Let nothing you dismay

The Church in Wales Review

2012-01-31T11:37:00.005Z

The Church in Wales has issued a press release [here] on the subject of the Review of its life and structures.

"More than 1,000 people across Wales have had their say about the future of the Church in Wales as part of a root and branch review.
They met the three members of the independent Review Group at public meetings held in each of the six dioceses in Wales in November and January.
The Review Group was commissioned by the Welsh bishops and the Standing Committee of the Governing Body last year to address fundamental questions about the role and structures of the Church in Wales as it approaches its centenary in 2020. It is chaired by Lord Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford, and also includes Professor Charles Handy former professor at the London Business School; and Professor Patricia Peattie, former Chair of the Episcopal Church in Scotland’s Standing Committee.
As well as the public meetings, the Review Group held separate meetings with senior clergy from each diocese, bishops’ advisers, ordinands and staff from Wales’ theological college, St Michael’s College, Llandaff, and senior staff from the Representative Body. In March they will meet a delegation of young people from across the Church to hear their views. They also took written submissions from those unable to attend the meetings.
At the open meetings parishioners were asked what aspect of both their diocese and the Church they felt most positive about and what changes they would like to see to make its ministry more effective. They were also asked how they would address challenges such as the predicted fall in clergy numbers and financial resources.
The Group will report back in the summer..."

Some of us hope against hope that the review will come up with findings which will be other than a mirror held up to reflect current social fashions and cultural prejudices, although the chances have to be against it, given the necessarily self-appointed nature of the thousand or so people who attended, and presumably the much fewer who expressed their views at the various public meetings.
It might be thought, too, that the witness of Holy Scripture and the Tradition of the ages might be included in the consultation exercise.

There are, of course, already those - theologically trained and even commissioned pneumatologically, one might say - who should be making these kind of leadership decisions about the future....
But then the results of that process would perhaps be even more of a foregone conclusion than those of the "independent" Review Group are likely to be.

Education: Crisis, what crisis?

2012-01-31T11:10:00.000Z

Cranmer [here] has this post on the difficulties of student Christian societies in our brave new contemporary university culture.

"Honestly, whatever happened to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and of association? This is a university – an English university – in which its student body apparently has no remote understanding of what it is to be educated in the liberal arts tradition, or any appreciation of what it is to live in a liberal democracy."

The real problem seems to be allowing those who are essentially illiterate (but who may have a certain facility in passing increasingly easy and narrowly-based 'A level' examinations) to attend a university in the first place.

Do not go gentle.....

2012-01-30T22:17:00.005Z

"Civilisations which go gently and willingly into extinction, as Winston Churchill once rightly pointed out, disappear forever. Those that go down fighting have some hope of rebirth."

I have to admit after recent conversations with friends that I've changed my mind - if only just a little.
I'm not for one moment rowing back from the point of view consistently expressed in these pages that the Ordinariates (worldwide) offer the best - in reality the only - chance for the long-term survival of an authentic form of Catholic-compatible Anglican patrimony and tradition, and for a theological healing of at least some of the deep rifts of the English Reformation.
But I now think it's also necessary for some to stay and face inevitable defeat with all its attendant risks (not only in terms of financial and employment security, but as regards cynicism, bitterness and loss of faith in anything) just to order to fight, where they are, for what they believe.

The reason? Simply that the theological / cultural 'war' taking place both within the Christian tradition and in the societies in which we live won't come to an end with the triumph of secularist thought in Anglicanism and in the other bodies which trace their independent existence from the upheavals of the sixteenth century. We are clearly deluding ourselves if we think that the proponents of equality at any cost will halt at the banks of the Tiber. The fight will follow us wherever we go.
As we are seeing both in the United States and in Britain, in Church and State alike, nothing is immune from its effects, in ecclesial terms largely because of the massive influence the aggressively secular mass media has on the lives and opinions of the faithful. The limited influence of those who teach and preach the faith is only too clear.
In the Western Church we have been richly blessed with two steadfast and articulate defenders of orthodoxy in the present Holy Father and his predecessor. We have to pray that the ancient highly conservative role of the Papacy and the Roman Church will continue to resist the inroads of liberalism to the end, even at the risk (as Pope Benedict has indicated) of shrinking drastically in terms of size and influence.

Anglo-Catholics were often accused in the nineteenth century of being a kind of 'fifth column' (I'm aware of the linguistic anachronism) undermining the culture and polity of the Church of England. To court self-conscious irony, this is our last chance fully to embrace that role by resisting the current Anglican trend towards the abandonment of apostolicity and credal orthodoxy even in the face of 'persecution' and ultimate extinction.
The Ordinariates are necessary. I have nothing but admiration for those who have been able to make the move, risking much to help establish something which we hope and pray will be of increasing significance and influence in the years to come. But also necessary, I now believe, is the willingness to face certain defeat - to go down fighting - for the sake of the signal it will send out. Anglicanorum Coetibus plainly states that the Ordinariates are not for this moment or for this generation only.
It's not 'either or,' but 'both and.'
And, at the risk of appearing naïve, the recent signs of mutual antagonism between those who have gone and those who have stayed can only help those who oppose the 'Catholic' faith in all its forms.* Surely, even for those who now wish to make exclusive claims, 'he who is not against us is for us.'
Or, to coin a phrase (!) 'we are all in this together.'

* One very important addition / correction: from a correspondent:
'Surely “the recent signs of mutual antagonism between some of those who have gone and some of those who have stayed”? I can only speak for myself, but I’ve not given up any of my friendships.'

Memo to myself - don't write in the middle of a 'flu bug.

King Charles I

2012-01-30T12:35:00.006Z

Van Dyke's celebrated Triple Portrait of King Charles I

By the Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross

Sombre and rich, the skies;
Great glooms, and starry plains.
Gently the night wind sighs;
Else a vast silence reigns.

The splendid silence clings
Around me: and around
The saddest of all kings
Crowned, and again discrowned.

Comely and calm, he rides
Hard by his own Whitehall:
Only the night wind glides:
No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.

Gone, too, his Court; and yet,
The stars his courtiers are:
Stars in their stations set;
And every wandering star.

Alone he rides, alone,
The fair and fatal king:
Dark night is all his own,
That strange and solemn thing.

Which are more full of fate:
The stars; or those sad eyes?
Which are more still and great:
Those brows; or the dark skies?

Although his whole heart yearn
In passionate tragedy:
Never was face so stern
With sweet austerity.

Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing of his breath
Won his defeated ends.

Brief life and hapless? Nay:
Through death, life grew sublime.
Speak after sentence? Yea:
And to the end of time.

Armoured he rides, his head
Bare to the stars of doom:
He triumphs now, the dead,
Beholding London's gloom.

Our wearier spirit faints,
Vexed in the world's employ:
His soul was of the saints;
And art to him was joy.

King, tried in fires of woe!
Men hunger for thy grace:
And through the night I go,
Loving thy mournful face.

Yet when the city sleeps;
When all the cries are still:
The stars and heavenly deeps
Work out a perfect will.

Lionel Johnson (1867-1902 )

Remember!
The execution of King Charles from the 2003 film 'To Kill A King'

Ubi Caritas

2012-01-25T13:52:00.000Z

For the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul and the last day of the Octave for Christian Unity:

The setting of the motet 'Ubi Caritas' by Paul Mealor

David Jones

2012-01-23T16:30:00.008Z

David Jones: 'Hill Pasture: Capel-y-ffin'

Being at a loose end in Cardiff for a few hours on Saturday, I spent some time in the really very impressive National Museum.
Over the winter until the beginning of March there is an exhibition devoted to the drawings and paintings of the Anglo-Welsh artist & poet David Jones, best known perhaps for his major poetic works In Parenthesis and The Anathemata. Following his experiences in the First World War , Jones became a convert to Catholicism and joined the circle of artists around the sculptor Eric Gill, first at Ditchling and then in the former monastery buildings of the eccentric but pioneering Anglican Benedictine, Fr Ignatius at Capel-y-ffin near Llanthony on the Welsh border.

The exhibition shows clearly the overriding themes of David Jones’ work, both in his painting and his poetry, the 'sacramental' landscape seen through the eyes of a devout Catholic Christian faith and owing much to the ‘romanitas’ of early medieval Welsh / British history and legend. In his disaffection with contemporary culture and with 'modernity' he can increasingly be seen as an important and prophetic figure.

I was introduced to the art and poetry of David Jones as young theology student (and I will always be very grateful indeed for that life-changing experience) by representatives of those who thought we could have the poetry without the doctrinal orthodoxy, ironically those who have helped bring into the very heart of the Church the destructive tendencies Jones so lamented ; I wonder what he himself would have thought about that.

The Cardiff exhibition? Well worth a visit!

Elgar: Piano Quintet

2012-01-22T18:27:00.003Z

Prompted by a post at the Stella Maris blog [here] about the composer Edward Elgar and the undoubted difficulties he encountered because of his Catholicism [one only has to think of Stanford's infamous comment about the Dream of Gerontius that it "stinks of incense" to understand very clearly the prejudices commonly in circulation] here is perhaps my favourite work of Elgar's - the Piano Quintet in A minor, performed by Ian Brown with the Sorrel Quartet:

Of course, it wasn't only Roman Catholics who suffered from the Establishment's prejudice. Less than twenty years before the writing of Gerontius, Anglo-Catholic clergy of the Church of England were being imprisoned by the State under the provisions of Disraeli's Public Worship Regulation Act. If to the Establishment of the day, Catholics were the clear and overt enemy, Anglo-Catholics were the sinister and subversive fifth column.

But Fr Abberton is right; the prejudice against Catholicism in any form is still there beneath the surface. Try scratching the veneer of contemporary ecumenical 'tolerance' and you will soon find out. To take a random example, even mention the word ' Ordinariate' in certain circles and .... [light blue touch-paper and retire]

A Code of Practice won't do?

2012-01-20T22:53:00.003Z

By an ironic twist of timing (who says the Lord doesn't have a sense of humour?) during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity the Church of England General Synod has produced an Illustrative Draft Code of Practice [here] for ~~further marginalising~~ addressing the issue of traditionalists who, along with the vast majority of Christendom, cannot accept the validity of women bishops.
I won't waste my time here writing about something which will have absolutely no relevance in a Welsh Province which, after the arbitrary withdrawal of our episcopal provision, doesn't even have the flimsy fig leaf of a code of practice. Judge for yourselves whether the C of E's attempt addresses anyone's concerns - even those of the putative female 'bishops,' much less those of the traditionalists who strive to ensure the continuation of an orthodox 'Catholic' tradition within the provinces of Canterbury and York.
The Archbishops have tried to reassure traditionalists [here], but the ball now seems to be firmly in their court in order to ensure that this time their wishes are not treated with utter contempt by General Synod.

Fr Anthony Chadwick at a new blog writes [here] about the PNCC. It seems to allay many of the concerns expressed about its doctrinal orthodoxy.

And thanks to Anglicani, here is a interesting link to a Orthodox (capital 'O') Western rite - the 'Anaphora of St Gregory the Great' - look familiar?

"The abolition of gender"

2012-01-16T12:19:00.001Z

An alarming piece here from American Thinker about the attempt by elements of the 'social left' in the U.S. A. to deconstruct society's ideas of gender - sex if you prefer.
Now, of course, one could be forgiven for thinking that this is simply the wackier outer fringe of equality politics, were it not for recent rulings on the setting aside for passport and identity purposes [see here] of the original sexual identity of those who describe themselves as transgendered. In effect, here one can now choose whether to be described as male or female for means of official identification regardless of biology, regardless one might say, of the facts. But it is this latter point of respect for truth that is the crucial issue. Otherwise, in a 'free society' who cares about a person's sexual preferences or how someone dresses and describes themselves? But we should care about accuracy and known facts and not seek to alter them out of a misguided respect for subjective feelings. Christians would also add the vital importance of respecting the God-given distinctiveness and complementarity of male and female in the created order.
Tolerance as sentimentality, the elevation of preference as the supreme good and, frankly, pretence are in danger of taking over our social discourse and interaction. But, of course, the developments mentioned in the article taking place in state schools and other institutions have occurred in the U.S.A.. This is Britain; it could never happen here.
Now where have I heard that before?

From Bl John Henry Newman's Verses on Various Occasions

2012-01-16T09:02:00.001Z

'Liberalism

"Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel. Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam Jehu departed not from after them, to wit, the golden calves that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan."

YE cannot halve the Gospel of God's grace;
Men of presumptuous heart! I know you well.
Ye are of those who plan that we should dwell,
Each in his tranquil home and holy place;
Seeing the Word refines all natures rude,
And tames the stirrings of the multitude.

And ye have caught some echoes of its lore,
As heralded amid the joyous choirs;
Ye mark'd it spoke of peace, chastised desires,
Good-will and mercy,—and ye heard no more;
But, as for zeal and quick-eyed sanctity,
And the dread depths of grace, ye pass'd them by.

And so ye halve the Truth; for ye in heart,
At best, are doubters whether it be true,
The theme discarding, as unmeet for you,
Statesmen or Sages. O new-compass'd art
Of the ancient Foe!—but what, if it extends
O'er our own camp, and rules amid our friends?'

[Palermo. June 5, 1833.]

What price 'vocation' now?

2012-01-15T15:59:00.004Z

What a complete mess...

Q. Who should definitely not - ever - under any circumstances - be ordained to the episcopate?
A. Someone who would consider suing the Church if his "vocation" were not recognised.

