Cymraeg
CY
Dictionary

Words on this page

Anglican

Anglicans form the family of Christians closely related to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Whilst tracing their inheritance back to Christ and the earliest Christians and to the ancient Roman Catholic church, the sixteenth century Reformation was a crucial moment for Anglicanism.

Collect

A collect is a short prayer used in liturgy, for example towards the beginning of the Eucharist. It often reflects the themes of the particular season of the Church’s year. Its name comes from the idea that it ‘collects’ together the lessons of the service readings.

Prayer

Prayer sustains our human relationship with God and may involve words (formal or informal) or be silent. Prayer can involve adoration (‘I love you’), confession (‘sorry’), thanksgiving and supplication (‘please’).

Home Pobl Dewi: December 2023 The Vineyard We Care For

The Vineyard We Care For

History Book Cover [Gofal ein Gwinllan]

GOFAL EIN GWINLLAN

Essays on the contribution of the Church in Wales to our literature, history and culture.

Volume 1

Editors: A. Cynfael Lake and D. Densil Morgan

Publisher: Y Lolfa 2023

ISBN: 978-1-800994553

Price: £12

The publication of this splendid volume of essays describes the contribution of the Church in Wales to Welsh literature, history and culture. It is also of real importance to non-Welsh speakers. In our one-hundred-year history, attempts to point out the importance of the language were often met by leaders who dismissed the need for Welsh-speaking bishops, insisting that the church did not exist merely to promote the language. There was never any such danger. The early translators, the bishops and archdeacons who worked away to provide Bible, Prayer Book, Metrical Psalms, Poems, schools to teach the people in their own language, did so for the love of the Gospel, and love and concern for the people.

The situation today is of course vastly different; the secularism of our age has produced a generation not merely ignorant of the good news, but seemingly allergic to the very words of the tradition. But there are Welsh speakers today who will not, cannot hear the Gospel in English from a church which wilfully ignores its cultural crisis. Churches and cathedrals which allow a mere crumb of Welsh in a Collect will press anew buttons of resentment and prejudice.

So if you are not a Welsh speaker, please listen to the English translations of these talks. They are learned, entertaining, funny even. It is significant that only a few of them are by Anglicans. Nonconformists have given their time and learning to pay renewed respect to Anglicans who, down the nearly five centuries of the existence of the Anglican Church, have ministered to the needs of this nation.

The essays began as short talks on Zoom during the Covid lockdown, but were made available to listeners in simultaneous English translation. These are still available on the Church in Wales website at https://www.churchinwales.org.uk/en/about-us/welsh-language.

Enid R. Morgan