Unexpected warmth
I'VE just been given a curate. I don't mean that the Bishop
arrived in one of those brown UPS vans (where the sliding door is
always perilously open) and delivered a newly wrapped deacon to the
vicarage; but close enough. He had been sort-of-wrapped by
theological college, and was delivered by the DDO - not to the
vicarage, but to Ely Cathedral, to be ordained at Michaelmas.
Now, Ely Cathedral is one of those places where I have never
been warm in my life. It has lovely old-fashioned heaters, which
pour out warmth that then, sadly, floats rapidly roofwards, leaving
the earth-bound congregation as nippy as ever.
On this visit, however, I was not cold. In part, I am sure it
was due to the warmth of the Holy Spirit, and the heated prayer and
singing that accompanied the liturgy; in part, due to my being
robed and so carrying several additional layers of insulation; but
mainly because even the medieval imperviousness of Ely Cathedral
could not withstand the prolonged assault of a long, hot summer. By
September, the place was actually warm, and the ordination happened
without the experience of realising at some stage in the service
that I can no longer feel my feet.
Michaelmas ordinations, it turns out, have their advantages.
And another thing
GENERALLY speaking, I feel about ordination services rather as I
feel about the post: excitement in the hope of a lovely surprise
parcel in the letterbox, and then disappointment that in fact it's
just second-rate circulars and bills.
The main causes of my deflation at such events are the
ham-fisted attempts to undermine any suggestion of ordination by
making the ordinands wear their stoles and read the Gospel before
they are ordained; preachers devoid of theology and ecclesiology
who descend in their ordination sermons into well-meaning waffle
about curates' "looking after themselves"; and, finally, the
wearing of tippets as if they were some sort of puritan equivalent
of a stole (one even sees them tied and untied for deacons and
priests).
At the risk of making this column collapse into an "And another
thing" rant, I will just add the rage-inducing tendency of
precentors to have read some ghastly Common Worship
companion volume that tells them that they must not have a hymn
after the dismissal at the end of mass. This, according to the
liturgical purists, is because, if we've been told to go in peace,
then we should do that, and not stand and sing a hymn.
Fine; except, of course, the priest still has to process out,
and it's not as if people rush from their pew to go and cast fire
upon the earth: they stay to have coffee. So, instead, we give more
attention to the clergy by making the congregation do nothing while
Father leaves, and, because no vicar in the history of humanity has
ever cut a hymn, we insert the recessional between the
post-communion prayer and the blessing, when nothing is happening
and no one is doing anything.
Anyway, while my breathing returns to normal, I should add that
none of these offences against truth, beauty, and goodness was
perpetrated at our assistant curate's ordination. In fact, it was
really lovely and rather moving, and, because it was a Monday
night, his priest friends could come who would normally be chained
to their parish's altar on a Sunday morning.
Not only was this nice for him, but it improved the volume of
the singing immeasurably - although, as those who organised the
drinks afterwards noted, it also increased the alcohol consumption
immeasurably, too.
Having a new curate is rather like having a bridegroom, however,
and, as the Gospel puts it, who can fast in such situations?
Diaconal gift
RECEIVING the gift of a deacon is a funny thing, because it
takes you right back to your own ordination. I was made a deacon
ten years ago this year, and so a decade would be a reasonable time
after which to do a little reflection anyway, without a freshly
minted assistant curate to prompt my introspection.
My own ordination was in St Paul's Cathedral, and was distinctly
less intimate than the Ely service: I was one of 36 candidates, and
there were thousands packed into the national basilica. My main
memory, however, was of the lunch beforehand, when the Bishop of
London had to discourage his son from showing his snake collection
to the assembled ordinands.
Perhaps wisely, our father-in-God thought that we were nervous
enough, and that our hands were already anxiously clammy, without
the bringing out of any latent ophidiophobia among us by his
offspring.
When the time came to take the oaths, I was convinced that my
heartbeat was audible throughout the cathedral crypt, and much of
the service passed me by in a daze. I regained consciousness
towards the end, and vividly recall the organist enjoying himself
just a little too much with "I, the Lord of sea and sky" as we
processed out.
I can't say for certain, but I didn't get the impression that it
was absolutely his favourite hymn.
Learn the lingo
SPEAKING of that, I have been educating the new curate in the
linguistic landscape of Anglican hymnody. Like a lot of aspects of
the glorious C of E, it is an area where rampant individualism is
masked by a veneer of the corporate.
So, for example, the first thing that he needs to learn is that
"Everyone knows that hymn" is a phrase used by a priest or organist
when introducing a new hymn that he or she knows, but which it is
by no means clear that anyone else does.
The second phrase to take on board is "We've never had that hymn
before," which is said by a member of the congregation who has
never heard that hymn herself. Finally, "Why can't we have good old
hymns that everyone knows?" means "Can we sing what I sang at
school?"
Once the curate has grasped all that, I'll start him on the
answer used to visiting clerics who ask how the Sunday eucharist
runs: "Oh, we just do it straight by the book."
I hope he knows what he's let himself in for.
The Revd Robert Mackley is Vicar of Little St Mary's,
Cambridge.