See the report from the Mail on Sunday here.
And comment from Peter Ould here : I agree; this report sounded at first so bizarrely unlikely as to be impossible, even in today's Church of England. However, commentators seem convinced of the truth of it...
No comment from the story's protagonists - from The Guardian here

Whatever the background of this particular story, the whole saga of the modern Anglican approach to human sexuality is an object lesson in how not to do theology. But it's precisely the sort of thing which happens when an ecclesial establishment abandons its intellectual and spiritual traditions and ends up in thrall to the surrounding secular culture.
"Liberals" from other and more ancient Christian traditions who might ever be tempted to follow the Anglican example, please take note before you step into the void...

On the general subject of contemporary ecclesiastical appointments and those who make them......

O Lux beata Trinitas

2012-01-14T21:16:00.000Z

Updates and a new Welsh appointment

2012-01-13T13:02:00.001Z

From Cramner - why the right to insult - and to put up with being insulted - is vital in a free society (and for the future of the blogosphere):

"This is the New Inquisition: the demand for theological orthodoxy has given way to prohibition of ‘feeling insulted’. And you might be next. Indeed, His Grace’s blog may well be closed down because someone complains to the police that religio-political polemic makes them feel uncomfortable and causes them distress; that they feel ‘insulted’. This blog is, after all, a public space and His Grace is publishing alarming material. He probably not infrequently falls foul of equality and diversity demands, or transgresses the bounds of acceptability for those of other faiths or ‘exotic’ sexual proclivities. His Grace rarely means to insult, but the intention is irrelevant: if the beholder feels offended, His Grace may be reported to the police under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, and they are obliged to investigate..."

John Richardson on expectations and Common Tenure [here]

Part two of the excellent post on the ancient origins of the Nativity Scene from the NLM [here]

The new Dean of Monmouth (St Woolos Cathedral, Newport) has been named.
In succession to the resolutely traditionalist Dean Jeremy Winston SSC, whose tragically untimely death took place in November, the appointment of the Revd. Lister Tonge has been announced by the Bishop of Monmouth today.

St Hilary of Poitiers

2012-01-13T09:40:00.005Z

The Church of St Hilaire-le-Grand in Poitiers

My first church as a parish priest was dedicated to Saint Hilary. It had started life as a post-war prefabricated building, along the lines of the 'tin tabernacles,' unmistakably 'Catholic' in its interior but architecturally about as far removed from the great church of St Hilary in Poitiers as you could imagine, but nevertheless a living witness to the Faith and the love of God in what had become, to the great distress of its older residents, a run-down and increasingly violent, socially and spiritually impoverished housing estate.

Little did I think that one day, in France, we would be within easy reach (in French travelling terms, anyway) of Poitiers itself.

"When we speak of the reality of Christ's nature being in us, we would be speaking foolishly and impiously - had we not learned it from Him. For He Himself says: 'My Flesh is truly Food, and My Blood is truly Drink. He that eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood will remain in Me and I in him.' As to the reality of His Flesh and Blood, there is no room left for doubt, because now, both by the declaration of the Lord Himself and by our own faith, it is truly the Flesh and it is truly Blood. And These Elements bring it about, when taken and consumed, that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Is this not true? Let those who deny that Jesus Christ is true God be free to find these things untrue. But He Himself is in us through the flesh and we are in Him, while that which we are with Him is in God."

St Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate [8,14]

The Shrine of Saint Hilary

Father, keep us from vain strife of words. Grant to us constant profession of the Truth. Preserve us in a true and undefiled faith so that we may hold fast to that which we professed when we were baptized in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that we may have Thee for our Father, that we may abide in Thy Son and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

Where did you get that hat?

2012-01-12T18:00:00.006Z

I've been sent this link to a wonderful, if a little irreverent, post on the subject of ecclesiastical headgear. Having been known to wear a biretta on occasion, what is ridiculous after all? Some secular fashions also leave a lot to be desired, but chacun à son goût and all that ... at least in the Church we don't go in for tattoos. Now that would be something.
But I've always thought the most silly hat of all comes from the Anglican tradition, the Bishop Andrewes Cap * - like a Christmas tree gone over to the dark side.

* Something which can't quite make up its mind as to whether it's a biretta or an academic cap - the classic Anglican dilemma.

'And I saw a new heaven'

2012-01-12T16:42:00.004Z

This evening's sunset: colder weather on the way?

For a very slow news day in January at the beginning of ordinary time, here is a video of Edgar Bainton's 'And I saw a New Heaven' This particular clip is included as much for the visuals - from a Sung Mass at St Paul's, K Street, Washigton DC - as for the music itself: there are better quality recordings.
But this post was really prompted by something pointed out by Kate, my wife - an admittedly very obscure literary / musical link between the children's author, Elinor M Brent-Dyer (the writer of the 'Chalet School' series), who crossed the Tiber in 1930, and Edgar Bainton himself. He taught her whilst he was the head of a music college in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

A very good statement in so far as it goes

2012-01-10T13:03:00.006Z

Lest it be thought that I have nothing good to say about contemporary Anglicanism, here is a helpful statement issued on behalf of the Church of England in response to the (essentially bogus) Falconer Commission for Assisted Dying.
As far as it goes. To be slightly critical, one would have expected a statement from the Church to make at least some mention of the Christian respect for the sanctity of life which underlies both this statement and the present law.
I understand the arguments against referring to that: theological arguments are all too readily dismissed in a highly secularised age. But is the Church just another socio-political pressure group among many, or should we dare to say something positive about the spiritual foundations of society, something which makes explicit mention of a 'higher' authority? As I say, I know the arguments........ we have to be be taken seriously by society as a whole........I'm just not convinced by them. The Church should be the Church. It is our failure to be so over the years and to make the case in season and out of season for the reasonableness of the Christian faith, for all kinds of superficially good motives as well as some indefensible ones, which has allowed secularism to proceed largely unchecked.

Here is the statement in full - a welcome contribution to the debate nonetheless:

Statement on the report of the Commission for Assisted Dying (5 January 2012)

The 'Commission on Assisted Dying' is a self-appointed group that excluded from its membership anyone with a known objection to assisted suicide. In contrast, the majority of commissioners, appointed personally by Lord Falconer, were already in favour of changing the law to legitimise assisted suicide. Lord Falconer has, himself, been a leading proponent for legitimising assisted suicide, for some years.

The commission undertook a quest to find effective safeguards that could be put in place to avoid abuse of any new law legitimising assisted suicide. Unsurprisingly, given the commission's composition, it has claimed to have found such safeguards.

Unlike the commissioners, we are unconvinced that the commission has been successful in its quest. It has singularly failed to demonstrate that vulnerable people are not placed at greater risk under its proposals than is currently the case under present legislation. In spite of the findings of research that it commissioned, it has failed adequately to take into account the fact that in all jurisdictions where assisted suicide or euthanasia is permitted, there are breaches of safeguards as well as notable failures in monitoring and reporting.

The present law strikes an excellent balance between safeguarding hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people and treating with fairness and compassion those few people who, acting out of selfless motives, have assisted a loved one to die.

Put simply, the most effective safeguard against abuse is to leave the law as it is. What Lord Falconer has done is to argue that it is morally acceptable to put many vulnerable people at increased risk so that the aspirations of a small number of individuals, to control the time, place and means of their deaths, might be met. Such a calculus of risk is unnecessary and wholly unacceptable.

Rt Revd James Newcome, Bishop of Carlisle

(Lead Bishop for Healthcare Issues)

Roses and primroses for William Laud

2012-01-10T11:50:00.002Z

Winter Ordinary Time begins today, although we could be forgiven for thinking that spring has arrived several months early. Roses and primroses are flowering together in the garden today. The freezing weather will undoubtedly come at some point, but this comparative warmth is compensation for those of us who hate the cold and have suffered over the last couple of years.

The blog Once I Was A Clever Boy reminds us [here] that Archbishop William Laud was murdered by parliamentary decree (a bill of attainder) on this day in 1645. It's hard to think that the present direction of the Church he once led is anything other than a total repudiation of his heritage and those who have sought to build upon it.
For us, Gladstones's words about Laud seem ironic, not to say tragic:
"Laud as a Churchman has lasted. He lives to-day. His opponents have mostly disappeared from off the earth. They have left consequences, but no representatives. Laud has both."
How times change.

Why incense is good for you by Fr Ed Tomlinson of the Ordinariate [here] with a link to a piece of scientific research on the subject.
For several reasons, probably more theological than medical, its use in the liturgy always makes me feel less depressed. As my old theological college principal used to say - often - you'll have to get used to one of two smells in the next life, either incense or sulphur, so best prepare for it now...

Not exactly a winter scene

Bishop Robert Mercer's reception; a survivor of the Holocaust, and other weekend news & comment

2012-01-09T09:47:00.032Z

Bishop Robert Mercer C.R. joins the Ordinariate. A long-awaited event. Report at The Anglo-Catholic here from Fr Edwin Barnes and here on his own blog. It's interesting to see the place of his reception, Fr Dolling's old church of St Agatha's, Landport (Portsea) now under the care of the TAC. Could this turn out to be the first church / parish of the U.K. Ordinariate? Idle speculation on my part only.

Former bishop Clarence Pope, of the Episcopal diocese of Forth Worth (as it was then) in the U.S.A. has died aged 81 after a long illness. May he rest in peace. Full story here by George Conger

From Bishop David Chislett's blog this homily on the Epiphany by Dr Robert Crouse

Peter Hitchens [here] on the dangers inherent in trying even bad people twice for the same crime (quoting Robert Bolt's take on St Thomas More), and on the populist liberties being currently taken with the fictional occupant of 221B Baker Street. Who reads anymore anyway? Precisely.

BBC Radio 4's Sunday Worship for Epiphany yesterday came from the Vatican Observatory at Castelgandolfo. [Link here]

One of the many reasons (in retrospect) the Second World War had to be fought and pursued to the end - even at such huge cost to Great Britain and her global interests: my neighbour across the church car park in St Arvans, Mady Gerrard's story of her experience in the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Belsen [here] The second part will be broadcast in two weeks' time. Unmissable.
This is her life story here She tells the story of how, before the Holocaust, as a little Jewish girl, Mady Goldgruber, she presented a bouquet of flowers to one Cardinal Pacelli at her town's railway station.
She went on to become a notable dress designer in the United States, making clothes for the wives of presidents and celebrities. Another example of the global village we now live in.

The Epiphany of the Lord

2012-01-08T08:34:00.000Z

By request!

Bishop Lancelot Andrewes in his Christmas Day Sermon of 1622 said this of the journey of the Wise |Men:

"This was nothing pleasant, for through deserts, all the way waste and desolate. Nor secondly, easy neither; for over the rocks and crags of both Arabias, specially Petra, their journey lay. Yet if safe, but it was not, but exceeding dangerous, as lying through the midst of the black tents of Kedar, a nation of thieves and cut-throats; to pass over the hills of robbers, infamous then, and infamous to this day. No passing without great troop or convoy. Last we consider the time of their coming, the season of the year. It was no summer progress. A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, in solsitio brumali, the very dead of winter.”

- words far more familiar to us by being quoted by T.S.Eliot at the beginning of his poem, The Journey of the Magi.
This is Eliot reading it:

For the Eve of the Epiphany

2012-01-07T11:11:00.003Z

"You know how sometimes on a pitch black night in the country, you see far off one glimmer of light and you follow it and it turns out to be just a candle in a cottage window - but it was enough to assure you of life ahead, to give you the lead you wanted in the dark. In the same way, when the Magi turned from their abstruse calculations in search of heaven and followed a star, they did not arrive at a great mathematical result or revelation of the cosmic mind. They found a poor little family party and were brought to their knees - because, like the truly wise, they were really humble-minded - before a baby born under most unfortunate circumstances, a mystery of human life, a little living growing thing. What a paradox! The apparently rich Magi coming to the apparently poor child. There they laid down their intellectual treasures - of pure gold to them - and, better than that, offered the spirit of adoration, the incense which alone consecrates the intellectual life and quest of truth, and that reverent acceptance of pain, mental suffering and sacrifice, that death to self which, like myrrh, hallows the dedicated life in all its forms.

The utmost man can achieve on his own here capitulates before the unspeakable simplicity of the methods of God. He is the Light of the World - all of it. He does not only want or illuminate spiritual things. His hallowing touch is for the ox and the ass, as afterwards for the sparrows and the flowers. There never was a less high-brow religion or one more deeply in touch with natural life than Christianity, although it is infinite in its scope. Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same shall be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is no use being too clever about life. Only so far as we find God in it do we find any meaning in it. Without Him it is a tissue of fugitive and untrustworthy pleasures, conflicts, ambitions, desires, frustrations, intolerable pain.”

from Evelyn Underhill: 'Light of Christ'

Peter Warlock's Bethlehem Down sung by the choir of |King's College, Cambridge, directed by Stephen Cleobury

2012 Chrism masses - and a few more long term options?

2012-01-07T09:27:00.003Z

From the See of Ebbsfleet's website

Chrism Masses 2012

March 31st, 11:30am - Holy Nativity Knowle

April 2nd, 11:00am - Pusey House, Oxford

April 3rd, 11:00am - St Martins, Salisbury

April 4th, 11:30am - St James, Wednesbury

Fr Sutter at his blog Anglicani puts forward the available options for Anglicans considering their future [here] It's written from a North American perspective, but largely holds good for the rest of us. There's nothing new there, but it's interesting to see the list of alternatives in black and white:

"...The three options above all consider that apostolic order is secondary to following the spirit of the age in that all three of the above have abandoned the apostolic succession. Anglicans for whom this is not a problem should consider only the first three possibilities above. Anglicans who value apostolic succession should consider only the three possibilities that follow..."

