Clarion Online
July/August 2008 - a selection of articles
Message from the Vicar, Father Kevin Morris, July 2008
Thank you. It has been a superb Festival this year and a magnificent achievement, which has involved months of planning and hard work by a great many people. Thousands of people came to Acton Green for our Fete, with hundreds involved in running it, both up front and behind the scenes. And after that we held twenty-two events in our Arts Festival: concerts of chamber music and jazz, poetry, comedy and drama, art and photography exhibitions, a children’s musical, a discussion of Green issues, wine tasting and now this glorious Festival Mass.
The sheer scale of it all is breathtaking: the coordination and involvement, the administration and passion, the quality of the events, the attention to detail (which has made things look, feel, and sound so much better), the efficiency, sensitivity, courtesy and cheerfulness with which people have worked alongside with another, (tired though they stack, more tables to clear).
There were some big changes this year in personnel. Sophie Marrison took on the task of Festival administration, Michael Robinson as Festival co-ordinator and Sue Jordan and Jane Thomson organised “front of house”. They have all done a terrific job, and of course we were so well supervised throughout by the indefatigable Torin Douglas, “Mr Festival!” Thank you!
The aim of our Festival is to foster a sense of community in this locality, to celebrate the Arts, to raise money for this church and for other charities – chief amongst them this year, Musequality which was formed by local musician, David Juritz. This is a charity dedicated to helping some of the poorest children in the world learn skills through music that might offer them a route out of their poverty and away from a culture of drugs or violence.
We offer our Fete and Festival to the praise and thanksgiving to God, but I should also like to take the opportunity of thanking all of you for your support and involvement in this Festival, and for your dedication and hard work. Thank you.
Sermon preached at the Bedford Park Festival Mass
(Matthew, Chapter 10: vv 26 -33). Father Kevin Morris
What are you doing here?
I sometimes ponder on some of the questions posed in the Bible during my prayer time. My life seems so full of questions, doubts, profound and trivial anxieties so much of the time. I guess that is true of us all. There are the big philosophical questions of “God, life, death, the universe and everything”, which may exercise and perplex us; we may have questions that come from a healthy curiosity and interest in a number of subjects; and, of course, there are the persistent questions of everyday life that preoccupy us. We are often shaped, directed and even drained by these.
Often they involve our deepest insecurities: am I loved? Am I worth it? Do they mean it? Did I do that well? Am I accepted? Am I liked? Questions of self esteem and self worth are often paramount even in people who seem the strongest emotionally or psychologically. There are other concerns too, that become all too familiar: What will people say? Will I pass my exams? Will I have enough money? What will I do next? What is the right decision? What if it all turns out wrong, what if I fail, what if I can’t cope? These are the great “what if?” questions which so often assail us, bog us down and depress us. Our minds and hearts can seem so full of questions, so full of problems without solutions, so much so, that they can make us profoundly anxious and downright fearful. It can be exhausting to live like this.
I believe God takes these questions and doubts seriously and in fact I think a certain kind of questioning is at the heart of Christian spirituality. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury once wrote “And if spirituality can be given any coherent meaning, perhaps it is to be understood in terms of this task: each believer making his or her own that engagement with the questioning at the heart of faith…”
It is interesting that many of the questions posed in the Bible come from God. The first question God asks in the Bible is “Where are you?” Adam and Eve are hiding, naked and ashamed of their moral weakness, and God asks simply and directly “Where are you?” A few pages later, God asks Cain “Where is your brother?” whom he has murdered, and Cain asks back, “Am I my brother’s keeper? – Well the Biblical narrative answers with a resounding “yes, you are,” and, for that matter, say that I too am responsible for my brother and sister. Elijah on the mountain top hears that still small voice, and in the silence comes a question, God asks, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
What are you doing here?
Jesus often asks direct questions to those around Him: “What do you want me to do for you?” “Who do you say that I am?” And devastatingly, on the Cross– “My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?” In pondering these questions three things have struck me.
First we need to acknowledge the questions and anxieties that preoccupy and shape our lives. Then we have to learn in prayer to let them go for a while, to offer them to God. Coming before God quietly in prayer and worship, we can learn to do this: acknowledge what is bothering us, and release them for a time. And then in the presence of God we listen, for we need to hear something fundamental: that we are loved and valued by God; that we are of worth in His eyes. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? ...There is no need to be afraid you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29,31)
The priest poet George Herbert wrote about this experience in his poem, “Love”
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? There is no need to be afraid you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.”
