Goals, pies and the Exaltation of the Cross.

A glorious Setterday, with a trip to see Ma and going to watch the Blue Brazil beat Clyde (The Bully Wee - an odd nickname!) 1-0 for our 1st win of the season. We did deserve to win, but I do wish we wouldn't doze off in the 2nd half until the last quarter hour! The catering van with its vile curry sauce and chips has gone and the new caterers at least sell "Killie pies" which are OK, but still it is the Dumbarton pies that get my vote!

Church didn't quite happen today as I stayed on to deal with late breakfasters and make sure the roast veggies were edible - but they self-immolated and I had to start again to ensure Sunday lunch wasn't mainly carnivorous.

Tomorrow is Holy Cross Day, which has been a festival I have always valued, due in no small part to my admiration of the slum priests of the ilk of Alexander Heriot MacConnachie and Charles Fuge Lowder in London, and John Comper in Aberdeen, all of whom were SSC (Societas Sanctae Crucis or Society of the Holy Cross). I was fiercely proud of my own membership of SSC and greatly regretted giving up it up because I could no longer uphold it's line on not taking communion from women priests when I went to work in Falkirk with a female NSM. However I think this quote from St Anselm is worth batting about if you observe it:

"We do not acknowledge you because of the cruelty that godless and foolish ones prepared you to effect upon the most gentle Lord, but because of the wisdom and goodness of him who of his own free will took you up".

In other words, we don't oberve this feast to celebrate an instrument of torture or to dwell on the effects of human sinfullness, but to celebrate the means of grace and the depth of the Divine Love that never stops seeking us out and rescuing us from the consecquences of our personal folly and weakness. So truly we can say:

"We adore you O Christ and we bless you.

Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world"