Three Kings

2012-01-07T01:04:00.000Z

There are no days after Epiphany this year, just the Baptism of the Lord on Monday and then the beginning of ordinary time.
Some more music by way of compensation: Peter Cornelius' Three Kings:

L'Adoratione de' Maggi

2012-01-06T09:00:00.001Z

Like many, here we are celebrating the Epiphany on Sunday, but for the traditional date of the feast, January 6th, this is the early baroque Neapolitan composer Cristofaro Caresana's cantata, L'Adoratione de' Maggi:

There's an excellent post (the first of two) from the NLM on the ancient iconography of the Nativity scene [here]

"...More than one modern writer has failed to grasp or acknowledge the pastoral concerns of men like St. Irenaeus, Origen, or the fathers of the Council of Nicea, when they assailed heresies like Gnosticism or Arianism. In defending the full humanity and the full divinity of Christ, they are also defending the fullness of God’s salvation for the sake of every single person alive, of whatever sort or condition. For the heretics, human nature cannot be saved by the divine nature, because the latter can have nothing in common with it. The faith of the Church can look upon a newborn in a manger and proclaim to all men that in Him, God has made known His Salvation, which is Himself."

A feast for the finches

2012-01-05T16:11:00.003Z

The storms continue - Atlantic weather along the Severn Estuary and the banks of the Wye. Last night's gales, still blowing strongly but now from a cloudless and cold sky, scattered the seed from one of the bird feeders all over the border underneath; the chaffinches seemed delighted. It's an ill wind...

Of course, the goldfinch is a well-known symbol in medieval art of the Lord's passion and resurrection.
But I think I'm right in remembering that I've read somewhere that the chaffinch, the pinson, a traditional symbol of happiness in France, has been associated with portrayals of St Jerome and has become, as a result, an emblem of celibacy, the 'bachelor bird.'

Who can forget the line about finches from Hopkins' Pied Beauty?

Glory be to God for dappled things,
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow,
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls, finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced, fold, fallow and plough,
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange,
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim.
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change;
Praise him.

illustration - RSPB

Waiting for the barbarians

2012-01-05T12:04:00.010Z

Sometimes our situation as Anglo-Catholics seems comparable with that of the famous and many-layered poem by C.P. Cavafy - the interminable waiting around for the final cataclysm to happen and for decisions to be made which will determine our futures.
Of course, unlike for Cavafy's Romans, in many ways day-to-day life does go on, the Gospel is proclaimed and the Sacraments celebrated, plans for the future are made albeit tentatively and provisionally, but the unspoken question (actually, several unspoken questions) is always hanging in the air and the sense of waiting is almost tangible.
But, in complete and total contrast to the ending of the poem, there are barbarians (sorry about the analogy, sisters and brothers, but...) and they are on their way.

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

Translated by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard

On the subject of contemporary barbarism of a different kind, even if we could make a good case for their being philosophically related - the Falconer 'Commission' on assisted dying (reported by the BBC this morning for all the world as if it were what it purports to be) - there's an excellent post here from Ancient Briton about Dame Cicely Saunders and the hospice movement, and notice of a radio discussion from Fr Abberton here
According to one British LibDem euro-politician here , assisted dying is a 'liberal issue.' It's odd that 'liberal issues' now seem to concern death in one way or another, not the enhancement of life. Mr Gladstone must be spinning in his grave.

PNCC ?

2012-01-04T19:43:00.007Z

I'm still intrigued by an article in the December issue of New Directions in which Bishop Roald Flemestad of the Nordic Catholic Church urges (soon to be?) unchurched orthodox Anglicans to consider the Union of Scranton and communion with the Polish National Catholic Church in the U.S.A. [here].
I'm particularly intrigued by the suggestion in the light of a recent comment by Fr John Zuhlsdorf (Fr Z) that the PNCC rejects the doctrine of original sin [here], famously described by Chesterton as "the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.”
I must admit that Fr Z's comment did surprise me and alarm me more than a little. Can anyone cast any light on this?

[There is this article on the PNCC, written in the 1950s by the Jesuit, Father John A. Hardon, which makes reference to a 'modern catechism' which states as much, but without any indication as to how authoritative that catechism may have been or may be now]

A duplicitious commission

2012-01-04T13:57:00.002Z

Cranmer (here) has it about right on the subject of Lord Falconer's pseudo-commission on assisted suicide. The idea to hand pick the members of the 'commission' in order to produce a predetermined result must have seemed an excellent strategy. Except for one thing - the process was utterly dishonest and transparently so.
Not for nothing, some might think, was Lord Falconer a member of one of the most duplicitious and downright nasty British governments in modern times, one which, we should never forget, was so desperate to gain and then cling on to office that it took the black arts of political spin to such a level that political life itself has been contaminated for generations.

Winter bugs

2012-01-04T13:05:00.002Z

No, not the creepy crawly, flying kind, the infectious ones! While a storm outside was battering the village, I spent most of yesterday in bed, feeling dreadful, struck down with aching limbs and dizziness. Winter is really here!
When I was awake, and wondering how the garden in France was surviving the winter, I dipped into a truly original and fascinating book, Jane Mossendew's (of the blog 'Thoughts from a Catholic Oasis' here ) 'Gardening with God, Light in Darkness,' the first of a trilogy covering the whole of the Church's year, which I recommend wholeheartedly to anyone with an interest in both plants and gardens and in prayer and the liturgy.

Some music in honour of Our Lady, not unseasonal - and French: Pierre Villette's Hymne a la Vierge

Sing Noel!

2012-01-03T21:38:00.002Z

"...what kind of society is it that lets down so many of its young people?..."

2012-01-02T20:59:00.004Z

asks the Archbishop of Canterbury in his New Year message. [Here]
And, of course, he is right to ask the question.
But how have we let them down?
We have failed them by giving them an inadequate and ideologically warped state education, by selfishly denying them a secure family life, by providing them with poor role models, by patronising them with a ludricrous cult of youth for its own sake, by not giving them safe boundaries within which to live, by cocooning them in an atmosphere of fear masquerading as safety, and circumscribing their freedom as children with absurb regulations of health and safety, by telling them by the way that we live that self-expression, fame and celebrity and money are the things to strive after. Above all, we have failed them by presenting them with a Church which has lost its grip on the things of eternity and is in abject thrall to the zeitgeist which has produced all the foregoing failures.
We could go on.
Perhaps that's not entirely what Dr Williams has in mind.

Indifferent - but to what?

2012-01-02T13:59:00.007Z

Once again Fr Geoffrey Kirk, writing in the January edition of Forward in Faith's New Directions, has hit the nail on the head. In a particularly trenchant article he challenges the Catholic Movement in the Church of England to recognise that the battle has been lost.
But this is the passage which struck me particularly forcibly, having had the same experience, although a few years later:

"How vividly I remember Denis Nineham celebrating in the college chapel in a chasuble bought by Austin Farrer, behaving for all the world as though he believed in the Real Presence, when he did not even believe in the Incarnation. The virus has proved not only terminal but catching. It was doctrinal indifferentism which allowed the development of the so-called 'Doctrine of Reception' was was embraced by opponents of women priests more or less tongue-in-cheek. It has left its doleful mark."

How very true. We have seen it time after time, accompanied by a 'business as usual' mentality and a refusal or, more charitably, an inability to deliver on our rhetoric in the face of the untrustworthiness and betrayals of our opponents. Nowhere has this been seen more clearly than in Wales where now, because compromise has proved predictably to be a one-way-street, orthodox opposition simply does not count for anything. The sniggering from the sidelines has become almost deafening.

Yet, of course, the doctrinal indifferentism Fr Kirk identifies goes hand in hand with heavy handed sociological prescriptivism. You can be as 'radically orthodox' as you wish in modern Anglicanism just so long as you subscribe to contemporary society's equality agenda, regardless of the damage done to previously shared notions of apostolic faith and order. Doctrine simply doesn't matter any more, the real pariahs are those who are unfashionable enough not only to believe that it should, but that its content should be unchanging. The lack of theological, as opposed to sociological, argument in the debates in synods and governing bodies by the proponents of women's ordination to priesthood and episcopate has spoken for itself and has proved to be an acute and ongoing source of embarrassment to a Christian ecclesial body still engaged, for what it's worth, in ecumenical dialogue with the great Churches of West and East.

The Archbishop of Canterbury can pen as many good wishes to New Directions as he likes, but very clearly and to his lasting regret, with his hands being tied firmly behind his back by General Synod, as things stand now those expressions of prayerful support can mean nothing in terms of active support in favour of Anglican comprehensiveness. [And since when were the followers of the Oxford Movement in favour of that - another sign of indifferentism?] 'Episcopally led and synodically governed' means what it says; bishops, even archbishops, don't make the decisions which count.

Update 05.01.2012: A link to Fr Kirk's article is now available at the Ordinariate Portal [here]

U.S. Ordinariate set up

2012-01-01T18:18:00.005Z

For all those who are concerned about the fate of the 'displaced Catholics' of an increasingly heterodox Anglican Communion (for many of whose provinces even the small fig leaf of the Anglican Covenant is a step too far) today's erection of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter in the U.S.A. is a welcome development. The Ordinary has been named as Fr Jeffrey Steenson, former bishop of the Episcopal diocese of the Rio Grande.

Over the months this blog has had many things to say in favour of the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus, not the least being that, while seeking to preserve elements of historical Anglican patrimony, it serves to increase the unity of the Church and does not lead to the scandal of any further fragmentation of the Body of Christ.
After centuries of division, mistrust and misunderstanding there will be no 'perfect solution' to the problems of Christian disunity ( that is, a return to unity which is completely painless and acceptable with regard to the desires and sensibilities of all concerned); but those who are able should take advantage of this offer of reconciliation with the Holy See as and when they can.

But for those who can't, if present trends continue (and all the evidence points that way, particularly as regards the doctrinal 'profile' of the ever-increasing number of female clerics - see here for an analysis from Finland) undoubtedly life will be very grim indeed, either for those who try to hang on within the official Anglican Communion structures or for those who struggle to survive outside them, but it is hard to imagine that God will abandon those who, in good conscience, seek to be faithful.
Reports and further links at the Ordinariate Portal [here]

December turned to May.

2011-12-31T18:47:00.001Z

For the end of the Christmas Octave:

Quentin Massys-The Virgin and Child (1529)
Musée du Louvre

What sweeter music can we bring

Than a carol, for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the voice! Awake the string!

Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honour to this day
That sees December turned to May.

Why does the chilling winter's morn
Smile, like a field beset with corn?
Or smell like a meadow newly shorn
Thus on the sudden? Come and see
The cause, why things thus fragrant be:

'Tis he is born. whose quickening birth
Gives life and lustre, public mirth,
To heaven and the under-earth.

We see him come, and know him ours,
Who, with his sunshine and his showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

The darling of the world is come,
And fit it is, we find a room
To welcome him, to welcome him.

The nobler part of all the house here, is the heart.
Which we will give him: and bequeath
This holly, and this ivy wreath.
To do him honour. who's our King,
And Lord of all this revelling.

Robert Herrick

"This day that sees December turned to May" - an appropriate sentiment perhaps for the end of the Christmas Octave; May is, after all, Mary's month.
Meteorologically, rather than metaphorically or theologically, it may not seem like May, but the weather outside is doing a fair impersonation of early spring; in the garden daffodil bulbs are shooting, we have roses still in bloom, feverfew and snapdragons in flower and even, in a sheltered spot, a tobacco plant (nicotiana) producing highly scented flowers. It's very strange, if not unwelcome, weather for New Year's Eve, but tomorrow we will enjoy its upside down nature even more as in our liturgies we honour the Holy Mother of God, whose role in the mystery of our salvation turns the world on its head.
Another new year, who knows what it will bring?

Happy New Year!

A lullaby on the Feast of the Holy Family

2011-12-30T10:39:00.000Z

The Welsh lullaby, Suo Gân, sung by Chanticleer.
[The words - and a translation - here]

St Thomas of Canterbury .... dramatic interpretations

2011-12-29T21:37:00.003Z

I know I'm probably in a minority of one, but I've always been more than a little disappointed with Peter Glenville's film, 'Becket,' for various reasons, Anouilh's invention of the saint's Saxon origins being among them. Great actors though O'Toole and Burton undoubtedly were, neither seems really to get under the skin of the character he is portraying, the result being that the film seems too stagey, with something indefinable missing. As I say - I'm probably in a very small minority....
Nevertheless, I'll stick to T.S. Eliot and Murder in the Cathedral.
This is the incomparable Paul Schofield delivering Becket's Christmas sermon from the play:

Verbum Caro Factum Est

2011-12-29T19:51:00.001Z

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth.