Second,
In this Gospel passage today, Jesus is expressing something of God’s delight in His Creation. I think one of the things we often lack is the capacity for wonder and delight. It means stopping still for a while, learning how to appreciate, to look, to listen. It is a discipline and it is an essential discipline in prayer and praise: to begin to be drawn out of our selves, away from our preoccupations, to a new and clearer vision of the world.
In Alice Walker’s marvellous novel “The Colour Purple” (also made into a film) there comes a time when the central character, Miss Celie, is brought face to face with delight as a discovery of God and with delight as the true source of liberation and prophecy. It is a conversation that expresses the endless resourcefulness of God’s love and creativity as well as his compassion. Miss Celie is unable to see any worth in what she is and she talks to Shug Avery, a singer and a deeply liberated woman about God. In their own dialect, Shug Avery says:
“Listen. God loves everything you love- and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God loves admiration.”
“You saying God vain?” I ast
“Naw”, she say. “Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the colour purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”
“What it do when it pissed off?” I ast.
“Oh, it make something else…”
To be caught up in rapture, in praise, in silence, because of the sheer mysterious, awesome, loveliness of something: a flower, a seascape, a piece of music, a bird, a taste of cold water, or good wine, the sheer goodness and loveliness of a person, a stunning performance, an encouraging word. All these things can lead us to wonder, and wonder leads to praise and delight. We need to become prodigal in our praise and thanksgiving to God and in our positive appreciation and recognition of the worth of others.
Delight should be an important experience for us to cultivate. It is an important theological concept which can shape and direct our lives away from negativity and selfish obsessions to generous self giving and love. In a culture which can be so enfeebled by cynicism, pessimism, distrust and apathy, we are called to be a people of enthusiasm and praise, rejoicing in what is truly delightful. For delight in creation and in human love and friendship is not in any way separate from a desire for justice and peace in our world. Delight in creation will be the source that protects it from pillage, and delight in human beings can be that source which will not allow oppression. And true delight in God can become in us the source of compassion and forgiveness.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? There is no need to be afraid you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.”
Acknowledging the questions and anxieties that shape us, our need for delight, enthusiasm and praise, we also need to be practically involved. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was once described as “doing something beautiful for God”.
Third,
David Juritz has told me of children in poor circumstances standing in front of an audience for the first time, in an orchestra or choir, and receiving applause. For the first time someone has praised them, recognised their achievement and their worth. This has a transforming effect that leads to the building up of individuals and communities. Even small gestures can be transformative. There is a well known proverb “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
In the midst of war torn Hungary, in a bomb shelter, Kodaly wrote a Mass of thanksgiving and praise. He was passionate about the need for children to experience musical education at a very early age, all children. It is fitting that he reminds us of the important of that today. But also, that in the direst circumstances, where all seems hopeless, praise, delight and thanksgiving become a powerful tool for transformation.
This Mass celebrates today the love of God shown to us in Jesus Christ, and that love is for everyone. In the Sacrament of Holy Communion let us realise again God’s great delight in us, as He draws near in His love “sweetly questioning” if we lack anything. Amen
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX EASTERTIDES
Charles Rees
In late April my wife Sylvia and I had a chance to investigate the Russian Orthodox Church Eastertide whilst in Moscow on a music tour. We were intrigued to know why the Eastern Orthodox Churches should sometimes celebrate Easter a month later than the Western Churches, why this year, for instance, they celebrated Easter on the 27th April whereas we celebrated on the 23rd March.
The answer depends on when the Jewish Passover is celebrated; this year it was between the 10th and 26th April. The Last Supper was a “Seder” service at which Jesus Christ presided. Seder means a Jewish ritual service and ceremonial dinner held on either the first night or the first two nights of Passover. The word comes from the Hebrew and means order, procedure. In Eastern Orthodox Churches Easter must come during or just after the Jewish Passover. Whilst the Christian Church was undivided the present Eastern practice was followed but following the split in the church between East and West, Rome instituted changes to the Christian calendar, e.g. adding a leap year. Rome got the astronomy right but at the expense of the cycle for calculating Easter vis – a - vis its Jewish roots.
