From Rebuff to Jubilee

Blog writers like to know how their readers find them.  "Domine, salvam fac reginam nostram" is a term that seems to be searched for a lot on google, and searches for that phrase have led to many a reader stumbling our blog. 

That term comes from a well known prayer said for the monarch, the French and thence Canadian origins of which we explained in a post we published on the anniversary of the Queen's accession earlier this year.  The post also provides an anecdote as to the the significance that St James's has in the history of the British Royalty and the Catholic Church.  Here then is that prayer, which, in accordance with the instructions of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, we said after the blessing at mass today, but before the final dismissal.

Domine, salvam fac reginam nostram Elizabeth
Et exaudi nos in die, qua invocaverimus te.

Lord, save Elizabeth, our Queen
And heed us when we call on Thee

Almighty God, we pray for your servant Elizabeth our Queen, now by your mercy reigning over us. Adorn her yet more with every virtue and remove all evil from her path: that with her consort and all the royal family she may come at last in grace to you, who are the way, the truth and the life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Just as with the article on Domine, Salvam Fac, today's blogpost depends heavily on Fr Colven's parish notes for this week.  The second paragraph reminds us of just how much Britain has changed over this past century, and we can rejoice that in contrast to the rebuff that was given to Cardinal Hinsley, our present Queen referred to Cardinal Hume as "my Cardinal".  Progress indeed.  Let us pray that the growth and development of the Catholic Church will continue throughout this land, through the Ordinariate, through the welcome given to Catholics arriving from other lands, and through the people of this Sceptred Isle finding their way to the faith of the Church. 

The Rector writes ...

No one could have had a more exalted understanding of the nature of monarchy than the 17th century French king, Louis XIV. The court at Versailles was the byword for opulence and as Nancy Mitford writes in her biography “The Sun King” Louis saw himself as having a special relationship with God – in the chapel at Versailles all the chairs faced not the altar but the royal box at the back where only the king was allowed to face God! English monarchs of the period toyed with the same ideas but the Divine right concept was literally cut down to size by Oliver Cromwell and then the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688 with the emergence of a constitutional monarchy (governing in tandem with parliamentary checks and balances) which is basically the situation with which we continue to live today (though as late as the 1950’s it is recorded that a "Salve" was still being sung at the seminary at Allen Hall, then at Ware, for the success of the Jacobite cause!).

In 1935, Cardinal Hinsley summed up the attitude of Catholics: “my faith tells me that genuine loyalty is due to my true king, and an enlightened patriotism adds to this a sense of duty” - but those words were written in response to a rebuff from the then government (in the form of the Home Office) who had refused to accept a loyal address from the Catholics of the United Kingdom to George V and Queen Mary on the Silver Jubilee of their coronation. There has certainly been an inherited ambiguity in the relationship between Catholics and the British monarchy – and it would be naïve not to recognise that the long centuries of persecution and the denial of full civil rights have left their mark – but as this weekend we return thanks to Almighty God for the sixty years reign of Queen Elizabeth we are conscious of the changes which have taken place during her reign.

Britain today is very different from the year of the Accession in 1952 – less cohesive, ethnically profoundly mixed, significantly richer in its complexity – and Empire has transformed itself into a Commonwealth of diverse peoples. Perhaps the greatest gift the Queen has brought to this era of rapid change is to allow the institution to embrace new situations while remaining a force for stability, and nowhere has this been more marked than in the evolving acceptance of differing faith communities in the national life. Catholics no longer experience the marginalisation of earlier generations (though indifference might well prove to be more damaging in the long run than hostility): much of this has to do with the evident warmth with which the Queen received both Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict on their pastoral visits to our country and, of course, Queen Elizabeth did talk affectionately of Basil Hume as “my Cardinal”, a phrase which must have had some of her forbears spinning in their graves. It is hard to overestimate the watershed marked by the recent state visit to the Irish Republic: for British Catholics, most of whom until recently having Irish antecedents, this was the healing gesture which laid to rest so much inherited tension and bad memory.

It is with full hearts and minds that Catholics will this weekend offer the prayer “ Domine salvum fac” at all Masses, as suggested by the Bishops of England and Wales.

