By Ricky, on February 19th, 2010
Hand sewn cross on my Lenten stole © Ricky Yates
Yesterday, 17th February was Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent.
Originally, Lent was a period in which new Christian believers underwent a period of teaching and preparation ready to be baptised on Easter Eve/Holy Saturday, before being admitted to receive Communion for the first time on Easter Day. Fasting and prayer were regarded as being important elements of that time of preparation.
Lent was also the time when those who had been excommunicated from Christian fellowship because of apostasy or serious faults, could undergo a time of prayer, fasting and penitential acts showing that they had truly repented of their past failures, so that they might be readmitted to Eucharistic fellowship on Easter Day.
In time, it was seen that all Christian believers might benefit from a period of self-examination, fasting study and . . . → Read More: Ash Wednesday – the beginning of Lent
By Ricky, on February 16th, 2010
Oscar striking an interesting pose whilst asleep © Ricky Yates
As I have written previously on this blog, not only did Sybille and I move to Prague in September 2008, so did our adopted cat Oscar. From time to time we get enquiries as to how Oscar is adapting to his new life in Prague. So I decided it was time to devote a blog post specifically to Oscar.
Like most cats, Oscar spends the vast majority of his time either sleeping or eating. I took the photo on the left this morning, when he adopted a rather interesting pose whilst sleeping on the double bed in our guest bedroom. Of course, as far as Oscar is concerned, it isn’t the guest bedroom, it is Oscar’s bedroom! Whenever we have visitors to stay overnight, we have a major exercise in advance of their arrival, removing cat hair . . . → Read More: The third member of our family
By Ricky, on February 9th, 2010
The height of flooding in Prague over the last 300 years © Sybille Yates
Prague is a beautiful city. One of the reasons it is so beautiful is being situated either side of the River Vltava. However, with the beauty of the riverside location comes the inherent danger of flooding. Unfortunately, over the centuries, this is something to which Prague has not been immune.
The picture on the left is of the wall of a building in Mala Strana, just south of Charles Bridge, and shows the height reached by floodwaters on several occasions during the last 300 years. Bearing in mind that I am quite tall, (1.87m or 6’ 1½”), and that where I am standing is well above the normal river level, it does illustrate the immensity and devastating nature of the flooding that engulfed Prague as recently as August 2002.
Apparently, there is an . . . → Read More: Flooding in Prague
By Ricky, on February 3rd, 2010
View across Prague © Ricky Yates
This week, my blog celebrates its first birthday! I published my first blog post on 4th February 2009. Entitled ‘Episcopal Taxi Service’, it described the events that had taken place in the previous week at the end of January 2009. So now seems a good time to look back over my first year of being a blogger.
In one respect, the blog is more than two years old as my wife Sybille kindly bought my domain rickyyates.com more than a year earlier in December 2007. She did so at the same time as purchasing a domain for my son Phillip to help him promote his skills as a caricaturist. Not only was phillyates.com available but rickyyates.com was too. So she purchased them both as very unusual but highly useful Christmas presents to us both.
When I started the blog, . . . → Read More: Happy first birthday to my blog!
By Ricky, on January 31st, 2010
Left to right; Rev'd Petr Jan Vinš, Archdeacon Patrick Curran and me © Sybille Yates
One of the things anyone taking on being an Anglican Chaplain in the Diocese in Europe is warned about, is the fact that you will be working in relative isolation. In England, most Anglican clergy meet their nearby colleagues at regular meetings of the Deanery Clergy Chapter. These meetings provide an opportunity for mutual help and support as well as being a safe environment in which to sound off about difficult parishioners! Likewise, if you want to talk an issue over with your bishop or archdeacon, they are usually no more than a one hour journey away and a meeting can be easily organised.
Here in Prague, my nearest Anglican colleagues are in Warsaw to the north, Budapest to the east and Vienna to the south-east. As I have blogged previously, I . . . → Read More: A visit from the Archdeacon
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Happy first birthday to my blog!
View across Prague © Ricky Yates
This week, my blog celebrates its first birthday! I published my first blog post on 4th February 2009. Entitled ‘Episcopal Taxi Service’, it described the events that had taken place in the previous week at the end of January 2009. So now seems a good time to look back over my first year of being a blogger.
In one respect, the blog is more than two years old as my wife Sybille kindly bought my domain rickyyates.com more than a year earlier in December 2007. She did so at the same time as purchasing a domain for my son Phillip to help him promote his skills as a caricaturist. Not only was phillyates.com available but rickyyates.com was too. So she purchased them both as very unusual but highly useful Christmas presents to us both.
When I started the blog, . . . → Read More: Happy first birthday to my blog!