At the age of 93, Bishop Ambrose Weekes has died at the Charterhouse in London.
Bishop Ambrose is the reason I am Rector of St Clement’s Philadelphia: it was at my own birthday party in London in January 2003 that he suggested that I might like to be Rector of St Clement’s.
Sounds unlikely, doesn’t it? But it is true: this is where two strands met. First, I was at that time Archdeacon of Italy & Malta for the Church of England and also Vicar-General of the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. Bishop Ambrose had been my predecessor in the latter post, and also in that we had both been Dean of Gibraltar. So I had known him for ten or more years.
The second strand was that Bishop Ambrose had been Chaplain of the Fleet & Archdeacon of the Royal Navy (The C of E loves grand titles!) and therefore knew Father Peter Laister, who was a Royal Naval Chaplain for much of his ministry. They became great friends, and when Fr Laister became Rector of St Clement’s, Bishop Ambrose would often visit. On his visits he would often be put to work presiding at Mass from the Throne, and taking confirmations.
So there you have it: he knew me and he knew St Clement’s and he liked us both. So he thought we would do well together. When I eventually accepted the call to St Clement’s, he was the first person to write and congratulate me, knowing very well that he had instigated the whole thing!
Whenever I have been back in London, I have either had Bishop Ambrose to lunch in the Carlton Club or he has entertained me in his club, the Army & Navy. He was a small man but with a fine voice, and we were no sooner through the door of the Club bar than he would boom out to the barman “Two pink gins – Catholic size!”
Now he has gone to join Fr Laister and all his friends and loved ones beyond the grave. I will offer a Requiem Mass for Bishop Ambrose on Wednesday, May 9th at 12.10 p.m. There will be other Requiems in Gibraltar Cathedral and in London, and in St Andrew’s, Tangier, which he loved to visit, just across the water from Gibraltar.
May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
What a wonderful Holy Week and Easter we have just had at St Clement’s. My thanks are due to so many people in the congregation that I hardly know where to begin. And it is often better not to begin, because (like thank-you speeches at weddings) one always leaves someone out by accident.
But I do have to thank very specially our new Deacon, Ethan Jewett, for his great ability to learn new rites and ceremonies, and especially for his singing of the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil. He also managed to hold the Paschal Candle at the font without any wax dripping from it, a feat I have often failed at. And he made me laugh when I was scattering the blessed waters to the four points of the compass. When I got to the one to my right where he was standing, he ducked just in time for it to fly past him harmlessly. Of course, I only laughed inwardly, as I was still singing away merrily.
The whole Triduum was marked with a spirit of joy which carried us through to one of the loveliest Easter Morning Masses I have known. Our choir, as usual, was superb, and the last thing they sang, the “Regina Caeli” from Mascagni’s “Cavelleria Rusticana” was electrifying. The roof rang with “O Signore” and “Alleluia”.
At the end, we could all say with gratitude to God “Christ is risen; he is risen indeed. Alleluia”!
How sad it is to see the Roman Church setting up a body they call an “Ordinariate” to persuade otherwise reluctant Anglicans to join their Church. For centuries they have denigrated Anglican liturgies and married clergy, and now they are saying “Oh these are fine; just join our Church and you can carry on doing these things”.
And so they attract a dozen or two clergy and a few hundred laity. Meanwhile, the Anglican Church (or Episcopal in Scotland and the U.S.A.) has been receiving far more RC clergy and infinitely more RC laity, but with no blowing of trumpets or “R.C. Ordinariates”.
So maybe the time has come for the Archbishop of Canterbury to institute not an Ordinariate but a Specialariate for RC’s wishing to join the Anglican Church. They can keep their liturgy (goodness me, hundreds of Anglican churches in the UK already use it every day! ) and their priests can all be celibate, though if they would like to be real Anglicans, they could choose to be married either to a man or a woman!
The trouble is that R.C.s joining the Church (Oh sorry, that is very un-ecumenical; I mean, joining the Anglican bit of the Church) don’t want a Specialariate. They want to luxuriate in Choral Evensong sung daily in England’s forty-three Cathedrals. They want to practise contraception as a positive moral good. They want Bishops with wives and children. Some of them (most of them?) even want women celebrating the Mass. And very few of them would care a bit if they knew their parish priest was gay. And all of them want to live in a Church that allows all such questions to be openly debated and lived with.
Poor little Ordinariate! The Emperor’s new clothes will seem bulky in comparison.
For the first time in the forty four years I have been conducting weddings, I have a wedding on New Year’s Eve (Hogmanay, to you Scotsmen out there), and after my initial surprise, I thought “What a good idea”.
The wedding begins in St Clement’s at 6.30 p.m. and, since it will be dark when it finishes, each of the guests will be furnished with sparklers and will form a line in the church garden after the service. The Bride and Groom will then leave the church and make their way out between a long line of light from the sparklers.
Their limousine will then whisk them away to a nearby hotel where their guests will join them shortly after for the wedding feast, which will last through Midnight and welcome in the New Year.
What a wonderful start to Peter and Leah’s married life, and a New Year begun for all their families and friends sharing with them in this Sacrament of love and new life.
