Royal Wedding - Christian marriage

One feature of the Royal Wedding that was very striking was that this was emphatically a Christian marriage, and that the service addressed that unashamedly.

Such a Royal wedding is clearly going to be according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England by law established, but this ceremony was much more emphatically so than some have been in recent decades.

The fact that it was exclusively Anglican, with other church men as guests rather than ecumenical participants, stressed the fact that there is an Established Church with claims to address the nation. The prayers offered, the choice of hymns and music, the liturgical choreography and, perhaps above all the Bishop of London' s sermon, ending with its quotation of the prayer composed by the Duke and Duchess, stressed that this was a serious Christian marriage. The Archbishop of Canterbury had commented on the seriousness of the couple's approach in an interview a few days previously. He may, perhaps, have had at the back of his mind Archbishop Runcie's later comments to his biographer about the personal ill-preparedness of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981.

However much of this can be credited to the Archbishop, the Bishop and the Dean of Westminster, I am sure that the lead, and the final approval, for such an approach must have some from Prince William and his bride. That augers well for them and their attitude to both their marriage and to the life-long task that faces them.

Furthermore a huge audience worldwide witnessed and heard an exposition of the traditional Christian concept of marriage. The modified, but succinct and classical Prayer Book language with its outline of the purpose of marriage, as well as the in the ceremonial and spoken acts that surrounded the sacramental union of man and wife, expounded the theology and high seriousness of the calling being entered into. The fact that the couple to be married combined that understanding with obvious love for each other underlined the point. Their position may be exceptional, but the essential human simplicity of marriage came accross - the idea was made accessible to anyone watching in a way that was unmistakeable.

More on the Ordinariate arms

Following on from my post Arms and the Ordinariate I now see that the Ordinariate arms as displayed online are as I intimated I thought they should be, that is giving precedence to Walsingham. There is a link here. Perhaps there was an error in drawing up the image as originally shown. I shall be modest and not claim any credit for the change.

Anastasis

Last night I attended a lecture at Blackfriars here in Oxford given by Dr Lyra Pitstick from Hope College in Michigan. Her subject was "Christ's Victory over Sin and Death: Interpreting the Icon of Christ's Descent into Hell." Her talk was followed by a lively series of questions and answers.

The icon of the Anastasis - or the Harrowing of Hell - is a mixture of images. Thus there is- Christ's victory over death - He is shown alive. There is His descent to release Adam and Eve and the just from their time of waiting to the resurrection described for them by St Matthew. There is an anticipation of the Final resurecction that awaits us all.

Applying the concept of Lex credendi, lex orandi Dr Pitstick has analysed the scriptural texts and the liturgical texts used both in the east (where the image has remained of greater importance) and the west.

She emphasised that fact that in the image Christ is depicted as alive and active, His dynamic conveyed in vigorous movement and forcefulness of action. If Good Friday is the defeat of Sin and Death, and Easter Day the proclamation to the living, then Holy Saturday is the proclamation to and release of those who slumbered in death in the Limbo of the righteous.

In the west Holy Saturday tends not to have its own images. The Cross predominates, but we have rather lost the medieval tradition of burying the Cross in the Easter Sepulchre - in effect sending its power down to release the dead.

Our understanding is not helped by the current use of the term "Hell" - its philological history reveals that it is whatever is not Heaven - so it can mean Purgatory, Limbo, Sheol or Gehenna.

Dr Pitstick argued that the theology contained in the image is scriptural or of ancient liturgical origin, and that to attribute it to the later, fifth century, Gospel of Nicodemus is to miss its centrality and importance to the Church's teaching.

The rise of the doctrine of Purgatory, whereby the faithful concentrate on those they can pray for, not those beyond our prayerful assistance, if for different reasons, in either Heaven or Hell, may account for the decline of the image in the west. The Harrowing becomes thereby an event in the past that affected the long dead, not the recently departed for whom we feel concern or care. The decline in the use of the image could be associated with this period; what up to the twelfth century was a popular theme in sculpture and painting does then wane as Masses for the dead and pilgrimage devotions increased. The idea that St Thomas Aquinas wrote of our own descents into that world of Hell as his way of urging prayers for the dead was raised - an idea which links the earlier and later emphases. There was also some discussion of the notion that we are called to pray for the demons that they may ultimately be redeemed, and the possibilities of the hope of ultimate universal salvation.

