More Glastonbury

I have put some pictures from today on 'The Anglo-Catholic' blog, and tried to tell those who follow that publication a little about Glastonbury. I first knew it as an ordinand of the dicoese of Bath and Wells, and from parishes in Portsmouth and Guildford used to go regularly on Pilgrimage. In those glory days the crowds were numbered in thousands rather than hundreds; but then, too, many from middle of the road Westcountry parishes would join us, and the parish church of St John the Baptist made us all very welcome. Not so now. Indeed on one fairly recent occasion the parish 'priest' (ess) decided the time of the Mass in the Abbey ruins would be the ideal time for bell-ringing practice. Now the little town, whose streets used to be lined with enthusiastic locals and holiday-makers is filled with shops selling magic crystals and books proving that the Tor where Abbot Whiting was martyred is on an important ley-line and all to do with the age of Aquarius. It even seems that the cultism of the place can be dated to the arrival of women in the priesthood; that probably that is just a canard

At all events, there are a few more pictures so you might like to spare yourself the trouble of going to 'The Anglo-Catholic' and looking at them here. The Bishop of Plymouth was chief celebrant, Fr Darren Smith of ACS - here chatting with Fr Jeremy Winston of Abergavenny - made a plea for more vocations (without saying where those vocations might lead) and the Bishop of Bath and Wells sat throughout the proceedings and graciously blessed us after Mass. He also welcomed the Mayor and Corporation of Glastonbury.

Unaccountably, the Bishop did not make it into the Civic photograph.

The sun shone - but not too hotly, which was a relief - and Somerset was at its glorious best. If it can keep dry for the Festival, they will have a marvellous time. Already the notices of traffic delays are posted and diverse young stewards are taking up residence to direct the hordes. Good if we could have just a few of their number at the Pilgrimage.

More Inalienable Property

Mottisfont Abbey

Mottisfont in June is one of the National Trust's loveliest properties. Not the house, but the garden. Within the walls of the former kitchen gardens of the house, Graham Thomas, the great rosegrower, created a magical garden. We try to visit several times during June, when the roses are at their best.

Jane's favourite is the climber,

Crepuscule, with a wonderful scent

Within the grounds is a spring; not just some tiny trickle of water, but a great and constant font; hence the name of the place. And it was the home of a monastic community until Henry VIII of unhappy memory laicised it. Our present C of E Bishops need constantly reminding that what the State has given, the State can take away. As the official English church drifts ever further from its roots, so it has less and less claim to be called The Church of England. Indeed it can already be argued that the Catholic church has overtaken it in numbers of worshippers, and will certainly do so once the Ordinariate is up and running.

But let's not be polemical in this lovely season; just sit back and enjoy a few pictures, of the spring of water, the house (fragments of the monastic buildings survive especially in the basement), and particularly the gardens. Worth the detour, indeed worth a special trip if you can get down to Romsey in the next week or two. The N.T. is keeping them open late, so that you can enjoy not just the sights but the heady scents of summer.

A corner of the walled garden, tall Eremurus in the midst, roses in beds and on the walls

Belatedly Barnabas

Last Thursday I concelebrated S Barnabas' Day with priests from Beckenham and environs. I returned home to find my computer server not functioning. After an interesting Saturday morning in conversation with a number of charming people in Bombay (aka Mumbai) the confounded router still would not work. Eventually, after threatening to take my custom elsewhere, I was phoned by someone from the company's technical support who not only spoke English, but spoke a version of it which even someone as techophobic as me could understand. So I am back.

It is a bit late to recite the joys of St Barnabas' day, but it was very good catching up with Fr Simon Heans (I preached at his Ordination in Lancing Chapel , with Bishop Eric Kemp doing the bsuiness) and his wife and one of their daughters. Alice is not only beautiful, she sings like an angel. South London should flock to St Barnabas' to hear her.

Just a few photographs to give you an idea of the occasion.

Our Lady's bunfight

Chancel Window

Of Anniversaries

The Mayflower sailed from Rotherhithe

and the River defines London

More travels; this weekend it was Rotherhithe; the occasion, a 20th of priesting. But Fr Nicholls who was the birthday boy was actually born in the year of my deaconing. The 50th anniversary of that is on Saturday next. O tempora, O mores! Especially the tempora bit.

So, since it was Corpus Xti, I spoke about the passing of time, and the need to keep our Wills up to date (how good the Visitation of the Sick is about keeping our affairs in order). Then, naturally, to the Last Will and Testament of Our Blessed Lord - who gave it to us at the Last Supper.

What a great Sanctuary; though it would be easier using it as intended, Eastward facing. For all that, the whole occasion was lovely, with a Procession and Benediction to conclude.

I spoke about Executors; no use relying on friends, they can die before us. Institutions like Banks can be very expensive - and as we have seen recently, they may well not survive. Our Lord relied on his friends, but not just them; on their succession. Which brings us, of course, to the problem of who is and who is not a bishop. I left the question hanging - for the people and their priest to resolve. What a lovely and diverse bunch they are there on the South Bank of the Thames; and mercifully untainted by "South Bank Religion".

I'd like to be buried in a graveyard with a slide in it.

The National at Walsingham

So many bishops, so few of them diocesans. In 1992 there were thirteen bishops, most of them diocesans, who voted against women's ordination. At Walsingham this year there were John Hind of Chichester, and Nicholas Reade of Blackburn - no other English diocesan - except, of course, for the Bishop of Norwich who was there in cope and mitre; but not as a concelebrant. There was a time when he was one of us - not any longer. There is a couple of others still in office who reckon to be Catholics; Europe and London, I suppose. But the 'honoured place' we were promised does NOT extend to appointing new Catholic Diocesan Bishops. So here are a few of the retireds, suffragans and such who still make it to Walsingham for the National; so far as I can discern them, Richborough, Ebbsfleet, Burnley, David Silk, Pontefract and Chichester with, on the throne, Whitby. On the other side of the altar was another handful, and here they are:


I may be wrong, but I seem to discern Blackburn, Burnley (again), Edmonton, Horsham, Beverley, Ladds and a certain colonial bishop.








