Rev John Wesley

"I do not wonder the Gospel runs so swiftly in these parts. The people in general have the finest natural tempers which I ever knew; they have the softness and courtesy of the Irish, the seriousness of theScots and the openness of the English" - John Wesley, from The Journal of the Rev John Wesley, April 1767

Dungiven Priory

Today I visited an interesting site in the town of Dungiven County Derry. The site contains what is believed to be an 11th Century Augustinian priory. It contains the tomb of O'Cahan (Cooey na Gall O' Cahan), laid to rest in 1385. A thicket of thorn bushes hung with rags conceals a bullaun stone, visited for wart cures.

A Trip To Knock The National Shrine

Last Friday during a sojourn in the pleasant County of Mayo I visited the National Shrine of Ireland in the little village of Knock. It was a most interesting experience not in a spiritual sense but in a social and cultural sense. I also attended Mass at the Shrine which was a most empty experience.

The little village itself is flooded with Catholic gift shops of the most extreme kind. Plastic statues of the Saints and Our Lady, and all sorts of cheap and nasty items. I did purchase a knock medal as a memento of the visit.

The Mass was awful, it must have lasted twenty minutes at most and it was conducted by a Priest who clearly had no interest in what he was doing. Imagine if you will during a Church service that a Priest continually says "whatever" while praying. For example "We pray for the members of the Cork MS Society and whatever". It was incredibly empty. The Priest also said something that rocked the very fibres of my theological intellect. He exclaimed that if anyone had bought a Holy Picture, Rosaries, Statues, Holy water etc that they should hold them up now to be blessed. The items he said did not have to be taken out of their plastic bags for if it was your intention that they should be blessed then they would indeed be blessed. From that moment on those items would bestow graces to all who used them. How awful. Also during the Mass there was the odd impromptu singing of a Marian Hymn, it started as wail and lead me to think that someone was having a fit.

I have to say that it was not nice at all. It give me an experience of how the Roman system can be so very empty and lacking in theology. It also lead me to question the circumstances of the alleged visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The social and historical context of rural Ireland at the time of the vision are more interesting than the vision itself. It was tumultuous period in Irish History, at least twenty years after the famine and apparently there had been a bad harvest prior to the vision that brought about fears of a second famine. So it seems to me that Irish Catholics needed some sort of sign and seal of their faith to help them through their lives in an ever changing society. I do not doubt the credibility of the witnesses I  am sure that they were all very sincere people, but I can't help but think that there is more to this than meets the eye. When we compare it with Fatima and Lourdes there are striking similarities with the social and cultural backgrounds surrounding the vision. It would provide for an interesting discussion.


I have never really been in tune with the extreme Marian devotion in Ireland and I know many Roman Catholics who don't bother with it. I can't help but feel that there is something amiss when a Priest says " all our intentions we ask to Mary through Jesus Christ Our Lord". To me that simply does not make sense when you think about it. Why ask Mary through Christ? We are told  that no one comes to Father except through the Son. Anyway moving on....

The Basilica at Knock is horrid except for the Stations of the Cross inside which are quite beautiful. One noted the vomit inside that had not been cleaned up, which to me summed up the whole affair. The Old Parish Church has been changed inside ever so slightly and  I did not like it either.


It is worth a visit and you can make a judgement on what you see yourself. 

The Strife of Tongues

Modern Pentecostals, to justify their use of tongues, refer most of all to St Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. St Paul wrote this passage precisely because "tongues" had become a source of disorder in the Church of Corinth; and even while he does not forbid them, he decidedly minimizes their significance. This passage, therefore, far from encouraging any modern revival of "tongues", should on the contrary discourage it- especially when one discovers (as Pentecostals themselves admit) that there are other sources of speaking in tongues besides the Holy Spirit! As Christians we already know that speaking in tongues as a true gift of the Holy Spirit cannot appear among those outside the Church of Christ.

If we are already made suspicious by the exaggerated importance accorded to "tongues" by modern Pentecostals, we should be completely awakened about them when we examine the circumstances in which they occur.

