WAY A special day as I attended the kirk where Tannahill worshipped
WE REVISIT DEREK PARKER’S RAMBLES THROUGH RENFREWSHIRE
I was privileged to be invited to the induction of the Rev Hutton Steel as minister of Oakshaw Trinity Church recently.
Dating from 1754 – with the spire added about 20 years later, the kirk was known originally as Paisley High before merging with neighbouring churches to become Oakshaw Trinity.
It was uplifting to attend a service in the same church where Paisley poet Robert Tannahill and his family worshipped two centuries ago.
On induction night, the church tower and spire were gloriously illuminated with bright floodlights. The lofty landmark resembled a pillar of divine light linking the star-spangled heavens and darknessshrouded earth.
At the Oakshaw Church entrance is one of the most sacred symbols in ecclesiastical architecture and geometry – a triquetra.
The triquetra – Latin for ‘triple cornered’ – consists of three interlaced ovals. It represents the sacred feminine
Derek Parker knew many of Paisley’s secrets – the grimy and the good.
He wandered every corner in search of the clues that would unlock Renfrewshire’s rich history.
These tales were shared with readers in his hugely popular Parker’s Way column.
We’ve opened our vault to handpick our favourites for you.
and the womb of the Virgin Mary.
The mystic marking derives from three vesica pisces – geometrical shapes formed by drawing two intersecting circles with the centre of one circle on the circumference of the other and vice versa.
Intriguingly, the word, vesica pisces, is Latin for ‘bladder of the fish’ – a sacred creature featuring in the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 by the lakeside and in Jesus’s description of himself and His disciples as fishers of men.
Also, the Greek word for fish – ‘ichthus’ – includes the initial letters of the Greek title: ‘Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the Saviour.’’
In Pythagorean geometry, the lengthwidth ratio of the vesica piscis is expressed as 153:265 – known ecclesiastically as the ratio of the fish because of the Bible story where Jesus shows his disciples how to catch 153 fish.
In his controversial book, The Da
Vinci Code, Dan Brown refers to sacred ratios and the divine feminine. However, Buddies can unravel curious codes of their own right here in Paisley where the town’s holiest buildings use sacred geometry and architecture to express divine truths.
Nowhere are these cryptic carvings more evident than at Oakshaw Trinity Church where the triquetra – symbol of the Virgin’s womb – stands in the shadow of the illuminated spire which is lit in the light representing her offspring, Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.
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