Then there were other great and good figures around - you could not miss the Master General of SSC, and here he is with Bishop Martin Warner and the Principal of Pusey House, Fr Jonathan Baker.
In the Anglo-Catholic blog I said this might be the last such occasion many of us would attend. One of our American readers was upset at this; he seemed to think Walsingham would disappear. Not at all. I am sure we will still be going there; but as members of the Ordinariate we are not very likely, except perhaps as ecumenical guests, to be at the Anglican National Pilgrimage.

One of the Guardians, (not, I think, in this photo) gave the impression he would not be joining the Ordinariate. He did concede, though, that if he were to become Lord High Chancellor and wear a full-bottomed wig he might reconsider... so clearly we must try to arrange this for him.

Bishop Lindsay kept a very low profile, sitting with the ecumenical guests and the Guardians. I think the contender for the Chancellorship may indeed be in this last picture.

[I have amended the list of bishops after a helpful comment from a reader... thanks. +E]

For those in Peril...

St Saviour on the Cliff

The SSC Chapter of SS Peter and Paul meets overseas sometimes; that is to say, on the Isle of Wight. We include brethren from the two dioceses of Portsmouth and Winchester. There is a ferry to the Island from Lymington, where I live, so the journey to St Saviour on the Cliff, Shanklin, was not very onerous.

Though I served in the Diocese of Portsmouth for my first three years in the Ministry (and was made a Deacon in Portsmouth Cathedral just fifty years ago this Trinity - my, how time flies when you're having fun!) I'd never before been to St Saviour's. It is an impressive Victorian pile, which has clearly had some wealthy benefactors. The former Vicarage was sold off when the parish was joined with its neighbour of Lake, but fortunately two church families bought it from the diocese and are generous in letting the parish use the garden from time to time. Today, it was a member of one of those families, a Churchwarden, who helped serve us with a ploughman's lunch (though if ploughmen ate lunches like that I doubt if much ploughing would have been done in the afternoon!)

We began with half an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, then celebrated Mass, ate our lunch in the North Aisle (which serves as a meeting place until the Victorian hall is restored) and then had a good and lively discussion on the matter of the Ordinariate. It is clear that in our chapter at least there will not be one single opinion; some are very keen to take the Holy Father's option at the earliest opportunity, other think they might have to be in the second rather than the first lifeboat. We were all concerned, though, to try to understand one another, and "to keep the brethren of the Society united in love and in faith" as our SSC prayer says.

Window of Christ the King
in the Chancel of St Saviour on the Cliff.

We are fortunate in having Bishop Keith as our PEV, and many of us are looking forward to following his lead at the right time, unmoved by those who mock us saying we are too timorous, or that we are waiting for a better offer from the Synod. I have outlined some of the reasons why the PEVs cannot rush our application to the Holy See. They need our continuing prayers for a calm sea and a prosperous voyage.

How to welcome a Pope

Our first sight of Pope Benedict was in the newly built basilica, where he addressed nine thousand priests and religious. Through the good offices of the Bishop of Leiria/Fatima, our contingent of bishops and priests were admitted to this event; and bishop Keith and I had privileged seats at the very front of the assembly. Press photographers and security men were everywhere, yet we had a very good view thoughout. This photograph I took as he was leaving the Basilica. He went on into the crowds around the shrine, where he led the recital of the Rosary. This devotion is especially associated with Fatima, where the children who had the vision were told that the Lady they saw was the Lady of the Rosary.

The centre of the visit was the Mass celebrated on the Recinto, the site of the vision which the shepherd children received of the Mother of God. That occurred first on May 13th 1917, so it was on Thursday May 17th that the Holy Father took his place at the altar built in front of the 1930's basilica, where the bodies of the three visionaries are at rest.

It is difficult in words or pictures to convey the sheer size of the crowd gathered to honour Our Lady of Fatima. Generally there will be around 400,000 of the faithful; this year, the estimate was half a million. They are enthusiastic, greeting the arrival of the Holy Father with repeated shouts of "Long live the Pope!"; yet throughout the Mass this great throng is quiet and focused as they concentrate on the action taking place before them - for many, in the far distance! The National TV network covered every part of the Papal visit, from his arrival in Lisbon, throughout his time in Fatima, and his last day in Porto. As pictures appeared on the screens in the church the night of his arrival, great cheers greeted his arrival by helicopter.

Our party included a dozen clergy - on the left, Fr Malcolm Gray, who organises us. In the centre, me and bishop Keith. We were assigned seats in the colonnade, very near the Altar. On an unusually chilly Fatima day the wind blew through the columns and kept most of us awake.

Fatima is not all fun and games, though. When the Ecumenical Friends of Fatima were established some ten years ago, we asked the Bishop what work he would suggest we might share in; his answer was the Community of Life and Peace, where former drug addicts are rehabilitated. Here is some of our group visiting Vida & Paz, in order to present them with our most recent donation towards their work.

It would be good to think that some part of the enthusiasm of the Portuguese for the Holy Father might be repeated in England this autumn. As Anglicans, we have a special responsibility to try to explain why we find his such a sympathetic figure, one who has proved to be a Father in God to many of us who have been treated with less than fatherly care by some of our own bishops. More still, we have a duty to pray for the Pope, and for his visit when he will be honouring one of our own, John Henry Newman.