The Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, the Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow has spoken out against the Easter Day bombings in Sri Lanka and against the terrorist murder of Lyra McKee in Northern Ireland.
In his Easter Day sermon, he said:
The answer to the world’s troubles does not lie in the fire of the bombers in Sri Lanka or the bullets of the terrorists in Northern Ireland.
Light, life and love. These are the true way of the world. Death and destruction won’t win. Violence will never conquer. Death will never have the last word.
Speaking to a packed cathedral, he spoke also of his personal sadness at the fire that ravaged the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, which shares its dedication to the Mother of Jesus with St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow.
I found the sight of Notre Dame burning extraordinarily upsetting. I’m sure that people across the world who are in the cathedral business were affected the same way.
What might this generation accomplish that, faced with its destruction in nearly a thousand years would bring people out onto the streets to sing and to pray.
What made the chaplain to the firefighters in Paris run through fire to save the Blessed Sacrament and a relic that has been kissed by the faithful for the last thousand years.
And what did one man do two thousand years ago that brings us up out of our beds and into this and another 37 million churches all over the world to sing and rejoice and proclaim the extraordinary news – “He is not dead but is risen”.
St Mary’s Cathedral Glasgow is one of the eight cathedrals of the Scottish Episcopal Church which has churches in every part of Scotland. The Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth has been the Provost of St Mary’s since 2006.