At the end of mass, we sang a plainchant Te Deum to give thanks for the 60 years of the Queen's reign, and mass at St James's at 10am tomorrow will be offered for the Queen's intentions. 



Not, I hasten to add, that during mass we focused too much on the secular events of the day, as significant and historic as they were.  The mass was most definitely that of Trinity Sunday, upon which theme Fr Colven gave a very clear and succinct homily.  This was doubly impressive because, at least on the subject of the Trinity, a clear and succinct homily, with all due respect, seems often to be at the outer edge of many a clergyman's abilities. 

The music was particularly fine this morning.  The organ voluntary that was squeezed in between the end of the 0930 Extraordinary Form Mass and the 1030 Solemn Latin Mass was a personal favourite, the JS Bach Prelude in E flat BWV552.  Time did not allow for the fugue to be played as well, which is rather a shame as the triple fugue on the theme of a well-known hymn tune "St Anne" is a very fine piece.  Perhaps though, the associations that would have been conjured up in the mind of anyone familiar with the words most often set in this country to that hymn tune ("O God, our help in ages past") would arguably not have been appropriate for a day of such national celebration. 



The setting of the ordinary of the mass was the Haydn Missa Sancti Nicolai.  This is a personal favourite (it was the setting used at my wedding in St Mary's Bourne St), and a very fine piece.  We have included the very beautiful Kyrie on this blog before (in a post on Archbishop Amigo of Southwark and Bishop St Nicholas of Myra), and so this time here is the Sanctus.  It has one of the hallmarks of a classic Viennese mass, the threefold chordal repetition of the word "sanctus" occuring very quickly at the beginning: supposedly, so the story goes, to spare hoi oligoi likely to have been the first intended hearers of this setting the burden of having to wonder if they might yet raise their heads after having bowed.  So much easier than with those complicated polyphonic settings, you see.  The story may be no more than that, a story, but like many other similar stories, is vaguely credible. 



To conclude this trinity (plus one for Our Lady) of musical examples, here is something we did not have this morning, but which is a Trinity piece of which I am extremely fond.  It is a wonderful motet that will bring you closer to having a keen interest in Sebastian de Vivanco, a near contemporary of Victoria, who like his more famous fellow composer, was born in Avila and went on to become not only a prominent church musician and composer, but also a priest.  He finished his days as Professor of Music at Salamanca University and as the maestro di cappella at Salamanca Cathedral.  Vivanco, and his contempories St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross (both of whom also had strong connections with Salamanca), represent some of the most well known contributors to the Spanish Counter-Reformation.



Before signing off, there is exciting news about next week at St James's. Not only are we to mark the transferred Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (or to use the name we would have used in our Anglican days, "Corpus Christi") with a procession, but we are also to have a visiting preacher, a priest of the Ordinariate indeed.    For those of you who wish to mark Corpus Christi on the "proper day", there is an 11am mass in the extraordinary form on Thursday.

Clarifying the Clarifications

First of all, before moving to topic of this post, a word of congratulations to all the new deacons ordained for the Ordinariate this morning at Westminster Cathedral.  A photo of the new deacons, taken from the Ordinariate's Facebook page, is included below.  Oh yes, and it is indeed new Deacon John Hunwicke that you can see alongside his fellow new deacons in this photo.

Our post on the statement issued by the Church of England's House of Bishops earlier this week attracted a lot of readers, and some very interesting, informed and courteously made comments.  Do have a look if you haven't already done so, you can find it all here.

As a short postcript, we draw our readers' attention to a statement issued last night by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York.  You can find the full text here, but we set out below a few extracts and comments.

In summary, the clarificatory statement confirms the way we had understood the statement from the House of Bishops.   You see, there's proof for all you doubters about whether Anglican Patrimony exists, we are still capable of deciphering the dense language that emerges from Lambeth Palace and Church House.
 