Christmas Day:

2011-12-25T01:51:00.002Z

A modern setting of the traditional English carol, The Holly & the Ivy, by Matthew Owens: sung by the Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge: [Or is it? See comment]

'Our Saviour, dearly-beloved, was born today: let us be glad. For there is no proper place for sadness, when we keep the birthday of the Life, which destroys the fear of mortality and brings to us the joy of promised eternity. No one is kept from sharing in this happiness. There is for all one common measure of joy, because as our Lord the destroyer of sin and death finds none free from charge, so is He come to free us all. Let the saint exult in that he draws near to victory. Let the sinner be glad in that he is invited to pardon. Let the gentile take courage in that he is called to life.'
Pope St Leo the Great

In contrast to all the strange and ill-thought-through theories of pagan influence on the early Church's celebrations, there's a good article here on the origins and date of Christmas - from Standing on My Head

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T12:28:00.001Z

A holy & blessed Christmas to all who visit Let Nothing You Dismay.

The next day or so is going to be rather busy in the parishes, so there will be few posts other than some seasonal music.

This is Siegfried Karg-Elert's (1877 - 1933) short work for organ, based on Adeste Fideles - I love its sense of anticipation.
Merry Christmas!

Fewer Christians in England & Wales, says report

2011-12-24T01:13:00.002Z

The BBC has taken great delight in reporting on its Radio 4 midnight news bulletin (Christmas Eve - thanks for that!) that a latest social trends report says that fewer people in England & Wales are prepared to describe themselves as Christians, and that those who do don't necessarily equate that with a definite religious belief.

Well, surprise, surprise! After decades of being force fed with this by the educational system, the media and even sections of the Church, it's hardly surprising that some people have swallowed it whole. The advertising industry (not to mention the greatest exponents of black propaganda) works on precisely this principle.
As Noel Coward said, in another context, in his play Private Lives, " Extraordinary how potent cheap music is."
[Link when it becomes available - now here ]

Donkeys: the stable and the cross

2011-12-22T13:30:00.006Z

In total contrast to the last few years, we are having a remarkably warm spell of weather in the run up to Christmas; the thermometer registered 14 degrees (Celsius) here yesterday - on the 'shortest' day of the year.
This is the time when in the great Austin Farrer's words, "Advent brings Christmas, judgement runs out into mercy." The mass readings and the offices over the next days fully reflect this. The Lord is at hand.

Here is a pre-Christmas photo of a group of donkeys on one of the farms in the parish. We stopped this morning as we were passing to wish them a Merry Christmas!
I can't see donkeys without calling to mind that poem of Chesterton, which, if read at this time of year, cuts across the ever present danger of sentimentality and reminds us of the aim and purpose of the Lord's Incarnation. The stable and the cross cannot be separated:

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

"Neither in literature nor in history has the donkey figured as other than an ambassador of peace and healing. It was on a swift donkey that the Shunamite woman rode in search of Elisha for the healing of her son; a donkey carried the Mother of the Saviour in the time of her need, bore the child to safety in the days of his infancy, and carried him in triumph on His entry into Jerusalem."
Fr Bernard Walke: 'Twenty Years at St Hilary'

Now it's the Gospel according to Tesco

2011-12-20T16:08:00.002Z

So, the British supermarket giant, Tesco, who many of us have suspected for a while of seeking world domination of the retail trade, has (through the words of one of its senior executives) seen fit to pontificate on moral theology and the 'evil' of those who uphold traditional Christian teaching on sexuality and the definition of 'marriage.' Whatever our views may be on the latter, surely this is a step too far.... one might have thought.....
Whatever happened to the customer is always right? They must be very confident of their market share at a time of economic recession. I look forward to the Tesco view on the relationship between God and mammon. Although, from a store which puts up its Christmas trees on 31st October......
It will have to be Waitrose after all, despite the extra miles in the car.
See Fr Ray Blake's blog [here] for the full story

Shoot 'em!

2011-12-20T12:16:00.005Z

While the Prime Minister calls (selectively) for a return to the Christian values which are the foundation of our society, the Inspectorate of Constabulary in a report published today states that police officers could 'lawfully' have shot arsonists in some cases during the summer rioting in England, [See here]

Mob violence, riots, and now advocacy of the use of live weapons in response - another nail in the coffin of the civilised Britain we used to know and love? This recommendation itself is symptomatic enough.
Welcome to the modern world. Thus we have made it.

Two deaths and a demolition attempt

2011-12-19T22:14:00.006Z

Two contrasting recent deaths:
The appalling and forgettable North Korean dynastic communist dictator, Kim Jong- il, and the impressive and courageous Czech playwright, anti-communist dissident and democratic politician, Vaclav Havel.
A post here at Mercator.net contrasting the reaction to the deaths of Vaclav Havel and Christopher Hitchens.

Liberal historical revisionism, Dickens & M.R. James:
It was interesting to hear on 'Start the Week,' BBC Radio's Monday morning Andrew Marr programme, Canon Giles Fraser, giving his best impersonation of the uber-modern jolly, flippant Anglican Vicar, complete with Blair-like estuary English, being given a little bit of a lesson on the significance of evil and the complications of an alienated human nature by writers Susan Hill and Clare Tomalin in a discussion on the greatest of ghost story writers, M.R. James.
But it serves Giles Fraser right for his all-too-predictable theologically liberal stuff earlier in the programme about the Emperor Constantine having hijacked the Faith and corrupted its early purity (a plug for an upcoming demolition job on the origins of Christmas, to be broadcast - of course - by the BBC on Christmas Day) - not to mention his positively uncomprehending and outrageously 'Spartist' comments on the Nicene Creed. What is the ecclesial purpose of a Creed again - please? Contrast this with the long-standing Anglican (Catholic) tradition that true social concern and doctrinal orthodox must go hand in hand.
Yet more very Establishment anti-establishment views. Interesting? Not so very much.
Although I do agree with him that Christianity has to be about Salvation (although we do need to define that: whether we like it or not, we're back to creeds again) and not just mere moralism.
Listen here

Just nostalgia?

2011-12-19T21:16:00.006Z

For those of us who have grown up in Britain, there's no escaping Christmas nostalgia. It's part of us, whether we like it or not. Our French friends think Christmas in Britain is massively over hyped, and I find myself largely in agreement with them - it's too commercial, it goes on for ever and we celebrate it too early. Of course, this may be because Christmas is now all we have in terms of a truly common, national celebration, largely due to the consequences of Tudor monarchical greed, and distinctly damp weather (although, having said that, Orthodox Russia manages its yearly celebrations fairly well, with a far more inhospitable climate.) As we sink further into secularist banality, Easter has lost its hold on the popular imagination, being for most people simply a marking of the change of seasons and the opportunity to eat masses of guilt-free chocolate.

This is Peter Hitchens waxing lyrical (for the most part) on the traditional English Christmas:

"Of course, like most children in countries where Christmas is celebrated, I was from my earliest childhood thrilled by the promise of presents, the exhilarating, intoxicating smell of the pine tree in the house, the rich foods and the feeling that this was above all others a special time of year...
In fact I much preferred the weeks before Christmas, the strange light in the sky (the melodramatic, suspenseful nature of late December English weather is perfectly described in John Masefield’s enchanting book ‘The Box of Delights’) , the carol singing, the stirring of the pudding (the Church of England has now abolished ‘Stir-Up Sunday, in its incessant effort to get rid of everything about the Church that anybody actually likes. The prayer for that day contains an exhortation to ‘Stir up, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people’ and refers to ‘plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works’, and that Sunday, a month before Christmas, was also in many homes the traditional date for stirring of puddings. I have never been sure if this is an accident, or a light-hearted insertion by a jolly Bishop centuries ago) ...
So for me the season is one of darkness illuminated with carols sung by lamplight, the sun low in the sky, and a promise, never entirely fulfilled on the day itself, of something wonderful to come. That sticks, when all else falls away..."

Read it all [here]

That resonates.
For those of us who grew up in rather more robustly ecclesiastically observant families, we would have to add to our childhood memories the Advent season's hymns, collects, and propers, a building sense of anticipation culminating in the decoration of the Christmas tree (while in the background the radio broadcast the service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's Cambridge), followed by early stints serving at the altar at Midnight Mass and Christmas Day, not to mention the feasts of the Christmas Octave. Not for us the contemporary and lazy anticipation of Christmas from the beginning of December.

But above all, what remains in my mind is the stability of it all. As children (yes, we were fortunate) we felt safe, loved and secure; it's one of the reasons Nick Clegg, the British deputy prime minister, gets the 1950s and 60s * so completely wrong - not that he is old enough to remember them. [See here]

[*My own recollection, as a young child, of the 'sixties' in provincial Britain, is that nothing much had changed; the disastrous political and social legacy of that decade only really began to be felt by most people in the 1970s, which, for those of us at school then and beginning to be aware of the wider world, was a dark, depressing and dangerous decade, with the constant threat of economic collapse, political instability and a descent into chaos.]

"We mostly spend those lives conjugating three verbs..."

2011-12-19T18:43:00.000Z

Monday reflection:

"When we consider our situation like that, when we lift our eyes from the crowded by-pass to the eternal hills; then, how much the personal and practical things we have to deal with are enriched. What meaning and coherence come into our scattered lives. We mostly spend those lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do. Craving, clutching, and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual—even on the religious—plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being, not wanting, having and doing, is the essence of a spiritual life. But now, with this widening of the horizon, our personal ups and downs, desires, cravings, efforts, are seen in scale; as small and transitory spiritual facts, within a vast, abiding spiritual world, and lit by a steady spiritual light. And at once a new coherence comes into our existence, a new tranquillity and release. Like a chalet in the Alps, that homely existence gains atmosphere, dignity, significance from the greatness of the sky above it and the background of the everlasting hills.

The people of our time are helpless, distracted and rebellious, unable to interpret that which is happening, and full of apprehension about that which is to come, largely because they have lost this sure hold on the eternal; which gives to each life meaning and direction, and with meaning and direction gives steadiness. I do not mean by this a mere escape from our problems and dangers, a slinking away from the actual to enjoy the eternal. I mean an acceptance and living out of the actual, in its homeliest details and its utmost demands, in the light of the eternal; and with that peculiar sense of ultimate security which only a hold on the eternal brings. When the vivid reality which is meant by these rather abstract words is truly possessed by us, when that which is unchanging in ourselves is given its chance, and emerges from the stream of succession to recognise its true home and goal, which is God—then, though much suffering may, indeed will, remain; apprehension, confusion, instability, despair, will cease."

Evelyn Underhill: 'The Spiritual Life'

Fog in channel, continent's Christians isolated

2011-12-19T14:32:00.000Z

THE Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Christopher Hill, who chairs the House of Bishops’ Europe Panel, said on Wednesday that it would be “disastrous” for Britain to become “isolated from the rest of Europe”. He was speaking after the Prime Minister blocked changes to the Lisbon Treaty at a summit in Brussels last week.

Report and comment here and here

As someone has commented to me, this is presumably why over the past 20 years Bishop Hill and his Anglican episcopal colleagues have pursued policies which have caused the Church of England to become isolated from the major Christian body on the Continent? I can't say fairer than that - except perhaps to add, isolated from the second largest Christian body in Europe, too. (See here).
Yet another example of establishment myopia; let's not be too cruel and call it hypocrisy - it is nearly Christmas, after all.

The Gospel according to Dave

2011-12-17T21:28:00.001Z

The Prime Minister's address at Christ Church, Oxford [here] is broadly very welcome indeed. The squeals of the ideological secularists (fundamentalists by another name) can be heard throughout the land.
Yet...... how does he reconcile his words with the 'equality agenda' his government (actually, H.M. the Queen's Government, but never mind) seems to be actively pursuing - another price to be paid for coalition politics?
The tenor of the address has too much of 'Christianity as the social cement of the nation' about it for my liking, but it's better than nothing. And better by far than any utterance made by his two immediate predecessors.

Update: perhaps we can't blame the Coalition: see [here]

O Sapientia

2011-12-17T12:28:00.002Z

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
and reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other,
ordering all things well:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem fortiter,
suaviter disponensque omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

Deposited ecumenical texts?

2011-12-16T22:02:00.004Z

A booklet of significant texts in the [ongoing? downgraded?] dialogue between Anglicans and Roman Catholics can be ordered or downloaded [link here] from the Anglican Centre in Rome.

"The ecumenical pilgrimage is one of discoveries. Some are painful discoveries of how we are viewed by others or how we have hurt and harmed others: this requires of all of us the healing of memories.
Our joyful discoveries are what we have in common and what others can offer us.”
Thus writes Bishop Stephen Platten, the Chairman of the Anglican Centre in Rome, in his introduction to a booklet of texts significant in Anglican – Roman Catholic Relations, ranging from King James I, via Lambeth Conferences and Vatican II, up to the present day. The booklet is part of the Anglican Centre’s work of building friendly and informed relations, and helps to put the new ARCIC III conversations into context..."

Whether or not we think, in the wake of unilateral innovations by Anglican provinces, we can place any hope whatsoever in the future of 'official' ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and Rome, this is well worth reading - even if only as a matter of historical interest or what might have been had things turned out differently. Some have said that agreements and past achievements are always 'in the bank' to be dusted down and withdrawn to be used in the future. Sadly, as things are, it seems unlikely that this particular bank will have many customers - always with the ultimate proviso that "with God all things are possible."

Not the Church Times...