Far from being given freely and spontaneously, without man's interference- as are the true gifts of the Holy Spirit- speaking in tongues can be caused to occur quite predictably by a regular technique of concentrated group prayer accompanied by psychologically suggestive hymns, culminating in a laying of hands, and sometimes involving such purely physical efforts as repeating a given phrase over and over again, or just making sounds with the mouth. One person admits that, like many others, after speaking in tongues, "I often did mouth nonsense syllables in an effort to start the flow of prayer-in-tongues", and such efforts, far from being discouraged, are actually advocated by Pentecostals. "Making sounds with the mouth is not speaking in tongues" but it may signify an honest act of faith, which the Holy Spirit will honour by giving that person the power to speak in another language". Another Pastor says: "The initial hurdle to speaking in tongues, it seems, is simply the realization that you must speak forth.... The first syllables and words may sound strange to your ear. They may be halting and inarticulate. You may have the thought that you are making it up. But as you continue to speak in faith... the spirit will shape for you a language of prayer and praise".

A Jesuit theologian tells how he put such advice into practice "After breakfast I felt almost physically drawn to the chapel where I sat down to pray. Following Jim's description of his own reception of the gifts of tongues, I began to say quietly to myself "la,la,la, la". To my immense consternation there ensued a rapid movement of tongue and lips accompanied by a tremendous feeling of inner devotion.

Can any sober Christian confuse these dangerous psychic games with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There is clearly nothing whatever Christian, nothing spiritual here in the least. This is the realm, rather, of psychic mechanisms which can be set in operation by means of definite psychological or physical techniques, and speaking in tongues would seem to occupy a key role as a kind of trigger in this realm.  In any case, it certainly bears no resemblance whatever to the spiritual gift described in the New Testament, and if anything is much closer to shamanistic speaking in tongues as practised in primative religions, where the shaman or witch doctor has a regular technique for going into a trance and then giving a message to and from God in a tongue he has not learned.    

St Mary's Episcopal Church, Dunblane

St Mary's Episcopal Church is a medium-sized church in Dunblane, Scotland. It is situated by the Fourways roundabout.

The current rector is the Rev. Kimberly Bohan, who succeeded Canon Janice Cameron and the Rev. Gianfranco Tellini.

The church grounds consists of a graveyard, the manse, a medium-sized church hall with kitchen and committee room, and a meditation walk designed by Canon Cameron.

Dunblane Cathedral

Dunblane Cathedral is the larger of the two Church of Scotland parish churches serving Dunblane, near the city of Stirling, in central Scotland.

The lowest section of the tower is Romanesque from the 12th century, and most of the rest of the building is Gothic, from the 13th century. The building was restored by Rowand Anderson in 1889-93.

The Cathedral was once the seat of the bishops of Dunblane (also sometimes called 'of Strathearn'), until the abolition of bishops after the Scottish Reformation. There are remains of the vaults of the episcopal palace to the south of the cathedral. Technically, it is no longer a cathedral, as there are no bishops in the Church of Scotland, which is a Presbyterian denomination.

William Chisholme, the last Catholic bishop of Dunblane in 1561, later became bishop of Vaison in France.

It contains the graves of Margaret Drummond of Stobhall, a mistress of King James IV of Scotland and her two sisters, all said to have been poisoned.

Unusually, the building is owned by the Crown, and is looked after by Historic Scotland (no entrance charge).

The building is largely 13th century in date, though it incorporates an originally free-standing bell-tower of 11th century date on its south side. This tower was increased in height in the 15th century, a change clearly visible in the colour of the stonework, and in the late gothic style of the upper storey's windows.

The choir is unaisled, but has a long vaulted chamber which served as chapter house and sacristy on its north side. The choir contains the mural tomb of the Cathedral's founder, Bishop Clement. Many of the 15th century choir stalls, which have carved misericords (including one with an unusual depiction of a bat) are preserved within the choir. Further, more elaborate, canopied stalls are preserved at the west end of the nave. Dunblane has the largest surviving collection of medieval Scottish ecclesiastical woodwork after King's College Chapel, Aberdeen. Some other detached fragments are displayed in the town's museum.

Preserved within the arcaded nave are two early Christian stones, a cross-slab and a possible architectural frieze, survivals from an early medieval church on the same site, founded by or dedicated to the 'Blane' whose name is commemorated in the name of the town.

Flavius Honorius Augustus. Western Roman Emperor from 395 to 423.

John William Waterhouse - The Favorites of the Emperor Honorius - 1883.

"At that time they say that the Emperor Honorius in Ravenna received the message from one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of the poultry, that Rome had perished. And he cried out and said, 'And yet it has just eaten from my hands!' For he had a very large cock, Rome by name; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Rome which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: 'But I thought that my fowl Rome had perished.' So great, they say, was the folly with which this emperor was possessed." Procopius, The Vandalic War (III.2.25–26)