Harmonious relations

After a rather unecumenical post, here is better news. The Service of Lessons and Carols today was led by an augmented choir; our own little group, together with singers from other churches, Anglican and Catholic.

Choir rehearsal

Preparing Lunch

We had a brief business meeting after Mass this morning, then joined in a bring-and share lunch. We seem to be getting rather good at these, and as always there was enough of the leftovers to fill twelve baskets full. The picture was taken as the food was being set out - this was at about the half-way stage, before the hot dishes came out of the oven.

There were visitors, Canadian friends who live in Bradford on Avon but who drove over for Mass just in order to experience the Ordinariate Use. They said it was well worth the journey and that they will be back another time. We are almost at the end of our first trial period with the Ordinariate Use. Mixed reactions, but we decided this morning that it was worth another outing - and so we shall be using it throughout Lent in 2015. Perhaps it is especially well suited to penitential seasons?

Shared lunch - a great time for meeting.

Our Organist, Peter Cook, sported his plum jacket for the occasion - you can see him on the right responding to tricky musical questions over lunch.

One of our visitors joined the washing-up brigade - he can certainly come again!

Post prandial

Now we are gearing up for the Festival; a Mass of the Christmas Eve Vigil on Wednesday morning, then the First Mass of Christmas at 10pm that night. On Christmas morning we can join our local Catholic parishes. Then we are giving Organist, singers and servers a chance to rest on Sunday 28th, when there will be a simple said Mass (many of our people will be away with family). Happy Christmas, everyone!

Bigots all

Many in the Church of England will have been thrilled to hear that the first woman bishop has been nominated. It would be sad, though, if that announcement were to lead to bitterness; and so far as I can see there has been none from those opposed to this new move.  So I was sorry to receive a green ink letter today with a picture of the newly appointed lady, headed "Church of England names Rev Libby Lane first women (sic) bishop".

The Revd Mrs Lane

No problem with that apart from the grammar, but beneath it the caption went "Wishing all the Anglo-Catholic bigots a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year!" Were I an Anglo-Catholic that might have stung me a little. As I am not it is really no concern of mine what the Church of England does - I maintain an interest simply because so many of my old friends continue (I am not sure how) within that body. No, I am sorry for the person who, in his or her jubilation at the appointment, felt it necessary to rub salt into the wounds of those who hold legitimate theological views about the steps the Church of England is taking.

There are, I suppose, two good things to come of such vitriolic mailings. First, it might make some realise just how hated they are by the triumphant majority, and so get them looking once more at the Catholic option. The other is that the (anonymous) mailer used a first class stamp, and I still hold some Royal Mail shares.

Parish Ministry

One of the places where I used to visit as a Flying Bishop was Northwest Norfolk. There, a little group of parishes around Watlington had asked for the PEV's ministry, as had two other benefices in that little part of North West Norfolk. The Watlington group was in reality just two churches, in Runcton and Watlington, though the title of the Rector's post included Tottenhilll with Wormegay. A few miles away were three other parishes, Barton Bendish with Bechamwell and Shingham. Then in 2003 Fincham, Shouldham with Shouldham Thorpe and Marham were added to the Rectory of Barton Bendish. Today in what the Daily Telegraph inelegantly calls "Appointments in the Clergy" it seems these two collections of parishes have been lumped together. Barbara Burton is priest in charge now, we read, of Barton Bendish w Beachamwell and Shingham, and Marham, and Shouldham, and Wereham and Watlington, South Runcton, Runcton Holme w Watlington, South Runcton and Runcton Holme with Wallington and Thorpland and Tottenham w Wormegay. All this chunk of Norfolk is in the Diocese of Ely. And lest the Revd Ms Burton should feel underemployed she is also Rural Dean of Fincham and Feltwell.

Now certainly these are small places, though many living in them will remember when there used to be at least three incumbents living in and caring for those parishes. With the decline in numbers of clergy (decline which women's ordination was supposed to reverse but did not) it becomes increasingly difficult for the Church of England to claim that it has the cure of souls of every person in the land.

