Response to a Response...

Perhaps you’ve assumed that the Women’s Guild has lost interest. Perhaps you’ve feared that we have flitted to blogging pastures new. Or, given the recent announcement from Rome, perhaps you’ve assumed that we’ve gathered up our books, embroidery and hymnals and boarded the luxury liner for new, white-and-gold-tinted waters. Well, not so! After a few months during which real-life has caught up with us all, there is now a little more time to reflect and to offer our own take on ‘life, faith and how best to serve’.

Now, I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: the WG prides itself on offering something different in the blogging community. We do not concern ourselves (in this forum at least) with church politics but rather with the day to day life as Christians – be it RC or AC. At the Forward in Faith National Assembly yesterday Father Christopher Kinch spoke movingly about his deep despondency after the Synod vote last July, but emphasised how he returned to his parish and got on with his priestly tasks. This goes for us among laity too – there’s plenty of work to be doing.

Of course, the initial euphoria of His Holiness’s generous – more than generous – offer to Anglicans wishing to be reunited corporately with the Holy See is right and proper. We should celebrate this momentous occasion, indeed not to do so suggests a cynicism and anti-Papalism – in fact, an anti-Catholicism which is certainly worrying amongst those who would appeal in all other matters to the Universal Church. And yet we must also pray: for, although I cannot help but feel that finally we have been offered a Code of Practice looks as if it will do, there are legitimate concerns. We have to wait and see what this will mean in practice. And, crucially, we need to educate those who do not really understand it. There are also serious practical considerations for all involved: fears for loss of livelihood, loss of home, loss of church buildings, loss of the familiar, loss of potential. There will be sacrifice on all sides. Yet how else can we be Christians, in the proper sense, without sacrifice? How can we claim to follow Christ if we do not accept his offer to take up our own cross and live?

The angel tells Our Lady ‘do not be afraid, Mary’ and Mary says ‘be it unto me according to thy word’. So, like Mary, we must sing hymns of praise, thanking God for this new hope, that that which we thought impossible, extremely unlikely at best, is now a real prospect. But also, as Rosemary Parslow reminded us at the FIF National Assembly, we must become, now more than ever, like Our Lady pondering all these things in our hearts. And we, the little flock, must pray: to Our Lady and to the Saints for their intercession. We must pray honestly and fervently, because, as I believe the events of this week have shown quite clearly, prayer can be and will be answered.

Rejoice, O Virgin unsurpassed,

In whom our ransom was begun,

For all your loving children pray

To Christ, our Saviour, and your Son.

Praise Him all you little children!

I am not a child, neither do I have children, so in many ways I am completely unqualified to comment on the subject of children's hymns. I certainly don't think that just because I do not like singing or listening to songs about Jesus wanting me for a sunbeam or similar, our brethren of tenderer years should be deprived of them if they find them an enjoyable and edifying means of devotional expression. It is very important to make church fun for children, but I sometimes wonder if, in fact, we are doing them a disservice by serving them up with children's versions of everything. A small child of my acquaintance likes nothing better than singing endless verses of "Glory be to Jesus", indeed his appetite for hymning the virtues of the Precious Blood could scarcely be greater, and although he has certainly been exposed to "If I were a butterfly..." it has not had anything like the same effect on him.

This occured to me again recently while reading "A Late Beginner" Priscilla Napier's beautifully-written memoir of a childhood spent in England and Egypt during and at either end of the Great War. Even in those days there were Sunday School hymns, the musical equivalent of their wholesome, but dull, boiled fish and boiled milk nursery meals, and the young Priscilla is not impressed with either the culinary or the musical attempts to cater for the young. One disappointing week "Bright the vision that delighted" and "Onward Christian Soldiers" are replaced by the far less rousing "Praise Him, Praise Him all ye little children, He is Love, He is Love." This new hymn is only made interesting for her when an equally unimpressed, and rather braver child starts revising the words, showing surreal and splendid powers of invention .

"Serve Him, Serve Him, all ye little soapsuds," Peter carolled. I listened entranced, to see where the flight of his fancy would carry him next. His face was radiant with enjoyment, his feet beat out the rhythm, no fire from Heaven descended to consume him, "Crown Him, Crown Him, all ye little wigwams," Peter sang on. This was too much for me, and I was told sternly to go outside until I could stop laughing."