In the comments on our article Missing the Point, we said that the clarification about what delegation meant and where the replacement bishop's episcopal status came from did not change anything, it was merely a statement of fact.  A helpful one, but still a clarification only, bringing about no change.  York and Canterbury said :

To take the simpler ...[amendment]...first: we decided to make no change to the provision in the Draft Measure by virtue of which the arrangements made by diocesan bishops under diocesan schemes for the exercise of ministry by a male bishop take effect, as a matter of law, by way of 'delegation. But we believed that it would help to spell out what is and isn't meant by the 'delegation' of the power to perform acts of episcopal ministry. Bishops are bishops because they are ordained in the name of the whole Church; but they are enabled to act as bishops in this or that particular area in virtue of various legal provisions. For those who are not diocesan bishops, this means that a diocesan gives them the legal authority to act as bishops - as pastors and teachers and people responsible for other ordained ministers.
'Delegation' describes the giving of that authority. It does not take anything away from the diocesan bishop who delegates; it just allows another bishop to minister legally in the diocesan's area of oversight. The amendment simply declares what the law and practice of the Church already is, and what we mean by delegation in other contexts.

So, the clarification of the clarification of the first proposed amendment is clear: nothing has changed (no disrespect intended, but isn't that a classic example of the typical Anglican model of governance).  There is no additional comfort provided to Anglo-Catholics, and there should be no implication of "taint" assumed by proponents of the ordination of women to the Anglican episcopate.
 
The clarification of second proposed amendment is also pretty clear.  A replacement bishop supplied by a diocesan bishop must be male and must share the views of the parish on the issue of the ordination of women.  There is no right for a parish to choose who the replacement bishop will be.  Therefore, despite the ongoing role (even if no longer in PEV status) of Ebbsfleet, Richborough and Beverly, a diocesan bishop need not call them in, but can call in a more establishment or mainstream figure, such as a nearby suffragan or retired anglican bishop (I don't mean to be rude there, it is no insult to anyone I hope, but I think what I mean is clear).

The earlier draft of the Measure already allowed parishes to request the diocesan to provide a male bishop to minister to them if their theological convictions were such as to make it impossible in conscience to receive a woman's ministry in this role. For this to operate effectively, a diocesan would obviously have to do what could be done to find a bishop who could work constructively with such a parish.

The amendment requires the Code of Practice which the bishops will draw up to offer guidance as to how this might be achieved. This was already something the bishops and the Synod would have been able to include in the Code. The change is that they will now have to include such guidance. It does not give parishes the right to 'choose their own bishop' or insist that their bishop has a particular set of beliefs. It allows them to ask for episcopal ministry, as spelled out in Clause 2 of the Measure, only on the grounds of theological conviction about women's ordained ministry. The precise wording in the Code remains something for the Bishops and Synod to determine but it attempts to take seriously the fact that, as has been clear all along, simply providing any male bishop would not do justice to the theological convictions lying behind requests from some parishes.

One can understand why Canterbury and York issued this clarification.  There had been a lot of comment, some of it very excited indeed.  I'm sure we have all read of the sadly infamous article commented upon at Let Nothing You Dismay.

As our comments on the Missing the Point blogpost suggested, we think that if for whatever reason, the legislation is not passed in the summer (without commenting on whether, from a personal perspective, any of us would wish that it should or should not be), then the negative fall out could be significant.  This will most especially be the case if the "pro" camp doesn't vote the legislation through.  The "pro" camp, the media and politicians will thereafter exert massive pressure on the new Archbishop of Canterbury to ensure the swiftest and clearest possible solution to what they will simplistically and erroneously - but successfully and convincingly - describe as a sacrifice by supporters of the ordination of women, made necessary by the bishops being too nice to meanie traditionalists. 

After all, who knows what the approach of the new Archbishop of Canterbury might be.  It seems unlikely that he will be as understanding as Rowan Williams has been.  The make up of the selection committee cannot, we suppose, offer much comfort to Anglo-Catholics. 

We have focused too much on developments in the CofE recently, even if given our history it is inevitable that we should.  One more mention then of the Ordination at Westminster Cathedral today, on which we will provide a report in a subsequent post.  Our prayers for all the candidates ordained deacon this morning.  Thanks be to Almighty God for sending so many good and holy men to serve in his Church.