The preparation for Easter is marked, as in Western Churches, by the forty day season of Lent. On Palm Sunday Russian Orthodox churches are strewn with fir branches and willow shoots rather than palms. On Good Friday crosses in all churches are shrouded in black until the following Sunday, Easter Day. The Orthodox ceremonies for Easter Day start on the Saturday evening after 11.00 p.m. with prayers and readings.
At midnight the lights of the church are extinguished. The congregation file outside and hold lighted candles.
The priest also makes his way outside for a symbolic inspection of the tomb. He returns shortly afterwards to proclaim it empty and that Christ is risen. The lights go on again in the Church and members of the congregation proclaim to their neighbours, “Khristos voskres”, (he is risen), to which the response is “voistinu voskres” (He truly is risen). The clergy and the congregation (or as many of them as can get in!), then process back into church for the continuation of the ceremonies.
In the “run-up” to midnight our tour guide took us three churches close to our hotel near Red Square. Each oneof them was packed. The churches are small compared to western ones but there are no pews so everyone stands – weakest literally to the wall! So a great many people can get in – think Piccadilly Circus tube station
in the rush hour! For seven days only starting with Easter Day the doors hiding the main alter are thrown open so that the faithful may glimpse an earthly version of heaven. Following the re-affirmation of their faith Russian Orthodox Christians feast for a week. They will give each other decorated Easter eggs partly because eggs are forbidden during Lent, (so, too, are meat and dairy products), and also because eggs embody new life.
Origins of Russian Orthodoxy
Russian Orthodoxy began with the conversion of Prince Vladimir of Kiev in about 998 AD. (Kiev was the then capital of Rus.) Prince Vladimir having heard reports from chosen envoys about the religions of his three neighbours. Vladimir rejected Judaism – the destruction of Jerusalem showed to him that the religion was not favoured by God. He also rejected Islam because of its prohibition of alcohol which he considered “the glory of the Rus” (sic). He chose Christianity after his emissaries had heard the beautiful music and seen the gold icons in the Haggia Sophia (the church of the Holy Wisdom), in Constntinople – “we no longer knew whether we were in heaven or earth”, they said.
The lack of modernity in Orthodoxy is deliberate. During the Mongol invasion of Russia in the thirteenth century almost every aspect of organized Russian life was destroyed except for the church. The isolation and immobility of Russian society during the centuries of the “tarter yoke” meant that the Renaissance, emphasising
the holding of individual views, passed Russia by. Orthodoxy benefited from this because its aim is to preserve the faith as Christ first proclaimed it. Orthodox in Russian translates as “pravoslavny” meaning true word. Any changes would involve a departure from the truth. Innovation would, therefore, be heresy.
Russian Orthodoxy today
When Patriarch Alexy II congratulated President Vladimir Putin, the incoming President Dmitry Medvedev and their spouses during the midnight Paschal Vigil in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour on Easter Day he was re-invigorating the Byzantine tradition (from the Eastern part of the Roman Empire), of “symphonia” or seamless dovetailing, between church and state. The Russian church functions within an intact secular state and dovetails seamlessly by exercising its jurisdiction over the souls of Russian citizens. The western, primarily Protestant paradigm of a “wall” between church and state does not operate there. Since we were last in Russia in 1976 (when a different management was in charge!) all the old Communist party slogans and party hoardings have been replaced by rampant commercial advertising. Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox Church has recovered a great deal of its former prestige. New churches, monasteries and nunneries have been opened across Russia have opened reflecting an increase in the religious life of the country.
Orthodox the Russian church may be in its beliefs and practices but that does not mean they avoid modern means of communications. At the beautiful Novodevichy convent in Moscow we saw nuns and novices jabbering away on mobile phones. Not to be outdone male clergy were also doing the same!
A word about the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Situated just outside the Kremlin walls it has become, in effect, the Cathedral for the leading members of the Russian Government. Stalin ordered the destruction of the Cathedral. After the fall of communism the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, ordered its re-building. This occurred between 1995 and 1997; the re-decoration of the interior took another three years. And the total cost? A mere snip at $360 million (£180 Million)!
Apparently, it was all done as a re-affirmation of spiritual values – “Russia is freeing itself from evil, good is triumphing” was a typical comment in the visitors’ book on the construction site.