This was a stimulating evening, and provided ideas and images upon which to reflect in Eastertide as well as for next Holy Saturday.

The Quality of Mercy

Fr Tim has a post about a play presented at the Oxford Catholic Chaplaincy last week. This was designed to celebrate the beatification of Pope John Paul II by reflecting on the impact of his teaching on a group of teenage pilgrims at the time of his death. Despite the venue this was very much an Oxford Oratory event in terms of authorship, direction and performance.

I went to the first performance, and beyond the interest of seeing some of one's friends acting, found that the play contained considerable food for thought. It required quite complex staging and managed to convey a sense of space and location with a minimal setting and props. The young actors who carried the burden of the play gave good performances, and conveyed the uncertainties, the highs and lows of teenage years, with assurance.

You can read Fr Tim' s post at First performances of "The Quality of Mercy".

Royal Wedding - Scotland

On the radio news on the evening of the Royal Wedding there was a report about celebrations in St Andrews where TRH the Duke and Duchess met, but pointing out the much lower level of celebrations in Scotland than England, and how a republican-minded group had demonstrated outside Holyroodhouse.

There may have been less interest in Scotland - though clearly St Andrews joined in enthusiastically - but it may not be so much of a news story as might appear. I do not blame this on stereotypes of Scottish dourness or whatever per se, but I do recall hearing from a Scotswoman forty years ago that even in Edinburgh people did not turn out for royal visits as they did in England.

That said I recall seeing crowds on television for the state visit of the King of Sweden to Edinburgh in the 1970s, and the crowds who greeted the Pope in the city last September were very impressive indeed. Maybe the Scots are less responsive, but they will turn out if there really is someone to see. So perhaps the public response last week was less exhuberant than selsewhere, but it may well not be a significant new development.

New Hungarian constitution

A friend has told me about the controversy around the new Hungarian constitution, recently voted through in the Budapest parliament. There is an article about it here. Opposition has been voiced from outside the country by those who dislike its traditional stance on life and family issues, or on definitions of nationality, as discussed in this article.

I have looked briefy at the text - there is an English version here.

In addition to the defence of family life I approve of the references to the Holy Crown and to St Stephen, and to the country's historic place in Europe. The arms with the Holy Crown are enshrined in the constitution. Much of it looks fine to my mind in terms of practical governance.

What I do not like are Fundamental Articles B2 and 3 - that the country is a republic and that the people atre the source of power. This really is Constitution-Lite in that it rejects the millenium-long history of Hungarian Kingship and the institution that embodied the nation. To invoke St Stephen and the Holy Crown, and to appeal to history, but not to proceed to the obvious conclusion is to repeat the mistake of the Horthy regency. The shades of Arpad and Angevin, of Jagellonian and Corvinian as well as Habsburg Kings of Hungary must look down with sad and wondering eyes.

Royal Wedding - the media

As I wrote in my post The Royal Wedding I intend to publish online some thoughts and reflections about this splendid event. I will divide them up by theme, rather than put all my ideas in one single piece.

Inevitably the way the media covered the wedding attracted attention. The press were obviously extensive in their coverage. Even where one might have found a somewhat grudging attitude or studied disinterest this was not the case. Thus not only The Guardian, but even The Independent covered it as a news story with pictures: poor old Andreas Whittam-Smith must be turning in his metaphorical grave as First Church Estates Commissioner. The Guardian news coverage was mainstream, not driven by an editorial line other than reporting the news, and indeed from what I have read seems very positive.

Now on these occasions I do not read feature articles in The Guardian for the sake of my blood pressure and mental equilibrium - and The Independent is permanently beyond the Pale for me. However a friend did draw my attention to this article by Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian, which might suggest that some at least in that world are learning some sense in these matters; it makes good points and is worth looking at.

A piece from a not totally different standpoint with which I also was rather taken is a commentary by Ian Dunt on Yahoo - his last line is forceful.

