Easter Monday

One of my favourite places on earth is the chapel of S. Joseph in the shrine Church at Walsingham. It's slightly cramped, the light there never lets you take a good photo, and I believe the shrine hoover is stored behind a curtain at the back of the Chapel. The reason I like it so much, I think, is because on first entering it I experienced an extraordinary sense of deja vu. A few years before, when I was perhaps a month or two old in the faith and still not a confirmed or commincant in the Church of England, I spend three days at the monasteries of Wadi Natrun, the ancient Scetis of Egypt. Staying at the Paramos monastery, I woke up with the bell at 3.40am and practically crawled from the guest house, through the narrow gate into the old monastery complex to the old church. The monks had started Matins and were chanting away in Coptic (monks who can't cope with the Coptic language and visitors with the same weakness are encouraged to attend celebrations in a church opposite the guesthouse). I hung around at the back of the church without a clue what was going on, unable to see much action behind the pillars and screens that separated the monastics from the non-monastics from the laity from the unbaptised from the Anglicans. In a mood to explore, I followed a short passageway into a space that as far as I can remember was pretty much the same size at the S. Joseph chapel in Walsingham, except instead of an altar there was a large icon and reliquary of S. George, and behind the curtain was an altar rather than a hoover. I must have stood there rooted to the spot for over an hour, because by the time I came out the monks were lighting incense for the morning offering and Liturgy and the sun was coming up slowly. I stood looking at the icon pouring out all the prayers of a lifetime of no one to tell them to. I didn't cry, or feel anything dramatic, but my heart was open in prayer and I felt wholly within God's presence. It wasn't until afterwards that I came to realise what had happened, that in some way I had heard God's voice confirming me in my Christian vocation and that where I was and where I was going, He had led me there. I can't imagine what the disciples on the road to Emmaus felt like when they realised what had happened, but it must have been quite similar. Maybe in the midst of their relief and joy at seeing Jesus they felt a sense of frustration, that they'd wasted those moments talking to Him because they didn't know who he was. That intimate presence couldn't just be conjured up again at will, they couldn't just call him back and he'd appear like some sort of friendly ghost, but nonetheless, it was a gift of God, a sign, an encouragement that they would carry with them forever. Most of the collects in Anglican books today include a reference to being fed or given some remedy by God, which made me think back to those moments in the monastery chapel and in Walsingham. There's no switch I can flick to access that sense of peace and tranquility, that sense of the intimate, personal presence of Christ. Still, I can always immerse myself totally in the Liturgical Life of the Church, so full of joy and renewal this Paschaltide, so that I, like the disciples, might know Him daily in the breaking of the Bread.

Glorious Mysteries

Today in the Chapel I was so deeply annoyed and disturbed by people chatting loudly just outside while I was trying to pray in silence. Some woman, who I think was an organist came to the Sacristan standing just outside the door to the Chapel, and asked for the Chaplain:

-"No he's gone to the Ordinariate, he's become a Roman Catholic"
-"Oh really?! I didn't know, and I take the Church Times! I'm Church of Scotland, I'm an elder there, I'm from Glasgow, but I was baptised in the Church of England.....and so I take the Church Times, but I hadn't heard......and I regularly take the Church Times"

And so on and so forth. The very kindest thing I felt like doing was getting up and asking her if, in the Church of Scotland, they ever did actually shut up. I put my thumbs in my ears and tried to get back to concentrating on the Mystery of the Resurrection. Of course, the genius Victorian architects ensured that any words spoken in that place should reverberate and be amplified, and I could still hear her going on and on, just outside the chapel door, totally oblivious to the fact that people might go there expecting silence.

Somewhere in the middle of the Mystery of the Ascension, another woman came to the passageway before the Chapel door and again asked for the Chaplain. I could see half of her through the open door of the Chapel, and she was wearing a black coat and a fur hat, and spoke in a very clipped but slightly breathy Lumleyesque manner. By now I was starting to wonder if this might all be divinely ordered to test me:

-"Hello, I'm looking for the Chaplain"
-"He's not here, he's gone to join the Ordinariate....we should have a priest coming in a bit to say the Mass...."
-"Oh, I can't believe he's gone.....the Chaplain, yes....what's his name, Tom?"
-"Tim, yes Fr Tim"
-"Tom? Tim?......Oh, I hadn't heard about that"
-"Well, we should be getting a chaplain......."

And so again they both went on, right outside the Chapel door, almost shouting at each other. I couldn't believe it! Anyone who opens any space to the public should know that to try to enforce strict silence is to fight an uphill battle. Apart from anything, anyone shouting in the street can be heard inside. But for goodness' sake! Presumably these people have actually been inside a Church before, and know that people often go there expecting silence, and to rob them of even a bit of peace and quiet is incredibly cruel.

