It's World Bee Day, and what better time to talk about the masonry bee and its taste for old walls?

Lawrence Kelly tells us about the precious pollinators. Find out what to do about masonry bee damage to your old walls at spab.org.uk/advice/masonry…

#WorldBeeDay

It's Whitsuntide, the week following Pentecost, which for centuries was *the* season of the year for holiday-making and summer festival - a time for fairs, plays, games, dancing and parades. Some of the lost festivities of Whitsun Week: aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2011/06/whitsu…

Sir John Betjeman died on this day in 1984. Here is his famous poem about the glory days of Anglo-Catholicism during his youth in the first half of the 20th century.

Today is the feast of Pentecost, traditionally known as Whitsun. In 15th Century glass at East Harling, Norfolk, the Blessed Virgin stands centrally flanked by the Disciples, and they look up to see the dove of the Holy Spirit descending.

East Harling: norfolkchurches.co.uk/eastharling/ea…

Philip Larkin's poem 'The Whitsun Weddings' is set on this day, Whit Saturday. The journey that inspired it took place in 1955, soon after Larkin arrived in Hull, although as he pointed out, it did not happen at Whitsun, nor did he travel as far as London. Nevertheless, it

After arriving at the railway station in Scarborough, charabanc excursions were available to nearby beauty spots such as in the Forge valley or the resort of Filey

The Vigil of Pentecost.

'A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.'

“Dies iræ, dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla”

The online queuing system for tickets BBC Proms is immensely stressful, and my screen changed to something impenetrable as I reached the front of the queue! Never mind, I got there in the end, to secure a seat at Britten’s War Requiem. The annual pilgrimage south is booked!

When I was a teenager, my efforts to persuade successive clergy to do the full liturgical sequence —Matins, Litany, HC— occasionally on a Sunday & to do so “properly” (i.e. à la Percy Dearmer) were always rebuffed. Does anyone ever celebrate them now in the manner once intended?

Katholikon of the monastery of Hagia Irene Chrysovalantou.

Lykovrysi-Attica

Here’s the absolute highlight: an astonishing 60 seconds from Elizabeth Oldfield. It is THE mini-sermon our culture needs.

“Good music is not a luxury. It helps the Church to serve the community, prioritising genuine and organic growth over some of the cost-cutting, anxious, self-promoting strategies that cathedrals and larger churches can sometimes be tempted to initiate.”

churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/…

“There is no finer thing a cathedral musician can do than to introduce people, of all ages, to the organ.”

The King of Instruments Celebrated in New Organ Festival at @SheffCath

#CathedralMusic #OrganFestival #PipeOrgan #SheffieldEvents #MusicLovers

englishcathedrals.co.uk/latest-news/or…

First light at York Minster this morning.

I felt out of place praying at the tomb of a saint catholicherald.co.uk/i-felt-out-of-…