Happy New Year to all of you too.
I once wrote all 200 of my Christmas cards on the overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, having shared a bottle of champagne with Prince Bertil and Princess Lilian of Sweden before embarking, and promising to share another with them the next day at the President of Finland’s National Day Ball. (They were flying over).
How’s that for an opening sentence, my much-neglected readership?
This memory was inspired, of course, by my writing, sealing, and mailing this year’s batch, or at least some of them. It is a task I don’t look forward to, but once I get going I love it. Some cards go to close friends I see frequently during the year, but the majority go to friends whom I have not seen for many years. The only contact we have is my Christmas letter and a card. Of course, that is not enough, but it is better than nothing
This year, for the first time, I am sending the letter (though not the cards) by e-mail. This should reach 90% of my friends, and I will print copies for those whom I suspect of being even more computer illiterate than I am.
I love all the manger scenes, the shepherds, the angels, the Wise Men, etc, and most people feel priests should receive only such cards or they will be offended. But I have plenty of friends who are not Christians or at least don’t feel that every card has to be of Bethlehem (and know how hard it is to offend me!). So I also love the cards with robins, the stagecoaches in the snow, the pictures of the family, and even the ones with gold and silver glitter that sticks to your hands and clothes for days. I even like the ones of Santa Claus – after all, he’s the only saint Protestants encourage their children to pray to!
I have little idea who you are who read my blog. But I take this opportunity of wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a good New Year. May 2012 be one of the best you have yet experienced.
When sleep flees at 2 a.m, what do you do? Post a blog entry!
I’ve just finished two intensive and very happy days celebrating All Saints Day and All Souls Day. In one sense they were very different (and the Church meant them to be so), but in another they were very similar.
As you can see on the St Clement’s web site, the altar was heavily laden with almost all the relics of saints we possess at St Clement’s – and that’s a lot. Almost every saint in the universal calendar was there. It could have been over-the-top vulgar (like many an English parish church in the old days displaying every bit of gold and silver plate it had, on the altar at great Festivals) but, in fact, though definitely over the top, it was nevertheless incredibly moving. Here were tiny bits of bone or scraps of clothing from the bodies of some of the greatest heroes of our Faith, and I for one felt “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” by the host of golden reliquaries on the gradines behind the altar and at my feet under the altar. As I censed the altar and the reliquaries I recalled the angel in the book of the Revelation of St John, who was given a censer full of incense rising up before the throne of God “and the incense was the prayers of the saints”.
But the next day, everything was gone, and every trace of gold had been replaced with sombre black. The six candles at the altar were unbleached, which leaves them a golden orange colour. The altar frontal was solid black, broken only be exquisite old embroidered lilies. Down at the front of the congregation was the Catafalque, in which is placed the coffin at funerals, covered in a heavy black pall with a cross of deep green velvet running its length. Round the catafalque were six unbleached candles in tall candlesticks.
In one sense, it was all different from yesterday, and the Mass was sung by three cantors to beautiful Plainsong chants, instead of the joyful, almost boistrous music of the All Saints Mass sung by the full choir.
But it was the same Mass, and on the altar, instead of relics, was a long, long, list of names supplied by St Clement’s congregation. These were their loved ones, parents, brothers, sisters, wives and husbands, children, friends. I keep a list of the deaths of all my friends and acquaintances during the year, and write a list of their names for the All Souls altar every November 2. So that list , and everyone else’s list, lay there throughout the Mass, and I touched it at the prayer for the Departed at the Offertory, and again at the Memento of the Departed during the Canon, and I was overcome by that same feeling of being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. This time, the Souls being remembered were not officially canonized saints, but they may well have been every bit as holy as some who have been canonized, and so, as well as praying for them I prayed that they would intercede for us.
And on Sunday, we shall have a perfectly ordinary Mass for perfectly ordinary people, whom no one would call saints. Yet that is what St Paul called all the Christians of his little churches. And that is where the distinction between Saints and Souls breaks down: only God knows the secrets of our hearts, and how far we have progressed along the road to holiness. So be very aware: you may be in the next pew to someone who, if you could see them as they will be glorified in heaven, you would bow down in reverence before them.
Here endeth the insomnia!
St Clement’s has just received notice of a legacy of about $23,000 from Mary McManemy. I had never heard of Mrs McManemy; nor had anyone else I asked. But I found an old file which showed that she had been a faithful communicant of St Clement’s at the end of the 19th century, and that she had died in 1901. She left $51,407 (a goodly sum of money in 1901) in trust to her children, then to their children. When the last of the grandchildren died, one fourth of her estate was left to St Clement’s, and that is what has now happened.
Imagine receiving that money after exactly 110 years! I am sure the Rector of St Clement’s in 1901 said a Requiem Mass for Mary McManemy’s soul, and I will be including her name in the Masses of All Soul’s Day.
Also, since the Vestry is now actively raising funds for the Curate’s Fund, I will be recommending to them that they add Mary McMenamy’s gift to this fund. I am sure Mrs McManemy would rejoice that she was able to make such a difference in the life of St Clement’s more than a hundred years after her death. And in the Curate’s first Requiem Mass after his Ordination as a priest, I would encourage him to make mention of Mary with all his own loved ones for whom he is bound to pray.