2011-12-16T19:00:00.002Z

No, not the glorious spoof from the 1980s, which used to be online somewhere, but which I can't now find ... but Jezebel's Trumpet itself, as John Hunwicke's blog always called it.
A few years ago I gave up reading it - for the same reason I've stopped listening to the BBC's Sunday programme (which has a similar slant) - because it ruined the weekend, and going to the altar for the parish mass in either a fury or a state of depression wasn't doing me - or anyone else - any good whatsoever.
Anyway, it's the courageous mouthpiece now, not of the Anglo-Catholics who founded it, but of the very liberal C of E establishment. Peter Mullen [here] prefers the Beano; I can't disagree.

Christopher Hitchens R.I.P.

2011-12-16T18:44:00.002Z

The death of Christopher Hitchens, a journalist who has in equal measure informed, entertained and irritated many of us over the years, has been announced today. Despite his sometimes aggressive critique of religious faith and those who hold it, he was always someone committed to searching for the truth.
Here is an honest, moving and civilised response from his brother, Peter Hitchens.

If winter comes....

2011-12-16T12:37:00.008Z

After one of the warmest autumns on record (the first real frost here was in early December), winter has arrived. This morning we awoke to see the fields on the hills above the village and the cliffs of the Wyndcliffe covered with the first snowfall of the season. The still-flowering geraniums in the hanging baskets and the roses in the border look distinctly sorry for themselves now.

As winter closes in, and Advent is about to gather pace, news today of more friends joining (or about to join) the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. As ever, our prayers go with them, as theirs continue to be said for us who still remain.
Slightly disturbingly, the web is full of reports and comment this morning about the direction and the future of the Ordinariate itself. I will resolutely make no comment; those who are involved directly can best speak about the accuracy, or otherwise, of the reports, and be able to separate information from disinformation.
Of course, as we know, not everyone, neither Anglican nor Roman Catholic, wishes Pope Benedict's project well, and some - on this side of the Tiber ( I can't comment on the other bank), and certainly on this side of the Severn - would be very glad to be rid of traditional Anglo-Catholicism; frankly they would prefer it to die out altogether than have any future, either where it now is, or transplanted into an at least potentially friendlier climate...

On that subject, it's usually unremarked upon these days (I wonder why?) how the 'Catholic' legacy of Anglicanism, particularly that of its early to mid- twentieth century heyday, has penetrated so deeply into its liturgies. I was in the congregation at my daughter's school's end-of-term carol service yesterday, and the words of Eric Milner-White's beautiful and remarkable bidding prayer resounded around the ancient building with, I suspect, very few picking up on its theological or ecclesial implications.
Unfortunately, perhaps because in happier times the church housed a religious community, most of my fellow parents seemed to have taken a vow of silence: the singing - of the 'modernised' carols - was barely audible, despite the abbey being pretty full. In partial compensation, the playing of the organ was glorious, the carol service ending with the Widor Toccata
So, is this the future of the Church of England - desperately trying to minister to the embarrassedly indifferent and the completely uninterested, having stripped its message of anything that might have the power to convert?
It seems more and more that many in our rapidly changing western culture have simply lost the capacity for belief and worship. It's winter in more ways than one.

Yet I refuse to end on a pessimistic note; as any residual Christian influence fades away from society in this long-drawn-out twilight of the ages of faith, the opportunity will present itself, perhaps to a smaller and reinvigorated Church, to proclaim again the message of the Word made Flesh.
To put it another way, "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

Evelyn Underhill on St John of the Cross

2011-12-14T20:18:00.001Z

In her book 'Mysticism' Evelyn Underhill famously described St John of the Cross, whose feast day falls today, as "at once the sanest of saints and the most penetrating of psychologists."
This is from another work, 'The Spiritual Life' published in 1936, containing some encouraging words this Advent, when, for some of us, many things seem so fragile and impermanent:

"St. John of the Cross, in a famous and beautiful poem, described the beginning of the journey of his soul to God:

“In an obscure night
Fevered by Love’s anxiety
O hapless, happy plight
I went, none seeing me,
Forth from my house, where all things
quiet be”

Not many of us could say that. Yet there is no real occasion for tumult, strain, conflict, anxiety, once we have reached the living conviction that God is All. All takes place within Him. He alone matters, He alone is. Our spiritual life is His affair; because, whatever we may think to the contrary, it is really produced by His steady attraction, and our humble and self forgetful response to it. It consists in being drawn, at His pace and in His way, to the place where He wants us to be; not the place we fancied for ourselves.
Some people may seem to us to go to God by a moving staircase; where they can assist matters a bit by their own efforts, but much gets done for them and progress does not cease. Some appear to be whisked past us in a lift; whilst we find ourselves on a steep flight of stairs with a bend at the top, so that we cannot see how much farther we have to go. But none of this really matters; what matters is the conviction that all are moving towards God, and, in that journey, accompanied, supported, checked and fed by God. Since our dependence on Him is absolute, and our desire is that His Will shall be done, this great desire can gradually swallow up, neutralise all our small self-centred desires. When that happens life, inner and outer, becomes one single, various act of adoration and self-giving; one undivided response of the creature to the demand and pressure of Creative Love."

New source of Anglican news and comment

2011-12-13T20:52:00.003Z

For those from all traditions who do their best to keep up with Anglican developments (and haven't yet completely despaired of the point of all that), another news service has been launched to compete with the 'official' sources such as ACNS and ENS (TEC's mouthpiece in the United States)
Named 'Anglican Ink.' it will feature longer articles from an 'orthodox' perspective than currently appear on other sites. The link [here] can also be found in the blog list to the right of this blog. We wish them well.

For Gaudete Sunday

2011-12-11T14:15:00.000Z

Henry Purcell's 'Rejoice in the Lord Alway' in the setting for choir and orchestra - Kings College, Cambridge.

Angelus ad Virginem

2011-12-08T20:12:00.001Z

Angelus ad Virginem subintrans in conclave
Virginis formidinem demulcens inquit: 'Ave!'
Ave, Regina virginum, caeli terraeque Dominum
concipies et paries intacta salutem hominum,
tu porta caeli facta medela criminum.

Quomodo conciperem quae virum non cognovi?
Qualiter infringerem quod firma mente vovi?
Spiritus Sancti gratia perficiet haec omnia;
ne timeas, sed gaudeas, secura quod castimonia
manebit in te pura Dei potentia.

Ad haec virgo nobilis respondens inquit ei:
Ancilla sum humilis omnipotentis Dei.
Tibi caelesti nuntio, tanti secreti conscio
consentiens et cupiens videre factum quod audio;
parata sum parere Dei consilio.

[Angelus disparuit, et statim puellaris
uterus intumuit vi partus virginalis.
quo circumdatus utero novum mensium numero;
post exiit, et iniit conflictum, affligens humero;
Crucem qua dedit ictum hosti mortifero.]

Eia Mater Domini, quae pacem reddidisti
Angelis et homini, cum Christum genuisti:
tuum exora Filium ut se nobis propitium
exhibeat et deleat peccata: praestans auxilium
vita frui beata post hoc exsilium.

The Immaculate Conception

2011-12-07T22:32:00.004Z

"The importance of the doctrine will be more clearly seen when we consider what the presence of original sin in the soul implies. It implies the absence of that holiness 'without which no man shall see the Lord,' a state of separation from God, the loss of supernatural grace with the consequent incapacity to know, love, and serve God and to attain to union with Him. It does not imply the total corruption of human nauture, but only a loss or privation of what human nature needs for its perfection. Now it is clear from the words of the Archangel at the Annunciation, 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women,' that our Lady was not then in a state either of original or actual sin. For fullness of grace and sin cannot exist at once in the soul, neither does God dwell in the soul which is in a state of sin. There has never been any real question in the Church of the sinlessness of Mary from her birth..."

Bede Frost (Anglican Benedictine monk of Nashdom):
'The Mystery of Mary' (Mowbray, 1938)

Ave Maria: the setting by the sixteenth century English composer Robert Parsons,
sung by The Sixteen

A suicidal lack of clarity

2011-12-07T17:37:00.004Z

No one (I hope) would seek to defend tasteless and insensitive remarks about those who commit suicide, particularly if they refer to specific cases and individuals. Yet the outcry over the recent attention seeking remarks by Jeremy Clarkson (yes, him again) about those who throw themselves in front of trains, and the twittered comments of a professional footballer in the wake of the tragic death of the manager Gary Speed, gives rise to very serious concerns. It would seem that one is now required not only to feel acutely sorry for the mental state of the person who feels driven to suicide, but in some way to respect the choice itself.

The Church does not for the most part fall into this trap; while our attitude to those who commit suicide is that that we withhold premature judgements about the eternal destiny of individuals with often overwhelming pressures upon them, the act itself is always morally and societally wrong and,theologically, a rejection of the love and mercy of God.
Anyone who has ever known or ministered to families of those who have committed suicide, all of whom remain life-long victims, knows their utter desperation, despair, horror and guilt, the consequences of which can last for generations. To say that suicide is an act of selfishness is simply a description of the familial and social destruction left in its wake. It is not for us to condemn but to have compassion and pray for the souls of those who have resorted to suicide, but neither is it ours as a society or a Church to excuse.

I worry greatly that this essential lack of clarity in refusing to distinguish between the censure which should be accorded to the act and the compassion due to the actor, is tied up with the very mixed signals our society is sending out with regard to assisted suicide and the growing culture of death which we seem to be encouraging more and more by this reluctance to condemn anyone's choices, whatever they may be - providing, that is, they fit contemporary philosophical fashions.

The traditional and sensitive (but much ridiculed) coroner's verdict "while the balance of his mind was disturbed" has far more to recommed it than many people today seem to think. It's when we begin to believe it is perfectly possible and desirable for someone to take his or her own life as a clear, conscious and logical action that our culture is in desperate trouble.

For the feast day of St Ambrose:

2011-12-07T13:10:00.001Z

Bach's Cantata BWV 62 for the beginning of Advent, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, set to the German of Martin Luther, in turn derived from the Latin hymn of the great St Ambrose of Milan: Veni Redemptor Gentium (which follows at the end of the post - below)

St Ambrose on the intimate connection between the Incarnation and the Eucharist

"But why make use of arguments? Let us use the examples He gives, and by the example of the Incarnation prove the truth of the mystery. Did the course of nature proceed as usual when the Lord Jesus was born of Mary? If we look to the usual course, a woman ordinarily conceives after connection with a man. And this body which we make is that which was born of the Virgin. Why do you seek the order of nature in the Body of Christ, seeing that the Lord Jesus Himself was born of a Virgin, not according to nature? It is the true Flesh of Christ which crucified and buried, this is then truly the Sacrament of His Body.

The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims: This is My Body (Matt 26:26). Before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature is spoken of, after the consecration the Body is signified. He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it has another name, after it is called Blood. And you say, Amen, that is, It is true. Let the heart within confess what the mouth utters, let the soul feel what the voice speaks."

St Ambrose: On the Mysteries

And in English, translated by the Anglo-Catholic priest, John Mason Neale, 'Come thou Redeemer of the earth,' traditionally sung at the very end of Advent and the beginning of the Christmas season

Incarnational confusions

2011-12-06T22:01:00.000Z

Dr Peter Mullen is right here when he speaks of the usual suspects giving us their rather dubious interpretations of the Christmas story - the "single homeless teenage mother" thing.
"Homeless?" Well, hardly: "because there was no room for them at the inn" is a far more profundly disturbing verse than can be explained by a temporary lack of accommodation in Bethlehem. And the presence of St Joseph, the exemplary man of faith and honour, makes the other seasonal stereotype somewhat redundant too.
No, The Church's legitimate - necessary - concern for all those in need comes not from the misinterpreted incidentals of the Christmas narrative, but from the far greater reality of the Incarnation, God's assumption of our flesh in Jesus Christ.
But, for many of our contemporary clergy and theologians, that's just the problem isn't it.......?

Funny? It depends who's the target.

2011-12-02T21:04:00.004Z

Jeremy Clarkson, British motoring journalist, middle-aged jeans-wearer, and self-confessed 'petrolhead,' has got himself into trouble with broadcast comments that public sector strikers should be taken outside and shot - in front of their families. Funny? Not very - but, of course, he has a Christmas book to sell.
But the predictable outrage from the left-leaning, selectively puritanical, commentariate (it must have been rather like this under the Commonwealth in the 1650s - the irreligious left being the new sanctimonious Roundheads) conveniently overlooks that worse things than this are said over the airwaves about Christians - of all traditions - almost on a daily basis under the guise of 'comedy.' Let's at least be consistent, or better still, just grow up.

2011-12-02T10:14:00.001Z

No prayers please, we're British:
Another attempt by organised irreligion to drive the faith from the public square - this time the National Secular Society's complaint against Devon County Council prayers. From the Daily Telegraph [here]

Lawrence Charges dropped
A little belatedly, the news that The Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. has dropped its charges against Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina. An exhaustive series of links from Titusonenine here
I can't be the only only who finds the following comment from the president of TEC's disciplinary board deeply sinister and breathtakingly hypocritical in equal measure:

"Bishop Lawrence had “repeatedly stated” that he was not leaving the Episcopal Church, nor did he want South Carolina to quit the Church. He sought only a “safe place within the Church to live the Christian faith as that diocese perceives it.”In his view, Bishop Henderson stated that: “I presently take [Bishop Lawrence] at his word,” and added that he hoped the bishop would grant dissenters in his diocese the degree of latitude Bishop Lawrence hoped to receive from the national Church.' [George Conger CEN]

Carols
And, on a more positive note, a celebration of the Anglican Patrimony of Christmas carols (but we don't sing them yet - please?) From Timotheos Prologizes [here]
The only addition I would make is that the revival of the Christmas carol was an almost entirely Tractarian / Anglo-Catholic development in the nineteenth century - part of the Catholic revival's re-enchantment of English religion, like so much of what we consider these days to be mainstream Anglican, or even just Catholic. Their uncompromising and popular restatement of orthodox faith in the Incarnation speaks for itself.