By contrast, the nine-year old Priscilla finds in the "Te Deum" a glorious expression of her serious, though childish, religious feeling. Indeed, so enchanted is she by the line "To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually, continually, CONTINUALLY do cry" that she gets stuck on it, and has to be gently reminded by her mother that they have now got to "Vouchsafe, O Lord..." She explains her preference by saying that, "It was the same idea, only how much less soppily expressed"

Of course I am not trying to suggest that we skip the milk and go straight on to solid food either culinarily, theologically or musically; I am not calling for a ban on children's hymns. However, I think sometimes we can underestimate what children can cope with. I was not exposed to the sort of hymns I enjoy now as a child and therefore cannot say how I would have reacted, but there were many other "grown-up" things, perhaps especially the 1950's comedy of Flanders and Swann which I loved as a five year old although I scarcely understood a word of them. Some of it my parents explained to me, some of it remained mysterious until a lesson at school, or a book gave me a clue as to its meaning. One way and another, they kept me entertained and taught me a number of interesting things. The analogy with religious music is not exact, but we should not be afraid of introducing to children things which contain hard words or hard ideas: they will ask questions, some of it will remain mysterious for a while, but that does not mean that children will not enjoy and benefit from the rousing tunes and poetry of "grown-up" hymns.

Catholic or Calvinist?

So you thought you were an Anglo-Catholic, Anglican Catholic, Catholic Anglican, catholic in the C of E or just Catholic. Are you sure? Are you really sure? Are you sure you're not....

a Calvinist

Put your mind at rest and take the Calvinist Test

(from Trouw newspaper via Faith Central)

I get 50% in the Calvinist Test so it could be worse, but then it could be better too. Amusingly the final question asks if you could have done anything better with the last five minutes than filling in the quiz. I gave the sensible Calvinist answer of 'Yes'.

Liturgical Music?

Just when you could be excused for thinking the members of the Women's Guild dead (or worse!), here's another musical interlude: Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle (1863). However, despite its name the mass is far from 'petite' and not particularly 'solennelle' as it was written not for use in the liturgy, but for the salon of a Parisien town house. The more pernickety amongst you might also question its status as a 'messe' as it's just so long as to be totally un-liturgical. I've yet to meet the priest with the patience to stand through a thirty-one minute Gloria or sixteen minute Creed, though I may well be wrong. Answers on a postcard (or modern equivalent).

The piece was originally scored for two pianos, harmonium and twelve singers and Rossini himself described the setting as the last of his 'pêchés de vieillesse' (sins of old age). Some movements are entirely ridiculous. The tenor soloist bouncing along to the words 'Domine Deus' is one of the more ludicrous moments. This version is sung by the 'Prince of Tenors', Franco Corelli:

How I wish I could make these....

Image source here

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, have mercy on us!

Unreasonable Demands?

"Robes, scary art, smoking incense, secret doors in the Iconostas popping open and little robed boys coming out with golden candlesticks, chants and singing from a small choir that rolled across the curved ceiling and emerged from the other side of the room where no one was singing."

Other than the Iconostasis (we don't have any Orthodox members -at least, not yet), this description could easily fit most of the churches in which the Women's Guild lurk attend. So, I was stuck by this blog post by a Baptist minister experiencing Eastern Orthodox worship for the first time (spotted on Shrine of the Holy Whapping) especially as I've become quite accustomed to robes, scary art, incense and gold candlesticks.

"So what did I think about my experience at Saint Anthony the Great Orthodox Church?

I LOVED IT. Loved it loved it loved it loved it loved it.

In a day when user-friendly is the byword of everything from churches to software, here was worship that asked something of me. No, DEMANDED something of me.

“You don’t know what Theotokos means? Get a book and read about it. You have a hard time standing for 2 hours? Do some sit ups and get yourself into worship shape. It is the Lord our God we worship here, mortal. What made you think you could worship the Eternal One without pain?"

I've been thinking of this recently whenever I've been too lazy to kneel in the right places or say my prayers when I ought. Faith is demanding -not about making things easy for yourself.

A Corpus Christi treat

Whether you're keeping Corpus Christi today or on Sunday, here's a treat for the day found in a box of holy cards. Somebody* decided, on 23 February 1900, to make themselves a list of prayers to say in front of the Blessed Sacrament. I suppose the numbers must refer to page numbers in a prayer book -I wonder if any readers with a large library of early 20th century French devotional works can work out which one!

Prières a dire devant le Saint Sacrement exposé

Litanies du Sacré Coeur de Jésus
Amende honorable au Sacré Coeur de Jésus 373
Consécration au Sacré Coeur de Jésus 378
Chapelet – Mystères douloureux 433
Entretien de Jésus avec l’âme adoratrice 391
Amende honorable à Jésus Crucifié 326
Litanies du trés Saint Sacrement 299

This is exactly the sort of thing I could see myself making, losing and then it turning up over a hundred years later in somone else's box of cards.

*E. Cordieu is my best attempt at making out the name but perhaps just wishful thinking on my part given the presence of so many devotions to the Sacred Heart!