Mid-February notes

Who was it that said that existentialism is yesterday's postmodernism?

Local rumours to the contrary notwithstanding, Hamilton Mountain is not an extinct volcano.

What would a Calvinistic ordinary of the mass look like? Would question and answer 80 of the Heidelberg Catechism necessarily preclude such a thing?

Taking the train between Toronto and Ottawa is a most pleasant way to travel. . . unless you are in the last car, whose movements are then likely to rival the effects of turbulence in the air.

Commonwealth countries do not send ambassadors to Canada; they send high commissioners. This is a vestige of the time when residents of Commonwealth countries enjoyed a single citizenship and were thus not technically foreign to each other.

Why did the Great Litany find its way into Roman, Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican traditions, but not into the Reformed?

For the same reason that Commonwealth countries send high commissioners to each other, Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs was once known as the Department of External Affairs.

Does anyone ever really ask the questions contained in an FAQ page and, if so, how frequently?

Might congregational church polity simply be Lockean liberalism applied to the institutional church?

Camilla Parker Bowles is not only great-granddaughter of Alice Keppel, mistress to King Edward VII; she is also 3rd great-granddaughter of Sir Allan Napier MacNab, whose palatial home, Dundurn Castle, is one of the local landmarks here in Hamilton.

Today is the first sunday in Lent.