H/T to the Once I Was a Clever Boy blog for this beautiful 15th century Catalan painting of the ordination of St Vincent to the diaconate by Bishop St Valerius.

A word also about the feast of St Philip Neri, Father of Oratorians.  His feast is being kept in the greatest style at the London Oratory today, led by HE Cardinal Burke.  We ask the prayers of St Philip Neri, and also offer our prayers, for that wonderful church, led of course by its new Provost, who like us is a former regular at St Mary's Bourne St, and with many former members of the Bourne St congregation in its pews.    Our fellow Catholics at the Oratory had the Theresienmesse as the setting of the Ordinary of their Solemn Pontifical Mass this morning.  Here is the Gloria, followed by a couple of photos taken by Eoghain Murphy of proceedings in Brompton this morning. 

Tidings of Joy

This morning, the Ordinariate announced its list of candidates for Ordination to the Sacred Priesthood.  Congratulations to all on the list: our prayers are with you, and we share your great joy and thankfulness that the shared journey we have made together into the full communion of the Catholic Church is now leading you onwards on the long and challenging road towards priestly service.

There is one name in particular on that list that causes us to rejoice.  It is, of course: Hunwicke, John William.  It is wonderful news that this learned, holy and charming gentleman is moving forward in the process towards being ordained as a priest in the Catholic Church.  What has happened is not official confirmation or agreement of Ordination, it is simply the publication of a list of candidates, but even so, even if it is no more than a small step forward as part of continuing deliberations, it is to be wholeheartedly welcomed.

Many of us in the Ordinariate owe a lot to the learning that Fr Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes has given us.  Those of us who have met him, even if on only a few occasions, are even more in his debt.  He is a scholar with an in-depth knowledge of all the best of Anglican Patrimony (and of so much more), who has an unswerving loyalty and devotion to, and love for, Holy Mother Church.  He is also a truly lovely man, who has made sacrifices to play his part in answering Our Lord's call to Christian Unity, and who has continued to wait patiently on the Lord while the wheels of process turn.

Fr Hunwicke has featured on this blog before, indeed in one of our most popular ever blogposts.  He very kindly agreed to give us permission to reproduce in full a sermon he gave in October 2010 at St Mary's Bourne St.  It is an extremely inspiring sermon, on the topic of Our Lady of Victories and the Battle of Lepanto, full of details and wisdom, but entirely accessible even to those less familiar with the subjects covered.   Do take the time to read it.

The day after his visit to Bourne St, he posted a very favourable report of his trip to London on his own blog, the comments on which include a few interesting points from Bourne St regulars, on the origins of the sung Angelus in particular (now there's Patrimony for you).  His report charmed all of those at Bourne St who read it, indeed my wife and daughters were among those most thrilled to have been mentioned in such a kind way in so elevated a forum.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that we posted an article on the First Mass of Fr Daniel Lloyd of the Oxford Ordinariate Group.   The eagle-eyed among you might even have spotted a photo of Fr Hunwicke reading the Prayers of the Faithful that day.  Since that group might one day soon, Deo volente, have another priest, as our newest member (a former member of the Oxford group) jokingly notes, it could soon be on its way to being fully resourced for a Pontifical High Mass. 

We concluded the blogpost on Fr Lloyd's First Mass with the Haydn Te Deum.  Time to post it again, in joy and thanksgiving for this wondrous news.  Small steps forward in a positive direction.  Prayers for, and congratulations to, all the Ordinariate's candidates for Ordination.  What a tremendous sign of encouragement, development and growth that there is a list, let along such a long one.  Let us hope, as the process continues, that all these candidates proceed to Ordination, and that the Lord will send us many more priests to serve in His Holy Catholic Church.

Deo gratias!

Another First Mass in the Ordinariate

We reported earlier this week from the Ordinations of Fr James Bradley and Fr Daniel Lloyd at St Patrick's Soho Square, and from the First Mass of Fr Bradley at Holy Ghost Balham.  After the offering of Fr Bradley on Sunday morning, members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group journeyed north to Oxford, the City of Dreaming Spires, to assist at Fr Daniel Lloyd’s first celebration of the Sacrifice of Calvary.