Swearing as pain relief
According to this report from the University of Keele, swearing can help relieve pain but not, apparently, if you have to resort to it on a daily basis - yet another reason these days to avoid 'official' ecclesiastical meetings.

Something for Advent:

Keeping up appearances

2011-12-01T15:49:00.003Z

There's an interesting post here from the Revd Dr Peter Mullen at the Daily Telegraph on the synodical process in England and the lies (his word) told about the protections for the traditional minority when, in all likelihood, the Act of Synod will shortly be repealed.
In Wales of course, there was no Act of Synod, and the 'moral guarantees' given to traditionalists which, we were assured, counted for far more than constitutional provisions, were removed for the same reason as they were orginally granted, that of political expediency. A Provincial Assistant Bishop was granted by episcopal fiat when the revisionists needed synodical votes to pass their legislation. When the votes became irrelevant, the favour could be withdrawn. Not exactly a principled stance, some might argue, but it's a good example of the stark exercise of realpolitik which, under the surface, now holds sway among us. And for the most part, life goes on; it's business as usual.
I can't think what prompted this observation, but today everything looks and sounds much the same - the vestments are as beautiful, the music as mellifluous, the incense smells as sweet as it ever did, the mitres in procession catch the declining rays of the winter afternoon sun. Everything is the same - except in apostolic essentials, and who is now left to speak about those?

Evelyn Underhill on evil, suffering and Reality

2011-12-01T14:23:00.000Z

"When we consider the evil, injustice, and misery existing in the world, how can we claim that the ultimate Reality at the heart of the universe is a Spirit of peace, harmony, and infinite love? What evidence can we bring to Support such a belief? and how can we adore a God whose creation is marred by cruelty, suffering and sin?

This is, of course, the problem of evil; the crucial problem for all realistic religion. It is no use to dodge this issue, and still less use to pretend that the Church has a solution of the problem up her sleeve. I would rather say with Baron von Hügel. that Christian spirituality does not explain evil and suffering, which remain a mystery beyond the reach of the human mind, but does show us how to deal with them. It insists that something has gone wrong, and badly wrong, with the world. That world as we know it does not look like the work of the loving Father whom the Gospels call us to worship; but rather, like the work of selfish and undisciplined children who have been given wonderful material and a measure of freedom, and not used that freedom well. Yet we see in this muddled world a constant struggle for Truth, Goodness, Perfection; and all those who give themselves to that struggle—the struggle for the redemption of the world from greed, cruelty, injustice, selfish desire and their results—find themselves supported and reinforced by a spiritual power which enhances life, strengthens will, and purifies character. And they come to recognise more and more in that power the action of God. These facts are as real as the other facts, which distress and puzzle us; the apparent cruelty, injustice and futility of life. We have to account somehow for the existence of gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice, holiness, love; and how can we account for them, unless they are attributes of Reality?

Christianity shows us in the most august of all examples the violence of the clash between evil and the Holiness of God. It insists that the redemption of the world, defeating the evil that has infected it by the health-giving power of love—bringing in the Kingdom of God—is a spiritual task, in which we are all required to play a part. Once we realise this, we can accept—even though we cannot understand—the paradox that the world as we know it contains much that is evil; and yet, that its Creator is the one supreme Source and Object of the love that will triumph in the end."

The Spiritual Life (1936)

This should have been posted on Monday - my computer had other ideas!

Sadness suffused with hope

2011-11-30T21:24:00.023Z

Photo: St Mary's Priory Church, Abergavenny 

Today was a day of great sadness for many of us, although one suffused with the light and hope of the resurrection.
Fr (Dean) Jeremy Winston's funeral mass was held at St Woolos' Cathedral, Newport at 1 p.m. today. Full report here]
The numbers present, taking part in the offering of the holy sacrifice of the altar for the repose of his soul, spoke more eloquently than any words...
May he rest in peace.

Apologies for a distinct lack of posts in recent days, due to computer crashes...

The two faces of the season

2011-11-27T19:59:00.001Z

Bargain hunters go mad in a shopping mall. An American video clip, but we have no cause to feel superior...
Consumer culture and the free market is only as moral as those who operate it and live in it.

Meanwhile....

The Palestria Mattin Responsory sung by the choir of St Paul's Cathedral - that little word irony again.

Advent begins

2011-11-26T20:06:00.000Z

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Music for the feast day of St Cecilia

2011-11-22T11:47:00.001Z

'What passion cannot Music raise and quell' from Handel's Ode for St Cecilia's Day, a setting of words by John Dryden

Today we ask Blessed Cecilia to pray for all musicians, living and departed.

2011-11-21T21:46:00.004Z

One - and only one - further comment on Anglo-Catholics continuing to use Roman liturgies.
I still think the traditional justification for using the Roman Rite (just) holds good
(see a previous post), given this is merely a 'corrected' translation of the same Latin original.*
But if those who are using it have definitively rejected any vision of reunion with Peter, then we have a new situation altogether. I suppose, liturgically, those who fall into that category should immediately start to grapple with the verbose but doctrinally minimalist ambiguities of Common Worship.

But, theologically, it really is coming to a choice between the urgent reunion of the once undivided Catholic Church and the liberal synagogue, although the latter may well be theistically too conservative for many of our fellow Anglicans.

*Merely? Given the changes, of course, much more significant in terms of liturgical culture than 'merely,' and much more significant for those used to a more dignified and reverent liturgical language.

Dean Jeremy Winston

2011-11-21T15:50:00.002Z

We were all profoundly shocked this morning to hear of the tragically early death of
Fr Jeremy Winston SSC, the newly-installed Dean of Monmouth. He will be mourned by all who knew him and whose lives were touched by him, and by the Church he loved and loyally served as a priest with so much dedication and ability.
Please pray for the repose of his soul, and for all those who mourn him.
May he rest in peace and may light perpetual shine upon him

Herbert Howells' setting of Prudentius' great poem, in the English translation by Helen Waddell

Anticipation and balance

2011-11-21T10:47:00.000Z

There's an excellent post here by Fr Dwight Longenecker on Advent and the commercial nastiness that dominates society at this time of year. Many issues are dividing Christians today, surely this is something we can all agree upon.

Womans Hour ('Celebrating, informing and entertaining women') the BBC this morning gave us a predictably tame but nevertheless fascinating interview on the subject of women bishops in the Church of England. [here] What was so interesting was that the spokesperson from WATCH (there was, of course, no representative of those opposed) appeared far less strident than the programme's presenter, who gave us the usual condescending secular incredulity that people (some even women!) could be so backward as to resist the inevitable advent of women's ordination . 'This is the 21st Century' - thanks for the forensic interviewing technique, Jane!
The fact that Rachel Weir, chair of WATCH, was able to present her case so calmly and reasonably is not a good sign. The writing on the wall is now positively bellowing at us.

"...if we are prepared for that conflict, that the combat may have truces but never a peace."

2011-11-21T09:43:00.000Z

Monday reflection:

"...for we must know in advance, if we are prepared for that conflict, that the combat may have truces but never a peace. If we take the widest and widest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors' victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph..."

T.S. Eliot: from 'Francis Herbert Bradley' (1927)

After a foggy night, a wet November morning by the banks of the Wye -
the first part of Leoš Janáček's 'In the Mists' played by Rudolf Firkušný

2011-11-20T15:05:00.000Z

For the last week of the Church's year, some Anglo-Catholic patrimony from a vanished world...

Anglican Bishops and Roman liturgy

2011-11-19T20:28:00.003Z

Extracts from the recent comments of the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres [here] concerning the new translation of the Roman Missal are all over the web at the moment. [Full text here]
Many Anglo-Catholics, Anglo-Papalists particularly, of course, have used the English translation of the Roman Missal since the 1970s after it was first introduced - many parishes abandoning the English Missal in order to come into line with the current practice of the Western Church. Due to the particular nature of the English Reformation, and the liturgical changes, they would argue, which were forced upon an unwilling Church in the sixteenth century, there have always been those Anglicans, Dom Gregory Dix included, who have laid claim to the Latin Rite liturgy as part of their legitimate heritage. It wouldn't seem a wholly unreasonable step for those who have not yet joined the Ordinariate (an open-ended process, as everyone agrees) to use the new, corrected translation, rather than continue to use a version not now authorised by anyone.
Having said that, coming from the Church in Wales, I don't have an axe to grind either geographically or liturgically in this, but, as regards Bishop Chartres' specific comments, it would seem a curious time pastorally, when many clergy and their families are suffering from the extreme stress of facing a highly uncertain future while they wait for the synodical process to play out , to take the opportunity to, shall we say, stick the episcopal boot in.
He won't persecute, but he disapproves. I'm afraid, for the Catholic Movement, episcopal disapproval has long gone with the territory. We have learned to live with it.

Here's something to cheer us up: it's not, of course, to be regarded in any way as a comment on the above:

For Saturday

2011-11-19T11:03:00.000Z

More Paul Mealor (see here): his setting of the Stabat Mater

Scruton on Eliot

2011-11-18T09:17:00.001Z

Roger Scruton on the enduring cultural significance of T. S. Eliot:

"...For Eliot, words had begun to lose their precision—not in spite of science, but because of it; not in spite of the loss of true religious belief, but because of it; not in spite of the proliferation of technical terms, but because of it. Our modern ways of speaking no longer enable us to "take a word and derive the world from it": on the contrary, they veil the world, since they convey no lived response to it. They are mere counters in a game of cliché, designed to fill up the silence, to conceal the void which has come upon us as the old gods have departed from their haunts among us.

That is why modern ways of thinking are not, as a rule, orthodoxies, but heresies—a heresy being a truth that has been exaggerated into falsehood, a truth in which we have taken refuge, so to speak, investing in it all our unexamined anxieties and expecting from it answers to questions which we have not troubled ourselves to understand. In the philosophies that prevail in modern life—utilitarianism, pragmatism, behaviorism—we find that "words have a habit of changing their meaning. . .or else they are made, in a most ruthless and piratical manner, to walk the plank." The same is true, Eliot implies, whenever the humanist heresy takes over: whenever we treat man as God, and so believe that our thoughts and our words need be measured by no other standard but themselves..."

Read it all here

BBC bias again

2011-11-17T13:53:00.003Z

This is from an article on the Catholic Herald website. Read it in full here:

"...Because over the last few decades, the Corporation has become a mouthpiece for the sort of people it employs: young, trendy Lefties, disproportionately gay and from ethic minorities, who see nothing to be learned from institutions, from history, and from religion in particular. (Unless it’s Islam, of course. I’ve lost count of the number of gushing documentaries about the Prophet Mohammed churned out over the last few years, replete with “authentic” pronunciation of Arabic terms and the occasional “peace be upon him” thrown in for good measure.)..."

Personally I don't think the BBC has a specific anti-religious agenda - I've always found their religious broadcasting personnel a joy to work with. The problem is one of corporate ethos - a matter of clear institutional bias. The kind of people the Corporation tends to employ, nationally if not always in the regions, as presenters, production staff and managers, if not part of a well heeled, well-connected metropolitan elite sharing a common set of unquestioned liberal values, tend to be heavily weighted in favour of ethnic minorities or those with minority sexual preferences. There are very clear taboos as to who or what may be subject to criticism, leaving the Christian faith, those whose political views are right of centre, and those who are unfashionable enough not to share the prevailing social liberalism as among the only acceptable targets. There seems to be a complete lack of concern (not, I think, awareness) that there may be people out there who share neither the Corporation's views nor it's values. It approaches the level of contempt.
I don't watch much television, but the radio 'comedy' output these days, to take a random example, seems to consist almost exclusively of distinctively unfunny and angry left-wing rants masquerading as humour, some so 'right on' as to be acutely embarrassing. It was a surprise to discover the other night a programme whose ruling conceit (this was Stephen Fry, after all) was a cringe-makingly-written love affair between two 'gay' horses - not any old horses, of course, but those of the Duke of Wellington and the Emperor Napoleon. A real find.

None of this constant churning out of one-sided propaganda would matter very much, of course, if we, the listeners and viewers, had a choice. But the fact is that the BBC has a virtual monopoly of our 'serious' nationwide radio broadcasting and, to a lesser but still significant extent, on what remains of 'serious' television output. Not only that, but we are all paying for it through the licence fee. It's one thing to have our opinions and beliefs constantly mocked and pilloried, it's another when they are doing it with our money.
The irony is, of course, that the BBC is a superlative broadcaster; but it could be much better at fulfilling its public commission without the bias, without sacrificing anything other than its tendency to self-indulgence.