St Edmund Downham Market in the deanery of Fincham & Feltwell

Downham Market was one of my larger concerns back in those days. It belongs still to the Society of SS Hilda and Wilfred. Not sure if Hilgay and Southery, also in that deanery, are in the care of the present Bishop of Richborough - I doubt it since they call themselves 'liberal catholic' on their website. They are working with the Grimshoe Benefice (five churches) so perhaps more amalgamations are on the way. At least the Catholic Church does not have such a problem of so many ancient buildings in small communities. It is also capable of taking drastic action if a parish no longer viable because of having too few worshippers. All of us, Catholics and Anglicans, have a great responsibility to pray for and foster new vocations. The harvest is still plentiful, the labourers ever fewer. Pray therefore the Lord of the Harvest that he will send labourers into his harvest - and pray that the leaders of the churches will be given the wisdom to continue ministry to the whole nation and not just the bits that can afford it.

A Thousand Ages....

So - forty years don't amount to much in the sweep of the Church's history. This weekend though there is to be a celebration of forty years which means a great deal to me. In 1974 there began an experiment in ecumenism which has outlasted many other much grander schemes (do you remember ARCIC? The agreements on Ministry? On the Eucharist? Or the proposals on Petrine primacy?).

St John's Farncombe

Forty years ago the Catholic Priest in Godalming was concerned that whereas the northern part of his parish had developed hugely, there was no Mass Centre there. So he wrote to me asking if he might use one of the schools for a weekly celebration. As Rector of Farncombe I was also chairman of Governors, not only in our two church schools but also in the more recently opened school in Binscombe. I thought it would be possible; but surely it would be better to use the Church? Unlike a school hall there would be no need to set up a special altar, move the furniture and so on. We had after all recently re-ordered St John's in accordance as we believed with the intentions of Vatican II. It would surely serve for a Catholic Mass as readily as for our celebrations of Holy Communion. Clergy and people in both communities were happy with the idea.

It was more difficult to persuade the Authorities that this was a workable solution - a Roman Catholic Mass celebrated on Sunday between our two Church of England morning Eucharists. Eventually both bishops gave their consent - provided it was acknowledged that this was just an experiment.

So it began - and so it has continued - a long-running experiment. After I became a Catholic in the wake of  'Anglicanorum Coetibus' I was delighted to receive a letter from someone whom I had prepared for Confirmation all those years before. He said he had lapsed after a while, but rediscovered the faith at University, and had become a Catholic. Now he was living back in Farncombe and he and his family were able to worship regularly in St John's where his journey of faith had begun.

This weekend Catholics and Anglicans are joining in a festal Evensong. The Rector will sing the Office, with the present Catholic Priest giving Benediction - and I am to preach. It will be a very moving occasion for many of us. Sad, though, that something which began forty years ago has not since then become commonplace. With church buildings becoming an increasing drain on resources, surely the Churches should be looking at more opportunities for sharing? In many places Churches are having to 'diversify'- becoming post-offices or libraries during the week, and used for worship only on occasional Sundays. How much more important that parishes should share their gifts with other Christians. It might give new life to that experience which so surprised pagans in the first century that they said, "See how these Christians love one another".


{The photograph is from the Farncombe Church website: www.farncombe.org.uk and shows the most recent alterations to the building - 
a new timber floor and greatly improved lighting.)

God-wottery

Tomorrow in Bournemouth we begin celebrating Mass according to the Ordinariate Use. We shall do so for a month, to immerse ourselves in its words and actions. In part (the better part) this Use derives from the Book of Common Prayer - devised by Dr Cranmer and amended in the reign of Charles II. So there are great translations of ancient Latin collects. Just look for example at the one appointed for the week before Advent.  "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people, that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded". Compare that with the clumsy version in the most recent Roman Missal translation: "Stir up the will of your faithful, we pray, O Lord, that, striving more eagerly to bring your divine work to fruitful completion, they may receive in greater measure the healing remedies your kindness bestows". No contest.

So I have nothing against the language of the Book of Common Prayer. The prayer of humble access (moved to follow the Agnus in the Ordinariate Rite, instead of breaking up the Canon as Cranmer did) is a fine prayer. So too is the thanksgiving after Communion (albeit a little wordy for daily use). What I do find hard to take, though, is the god-wottery of the American Book which has been imported into the Ordinariate Use. For those unfamiliar with the word, god-wottery is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as 'an affected quality of archaism, excessive fussiness and sentimentality'. These, I fear, are the very things which many English members of the Ordinariate find so unhelpful.