The setting could hardly have been more different. The Church of the Holy Rood, a title so appropriate for the First Mass of an Ordinariate Priest, is in many ways a product of the great iconoclasm of the last century, yet at a second glance retains and rejoices in many of the traditional marks of the Catholic Faith. As such, Mass was celebrated towards the East, as is to be favoured according to the Ordinariate’s liturgical patrimony: priest and people together in awful anticipation of Christ the High Priest’s return.

In recognition of the universality of the Catholic Church, into which Fr Lloyd has now been ordained as priest forever, the Newman Consort sang the Introit and other Propers in Latin plainsong, the language of generations before. The setting of the Mass, Missa Euge Bone, composed by Christopher Tye, echoed that fateful era of the Henrician Schism when, as the Assistant Priest Mgr Andrew Burnham pointed out, the musical jewel of English Catholicism was buried, divorced from centuries of tradition. How moving it was, then, to witness this humble new priest offering the same sacrifice using a “set of texts which has not changed by more than a few syllables since Augustine used those very words at Canterbury on the Third Sunday of Easter in the summer after he landed”.

Fr John Saward of Ss. Gregory and Augustine in Oxford, himself a former minister in the Church of England, preached the homily. He drew our attention to the life of Bl Karl Leisner, a holy priest held in Dachau concentration camp, who died of tuberculosis shortly after being liberated by the Allied Forces. He was captured a deacon, and whilst imprisoned was ordained to the priesthood by a bishop and fellow inmate. Due to his illness he had only the strength to offer the Mass but once.

Fr Saward noted the natural response of the secular world to such a situation; how great a waste of a life and futile an exercise to ordain a priest who had no opportunity to help the sick or console the dying. We were put in mind of the words of the Blessed Apostle Paul, of the crucified Christ Himself, “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Fr Lloyd was exhorted to remain faithful to the celebration of the Mass, and reminded of the infinite grace outpoured at a single offering in union with Christ and His Church.

The Prayers of the Faithful echoed words which remain imprinted on the hearts of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group, those of the Prayer for the Church Militant here in Earth, amended to intercede on behalf of our Holy Father the Pope, along with the Ordinary, before also beseeching God’s protection of His servant Elizabeth our Queen and her Government. Patrimony received, purified, and proclaimed by the Church in the fullness of truth.

The joyful beauty of the Mass reached a crescendo at the Benedictus and culminated in the Agnus Dei, the Newman Consort truly excelling and raising hearts on high in the sight of the Divine Majesty. Such unspeakable wickedness to silence the song of Christ’s Faithful in the name of reformation.

An altogether different song of gladness concluded the Mass. A resounding ‘We praise thee, O God’ from our new priest gave way to the exuberance of Haydn’s Te Deum, echoing the great joy of the Church Militant and Triumphant at this first offering of the Holy Sacrifice. Those present could not but cast their minds back to the Beatification Mass of Blessed John Henry Newman, when our Holy Father concluded his offering with that same great expression of praise. Not confounded by this monolith of Austrian faith, English devotion to the Ordinariate’s heavenly mother could not but assert its place, with all in typically enthusiastic chorus singing ‘Joy to thee, O Queen of Heaven…’.

The celebration of a priest’s First Mass is one which draws together the Body of Christ in love for the new priest. Yet such an occasion is inevitably deeply personal and intimate for the man conformed to Christ Himself. In grateful thanksgiving, Fr Lloyd offered his mother and wife posies of flowers which had previously adorned the altar, before imparting his first blessing on them and all present.

How can we not, on such occasions, pray all the more earnestly for vocations, for mothers and fathers to offer their sons to the Lord who is ever-faithful? Lovingly reverencing the anointed hands of the new priest, by whose words and actions the grace of Christ is made present to his flock, we pray that His grace may extend to wanderers from the fold so that they might be one with the saints in one unbroken peace, one unbounded love.

Praise we Him, Whose love divine
Gives the guests His blood for wine,
Gives His body for the feast,
Love the victim, Love the priest.