The culture wars in action

2011-11-17T00:08:00.006Z

Two faces of the contemporary and very broad American Lutheran tradition here and here, from separate and irreconcilable jurisdictions. It's hard to recognise them as stemming from the same historical source; but as Anglicans, we recognise the all-too-familiar dissonance of theological 'diversity.'
We all know it can never be 'both and...' - it's really 'either or...' Credal orthodoxy and (to put it as charitably as I can) any significant departures from that doctrinal standard cannot ultimately co-exist.
For many of the churches owing either their foundation or their separate existence to the Reformation, (however long it has taken for some of them to make up their minds about that -see here) these culture wars are not going to end well.
Whether they will inevitably result in (with all the best will in the world) the kind of paganism in a chasuble we see in the second video (and even more explicitly, if possible, here) is an interesting issue. Sadly, without any kind of universally accepted authority or achievable ecumenical goals, it would seem by far the most likely outcome in an individualistic and atomised culture so inimical to orthodox faith and ever more coercively insistent on celebrating the subjective victimhood of its socially approved minorities.
We keep returning to this: short-term or long-term, for the 'orthodox' survivors of this western ecclesial catastrophe, the call to unity with Peter seems irresistible. "Gather up the fragments so that none may be lost..."

We have all become 'non-conformists' now

2011-11-16T18:57:00.010Z

It's a curiously over-prescriptive society which in one week both attempts to authorise CCTV in taxis to record passengers' conversations (see the post below) and to call for the banning of cigarette smoking in private vehicles on some fairly flimsy 'scientific evidence' (see here)
I'm not a smoker and I don't very often travel in a taxi, but I am afraid that the noose tightening around the throat of other people's liberties may one day soon be extended to mine.
How long will it be, on this kind of reasoning, before it is suggested that children be removed from traditionally believing Christian families because of the possible damage to their psychological health by being exposed to dangerously counter-cultural values?
I admit it's an extreme example (although there is already significant legal confusion between a robust proclamation of the moral theology of the Pauline epistles and criminal hate-speech), but given the almost complete reversal of our social mores over the last decade or so, and the wholesale rejection and constant (and tax-payer funded) ridiculing of the Christian Church's teaching on so many matters, it's not entirely inconceivable.
The current obsession with the enforcement of 'equality' is, of course, no such thing. Equal treatment and tolerance don't form part of the present agenda which simply involves the replacement by legal sanction of one set of values with another.
We are in grave danger of confusing the merely currently unfashionable with the criminally reprehensible, whether it is our views on sexuality, our right to smoke cigarettes or, if we wish, even to eat deep-fried Mars bars. Whatever the liberal myths concerning the so-called claustrophobic atmosphere of the 1950s, we have never been so socially conformist as we are now.
The question for Christians is how to proclaim the Gospel of the love of God in Christ in a pluralistic society which seems to be now turning from pluralism to the strict conformism of the new equality. But the issues which divide us from the surrounding culture also divide us from many of our fellow Christians. We believe them to be wrong, we may believe them to be heading along a path which will lead to the abandonment of the Gospel altogether; we can't doubt their sincerity, even if we increasingly find it impossible to go along with them.
For those traditional sacramental Christians, conservative but tolerant and with a view of human nature which stresses both the results of the Fall and our original righteousness, the imperative as we've said before, in the face of those forces in our world which are inimical to the Faith, is unity and how best we can co-operate with God in order to achieve it.

Paul Mealor: Locus Iste

Taxi!

2011-11-15T23:00:00.002Z

On second thoughts...........

Oxford City Council (of all places) plans to install CCTV cameras in the city's licensed taxi cabs in order to record all conversations. [report here from the BBC] A spokesman when questioned in a radio interview merely stated that the council had consulted the relevant human rights legislation and the current CCTV guidelines and found that its proposal contravened neither. It's strange how for the modern British bureaucrat simply checking the letter of the 'appropriate' regulations has replaced the need for all other conscious thought.
Another example of the need to make the study of our history a compulsory part of the school curriculum.

"I 'ad that George Orwell in the back of the cab the other day"

"Without the traditional Catholic voice and presence the Church of England would be less than itself...."

2011-11-15T20:23:00.004Z

Several blogs today [ here and here ] feature the comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury following the consecration of the new bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough in June. His words are very encouraging to those who are able to envisage a continuing future for Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England.
As yet, highly welcome as Archbishop Williams' sentiments are, they are only at present warm words and should be treated with a degree of caution; in a synodically governed and episcopally led body they will remain just warm words until the General Synod votes. There are various views in circulation as to the outcome of that [see here and the comments on Peter Ould's post]
From this vantage point it's difficult to have any great confidence that a synodical majority in favour of women bishops will at the same time allow the setting up of the Society model on which so many are now basing their hopes for survival.

Meanwhile, those of us in Wales can only observe the contrast between these very warm episcopal words and no words at all, and ponder how the province of the Church in Wales, from which Archbishop Rowan was translated to Canterbury, is already "less than itself....." and likely to remain so.

"The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity..."

2011-11-14T00:12:00.000Z

Monday reflection:

"The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day by day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn't just a fiction, it's a part of our physical body, and our soul exists in space and is inside us, like the teeth in our mouth. It can't be for ever violated with impunity."
Boris Pasternak: 'Doctor Zhivago'

Remembrance Sunday

2011-11-13T16:28:00.003Z

It wasn't all that long ago, when I was growing up in the 1970s (a rather grim era in Britain, when, in Private Eye's terminology, the 'Dave Spart' tendency seemed to hold sway in the State rather than, as today, just in parts of the Church) that we were assured that Remembrance Day would soon be a thing of the past, it had nothing to say to the coming generation and merely encouraged a wallowing in our imperial past. It glorified war, they said, forgetting that it has something vital to say about the preservation of our ancient freedoms. Some people were still saying that sort of thing in the mid-1980s when I was ordained. How times have changed!
In our country parish at the Mass offered today for the fallen in war, we were joined by the last surviving parishioner who fought (with the Parachute Regiment) in the Second World War. Three miles away the civic Remembrance Service included a parade by soldiers of 1st Rifles, some of whose comrades are currently deployed in Afghanistan. Whatever the rights and wrongs of our involvement in the wars waged by and on behalf of 'liberal democracy,' it now appears to be beyond doubt that any scepticism about the observance of Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day has disappeared. It’s now part of our experience, too. The victims of war are not people from a rapidly receding past: they are among us, they are our neighbours and friends, they are members of the regiment stationed down the road.
At the altar all our memories, all our sufferings, all our gratitude, all our hopes for the future come together in the offering of the sacrifice of Calvary. This is the greatest act of remembrance and of Christian charity that we can perform both for those who have died, and for ourselves, here only because they were prepared to lay down their lives for the people most dear to them.

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them

Hymns old & already dated?

2011-11-12T12:58:00.006Z

The English Hymnal & New English Hymnal: neither insanely inclusive nor full of dreadful ditties

One of undisputed gifts of the Anglican patrimony to the wider Church is its hymnody, drawing on on a wide variety of sources and traditions and often expressing in a few short lines an remarkable richness of doctrinal teaching, particularly perhaps in terms of eucharistic theology.
Yet, visiting other parishes from time to time, it would seem that this tradition is, if not actually threatened with extinction, then subject to the same kind of revisionism which casts such a blight on our ecclesial life.

Many modern hymnals try at least to include a selection of 'traditional' hymnody alongside the regrettable, trite and subjective, doctrine-free choruses or 'worship songs'. For the most part they are fairly unexceptional selections, although it’s very clear that most (with very few exceptions) of the more modern compositions will happily fade as quickly as a polyester chasuble exposed to direct sunlight.

Of course, to a certain extent, that was also true of many of the hymns selected for nineteenth and early twentieth century hymnals, included but rapidly forgotten. But for someone brought up in the English Hymnal tradition, it’s hard to be anything other than critical of hymn books which are put together in alphabetical order rather than in the familiar and more liturgically user- friendly arrangement of times and seasons.
But the very worst aspect of many of these recent productions is their attempt to ‘improve’ and update traditional, well-loved hymns. I’m not only thinking about such obvious monstrosities as ‘Onward Christian Pilgrims’ or the alternative version of ‘For all the saints,’ which have been altered to exclude all references to warfare. A note to those similarly tempted: please look up the meaning of the word ‘metaphor.’ We can be grateful that St Paul didn’t have a similar confusion about the nature of verbal imagery with regard to spiritual warfare. Too complex an idea for our modern minds to cope with? Some obviously have thought so.
Above all, what surely should be unacceptable to everyone whose ideology hasn't driven them insane is the attempt to rewrite the language of hymns, some of which can be regarded as poetry in its own right, in order to make it gender inclusive and acceptable to the prevailing culture. One of the worst culprits in this regard seems to be Kevin Mayhew's 'Hymns Old and New, Complete Anglican edition'. I’m thinking here about two recent examples I've come across, Robert Bridges' 'All my hope on God is founded’ and John Keble's ‘Blest are the pure in heart.’ There is absolutely no ambiguity as to their authors’ meaning; the changes which have been made represent an alarmingly totalitarian literary dishonesty (if you don't like the past, airbrush out the bits you object to) and have been made purely on ideological grounds; * moreover, the ‘improvements’ subtly, and not so subtly, alter meanings, and are in many cases unutterably banal, the proud work of the heirs of Dr Bowdler.
In some instances this approach has even been extended to the words of familiar Christmas carols, with predictable results, almost always ending up causing total chaos as people, particularly the occasional seasonal worshippers, mercifully unattuned to ecclesiastical fashion, simply stop singing in bemusement, if not in outright exasperation.
The solution? When I have had to sing hymns in the newspeak versions, I simply sing the original words very loudly; I know it’s not very edifying behaviour, and it does nothing to dispel a growing reputation – at least to those standing next to me - for being difficult and eccentric. Oh well... as they say, that ship has already sailed.

* a little like that over-used expression in some quarters, ‘sisters and brothers.’ There’s nothing inherently wrong with it at all, even if it does jar somewhat on the ears of native English speakers; but we know only too well the theological agenda which underlies the words.

This is 'All my hope on God is founded' - the words are not the inclusive 'dynamic equivalents'

Sloppy stereotypes

2011-11-11T18:51:00.002Z

We could be in the days of Queen Victoria. Journalistic religio-racial stereotyping here from The Daily Telegraph: the myth of hard-working northern Protestants versus shiftless, lazy Catholics / Orthodox from the South, the sort of people who are always going to confession (as if) and who know how to have a good time.
Sorry, no.
"The Protestant north" hardly describes the reality of modern Germany and quite fails to take into account the fact that much of western Germany, the old Federal Republic, the powerhouse of European economic recovery after World War Two, is traditionally Catholic, not Protestant at all. (It also doesn't quite explain the economic success of northern Italy either) We have to look elsewhere than our historical prejudices for the real causes of the present crisis in the Euro-zone.

11th November

2011-11-11T18:32:00.000Z

One of a moving series of modern photographs by Michael St Maur Shiel
of the former First World War battlefields. [See here]

The second movement, lento moderato, of the 3rd Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams, a work often described as the composer's 'war requiem.'

St Martin of Tours

2011-11-11T10:42:00.000Z

St Martin & the Beggar by El Greco

"Accordingly, at a certain period, when he had nothing except his arms and his simple military dress, in the middle of winter, a winter which had shown itself more severe than ordinary, so that the extreme cold was proving fatal to many, he happened to meet at the gate of the city of Amiens a poor man destitute of clothing. He was entreating those that passed by to have compassion upon him, but all passed the wretched man without notice, when Martin, that man full of God, recognized that a being to whom others showed no pity, was, in that respect, left to him. Yet, what should he do? He had nothing except the cloak in which he was clad, for he had already parted with the rest of his garments for similar purposes. Taking, therefore, his sword with which he was girt, he divided his cloak into two equal parts, and gave one part to the poor man, while he again clothed himself with the remainder. Upon this, some of the by-standers laughed, because he was now an unsightly object, and stood out as but partly dressed. Many, however, who were of sounder understanding, groaned deeply because they themselves had done nothing similar. They especially felt this, because, being possessed of more than Martin, they could have clothed the poor man without reducing themselves to nakedness. In the following night, when Martin had resigned himself to sleep, he had a vision of Christ arrayed in that part of his cloak with which he had clothed the poor man. He contemplated the Lord with the greatest attention, and was told to own as his the robe which he had given. Ere long, he heard Jesus saying with a clear voice to the multitude of angels standing round -- "Martin, who is still but a catechumen, clothed me with this robe." The Lord, truly mindful of his own words (who had said when on earth -- "Inasmuch as ye have done these things to one of the least of these, ye have done them unto me"), declared that he himself had been clothed in that poor man; and to confirm the testimony he bore to so good a deed, he condescended to show him himself in that very dress which the poor man had received. After this vision the sainted man was not puffed up with human glory, but, acknowledging the goodness of God in what had been done, and being now of the age of twenty years, he hastened to receive baptism. He did not, however, all at once, retire from military service, yielding to the entreaties of his tribune, whom he admitted to be his familiar tent-companion. For the tribune promised that, after the period of his office had expired, he too would retire from the world. Martin, kept back by the expectation of this event, continued, although but in name, to act the part of a soldier, for nearly two years after he had received baptism."

from the Life of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus (c. 360 - 420-25)

'Peter has spoken through Leo'