First the archaism; we have been happy saying "and with your Spirit". Is it helpful to change this to "thy" spirit, last used by some of us half a century ago - and to younger ones totally unknown? Perhaps in remoter parts of the Pennines people still 'thee' and 'thou' one another, but for most of us this is just archaism for its own sake. Now some would argue that this is hieratic language and to put everything into the "you" form would be to treat Almighty God with too much familiarity. But that is exactly what Our Lord taught us to do! It is retained in the Latin of the Lord's Prayer (qui ES is coelis .. ES being the singular, informal address.) French and Italian and all those languages which make a distinction between the second person plural and the second person singular invariably address the Almighty in the familiar 'tu' form. That is what the prayer book did by speaking to the Lord as "Thou". By reverting to this usage, long dead in England, we now put an artificial distance between us and him which neither Our Lord not the Prayer Book intended.

Then, the excessive fussiness. Why have a threefold repetition of "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only and my soul shall be healed"? The phrase 'vain repetition' comes to mind. And why introduce multiple kissings of the altar? Or duplicate genuflections?

As for sentimentality, I leave it to others to look through the Propers of the Book of Divine Worship. Perhaps we shall be spared some of its mawkishness when our own Propers are produced. Even so, I'm afraid that the Ordinariate Use has missed a great opportunity for finding beautiful and accessible language for today's worship. It might have begun by excising the most obvious archaisms; what is wrong with "Stir up, we beseech you, Lord, the wills of your faithful people, that they, plentifully bringing forth the fruit of good works may by you be plentifully rewarded"? But we will try to use the rite we have been given to the letter, and by the time Advent ends perhaps I shall have been persuaded of its beauty and charm. We can only hope.

Not Black Saturday

After the madness of black Friday's sales, good to walk through Lymington and find the market as busy and happy as ever. It's pleasant to walk to Mass and be greeted by some of the stallholders and shoppers - "Morning, Padre", "Morning Vicar". Sometimes I even get called "Father". Back half a century ago when we walked from the clergy house to church in North End the Dockyard mateys on the way to work everyone called us Father - but then, Portsmouth had experienced a century of the Anglo-Catholic revival. By the 1960s there were four of us unmarried clergy looked after by a Housekeeper - besides the Vicar and two married priests-in-charge living near the three churches. There was a Sister on the staff too, a Nun of St Peter's Convent in Woking. I think that parish is now down to a solitary Vicar. O tempora, O Mores!

After Mass on Saturday there is always coffee and cakes in the old school (now called "Joseph's Place"- he seems to live across the road from Mary, since the Presbytery is now called Mary House. Today the cakes were especially lavish - probably to prepare us for the rigours of Advent

Then home again up the hill through the market crowds. Later today we may get to St Dominic's Convent where the Sisters are having a Christmas Sale - but not, I expect, a black Saturday.

You can get anything in our Market

Certainly not a BLACK market

After the Fall

Mass of St Hilda this morning at Lymington Church (Our Lady of Mercy). I offered the Mass for the Church of England, and especially for my friends who will have found today so hard - I well remember Synod on November 11th 1992, when I had to return to face those at St Stephen's House who really had believed (as I once did) that "the Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church". For me, that became an increasingly difficult position to defend .

Acer

But what picture could be appropriate for such a day? Maybe a series of lines drawn in sand, with an incoming tide sweeping them all away?  No, too unkind. Instead here are a couple of images from the garden. On this damp and dull day the dying foliage glows with one last burst of splendour. Of course, such visual parables cannot be pressed too far; for the Wisteria and the Maple there may be new glory next year. Institutions, though, simply wither on the vine.

Wisteria

Cheer up, though. There is new life - but maybe not for the branch severed from the trunk. Pope Benedict XVI (blessed be he) found a way of grafting us back into the stock where we belong. That way is still open for those brave enough to ask for it. It is called the Ordinariate.