Ordinariate Pilgrim

Last year I celebrated the liturgies of the Easter Triduum on my own! We were in lockdown, here in France. This year we are in lockdown again, but we can gather in church for worship providing we are careful to observe the necessary precautions. But one of features of the confinement is the curfew: we cannot go out after 7pm. This meant no Vigil during the night of Holy Saturday, and we were advised to celebrate it beginning before dawn on Easter morning.

The immediate cry of the faithful was “too early” but we pressed ahead with the arrangements. I had not attended such a pre-dawn celebration since my days at Kelham, when we had a truncated liturgy without the Mass. I had always defended (as well as enjoying ) the night Vigil – so what would this experience, forced on us by the times we are living in, mean for me?

I was immediately struck by our drive through the dark and silent villages on our way to the other end of this parish. We had simplified the rite as per the instructions and I missed gathering round the large bonfire outside the church, and looking in the gloom across the valley. We proceeded with the Exsultet: after five years I can sing it fairly fluently in french and the words now make a direct impression on me. When we reached the Gloria the bells of the carillon started to ring; I imagine that at least a few of the inhabitants of the village of Long were wondering what on earth was going on. We finished with the hymn “Allez par toute la terre” which repeated the words of the Risen Christ in St Mark’s Gospel, as we came out into the first light of Easter morning.

In spite of the initial reservations 40 people exactly came to the Vigil. (In 2019 there were 55 present at 9pm on Saturday evening). What did surprise me was the number who went home, had breakfast and then came to the 11 am Mass at Pont Rémy. I teased the singers and musicians that they sang better first thing in the morning: certainly, the music was good, and the participation by everyone clear and confident. This, I think, is the result of several years of consistent and straightforward liturgy in which the people are expected to be alert and intelligent – and not treated like children who have to be taught some novelty on every occasion!

The early morning Vigil has a different ethos: it is gentler (more English?) while the night Vigil has great strength and power in it. During Eastertide it will be helpful to hear the reactions of those who took part in this fresh expression of Easter worship.

I was on the ‘phone recently, one Thursday evening, to some friends in the UK. A few minutes before 9pm they said they had to ring off, as it was time to stand in their front porch and applaud the National Health Service and all its personnel.

Bravo to that say I. Both before and during the crisis we (by which I mean the British) have often spoken of how much we value the Health Service and all who work in it – doctors, nurses, ancillary staff. But we have a problem which is that we don’t want to pay for it. That’s because it’s a ‘service’ and is funded out of taxation, and we don’t vote for any party which might increase taxation. Yet we are prepared to pay phenomenal prices to go to a football match or the opera, or to go on holiday or to a restaurant. We tell ourselves that we ‘need’ all these things, when in fact we ‘want’ them, which is different. That’s where advertising comes in – to convince us, first, that we ‘want’ something (usually with the argument that everyone else is having/doing/enjoying it) and then justifying the ‘wanting’ by turning it into ‘needing’ (which is morally more comforting).

We don’t have advertising campaigns for the National Health Service. From time to time the tabloid newspapers run a sentimental story about our ‘angels’  but you can be sure that, come the next election, their anti-tax campaigns will have ousted stories about health workers.

So what will happen when the pandemic is over, or when we have got used to living with it? Was the Thursday night clapping a sentimental gesture, or will there be real change, which means a change in our values? We human beings in our unregenerate state are selfish. Our present economic system relies on that selfish individualism to maintain itself. Only conversion of heart to the true God who created us and redeemed us, can change the way we live. The Church must call for conversion and grace, not just in individual lives, but in politics and society.

The Church knows (it) to be false – namely man’s competence to save himself. In this respect, the human race is in the same plight as Humpty-Dumpty, whose fall involved a break into fragments, just like that of the human race, which no-one, neither he himself nor even all the King’s horses and all the King’s men, could mend; for man’s only hope of re-integration lies in the act of the One who originally created him. 

Man made schemes such as Communism (‘Workers of the world unite’), National Socialism (‘the solidarity of the race’) Federal Union (‘Nations, get together’) all collapse because of their partiality, the limitation of their scope to men in some particular capacity as class, nation or race and because they ignore the root cause of this disruption, which is sin. 

Fr P McLaughlin of the Church Union, writing in 1944, in a series designed to look forward to the re-building of society after the Second World War. 

Thaxted Church in Essex

At the Reformation the Catholic Mass emerged from behind the screen and became visible: the Anglican liturgy emerged from behind the screen and became audible.