Thanks be to God for sending His Church these two new priests.

Annuntio Vobis Gaudium Magnum

It seems that almost every time I have attended Mass at Westminster Cathedral over the past year, something newsworthy happens in connection with the Ordinariate.  Yesterday seems to have been no exception.  Before announcing what the news of great joy is (in the unlikely event that you don't already know), here is yet another of my grainy pictures, this time showing the procession leaving after the 5.30 Mass yesterday evening.

There were several things that struck me about yesterday's Mass.  The fact that the animatrice not only had an excellent voice, but that she was extremely useful (my experience of witnessing people perform this role before has not always been as happy).  The powerful intercessions, asking God's blessing on and guidance for those preparing to make their Advent confession, and equally for the priests preparing to hear Advent confessions.  The singing of O Come O Come Emmanuel by the congregation, which seemed to fill over 80% of the seating, impressive on a bitingly cold December evening. 

One thing, more than anything else, stood out yesterday.  It wasn't particularly seasonal at all, and indeed I have witnessed it before (including precisely one week ago), but it really spoke to me yesterday.  Canon Christopher Tuckwell was the Celebrant : at the censing, as he stood alone under that magnificent baldacchino, facing the Cross on the altar, it really was the clearest vision imaginable of the priest going into the holy of holies, preparing for something truly momentous, going alone to the altar in persona Christi to offer that most perfect sacrifice.  Somehow the simple sight of a solitary figure standing before and then moving around that massive and splendid altar generated a clarity of vision that I had rarely experienced before. 

Back to the great news.  You may have noticed on the Ordinariate website, or in their newsletter, or even on the Facebook site of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group (if you haven't yet signed up to "like" our Facebook page, please do so), that there is a special anniversary coming up.  On January 15, it will be exactly one year since that momentous day in Westminster Cathedral when Monsignor Newton, Monsignor Broadhurst and Monsignor Burnham were ordained as Catholic priests by Archbishop Vincent Nichols.  That day was the day on which the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was formally erected.

That day was also of huge importance in the progress of the members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group towards becoming Catholics.  The huge and joyous congregation, the sense of warmth and welcome and that this was precisely the right thing to be doing, the dignified liturgy, the excellent music, the feeling of there being a shared purpose and a shared set of beliefs, the goal of Christian Unity coming nearer: these were all factors that combined to become a significant influence on us and no doubt on many others. 

Therefore, it is only right that this day should be marked in some way. 

At 5pm on Sunday 15 January, by kind permission of the Rector, Fr Christopher Colven, there will be a service of Solemn Evensong and Benediction (in the rite approved for use in the Ordinariate) at St James's, Spanish Place.  Monsignor Newton will preside.  As St James's is the parish church in which the Marylebone Ordinariate Group meets, we are of course particularly delighted about this event.

(Those of you who have not yet read William Oddie's excellent book The Roman Option, written in 1997, which sets out with astonishing prescience a vision of what is only now beginning to come to fruition, will not have seen the excellent letter included as an appendix to the book : it was a letter written in 1995 by Fr Colven when he was the Vicar of the Anglican parish of St Stephen's Gloucester Road, talking to his parishioners about his decision to join the Catholic Church, and the possibilities for some of them to do the same.  It is most definitely worth reading.)

Much is in the planning still for this service of Solemn Evensong & Benediction, and so cannot yet be revealed, but this promises to be a very exciting day.  We have much to give thanks for, and much on which to ask for guidance.  Marking this occasion in the form of a Solemn Evensong & Benediction, perhaps one of the "trademark" services of Anglo-Catholicism and yet perfectly adaptable to Catholic worship, in such a beautiful church seems exactly the right thing to do. 

We ask you all to publicise this event as widely as you can, perhaps by sending this blog article to your friends, sharing the Facebook link to this post, and/or by increasing awareness of the event in any way you can find.  We want Ordinariate members, all Catholics, any interested Anglicans, and indeed all wellwishers to be there to express their support by their presence and through their prayers.  The Ordinariate is the Holy Father's personal project, and certainly all Catholics will most surely want to do everything they can to advance it. 