When we make our own wills, we should take such examples to heart and make provision for the continuance of our Church.
We usually use the old Roman Canon at the main Mass on Sundays in St Clement’s, and one of my favorite parts is when I say the prayer for the Departed and ask that they may be granted a place of “refreshment, light and peace”.
I have sat at many a death bed and seen a living, breathing, hoping, loving person become a lifeless body. The person has gone. And I have often said this prayer from the Canon. After all, these are the things most dying people are longing for.
By refreshment, we usually mean a new start or at least a new look. It can also mean a cool drink on a hot day, or a quick shower after a hard job. And even computers like this have a “Refresh” button which brings a page up to date. So the departed person will be longing for the refreshing sight of a new life.
This will be to them like emerging into light from a dark place. Often their deaths will have been painful and long, their faculties and strengths closing down and ebbing away. So we pray that they may arrive in a place of light, where they will see no more “through a glass darkly” as St Paul puts it, but “face to face”, no longer to “know in part” but to “know as they are known” by the loving God who made them just so that they might share his life of light and love.
And this will bring them the third thing we pray for in the old Canon, peace. “May they rest in peace” we say over and over again”, Requiescant in pace, RIP. Peace of mind, peace of spirit, no more struggle, no more misunderstandings no more separations. Just “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” which we pray for at the end of the Mass.
Refreshment, light and peace sums it up perfectly. And that’s just the beginning, till the trumpet sounds and the rest period is over, and the General Resurrection raises us all to a new life of love. And we have no adequate words to describe that – except perhaps “Heaven”!
I have always hated stewardship campaigns. It is a British thing, I think. Americans are far more willing to talk about money than the Brits. And in this, they are more like Jesus! He spoke a lot about money, and you can sum up his message in three words: “Give it away”.
So, as we get to the time of year when churches think of next year’s expenses and income, I think it is probably the priest’s duty to say the same thing to the congregation: “Give your money away”. But he and his church will have no success at all unless he can show that the money the people give to the church will do what Jesus wants the Church to do. And what’s that?
What is a church for? Why does it need money?
First, we are commanded to “Do this, in remembrance of me”. We are to celebrate the Mass, and for that we need to buy bread and wine and vessels to hold them. Then we need an altar to put them on. Then we need a roof over that altar to keep it dry. And we need seats for the people, and rooms for teaching the children and for the fellowship of the congregation etc. And so we need quite a bit of money for the maintenance of the church building.
But Jesus commissioned apostles, and they commissioned bishops, and the bishops commissioned priests to celebrate the mystery of the Mass and to preach the Good News of what God is doing in and through Jesus. And the priest has to have a place to live and a stipend to live on. And so we need money for the clergy.
These are the two biggest expenses of the church – buildings and clergy. But both buildings and clergy are not ends in themselves. They are there to inspire and help forward the mission of the Church. The church building must contain “the beauty of holiness”. And the clergy must celebrate Masses and other services which use the best of music, reverence, reading of the Scriptures and preaching on the Word of God, Jesus Christ, to whom these Scriptures point.
And, as someone has said: “When the service is over, the service begins”. The disciples of Christ who gather in St Clement’s week by week and day by day should have gained from both building and clergy some inspiration to love their neighbors better in the days ahead. If this happens, the money spent on both clergy and buildings will have been transformed into God’s good purpose, the salvation of the world through love.
Pope John Paul II will be remembered for centuries as the Pope who filled in the heretical gap in the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary.
Until he inserted the five Mysteries, which he called “of Light” or “Luminous”, the Rosary jumped from the fifth Joyful Mystery, the Finding of Jesus in the Temple at the age of twelve, to the first Sorrowful Mystery, the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. So the entire Ministry of our Lord was omitted from the meditations.
This has now been corrected. The Mysteries of Light are these: The Baptism of our Lord in the River Jordan; The Marriage in Cana of Galilee, his first miracle; the Preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom; the Transfiguration; and the Institution of the Holy Eucharist. Thus, the gap between the childhood of Jesus and his Passion and Death is bridged.
I called this gap heretical, which may be a bit strong (as it was never meant to be so) but it was certainly a grave defect in the devotion of the Rosary. At the time the Rosary was invented, as a visual (or tactile) aid to prayer, there was a tendency in the Church to play down our Lord’s humanity and concentrate on his divinity. This often leads to an other-worldly, pietistic Christianity which turns away from the pains and sufferings of the world to a “Pie in the Sky when you Die” panacea.
But now, thanks to Pope John Paul II, we can meditate on Jesus as the perfect Teacher of Love and Compassion to the weak, the sick, the outcast; the Proclaimer of the Kingdom of his Father on earth; the sharer of our earthly joys and sorrows and temptations; the shining light of God’s glory in a man; and the one who substituted himself for the sacrificed lambs, and commanded us to remember him by eating and drinking the Eucharist together.
John Paul II did many extraordinary things, but I predict that the Luminous Mysteries will be his abiding testament.