2011-11-10T14:10:00.004Z

"....By this means Eutyches, who seemed to be deserving of honour under the title of Presbyter, is now shown to be exceedingly thoughtless and sadly inexperienced, so that to him also we may apply the prophet’s words, “He refused to understand in order to act well: he meditated unrighteousness on his bed.” What, indeed, is more unrighteous than to entertain ungodly thoughts, and not to yield to persons wiser and more learned? But into this folly do they fall who, when hindered by some obscurity from apprehending the truth, have recourse, not to the words of the Prophets, not to the letters of the Apostles, nor to the authority of the Gospels, but to themselves; and become teachers of error, just because they have not been disciples of the truth. For what learning has he received from the sacred pages of the New and the Old Testament, who does not so much as understand the very beginning of the Creed? And that which, all the world over, is uttered by the voices of all applicants for regeneration, is still not grasped by the mind of this aged man. If, then, he knew not what he ought to think about the Incarnation of the Word of God, and was not willing, for the sake of obtaining the light of intelligence, to make laborious search through the whole extent of the Holy Scriptures, he should at least have received with heedful attention that general Confession common to all, whereby the whole body of the faithful profess that they “believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” By which three clauses the engines of almost all heretics are shattered. For when God is believed to be both “Almighty” and “Father,” it is proved that the Son is everlasting together with himself, differing in nothing from the Father, because he was born as “God from God,” Almighty from Almighty, Coeternal from Eternal; not later in time, not inferior in power, not unlike him in glory, not divided from him in essence, but the same Only-begotten and Everlasting Son of an Everlasting Parent was “born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” This birth in time in no way detracted from, in no way added to, that divine and everlasting birth; but expended itself wholly in the work of restoring man, who had been deceived; so that it might both overcome death, and by its power “destroy the devil who had the power of death.” For we could not have overcome the author of sin and of death, unless he who could neither be contaminated by sin, nor detained by death, had taken upon himself our nature, and made it his own. For, in fact, he was “conceived of the Holy Ghost” within the womb of a Virgin Mother, who bore him as she had conceived him, without loss of virginity..."

from the 'Tome' * of Pope St Leo the Great, translated by William Bright.
("Select Sermons of S. Leo the Great on the Incarnation with his XXVIIIth Epistle called the “Tome.” London, 1886)

* The letter sent by Pope Leo I in the year 449 to the beleaguered Patriarch of Constantinople, Flavianus, concerning the Church's teaching about the person of Christ. The letter affirms that Christ has two natures, human and divine, united in the one divine Person of the Son of God. At the Council of Chalcedon, two years later, the Tome was acclaimed as expressing the settled mind of the Church concerning the doctrine of the Incarnation with the declaration, "Peter has spoken through Leo."

2011-11-09T10:56:00.002Z

Dufay: Urbs beata Jerusalem

Nostalgia

2011-11-08T21:37:00.002Z

for the days of leisurely railway journeys - and for when one didn't have to take out a mortgage in order to travel on them. And for the very small boy who, leaning out of the signal box window at Cwmffrwd Halt, took the token from the driver of the last (steam) train to travel on the Eastern Valley line of Monmouthshire before it was closed.

All Saints of Wales

2011-11-08T13:50:00.003Z

Almighty God, who dost call thine elect from every nation,
and dost show forth thy glory in their lives:
grant that, following the example of the Saints of Wales
and strengthened by their fellowship,
we may be fruitful in good works to the glory of thy Name;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[The Collect for the Saints of Wales from the Church in Wales Prayer Book of 1984]

"Near Devauden, in Gwent, there stands on an isolated hump the tiny church of the Holy Cross at Kilgwrrwg, where the hermit Gwrrwg established his cell........ It is the most tranquil place in the world. A circular churchyard surrounds the building, there is an ancient crooked cross among the trees, a wooden boot-remover stands in the porch, for it can be a muddy clamber up there, and through the roof the ivy creeps. The Church is lit only by candles, from a candelabra in the chancel, and it stands in absolute silence, far from all traffic in a bowl of the low Gwent hills, looking westward to the distant outlines of the Black Mountains, Pen-y-Fal and Holy Skirrid..."

from The Matter of Wales by Jan Morris (O.U.P. 1984)

The great unmentionable

2011-11-08T12:46:00.001Z

The conspiracy of silence in today's Britain surrounding the Christian faith of those in the public eye, the late Sir Jimmy Savile's devout Catholicism being the most recent example. Charitable work is fine, but there's to be no mention of the religious motivation behind it - from William Oddie [here]

Boring?

2011-11-07T21:21:00.000Z

In case you missed it, this is Mark Shea on the subject of heresy:

"...Don’t get me wrong. Heresy is stupefyingly boring. Just off the top of your head, which would you call the more interesting story even if you didn’t believe it: that the Creator of the entire universe became a human being on an out of the way planet in the spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, performed miraculous deeds, changed lives and hearts, encountered opposition from the Powers that Be, was betrayed, arrested, subjected to a kangaroo court and murdered in the most heinous way imaginable, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and now offers eternal ecstasy to the miserable species that killed him, or,

Jesus was a dead rabbi with a girlfriend. Jesus said that niceness was nice. Jesus was pretty much indistinguishable from a commentator on TV who urges bromides about gender equality and tariff reform..."

Read it all here - particularly if you're a fan of G.K. Chesterton

"

Be frightened,be very frightened

2011-11-07T16:29:00.003Z

Why is it that our news organisations now seem intent on causing panic at every opportunity? In the last week we have been presented with deadly mutations of the 'flu virus, a coming 'Siberian' winter and even an asteroid on collision course with Earth, each of course exaggerated out of all proportion. Are we really so jaded as a society that we need this kind of constant hyped-up excitement posing as information? News presented as titillation and entertainment seems to be order of the day - it's hardly surprising some people view the worship of the Church as 'boring' - it's not high octane enough for our over-stimulated senses. The 'ritualised passion' of the Mass requires a clear head and a mind and body attuned to reflection.
But the story of the boy who cried wolf springs to mind; when there is a genuine emergency, no one will believe it.

**********

Truly frightening were the reports of the fatal pile-up on the M5 motorway near Taunton - a terrible tragedy. Two of those killed were faithful communicants and well known to me from my title parish, the parish in which I served after my diaconal ordination. Please pray for the souls of all those killed and especially for Pam and Tony Adams. [report here]
We don't yet know the cause of Friday's crash (thick smoke from nearby Bonfire Night celebrations, rather than seasonal fog or excessive speed seems to be the most likely explanation), but if you regularly travel on the British motorway system in bad weather, you will probably agree that it's surprising these multiple collisions are not much more frequent. Slow down in poor visibility and you will be overtaken by large numbers of those, presumably confident of the strength of their headlights and the speed of their reactions, who plough on regardless at speeds of 80 or 90 mph or more, ignoring the risk to themselves and other more careful drivers. Madness.

St Willibrord

2011-11-07T11:43:00.008Z

St Willibrord (c. 658 – 7 November 739) is honoured today with an optional memoria, or lesser commemoration, in the Anglican & Roman calendars. He was an Anglo-Saxon from Northumbria, a monastic disciple of St Wilfrid, who was sent to bring the Gospel to the pagan tribes of Frisia. He is counted as the first Bishop of Utrecht.
He has also been adopted as the patron of the relationship between Anglicans and (most of) the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht [here] who broke with Rome after the definition of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council.

I'm sorry to harp on about this, but, having recently been taken to task, from a protestant perspective, over a perceived preoccupation with ecclesiology at the expense of 'genuine' faith, the history of those Churches which are still members of the Union of Utrecht would seem to bear out the observation we have making here that once you remove the central teaching authority of the Church and the surrounding society becomes 'post-christian,' (or neo-pagan, whatever you prefer) the conditions are created where a synodically-governed ecclesial body loses its grip on doctrinal orthodoxy, apostolic order and moral theology. The presenting symptom (as the Polish National Catholic Church recognised in 2003 when it left the Union) is always the ordination of women.
Just saying...

"The glory of worship is to elicit the grace of humility"

2011-11-07T09:23:00.001Z

Monday reflection

"… The danger of ‘service,’ as an ideal, is that it fosters the spirit of patronage: the glory of worship is to elicit the grace of humility. Without humility there can be no service worth the name; patronizing service is self-destructive - it may be the greatest of all disservices. Hence to serve his fellows at all - to avoid doing them harm greater even than the good he proposed to confer on them - a man must find a place for worship in his life. The truth is not that worship (as the advocate of action allowed us to assert) will help him to serve better. The alternative lies not between service of a better and worse kind; it lies between service and no service at all. If we would attempt to do good with any sure hope that it will prove good and not evil, we must act in the spirit of humility; and worship alone can make us humble. There is no other course…"

"…. It is not likely that such a apologia would satisfy the heroes of Christian saintliness whose ideals have been considered in preceding chapters. With a faith which the modern world finds it hard to share, they started from the conviction that the life of heaven would be more akin to adoration rather than to labour. ‘Ubi non praevenit rem desiderium’ is their definition of heaven; and where desire and achievement are simultaneous, there is no longer any place for effort, as we understand it. But there is still, and always, a place for contemplation. Service here on earth is no more than a preparation for the contemplation of heaven, and in heaven contemplation is the only service required of the redeemed. In earthly worship man does not merely secure for service than which alone can make it serviceable; he anticipates the essential and all-engrossing activity of eternal life."

Kenneth E Kirk: The Vision of God (1931) from Lecture VIII

Welsh Ordinariate Exploration Day

2011-11-06T16:44:00.001Z

Photo: DW

Saturday's Ordinariate exploration day for Wales, held just over the border at Hereford's Belmont Abbey (by kind invitation of the Abbot and the community,) was, even beyond all expectations, very well attended and highly constructive.
The speakers, Mgr Keith Newton, the Ordinary, and Fr Jonathan Redvers-Harris, did much to explain the background and the implications of Pope Benedict's historic and generous offer to Anglicans in Anglicanorum Coetibus and to explain the structure and on-going development of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and, in the process, dispel quite a few of the myths and disinformation currently in circulation.
Rather than just duplicate reports, I can do no better than commend Fr Mark Zorab's reflections on the day at his blog All Gas & Gaiters [here]
To those who may feel tempted to hurl around accusations of disloyalty about those who attended, I have just this question: what alternatives have been offered to those who seek to live a faithful Catholic, sacramental life within the Church in Wales?
As someone remarked to me over lunch, having been refused a replacement to Bishop David Thomas as Provincial Assistant, and having been solemnly promised alternative "pastoral care," what is actually happening in some parts of the province isn't even the palliative care we were half-expecting but a cutting off of life-support altogether. It can come as no surprise that there are those who continue to reflect upon the process which has brought us to this point and who wish to continue to explore remaining options while life and hope remain. [to be continued]

Sorry, my skateboarding days are over.

2011-11-06T15:21:00.006Z

Having been compared to Bart Simpson by the MCJ [here] I feel I should just say this in some kind of defence. My poor attempt at an analysis of the causes of the “slow train-wreck” which is modern Anglicanism, was just that - an attempt at a partial analysis. What it was clearly not (but not clearly enough, obviously) was an an attempt to take refuge behind an inadequate ecclesiology as a total explanation of what has happened.
What I meant - and this is where I agree with some of Christopher Johnson's comments - is that any ecclesial body which is, in its origins, that un-catholic concept, a State Church, runs a high risk of selling out to the surrounding culture. Any church which has historically prided itself on its conformity to the cultural and political status quo risks prizing its cultural setting above its commitment to the person of Christ. Moreover, any church which is “synodically governed” (in the modern sense of permitting majority votes to decide doctrinal issues) has to recognise that heterodoxy is always potentially only a short series of votes away. Combine the two factors and we get to where we are today. What has happened to us has taken place simply because it could. The structures, the historical mind-set and unconverted human nature itself have conspired to allow it.

Yes, the Anglo-Catholic movement (I can't speak with personal experience of the other traditions) collectively and individually over the years bears a heavy responsibility. We opted some time ago for being at ease in Sion, to accept an honoured place as just one ‘churchmanship' among many, and to be content to be an ecclesiastical 'party' (in more ways than one perhaps) rather than to continue the battle to change the 'institution' itself. Yes, as individuals we have failed to pray enough, think enough and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ convincingly enough. For all too long the trumpet has sounded an uncertain note; we were happy in our ecclesiastical ghetto provided we were left alone.

But how possible was the original dream? Could it be that the vision was fatally flawed from the outset, doomed not only by our personal sinfulness and unfaithfulness (although that is always a major contributing factor) but by the fact that rather than being the catholic but reformed body of our imagining we were always at heart a protestant state church (along with its various offshoots, largely the legacy of a world empire) which had certain powerful surviving Catholic elements of order and liturgy and which could not be completely ‘catholicised’ (or for that matter, as we are seeing now, led in a definitively liberal direction) without breaking asunder or experiencing a haemorrage of members? Cardinal Kasper’s request to the last Lambeth Conference to make a decision as to whether Anglicans were to be a church of the first century or of the Reformation, has, of course, now been answered in favour of the latter option. But it may, in fact, have been answered long ago and the option never available at all.
I don’t know. Whatever the truth, we are where we are. The decision in front of us personally as Anglo-Catholics (and collectively if that’s at all still possible) concerns where we go from here.
The present is what we, and God’s will, have helped to make it; but so, too, is the future.
I’ll stop before I can be compared to Cassandra or Uriah Heep - I can’t think of an equivalent cartoon character

The Wise Virgins

2011-11-05T19:48:00.001Z

Some Gospel-related Bach, arranged by William Walton, for one of the last 'green' Sundays of the year.
Tomorrow, I hope to be able to include a report of today's highly successful Ordinariate exploration day for Wales at Belmont Abbey. This Sunday's Gospel is perhaps more than a little appropriate for the situation in which we find ourselves...