The excellent Australian Radical Royalist has a piece about the coverage in Australian press The [republican] Age gives in! Front page of The ..., which suggests that there as here the republican-minded press realised that even its readers were likely to be interested in the facts of the wedding. Again The Guardian reported that Royal wedding boosts Australian monarchists .

As someone commented to me he disliked the fact that the British republican minded minority gets undue coverage. This may not be metropolitan chattering-class bias so much as a modern obsession with fairness and equal access to the media. The principle of the party political broadcaste being distributed on the basis of support tends not to be applied. I wonder if the media here take as seriously the much larger monarchist groups in some continental countries such as Portugal. Maybe, after all, it is the chattering classes to blame...

I can appreciate that journalists often have on these occasions to fill up the column inches with relatively little information upon which to proceed, or do not have the historical background to really interpret the stories. A piece I did read, a profile of Prince William, in the Sunday Times Magazine the weekend before the wedding illustrates something of this. The writer was using relatively little in the way of hard facts and yet does create a sympathetic and convincing portait of a man who emerges as both serious and dedicated as well as likeably uncomplicated. The article starts here, but readers then need to subscribe to the Sunday Times online service to read it all.

I watched the wedding on BBC. I rather missed out on the instant punditry from Simon Schama et al - and that may have been no great loss. I did slightly wonder who had got David Starkey under contact. However as both are early modernists the long duree of the medievalist would perhaps be lacking...

The BBC coverage was much better than some of that a few years ago when it had fallen into a rather sickly fashion concious style. This was very clear in the coverage of the wedding of the
Earl and Countess of Wessex. I remember a friend saying of then that as a firm monarchist the effect on him of the gushing commentary was to be temporarily irritated into a sceptical mood. This time the coverage, and commentary, measured up to the significance of the day.

Sermon on the Body of Christ

I was particularly impressed by today's second lection in the Office of Readings and would like to draw it to the attention of anyone who has not read it. It is from a sermon by Saint Gaudentius of Brescia, who was Bishop there 387-410, and stresses the universality of the offering of the Mass, and the concept of the Body of Christ both in the Eucharist and in the community of believers.

The heavenly sacrifice, instituted by Christ, is the most gracious legacy of his new covenant. On the night he was delivered up to be crucified he left us this gift as a pledge of his abiding presence.

This sacrifice is our sustenance on life’s journey; by it we are nourished and supported along the road of life until we depart from this world and make our way to the Lord. For this reason he addressed these words to us: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in you.

It was the Lord’s will that his gifts should remain with us, and that we who have been redeemed by his precious blood should constantly be sanctified according to the pattern of his own passion. And so he commanded those faithful disciples of his whom he made the first priests of his Church to enact these mysteries of eternal life continuously. All priests throughout the churches of the world must celebrate these mysteries until Christ comes again from heaven. Therefore let us all, priests and people alike, be faithful to this everlasting memorial of our redemption. Daily it is before our eyes as a representation of the passion of Christ. We hold it in our hands, we receive it in our mouths, and we accept it in our hearts.

It is appropriate that we should receive the body of Christ in the form of bread, because, as there are many grains of wheat in the flour from which bread is made by mixing it with water and baking it with fire, so also we know that many members make up the one body of Christ which is brought to maturity by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Christ was born of the Holy Spirit, and since it was fitting that he should fulfil all justice, he entered into the waters of baptism to sanctify them. When he left the Jordan he was filled with the Holy Spirit who had descended upon him in the form of a dove. As the evangelist tells us: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.

Similarly, the wine of Christ’s blood, drawn from the many grapes of the vineyard that he had planted, is extracted in the wine-press of the cross. When men receive it with believing hearts, like capacious wineskins, it ferments within them by its own power.

And so, now that you have escaped from the power of Egypt and of Pharaoh, who is the devil, join with us, all of you, in receiving this sacrifice of the saving passover with the eagerness of dedicated hearts. Then in our inmost being we shall be wholly sanctified by the very Lord Jesus Christ whom we believe to be present in his sacraments, and whose boundless power abides for ever.