More on Maundy Thursday

Last night's post, The Dutch Who Don't Touch, included some photos of the St James's Spanish Place liturgy for Maundy Thursday, one of which is reproduced below.  However, to counter its slightly flippant tone, here is an eyewitness report of last night at St James's, provided by another member of the Marylebone group.  Before going into the report, we'd just like to note that yesterday, our blog passed the milestone of having received 13,000 hits - what an appropriate day for that to have occurred. 

At the end of the report, there is the organ piece that preceded the Mass, the extraordinary Le Banquet Céleste by Olivier Messaien, which meditates on the text of John 6:56 "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in Him."

Maundy Thursday is one of the very few religious occasions in England widely reported by the media. Alas, it is inevitably reported not as a religious but as a regal occasion, being the day on which the Queen distributes the Maundy money. Time was when the royal connexion emphasised rather than obfuscated the religious significance of the start of the triduum. The monarch would not only distribute alms but also kneel to wash the feet of the poor. In 1689 William III refused such close contact with his subjects (as we mentioned last night, a case of “the Dutch don’t touch” perhaps) and ended the tradition, which his Protestant successors have shown no inclination to reinstate.

Certainly the Catholics of Marylebone were in no doubt about the religious importance of the day as they crowded into St James's Spanish Place for the evening mass to commemorate Our Lord’s Last Supper with his Apostles.

The choir sang Palestrina’s setting of the Introit, Nos autem gloriari oportet in cruce Domini nostrae Iesu Christi (Let our glory be in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ) and as the priests of the parish entered the sanctuary it was suddenly illuminated by sunlight bursting through the stained glass windows as if in anticipation of Fr Colven’s reminder in his homily that today we were gathered, in spirit, in the Upper Room where Jesus commanded us to love one another, where He gave us the Holy Eucharist and where He instituted the priesthood.

It was on the priesthood that Fr Colven asked us to concentrate. When Our Lord knelt to wash the feet of his disciples, God knelt before all he had made and all Christian ministry was thus defined in terms of service. Karl Rahner had written, “You are only what you should be as a priest if you bring your whole life into your vocation. You are only a priest such as a priest must be, if you drain all the strength of your life in carrying out the duties of your office in faith, hope and love. Your life-work is to establish an ever closer intimacy between yourself and your office. Your vocation is your life and your life your vocation. …………..The candle on the candlestick in the house of the Church that you are to be must burn by the oil of your own heart, must burn all your life away. Only then will it burn, as it must. One can only discharge this office by paying one's life for it”.

Those of us in the Ordinariate have particular reason to give thanks for the gift of priesthood. On Monday we had gathered with the priests of the Ordinariate for the Chrism Mass. These were priests who had shown great courage and faithfulness in their response to Pope Benedict’s call to unity and in their ministry to the laity who had responded to that same call. Today we gathered with the priests of St James, all of whom had made that same brave journey at earlier times and who have been most generous in welcoming the Marylebone Ordinariate Group. We do indeed give thanks for these men and for, in St John Vianney’s words, their “love of the heart of Jesus”, as we begin our first Triduum as Catholics.

The Vineyard

A wonderful Solemn Mass yesterday at St James's. 

The Rector, Fr Colven, preached powerfully on the Gospel of the day, asking us to think about whether each of us was doing enough, whether we were bringing forth grapes from the vineyard as required. 

The Church will survive until the end of time, that is assured, but there is no guarantee that any particular part of it will.  He reminded us that little or nothing remains of the glorious flowering of the Church in North Africa in the time of St Augustine of Hippo, who was alive at a time when there were around 700 bishops in the region, and another one was being ordained to the episcopate each week.  All that is now gone.  One could equally reflect on the reduced presence in Antioch or even Constantinople, and in his blogpost on the same readings, Fr Ray Blake reminds us that Rome herself has had some desolate periods.

Fr Colven cited the idea that an important measure of how we are doing is the converts who decide to join us.  This is not a reference to people coming into the full communion of the Catholic Church from other Christian traditions through RCIA or the Ordinariate, as exciting as such moves are, but it is a reference to whether we manage to convince those who have no interest in God at all that the Church and our part in it are manifestations of God's work upon earth.

A timely reminder to all of us that we need to be outward looking, and that we must bear witness to the Faith by our actions, as well as by our private prayers and our Sunday activities.  We must inspire others to take an interest in the Faith, and through that process, to come into the Church.  May St Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, the Patroness of the Missions of the Catholic Church, intercede for us as each of us tries to contribute to this aim.

We were delighted to see Fr Len Black from the Inverness Ordinariate Group as Concelebrant at Mass yesterday at St James's.  Fr Colven introduced Fr Black as an Ordinariate priest as Mass began, thereby continuing his sterling work of raising awareness of the Ordinariate.  Unfortunately, we didn't manage to catch Fr Black before we left, otherwise today's post would have included a photo, but we hope that he enjoyed his time amongst us.

We also failed to take photos of the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament that went from Westminster Cathedral to St George's Cathedral, Southwark on Saturday.  However, we can report that it was very well attended and offered great public witness of the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and of the vibrant presence of the Catholic Church in this country.  We are happy to note that the Ordinariate was well represented - as reported elswhere by the Ordinariate Portal in a Facebook update, Ordinariate members now feel inspired to look into buying some banners for future processions.

The music at Mass on Sunday was also excellent. The choir sang the powerful setting of O Sacrum Convivium by Olivier Messaien as the Communion motet.  Messaien was a devoted Catholic, but his organ and choral works have also become very popular and well-established in the Church of England, and so, in spite of the piece being in many ways an archetype of Catholic music, it was utterly familiar even to us new members of the Church.