Even as we watch and wait in the last days of Advent, in preparation for the great Solemnity ahead of us this Sunday, let us give thanks and praise to Almighty God for the existence of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, for the nascent Ordinariates in the USA, Australia and Canada, and indeed for Pope Benedict XVI's marvellous initiative of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

Archbishop Amigo of Southwark and Bishop St Nicholas of Myra

Today's post will talk of St Nicholas, of course, but before that, a brief follow up of a mention of a great man of the Church in England (and who, like me, was born in Gibraltar), whose name appeared on this site recently.

Readers will perhaps recall that in our extremely widely read post More than Words, we cited Fr Ray Blake's recounting of an anecdote about the famous Archbishop Amigo of Southwark.  Well, the topic of Archbishop Amigo has clearly being playing on Fr Blake's mind, and as a result he has tracked down some stunning footage of Archbishop Amigo's funeral procession and burial.  It is well worth making Fr Blake's very popular St Mary Magdalen, Brighton blog part of your regular reading, and a permanent link to that site is to be found on the right hand sidebar of this blog. 

Here is the Pathe film that Fr Blake highlighted.

Fr Blake's blogpost on this subject also includes an excellent photo of Archbishop Amigo, taken in the late 1940s on the occasion of his visit to St Joseph's Brighton, surrounded by a Father Pepper (on the left) and a Father Munns (right).  Trawling the internet for more images, I came across these two, which carry on the theme mentioned earlier in our post of 11 November.  In that post and in the first of these two photos, you see a bomb-damaged church.  Below, we can see Archbishop Amigo standing in the shell of his cathedral, St George's in Southwark.  The second photo shows the procession returning to the still ruined St George's for his interment, after the Requiem Mass at Westminster Cathedral : what an incredible day that must have been, as Fr Ray's Pathe film makes clear: the kneeling in the street is extremely powerful.

 
May the soul of Peter Emmanuel Amigo, first Archbishop of Southwark, rest in peace.  May Our Lady, St Nicholas and all the Saints pray for him.

***

As you all know of course, today's Saint is St Nicholas.  It takes a while to find information on St Nicholas that doesn't end up disappearing down the tangent of Father Christmas and Santa Claus, but we will do our best to ensure that this page does not fall for the same temptation.

Born in the second half of the third century AD, Nicholas was born to a wealthy family in what is now Turkey, and upon the death of his parents was cared for by his uncle the Bishop of Patara, who guided him on his way to the priesthood.   He used his inherited wealth for charitable works, and was known for lifelong piety.  Not much that is known of his life is unchallenged by one historian or another, but we do know that he was Bishop of Myra, a town on the river Myros, in the fertile western plains of Turkey.

Dom Guéranger talks of today's feast in l'Année Liturgique

Today, the Church celebrates with joy the memorial of the distinguished miracle worker Nicholas, as renowned in the East as our great Saint Martin is here in the West, and honoured for almost a thousand years by the Latin Church.  Let us honour the authoritative power that God gave to him, but let us more than anything be thankful to him for having been one of the number of the 318 Bishops who proclaimed at Nicaea that the Word was consubstantial with the Father.  Nicholas was not shocked by the abasement of the Son of God; neither the lowliness of the flesh with which the Sovereign Lord clothed himself in the womb of the Virgin, nor the humbleness of the crib, prevented him from proclaiming the Son of God, the son of Mary, as equal to God; this is why he has been raised to glory, and has received the charge of obtaining, each year, for the Christian people, the necessary grace for them to go before the Word of Life, with a simple faith and a burning love.

St Nicholas is not in fact one of the signatories of the Council of Nicaea, but tradition has it that he was there, and that he played an extremely prominent role in suppressing any temptation to fall into the ways of Arianism.

As Dom Guéranger wrote, like St Gregory the Wonderworker, who was mentioned in an earlier post on this blog, St Nicholas also rejoices in the title of Θαυματουργός, Thaumaturgos, Wonderworker, on account of his renown for performing wondrous works and miracles. 