Compare and contrast, as they used to say in exam papers, the mediaeval building with its long chancel and rood screen, with the classical churches of Rome or the baroque churches of Austria. In the former the liturgy is veiled and distant, the people are almost in another room. In the latter the altar is visible, close, and all the participants are in a single space. In the Anglican buildings from the 16th – 19th century it is the pulpit which dominates often with the reading desk. The word is proclaimed to the people in their pews. From time to time – even every Sunday in  town churches – some will move from their seats to gather round the Holy Table. The  action of the liturgy, which had almost disappeared in the 1552 Prayer Book of Edward VI, is somewhat restored in the 1662 Book where the priest is required to place bread and wine on the Table, and during the Prayer which is now headed Prayer of Consecration, he is to take the bread and break  it, and then to take  the cup of wine. In the Catholic Mass of the post-Reformation period there is considerable (perhaps too much) action, but at the heart of the liturgy the taking-blessing-breaking-giving action remains intact. The gradual withdrawal of the laity from Communion, which began in the mediaeval period, has now become the norm. It takes the concerted action of Pope St Pius X at the beginning of the 20th century to restore this central act of participation to the Mass.

The Gothic Revival in architecture in the 19th century, combined with the Oxford Movement in the C of E,  saw the restoration of the altar, though distanced from the people by the erection of screens and the positioning of the robed choir in the chancel. In spite of the frenetic activity of AWN Pugin, the long chancel and the screen did not return to Catholic worship: indeed, the colossal reredoses and soaring Benediction thrones serve to make the sanctuary more prominent, though sometimes reducing the altar to the appearance of a shelf or sideboard.

So we enter the 20th century with the Liturgical Movement in both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, encouraging the restoration of both the  visual and the  aural,   action and  word, in the worship of the Eucharist. This is realised to some extent in the  Parish Communion Movement in the C of E, though there is a reactionary movement among some Anglo-Catholics copying the then current Catholic practice, and among Evangelical Anglicans who want to return to a Cranmerian doctrine of the Communion Service, and for whom  action  leads inexorably to offering. 

In the liturgical reforms which emanate from the Council, the restored emphasis is on both  action and  word and the full participation of the whole People of God in the worthy offering of the Mass.

The Ordinariate liturgy stands within the liturgical and theological context of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. In its celebration therefore, the active participation of all the people is to be clearly seen. From the theological emphasis of the English Reformation comes its insistence on the proclamation and preaching of the Word of God in scripture.

Fr Herbert McCabe, writing in 1964, said, “The actual Scriptures ceased to be thought of as a nourishment for Catholics, and they substituted books of Christian doctrine. It did not seem to them scandalous or even particularly surprising that the Epistle and Gospel at Mass should be read in an inaudible manner in a foreign language by someone standing with his back to them – it is all right because soon he will turn round and tell us quite audibly about the catechism and the second collection. ” (The New Creation – Herbert McCabe OP p.14)

The ‘proclamation’ of the Ordinariate liturgy in a careful, articulate, thoughtful and coherent manner is all the more important because it uses Tudor English, with words and grammar which are not immediately obvious to our generation. Speaking too quickly, mumbling, emphasis on the wrong words all detract from the one of the fundamental principles of the liturgical patrimony of Anglicanism, clearly included and incorporated in  Divine Worship. 

It will not be easy, that is clear. We live in an age when the English language, because of its wide use across the world, is subject to uncontrolled change. Unlike the French, we have no  Académie to direct the evolution of the language. To suggest that some new words, phrases and grammatical constructions have debased and spoiled the language are greeted with hoots of laughter and cries of ‘elitism’. The truth is worse still: that many of these words and phrases are designed to hide the real meaning or to cover up the fact that the speaker does not know what he is talking about!

Divine Worship  is not perfect. It includes ‘sublime’ Cranmer (the Collect for Advent Sunday), ‘heavy’ Cranmer (the Confession at Mass) and sometimes the sort of latinate translations so wickedly parodied by Fr Harry Williams CR in his autobiography. But nonetheless, when it is used it deserves to be ‘proclaimed’, as far as the words of the liturgy are concerned, with clarity, simplicity and even a certain elegance; but always with the intention that it shall be ‘Pastoral Liturgy” – that the people may be enabled to worship worthily and to grow in the faith.

In the aftermath of the First World War, with so many young men dead, and their bodies lost for ever in some foreign field, the British learned again to pray for the dead.

“Now when the bells for Eucharist  Sound in the Market Square, 

With sunshine struggling through the mist  And Sunday in the air. 

The veil between her and her dead  Dissolves and shows them clear. 

The Consecration Prayer is said  And all of them are near.” 

