back home.

Being a steward means hard work, but it is also a unique ecumenical experience of togetherness with young people from different churches, countries and cultures.

Applicants are invited to send in the completed application form to the WCC youth desk no later than 15 March 2012.

More information on the WCC stewards programme

Download the information brochure (pdf, 400  KB)

Download the application form as pdf (150 KB) or as MS Word document (80 KB)

I have been honoured by being invited to give the first in what is intended to become a series of lectures on the eve of St Mungo’s Feast. The series is to carry the name: ‘The Molendinar Lectures’. The Molendinar, of course, as every Glaswegian knows, or ought to know, is the stream or burn, now for the most part culverted, on the north west grassy banks of which a Christian settlement was established before the sixth century, having the typical topography of an ecclesiastical site – a hillock by running water. This burn continues to make its hidden journey into the Clyde by Glasgow Green.

I have entitled this lecture, put together at rather short notice, as the ‘Tale of two Cathedrals’. What I have to offer is a pot-pourri of information which has this Christian settlement, particularly the Church that for more than 700 years is built upon it, as a sort of visual aid. Of course I don’t need to illustrate it here with an overhead projector, since St Mungo’s Cathedral is well known to all of us and is one of the great ornaments of our city.

I may tease you with the mention of a second Cathedral and you wouldn’t have to try terribly hard to guess that it is St Andrew’s on the Clyde, because I don’t want to limit myself to an architectural or historical survey of one building only, but rather to broaden my canvas so that theological and sociological colours merge even into etymological ones, and all can be added to this pot-pourri to give it the sort of description that so often one finds on a bottle of wine with reference to taste. Though with a pot-pourri my metaphor has to do with the nose and not the tongue! Mind you etymology would suggest that the tongue is likely to be the instrument more interested than the nose in what I have to say!

Of course, I am teasing you, and I will tease you further by saying that really my title should be: “Two Cathedrals and one Church” – though not three buildings; the bright ones among you will already have got my meaning even before I look at the etymology of these words.

Let me come to the point: The word “church,” is from old English. It has its etymological root in the Greek word “kyrios” which means Lord. We are familiar of course with that word from the Kyrie Eleison which survived even within the Latin Mass, when, not for the last time, the Church, taking into account the language of the people, changed its liturgical tongue in this case from Greek to Latin. Our word “church” survives from the Greek “kuriakon” the Lord’s House, rather as the Italian word “duomo” survives from the Latin “Domus Dei,” the House of God.

Here’s our run-down on what’s happening and where:

AIRDRIE
Service at 6.30 pm on Sunday 22nd at New Wellwynd Church.
Services at 12.30 pm as follows: Wednesday 18th, Salvation Army Citadel; Thursday 19th, St Paul & St John’s; Friday 20th, Flowerhill Church; Saturday 21st, St Columba’s; Monday 23d, The High Kirk; Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th to be arranged.

ALEXANDRIA (ACTiV)
Service at Alexandria Parish Church, 1 Lomond Road, Balloch, Alexandria G83 8SJ, on Sunday January 22 at 3pm.

CUMBERNAULD
Midday prayer followed by soup each day from Monday 23 to Friday 26 at Holy Name Episcopal Church, 15 Fleming Road, Cumbernauld G67 1LJ.

GLASGOW EAST END
Service at Victoria Church, Tollcross Road, Glasgow G32 8HD, on  Monday, 23 January at 7.30pm.

GLASGOW – POLLOKSHAWS CHURCHES TOGETHER
Service at St Mary Immaculate Church, 150 Shawhill Road, Glasgow G43 1SY, on  Sunday January 22 at 7pm.

A fan of Poland's national football team Photo: Clint McMahon/Flickr

Preparatory resources based on these reflections are already available in five languages on the website of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

The theme “We will all be changed by the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ” is based on the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15:51-58). It promises a transformation of human life, with all its apparent “triumph” and “defeat”, through the victory of Christ’s resurrection.

Traditionally celebrated between 18 and 25 January (in the northern hemisphere) or at Pentecost (in the southern hemisphere), the week of prayer mobilizes countless congregations and parishes around the world. During that week, Christians from different confessional families get together and – at least on that occasion – pray together in special ecumenical celebrations.

“Rivalry is a permanent feature not only in sport but also in political, business, cultural and even church life” says the introductory text for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2012.

