Where to blog?

High time I added another post, to replace the image which has been staring at me on various kind friends' blogs, recommending Ancient Richborough. I have just taken my first steps on "The Anglo-Catholic" site. My, those Americans are so civil! And they even call me "Your Grace" - I thought perhaps the title went with ex-Richborough as an extension of the Archbishop's ministry, but not so. In America they are accustomed to calling EVERY Bishop "Your Grace". Which set me thinking about titles and suchlike. "Your Grace" is not simply confined to Archbishops; it is also the correct form of address for Dukes. By some strange hangover from pre-Reformation times Archbishops of Canterbury even outrank Dukes in matters of precedence; which I suppose is why they sometimes have to cancel Confirmations so as to be present at State Banquets and such.







Then again, sometimes people still address me as "My Lord"... at least, I think it is an address and not an exclamation of surprise. When asked, I tell people I prefer to be called "Father" - but if that is not their style, then Bishop will do.

Banks and Solicitors used to be able to be relied on to address one properly; now you are quite likely to get a letter beginning "Dear Rt Revd" or some such. I honestly don't mind; though if it is such a problem "Mr Barnes" is still perfectly OK. Costume dramas are always fouling up on this, referring to "Reverend Bennett" .. but then, that otherwise admirable film "Master and Commander" managed to have the crew (during the burial at sea) praying the Lord's Prayer in the ASB form; no dears, not "who art" but "which art" .... perhaps I should offer to be ecclesiastical consultant to the production companies?

The Ordinariate is offering to allow fomer Anglican Bishops to wear the gear. But what gear? The Patrimony would suggest aprons and gaiters, Rochet & Scarlet Chimere, maybe the Order of the Bath or some such bauble. A bit out of place in a catholic setting, I'd have thought.

I think it's better to post this on my own blog rather than the Anglo-Catholic. The C of E is mysterious enough to our American cousins, without adding unneccessary confusion. I think I have been invited onto the team to give a CofE view of events. I have had to warn them that my viewpoint is not neccessarily that of the entire Church of England. A pity, but there it is. Now, back to those sermons for Sunday (a Confirmation) and Tuesday (the SSC Chapter here in Lymington).

To see ourselves as others see us...

Rather pleased to be asked to contribute to 'The Anglo-Catholic' blog; they have contributors from all over, but none, I think, from the Church of England. So, while I still manage to hang on to the CofE [barely] by my finger-nails, I shall do my best to give a view from this side of the Atlantic. The difficulty in signing up for them, though, was providing a potted autobiography and a current photograph. I was put in mind of Hensley Henson who wrote his self-effacing memoirs of "an unimportant life" - in three volumes. I did go on a bit, and expect I shall be subedited down to size. As for photos, I had a friend take a couple for me this morning. He managed to remove most of my head in several, which is probably an improvement. Then I tried some with the self-timer. It was all pretty disastrous, so to give you some amusement I am posting a couple here.

So they say the camera never lies; in that case maybe I do begin to see the argument for assisted suicide (just kidding)!

History and Holy Trinity Winchester

On Tuesday our priest is charge is to be licensed. Here is my last sermon in Holy Trinity for a while, along with pictures of some of the congregation today.

My father was a wandering Aramaean [Deuteronomy 26.5]

Such fascination these days with where we come from. Whole websites devoted to tracking down our ancestors. Yet despite the popularity of TV programmes tracking down celebrities’ forebears, we read that some Universities are dropping the study of history in favour of subjects supposed to be more useful. Odd, really; our nephew has gone into the City, and his was a history degree - in War Studies. That seems to have equipped him pretty well for life in the City of London.

The Jews, though, have always known their history; indeed, the remembering of their past is what has helped them survive all the terrible events of persecution and derision. So we heard from one of the books of the Law today; when the Jews celebrated the first fruits of the earth, it was part of a continuing history lesson. What grew in field and garden was part of that history; it was given him by God; so he says “Here I bring the first-fruits of the produce of the soil that you, Lord, have given me”.

