In this miniature, we see the Tree of Jesse, a visualisation of Christ’s ancestry inspired by Isaiah’s prophecy: “There will come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a flower will rise up out of his root”. This is joined by pictures of the Annunciation (the announcement by the archangel Gabriel to … [Read more…]
Three churches in the Dunfermline area are dedicated to St Margaret of Scotland, including our Episcopal church at Rosyth, and her life will again be celebrated on 16 November. This painting shows Margaret near the end of her life, perhaps having heard that her husband Malcolm and one of her sons had died at the … [Read more…]
Since the beginning of June we have been reading from Luke’s Gospel, the first of the two books that he wrote. However, despite the wealth of historical detail in Acts, we learn little there about the man himself whose festival we shall be recognising this month. The evidence of his work is that Luke was … [Read more…]
Our readings this month include Luke’s record of three of the many parables told by Jesus. On Trinity 15 we read about the lost sheep and the lost coin, which Jesus follows (in a passage we don’t read this year) with the parallel story of a lost son, the “prodigal” that has been the subject … [Read more…]
Our first Gospel reading this month – the Parable of the Rich Fool – is a reminder that “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” and that we need to be “rich towards God”. Whilst most of us would say that we don’t have enough laid up to take it easy in … [Read more…]