Embrace and Renewal: Listening to the Music of the Cross

Based on his latest book, Six More Songs, reflects on the need for different signs and symbols for a generation tired of, or unused to, the traditional rituals and expressions of faith and belief, to help us realise afresh the message and the relevance of the Christian Gospel for the church and society today.

Here are stories of a priest and a parishioner presented by Lennon and McCartney who feel crippled by their loneliness; Billy Joel in an autobiographical song singing about a musician  who has ended up in a dead-end bar with others who need to blot out life for a little while; a community experienced by David Bowie living with division and repression; a dying soldier, a brother in arms, envisaged in music by Dire Straits; in another autobiographical statement Peter Gabriel expressing in music and poetry a kind of epiphany and Thirteen Senses singing from the heart about people living with mental illness.

Each song connects us to something in our own story. Songs which have been with us for years and which thread through our lives, but which could provide those new signs and symbols which will be able to inform and enrich our approach to faith and its importance for our living.

Through a series of homilies and sermons spanning Holy Week, Canon Ivor explored some of the experiences and emotions of living with love, death, despair and hope, using contemporary music as an explorative vehicle for us to site our joy and pain within the context of the Passion of Jesus Christ.

You can listen to an audio recording or downlaod the transcripts for each homily or sermon below.