Both football and Polish history, marked by military invasions and freedom struggles, have inspired the preparatory group to “spare a thought for the losers”, coming to the conclusion that “There is room for everyone in God’s plan of salvation.”

The production of the liturgical and biblical material for the week of prayer has been coordinated jointly since 1968 by the World Council of Churches (Faith and Order Commission) and the Roman Catholic Church (Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity).

Resources for the week are available in English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, and include: an introduction to the theme; a suggested ecumenical celebration which local churches are encouraged to adapt for their own particular liturgical, social and cultural contexts; biblical reflections and prayers for the “eight days”; and additional prayers from, and an overview of, the ecumenical situation in Poland.

• Full information and resources at the World Council of Churches and Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

The St Mungo Festival will celebrate the death of the saint who founded the city, as well as the birth of the city.

Schools and churches will be among those taking part in the commemorations, which will start on Saturday, and will also mark Glasgow’s links to Wales.

• Full story at the Evening Times.

The Festival this year marks the 14^th centenary of the founding of the City of Glasgow, whose roots can be traced to the presence of Mungo at the site of the present Cathedral near the Molendinar Burn. Mungo (or Kentigern) died between 604 and 612.

THE VITA KENTIGERNI (Life of St Mungo)
Saturday January 7 from  12.00 – 12.45 in the Mitchell Library

Dr Laurence Whitley and Archbishop Mario Conti reading from the Vita Kentigerni

We celebrate the Life of St Mungo in words, music and song. As people arrive in the Library, they will be greeted by the sound of the harp then welcomed by Bailie Catherine McMaster.

There will be a short reading from the Life of St Mungo in Latin and in English, and the songs and music this year will be led by some of St Mungo’s Bairns, Carissa the harpist, and the St Mungo Singers. The children will sing a new song (by Liz Bovil) about Mungo the pilgrim and the event closes as the choir leads us in ‘Let Glasgow Flourish.’

A new element in this year’s Mungo events (and the inspiration for the new song) will be the link between Hoddom, near Lockerbie, and Glasgow through St Mungo.

According to the Life of Kentigern by the monk Jocelin of Furness, it was at Hoddom that Rydderch ap Tudwal, ruler of Strathclyde met with Kentigern on his return from exile in Wales.

Inauguration of the commemorative plaque at Hoddom, 2011

Other accounts claim that St Kentigern came to the Dumfries and Galloway region from Glasgow and as bishop founded a church and monastery at Hoddom. There is evidence that Hoddom was the site of an important monastery, and that this monastery probably had contact with a number of other early Christian churches in the British Isles and Ireland.

The Festival this year marks the 14^th centenary of the founding of the City of Glasgow, whose roots can be traced to the presence of Mungo at the site of the present Cathedral near the Molendinar Burn. Mungo (or Kentigern) died between 604 and 612.

ECUMENICAL EVENING SERVICE
Sunday January 8 at 6.30 pm in Glasgow Cathedral

Some of the St Mungo Singers during a previous St Mungo Service in the Cathedral

This ecumenical evening service, on the Sunday before St Mungo’s Day, is the brain-child of Dr Laurence Whitley, Minister of Glasgow Cathedral, and Archbishop Conti, and is organised jointly by the Cathedral and Glasgow Churches Together with the support of Glasgow City Council.

It will begin with ‘Let Glasgow Flourish.’ Representatives of the City and the Churches of Glasgow will be joined by the Bishop of St Asaph (a St Mungo foundation in Wales), Rt Rev Gregory Cameron, who will speak about the link with Wales and the 1400 anniversary of the death of St Mungo and the birth of the City.

The service provides an opportunity to thank God in word, song, dance and music, for St Mungo’s life and influence on Glasgow, and to pray for the city’s people and leaders.

Music will be provided and led by the St Mungo Singers, Russkaya Capella, the Rutherglen Salvation Army Band, with piper and harpist.

Sixteen dancers aged between 10 and 16 from the Visual Statement performing arts company will depict the spirit of the city and highlight St Mungo’s coat of arms and his return to Glasgow from Hoddom after exile. Choreographed by Danny Dobbie and accompanied by Handel’s ‘For Unto Us A Child Is Born’, this symphonic dance is both energetic and moving, while paying reverence to the venue and the celebration service.

A wreath will be laid at the Tomb of St Mungo on behalf of the City.