Mount Calvary Sermons

DAY OF PENTECOST 2015 ROMANS 8:22-27 The weat her t hat day was suit ably bleak. The overcast sky seemed t o be aware t hat it was t he day of a funeral. Like every parish priest in England I found myself in the disconcert ing posit ion of having t o conduct the burial service for someone I'd never met . Those are t he days when English vicars curse Henry VIII and t he bizarre hist ory t hat led to the Church of England to be 'est ablished', wit h t he result t hat 'parishes' are not congregat ions, like t hey are in t he US, but geographical areas on a map; and everyone living wit hin t he boundaries of t hose few square miles are ‘Church of England’ unless t hey choose t o be somet hing else. At t hat time I had 2,000 parishioners to whom I had a responsibility, but only 200 of them ever came t o church. So, on t hat fat eful and, frankly cursed, morning as I frequent ly did, I found myself committing to God one of t he ot her 1800. The borough council’s crematorium that day was t hinly po