This was just the latest event in a series which stretched back into the earliest times. “My father was a wandering Aramaean” he says. These are the roots of the Jewish family; wandering in desert places, going down to find refuge there from famine, and there thanks to Joseph his people succeeded and became a nation, great, mighty and strong. Because of that, the Egyptians ill-treated them, and inflicted harsh slavery on them. This is not history as a remote academic study;

this is history about the people who are telling it. It does not say, “Then the Lord heard their prayers” – no, it says, the Lord heard OUR voice and saw OUR misery, OUR toil and OUR oppression. No delicately nuanced history here; this is a real story, and it is about the people who are telling it. 'He brought us out of Egypt with mighty hand and outstretched arm and great terror .. and brought us here, and gave us this land'. This is who we are, and this is how we come to be here, the Jews are saying.

We Christians continue that story. Week by week we recall how it went on; that God sent his own Son, and many rejected him; but as many as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God. At the heart of our story are the events surrounding the death of God’s Son. The meal shared the evening before we still celebrate, week by week, and so show the Lord’s death until he comes.

In this season of Lent, we are preparing once more to make the fuller annual recall of that. The culmination of it all happens during the great Three Days, from the evening of Maundy Thursday to the dawn of Easter Day. In that triduum all history is shown. It draws us into the events, so that we are no longer spectators but participants in the history of our salvation. As we received the ash cross on Wednesday, so we are there as he washes our feet on Maundy Thursday, and we stand at the Cross as he dies.





History matters; it tells us who we are. There are many layers to our salvation history. The Gospel did not float down to us from heaven in the English of the King James version. It was brought with great difficulty by missionaries from Ireland and from Rome. Once in England, it affected the way we thought and the way we spoke, from King Alfred to William Shakespeare. Christianity pervaded our whole national life, from the way we are governed to the way justice is delivered among us.

Five hundred years ago, we were torn away from the roots which had nourished our faith, in an attempt to make the faith more entirely English. That was a great experiment, and it produced some great fruits, among them especially the English Bible and the Prayer Book, but also the choral tradition of our churches, and the rich variety of hymn-singing. Weighed against that were the losses our church sustained; no longer part of a world-wide body, but a separated limb. Our historians tried to deride the more distant past, dark ages they called them; and proposed that we only came out into the light with the Reformation. With such productions as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs we tried to pretend that it was only our heroes who had suffered for the faith.

More recently that we have begun to understand the damage done with Henry VIII’s breach with Rome. Historians, with Books like ‘Voices from Morebath’, have enabled us to hear our ancestors putting up with that discontinuity, but also being deeply saddened by it. It was not a matter simply of cleansing our church of clerical abuses as we had been taught. It was quite as much the work of greed as kings and nobles despoiled the Church’s and shared out its treasures.

For the past two centuries, many in England have looked for a time when the divisions of the past might be healed, and we might rejoin the universal church. All down the years we have been saying Sunday by Sunday that we believe in that One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Some from time to time have made brave attempts to rejoin the fractures limbs of the Body of Christ. Now, to the astonishment of many, there is a real prospect of such a healing taking place in our generation. Many are fearful, thinking they will lose the things they love; but it may be there are things we love too much - the very things which separate us from the love of God. Lent is the time for detaching us from such idols, seeking once more what really matters.

Tomorrow in this and many other churches is to be a day of seeking. We shall try, with God’s help, to discern through prayer the path for the future. Our history matters, it is our past which has brought us where we are. Look to the rock from which you were hewn; the same Lord who brought his people out of slavery in Egypt can lead us, too, into a promised land which we had thought was forever out of reach. We shall have to be honest about our history, though, if there is to be real healing. The cruelties done to the Abbot of Glastonbury and his monks were perpetrated by our forefathers, our church - the burnings and beheadings were by no means all the work of Mary Tudor and the Inquisition.

The way ahead is not clear; there may be some who will want to take the opportunities offered by the Pope, and others who will hold back – and each will have good reason from what they do. Most of all, though, whatever we decide must spring from genuine charity. We must not claim that all right is on our side, whichever side we may find ourselves on. Despite all our failings, the Lord has not abandoned us – so with our forefathers the people of Israel we can say, “A wandering Aramaean was my father” … and the Lord is with us still.