So during the Mystery of the Descent of the Holy Ghost, my mind slipped to wondering - If I can't deal with people chatting, what can I deal with? If I can't focus my heart and my mind on God and try to open up to him in prayer just because of someone chatting, how on earth will I be able to deal with greater intrusions? If I can't hear God over that Glaswegian woman, how will I hear Him over the noise of the world? If one thing in someone else that I don't like can stop me from seeing God in them, how will I ever love in a truly Christian way?

Sometimes, according to where we are, who we are, and who we are with, prayer is not about trying to block things out, but about letting them in. Creating a barrier around my sense of hearing in order to block that woman's voice out was ultimately futile, and what was left inside my head? Just stumbling words of the Ave Maria as I willed myself to focus, while my mind tried to focus in more and more on her ever fainter voice.

Sometimes, we just have to let it in. We have to let these disturbances become mingled with, or even part of, our prayer. How can we be open to God if we're trynig to block someone or something else out? Prayer is not about sweeping out of our bodies to some spiritual height, it's about striving to be who we are, where we are, with God. Perfectly being where we are, and offering all to Him. Even if this means being surrounded by noise.

I think the swine herders and villagers in today's Gospel reading at Mass were afraid of this. I don't know what lectionary it came from, but today's reading was of Christ driving demons out of two possessed people into a herd of pigs. After the pigs threw themselves into the lake, the swine herders went back to the village and the villagers wanted Jesus to go. Why did the villagers want Him to leave? He had disturbed the order of their lives. Before He came, the men possessed by Demons were safely in their tombs - excluded from society by the fear they provoked. When Jesus restored them to sanity, the Demons entered the pigs and so the villagers lost their herd. Presumably they didn't think it was a worthy exchange - two sane men for a herd of pigs. They were attached to their herd and they weren't interested in the demon-possessed men and their deliverance by Christ. The whole town went to plead with Jesus to leave, because they were worried what else he might take from them, and what else he might give them. How often are we like the villagers? You never know what you will let in when you open up, and you never know who you might be shutting out when you lock yourself in.

Persecuting the Laity....

A post on a new blog I've just discovered, a Minor Friar, got me thinking about how much the poor laity get bullied on these traddie websites and forums. He was talking about how Trads often whinge that in the New Rite Eucharistic prayer, we thank God for "counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you", when the laity should really be kneeling. He made the point that on this occasion, trad critics had chosen to ignore the possibility of a non-literal interpretation of the verb "stand" to make the point that either the laity don't kneel anymore as they should during the Eucharistic prayer, or that the modern rite is inadequate for congregations who do kneel.

How exhausting. It reminds me of the obsession with Communion in the hand. That debate can get so heated, I normally start wondering if Traditionalists shouldn't chew off their own hands just to make their point and then get on with it. When serving as Subdeacon I get to see exactly who receives Communion and how, and as for those who receive in the hand, I would not doubt their piety, their devotion to the Sacrament, or any other motive.

I personally receive on the tongue, because I feel more comfortable that way, especially in terms of respect for the Sacrament. I also kneel, partly out of reverence and partly because most people who administer the Eucharist are shorter than me, and so it's just more practical. I'm sure those hands that regularly receive the Host from the Priest carry less bacteria than my tongue on a Sunday morning, or indeed the tongues of some of those nutters on the forums. We could all of us be boiled in bleach and yet we still wouldn't be clean enough, in any sense of the word, to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the point.

Maybe it's the yoga talking, but I sort of see the posture of the laity during the Liturgy as not something we should worry about too much. It's all OK as long as they have the right attitude to what is happening. Whether the laity sit or stand or bow at a certain point doesn't matter nearly as much as what the ministers in the Sanctuary are doing on their behalf. Servers and clergy should pay the utmost attention to how they behave during the Liturgy, knowing that the laity expect it of them. It's not about "Oooh, Fr so-and-so says a lovely Mass", it's about the ministers fulfilling an office, without personal flourishes or adornments or personalised extras. They should be self-effacing and decorous at all times. And it's OK to bully them about that because they should be used to it! It's their job!

In the typical Roman parish, or indeed Roman Rite Anglican parish, some people will stand during the Eucharistic prayer, some will kneel. Some receive on the hand, some on the tongue, some kneeling, some standing. I really cannot understand how that image makes some people's blood boil so much! Leave the laity alone! If you want to make a point about the defects of the Modern Rite, make it a principle not to discount the good intentions of the devoted people who have turned up for Mass in the first place.