A good and wondrous work that might not strictly be a miracle is probably the deed with which he is most associated.  It is the tale of a poor father of three daughters, without sufficient funds to provide dowries for his girls :  Nicholas provided three bags of gold, either one each year as the girls came of age, or on three consecutive nights depending on the version of the story, and thus saved the young ladies from a life of poverty and prostitution.  You can guess the tradition of gift giving to children to which that story led....  More interestingly, it also led to St Nicholas often being depicted holding three round bags of gold, and in the way that these things often do, this depiction gradually morphed into St Nicholas holding three oranges, which is supposedly the origin of the tradition of orange giving in Christmas stockings (in the days before noisy flashing lumps of plastic tat became all powerful).

His most famous miracle is connected with his ordering sailors to unload some wheat from a ship docked at port.  The wheat was bound for the Byzantine Emperor, but St Nicholas, then Bishop of Myra, desperately wanted to feed his starving, famine-struck people.  He persuaded the reluctant sailors that no harm would come of their unloading some of their cargo : they relented, unloaded some wheat, and upon departure realised that they still had the same quantity of wheat aboard as before.

He is also said to calmed a storm during a sea voyage.

St Nicholas to this day maintains an association with the sea.  He is the Patron Saint of many places and of many professions and groups, but not only is he Patron Saint of Seafarers, his name is also associated with many port towns across Europe.  Here he is, depicted as he rescues sailors from a terrible, watery fate.

Of course, many know of his association with the city of Bari in southern Italy.  His remains were brought there from Smyrna during the eleventh century, in the midst of the struggles for posession of Asia Minor and the Holy Land.  Photography and scientific testing in the 1950s backed up the legend that his entire remains were buried Bari, with very little having been removed to supply relics around Christendom.

One place that does have a relic of St Nicholas is the French town of St Nicolas de Port.  Originally called simply Le Port, the town is situated on the Meurthe River, a tributary of the Rhine, not far from Nancy in the Lorraine.  St Nicholas is Patron Saint of the Lorraine, and in the eleventh century, a fingerbone from his right hand (hence the reliquary below showing his right hand giving a blessing) was brought to the town church from Bari. 

 

The first church dedicated to St Nicholas in the town of Le Port was built in the twelfth century, and now the town boasts its own Basilica, a flamboyant gothic creation of the 15th and 16th centuries, built by Rene II, Duke of Lorraine in thanksgiving for and in celebration of his victory at the Battle of Nancy over Charles the Bold.  It was raised to the status of Basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1950.  (It's been at least a week since Pius XII received a mention on this blog, so I'm pleased I found a way to do so.)

Finally, some music.  The choice is obvious, because the setting of the ordinary of the mass sung at my wedding in St Mary's Bourne St was the Missa Sancti Nicolai by Haydn.  That setting was a firm favourite at Bourne Street, making regular appearances over many Christmastides, just as it was a much overworked favourite - at any time of year - when I was in charge of choosing music lists at Pusey House. 

In this penitential season of Advent, even as we mark the feast of a great Saint, which better movement to pick than the Kyrie.  Even having heard this setting many times, I am still very keen on the beautiful simplicity of the circles of fifths in the Kyrie, and the descending sevenths of the alto part.  A classic piece of Haydn, painfully simple, yet utterly characteristic and extremely beautiful.



Deus, qui beatum Nicolaum Pontificem innumeris decorasti miraculis : tríbue, quaesumus ; ut eius meritis et precibus a gehennæ incendiis liberemur.

Thank You

Today marks the second anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus.  It had been announced at press conferences in Rome and London on 20 October 2009, and was finally made public on 9 November 2009, but 4 November is the date on the document.

It is of course too early to comment on what the ultimate effect of Anglicanorum Coetibus will be.  The Ordinariate in England is not even one year old, the Ordinariate in the USA is to be established before the end of this year, and the Ordinariate in Australia is said to be "going live" in 2012.  We shall all just have to wait. 

From a personal perspective, all we can say is "Thank you".



As the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said at that London press conference, Anglicanorum Coetibus is not a commentary on any Anglican debates or supposed problems.  Instead, it is, entirely separately, a response to those Anglicans who wish to become Catholics as part of group.