Pictures: from top

Two Churchwardens soon to breath sighs of relief

Serving coffee despite a broken wrist

Sitting back after practising a new hymn after Mass

Our new Priest with Fr Lionel

Kate, wife of Fr Malcolm, with head server Bill

The next three, Anglicanorum Coetibus

Finally, Helen, Mrs Churchwarden, also ready to breath a sigh of relief with the arrival of Fr Malcolm Jones, our new parish priest.

I will consider thy heavens

A grandson is a great excuse for going to places where you'd not go alone; such as a planetarium. So we went with Huw (aged 9.8) to Intech, just outside Winchester. The place was heaving with kids on halfterm, struggling to get at the various hands-on experiences but being shoved aside by their fathers. The Planetarium shows were heavily booked, but we managed to get into the one about Black Holes.

If you thought Theology was difficult, you should try Black Holes. There were brave simulations of what it might be like to approach one - canoeists trapped in the approach to Victoria Falls and so on - and there was a great deal of "we are now certain that", which made me very dubious about the 'findings' of science. It was interesting, though, to see attempts at describing how space is warped, and a black hole pierces though it, and there time and space are dramatically altered. But why, when they will accept all this, are modern human beings so resistant to ideas like heaven and eternity?

Walsingham has done a great deal about engaging children; perhaps the cathedrals should do more. It is a huge moneyspinner, after all. Though perhaps theology, Queen of the Sciences, is no longer at the stage where anyone dares say "we are now certain" of anything.

Volucrium caeli coetibus

Groups of birds, that is to say - or if not Fr Hunwicke will swiftly correct me... at any rate, they were there in their thousands, down on the marshes today. Geese flying in huge flocks, turnstones and curlews and redshanks busying themselves by the edge of the water. Many seemed agitated; some gulls were mobbing a lone swan, until it stood on its tail and flapped its great wings at them.

It is the time for discerning their future, deciding where the best spot might be for bringing up their young, keeping an eye open for predators. All of which seemed somehow a parable for another group... Anglicanorum...

Despite these musings, the weather was bright if pretty chilly still, and a good walk was called for after the Ash Wednesday Mass in All Saints', Lymington.

That is a shared church with the Methodists. If they unite, as is rumoured, perhaps All Saints will not be needed by either congregation... it would scrub up wonderfully as an Ordinariate church - but not a word to the Vicar.

Hammers, Anvils and Patrimony

In his Mary Magdalene blog, Fr Ray Blake is writing about the Ad Limina visit of the Irish bishops:-

"The great problem seems to be the feudal structure, that makes a Bishop Lord of all [he] surveys linked to an unaccountable oligarchy of the Episcopal Conference. In the past when the Episcopal Conference structure was weaker, the Bishop was directly accountable to the anvil of the senior clergy of his diocese on the one hand and the hammer of the Roman Curia on the other."

Now as I read Anglicanorum Coetibus, former Anglican bishops joining the Ordinariate will be members of the Episcopal Conference of England and Wales. Those who take this step are likely to be bishops who have lived under the constraints of the Act of Synod - that is, who have been Provincial Episcopal Bishops. These are men who have had no authority of their own, only such as has been lent them by an Archbishop and other diocesan bishops. They have had no great team of archdeacons, advisers, PRs and Secretaries protecting them. Above all, their office has involved them in pastoral and sacramental care, their only 'power' having been that which priests and people have been prepared to give them - such priests and people having had first to ask their Diocesan Bishop to provide a PEV for them.



Is it conceivable that this is an element of the Patrimony of Anglicanism which might be of value to the whole Church?

Recreation

An unusually relaxed Sunday today; I just said the 8o'clock 1662 approx (with mini sermon) in Lymington, then off we went on the first picnic of the season. Kingston Lacey is a favourite spot - the former home of the Bankes family, left to the National Trust when the last heir died.

The estate included Corfe Castle, where Lady Bankes had held out against the Roundheads until they starved her out. As she rode out, it is said the Parliamentary troops averted their eyes.

The National Trust herded us through the woodland walks today- vast throngs of us, all to see the snowdrops! But it was a lovely day, if a bit chilly whenever the sun went in.

So, nothing earthshattering to blog about, just one or two jolly pictures to share; of the House, some of the Devon Red cattle, some snowdrops and a magnificent tree. Relax! Enjoy!