TSR Christian Society

I'm terrible with sermons after about 20mins my concentration starts to waver, the most I can listen to is 30mins as often the longer sermons I've experience have ended up with tangents which didn't support it. Glad the new church went well, do you think you'll be going back to church?

How is everyone today?

I could do with some prayers... just said goodbye to my bf for 3 months and feeling really upset and worrying about it all and him and uni so could do with some prayers for strength and for us both in the next term would be really appreciated.

How long are your sermons usually?! My priest is lucky if I manage to concentrate for five minutes straight

My bfs church has been known to have sermons lasting 45mins to an hour

Normally mine are 30mins.

Wow. Kudos to you for going and trying to concentrate then

In Sri Lanka they can last about 45 minutes sometimes I once sat in a Sinhala Mass where the sermon went on for about 40 minutes. I don't speak Sinhala so I was sat there twiddling my thumbs the entire service

I had a similar experience in Tanzania.. the whole service was both catholic and in Swahili, I had no idea what was going on.

The trouble is the sermons are really interesting but my concentration span isn't that long.

I've noticed you say Mass and have mentioned Confession a few times. Are you Anglo-Catholic?

My priest isn't usually that interesting but today he talked about angels, which caught my interest and was something I needed to hear about, so I was happy

Thats awesome. I missed church this week

Nope, I'm an Anglican but I go to an Anglo-Catholic Church

Don't worry: talking to God isn't limited to religious buildings

I don't usually make it I was dead tired today as well. Yawned through the whole thing

I've started taking notes during sermons to help me to concentrate. I've found it works

Anglo Catholics are Anglicans...........

So just out of interest, if your priest decided he was going to join the Ordinariate (the thing we talked about a few weeks ago), what would be your opinion?

Sorry, I meant it's officially an Anglican Church, but it does lots of Roman Catholic actions... I mean it caters for Catholicism but is an Anglican Church if that makes sense.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not 100% certain what that is, so you'll have to explain it to me... Please excuse my ignorance

Yep, I knew that's what you meant. It will be influenced by Bl. John Henry Newman's Oxford movement. Basically a lot of CofE priests in the Catholic tradition now want to and have the chance to convert to the Catholic Church with their parishoners. The first wave has already come over consiting of around 62 priests and 900 or so lay people (+ 3 Anglican nuns). The next wave will probably be a similar side and there are numerous Anglican discernment groups whereby the priest is trying and his parishoners are trying to decide whether to Convert. However, along with becoming members of the Catholic Church the Anglicans coming across will keep aspects of the Liturgy, such as Evensong, allowing massive chunks of the book of Common Prayer to become part of Catholic Liturgy. It's a project taken very, very seriously by Pope Benedict shown by the fact he had one of the Ordinariate's Deacons sing the gospel at World Youth Day to around 1.5 million people (nice guy as well, I met him at Walsingham). So basically your priest might decide to convert and will invite you to follow him and I basically wanted to know what your initial reaction would be

Basically you'd use all the same liturgy as you do now but would be able to call yourself Catholics and profess unity with Rome.

Question for the Christians, what is your view on violent films such as Tarantino's?

You met the Pope ?

I'd probably say no as I'm a very liberal Christian compared to the majority of Catholics, and I disagree on a number of issues (such as pre-marital sex, abortion etc.). That said, I do admire Roman Catholicism for things such as icons, statues and their decoration of Churches. I find Anglican Churches very depressing compared to Catholic ones (apart from the one I go to).

Hope that answers your question

I enjoyed the Kill Bill films

'fraid not the Pope, Deacon Bradley But doesn't the Anglican Church teach those things as well? You may be asked to discern so you'll have to see.



The way I view it is this. The early Church forbid their members from going to gladiator fights because they figured that watching violence would be bad for the soul of a Christian. The same applies here I think. I will admit I do love some violent films though (Die Hard for example).