These words of the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman (1906 – 1984) sum up the belief of many an Anglican as prayer for the departed became again part of the restored heritage of the National Church. It is true that Cranmer and the Protestant Reformers did their best to exclude such prayer from the liturgy and devotion of the English. Perhaps the mediaeval cult of the dead had lost something of its assurance in the mercy of God and of the victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death of which St Paul talks most powerfully. (I Corinthians 15, Romans 6). Nonetheless, the abolition of prayer for the dead struck at the heart of people’s consciousness of the communion of saints, of the community of earth and heaven linked above all in the celebration of the Mass. It  led inevitably to the weakening of belief in the world to come, and ultimately to the widespread secularism of our generation.

The overwhelming sense of loss of the First World War saw many people  turn to spiritualism and the occult. The Prayer Book of 1662 provided nothing to meet this crisis of grief.

How quickly we forget. The widespread loss of faith from the 1960’s onwards led to a curious forgetfulness of the dead. Unable to face the awfulness of atheism and say, ‘You’re dead and that’s it’, many have turned to the ‘Celebration of Life’ funeral. Expressions like “They live on in our hearts and minds” have become commonplace. It’s another way of saying  “You will go on thinking about X, and they will be warm memories, until inevitably they fade.”

At the same time, as the National Church, proceeded with the revision of its liturgy, the Evangelicals started a renewed attack on the practice of prayer for the dead. Unable to see the damage that the Reformers had done, they forced the  exclusion of any explicit prayer for the dead from the official services. The liberals simply went with the flow, and have continued to do so, so that I recently heard an Anglican cleric remark that the inability of people to attend funerals during the period of social distancing would lead to a lot of parties when it was over!

Sadly, the Catholic Church contributed to this too. The desire to escape from the funeral (and funereal) style and thinking of pre-Council Catholicism led to funerals in white and  eulogies instead of homilies. When I mentioned Purgatory recently in the homily, I was told “we don’t believe in that nowadays”.  Most Catholics, I suspect, are universalists, and Judgement sounds distinctly old-fashioned!

Here in France the dire shortage of clergy led to the formation some 25 years ago of teams of lay people who lead funerals.  Their commitment to this ministry, their pastoral care of the bereaved and their careful preparation and conduct of funerals is marvellous.  About a year ago I started to look with our parish team at the liturgy, and at the commentaries which they prepare and give on the Gospel reading chosen by the family. In my opinion as we have it here in France  the funeral liturgy concentrates too much on the bereaved family as its first aim, and not on the prayer for the departed person.  This has lead to the team preparing commentaries in which the life of the person takes up much of the time allowed, with a nod at the end to show how their manner of life (sadly nowadays often with little connection with the Church) really was in accordance with the Lord’s command to ‘love thy neighbour’. The shortage of priests has broken the connection between the dead and the Eucharist, so profoundly and movingly expressed by Monica, mother of Augustine of Hippo as she prepared for her death.

“Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One things only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.”

When we return to normal (whatever that new normal will be) there are going to be a lot of grieving people, who have been deprived by the virus of the funeral rites for the person they loved. Actually, that process of deprivation has been going on for much longer, in the poverty-stricken ‘Services of Thanksgiving’ which we have trotted out with all their feeble theology. Those who pray for the dead place their hope firmly in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ – which is God’s final word, the victory of life over death. This is the Good News and we have no right – and no need – to water it down.

And, by the way, can anyone direct me to a French translation of Newman’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’ so that I can convince my parishioner of the beauty, love and wisdom of Purgatory?

Poor old Eamonn Holmes! Got it in the neck for some comments  on his morning TV show  about baseless conspiracy theories which link the coronavirus outbreak to 5G technology. OFCOM received 419 complaints from viewers after he said  the media shouldn’t dismiss claims that 5G is spreading Covid-19 — despite the fact that such rumours have been widely debunked by scientists and public health authorities.

“What I don’t accept is mainstream media immediately slapping that down as not true when they don’t know it’s not true,” Holmes claimed Monday on the popular ITV breakfast show “This Morning.”

Yet it seems to me that what Holmes was doing was protecting the unquestionable belief of people today that “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.”

Some years ago when I was vicar of a London parish, 2 am on Sunday morning I was awakened by booming music from our Parish Hall. Hurrying round I eventually located the host and made my complaint, pointing out that the contract she had signed required the Hall to be cleared by 11.30 pm. “But this music is my culture” she replied, and before I could point out that early morning sleep was part of the culture of our neighbours, she retorted, “So you’re saying that I’m not entitled to my culture, are you?”

“My opinion” “my culture” – all part of the unassailable ‘rights’ of each individual. And what happens when they contradict the facts, or interfere with someone else’s rights? Well, they mustn’t! After all “Truth, what is that? as Pontius Pilate remarked. And anyway, my truth might not be your truth.

So perhaps poor Eamonn Holmes will be rebuked – and not rebuked; and maybe even sacked – and not sacked. Who knows?