On Thursday I went to a fantastic Corpus Christi service in a neighbouring parish. I don’t think I’ve been to one since my Little St Mary’s days in Cambridge.
I was brought up in a very non sacramental tradition, non-conformist, and somehow I knew something to be missing for me but had never had the experiences or the teaching to put a label to it. When I went to college I started doing the church trail in Cambridge and explored the length of the candle in the C of E, discovering why I liked what I did and how God was speaking to me. I loved heartfelt liturgical worship, and more and more the Eucharist became more important to me. I didn’t and still don’t have a physical Real Presence theology, but the words of the hymn sum it up ” Thou art here, we ask not how”.
I am immensely grateful for the chances I’ve had to explore all this. I feel really privileged to be equally comfortable in a New Wine marquee with charismatic evangelicals as in an incense filled church with my Anglo Catholic friends. The Spirit is still the same Spirit 
I joke sometimes that an ideal service is one where you can cross yourself and raise your hands in worship in the same meeting! Perhaps it’s not so much of a joke, and perhaps it’s not such a leap between the two either. The last weekend that I was in college I had several conversations about how both Anglo Catholic worship and Charismatic worship are experiential, they are rooted, both in the interface between something spiritual happening and something physical happening, whether that’s a sacrament or a physical expression of worship – and if a sacrament is as the old definition goes, and outward sign of invisible grace, then there is something sacramental too about physicality in worship, whatever your churchmanship. Perhaps?
I’m reading
at the moment ( click for detail) and finding it absolutely fascinating. I’ve been trying to tell people round me that modern and relevant doesn’t have to mean ditching the old, and this book is confirming that.
anyway – back to the Corpus Christi service! I’d had a tough week, essay writing and dealing with ” stuff” and God met me in that service in an amazing way – a way that yes I’d still probably associate more with New Wine or a big evangelical church, not clouds of incense and beautiful liturgy, but I’m still learning you see…
Corpus Christi and other thoughts
June 13, 2009 at 9:27 pm (Church, college, faith, journal)
My name is written on His hands
April 22, 2009 at 11:42 pm (college, drawing, faith)
Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears;
The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the throne my surety stands,
Before the throne my surety stands,
My name is written on His hands.
Charles Wesley
I drew this in the final time of worship at Easter School, Holy Saturday. It was an image and a phrase that had been with me throughout Good Friday and I was itching to get it on paper,when art materials were provided as part of Saturday’s meditation.
I have a bit of a theme going with my name and the whole vocational discernment thing, I don’t think I’ve told the whole story here yet, but I will.
The verse Wesley alludes to in this hymn is Isaiah 49:16 I have engraved you on the palms of my hands and is referring to the nation of Israel, God’s faithfulness in remembering; and his promise to restore. I don’t think his faithfulness to me is any less
Easter School was great, a huge mix of stuff, from the sublime to the down right silly! I’m still processing most of it, so don’t expect too much sense on the subject just yet! It was a priviledge to live Holy Week with so many others, I missed eveyone on Easter Sunday, it felt strange not to be doing the celebrating together too, though it was lovely to be back with my family,both blood & church! Even in the sombre mood of Holy Week though, the empty tomb casts its light backwards, it’s impossible not to know how the story carries on, and important we don’t forget that even Good Friday is a celebration.
Thomas Cranmer – The Twitter Version
April 4, 2009 at 5:42 pm (college)
I’m writing a presentation for an assignment at the moment, the subject is Thomas Cranmer, Henry VIII and Edward VI’s Archbishop of Canterbury and the author and compiler of the original versions of the Book of Common Prayer.
I thought ( as an act of procrastination earlier today) that it would be fun to try & summarise Cranmer in the 140 characters allowed by Twitter ( andactually I had fewer, as I had to introduce it!)
It was pointed out that as an assignment it had no footnotes, so I’ve added those in to expand the info!
this was my Tweet then: (footnote numbers not included!)
Cranmer in <140c not 2500wds: believed in JC,(1) placated Henry(2), chose to marry,(3) was ABC,(4) let rip with Eddies,(5)wrote BCP,(6) denied RP,(7) got burnt(8)
Footnotes
1) Cranmer believed in the doctrine of Justification by Faith,
2) He was part of Henry’s “team” working on the Divorce from Katherine of Aragon, and the break with Rome. Later he kept the fine balance between reforming ideas and not winding Henry the traditionalist up too much
3) in 1532 while in Germany he became convinced of the Reformers arguments for clerical marriage, and married Margarete, breaking his priestly vow of celibacy. He had to keep it quiet until 1549!
4) He was made Archbishopof Canterbury in 1533 a post he kept until Mary Tudor became Queen and re established Catholicism in 1553.
5) under Edward VI and his regent Edward Seymour, Cranmer was able to enact all the reforms he’s been prevented from doing under Henry
6) in Edward’s reign Cranmer wrote & compiled the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer 1549 and 1552 which formed the basis for the 1662 edition that has been used in Anglican churches ever since.
7) in the 1552 BCP Cranmer finally denied the doctrine of Real Presence at the Eucharist.
8 ) Cranmer was burnt at the stake as a heretic in 1556 during the reign of Mary I
I am trying to work out how I can get the phrase ” Cranmer got his fingers burnt” into my assignment! Because he had somewhat fruitlessly tried to recant his ” heresies”. He later took back his recantation and uphelp his protestant theology, and in the fire stuck the hand which had signed the recantation into the flames first, as if to punish it.
“interest”ing thoughts
October 12, 2008 at 10:23 pm (college, journal, study)
I read this yesterday. I applaud the boldness and the willingness to speak out against the greed that to my mind is so much part & parcel of this current crisis, greed of the banks for profit, greed of the consumer to have and have more, and spend what they do not have yet. I am not an economist, my grasp of the principles is basic, but it seems that building an ecomony on credit and “castles in the air” must lead to the collapse, it’s what a friend of mine described as a candy floss economy. A house of cards built on sand. I don’t know enough about economic mechanics to know how you claw that back and whether a non interest system would work today, but I know we are all culpable in some way, it isn’t ” them ” & “us”.
I spent yesterday on a study day on Issues in Contemporary Ministry; there was much food for thought on these issues as you might expect, and the sense of a definite need for repentence of our part, wittingly or unwittingly in this mess we all face at the moment.
New Year, New Term, New Student…
October 11, 2008 at 10:45 pm (college, faith)
Having only heard tht I’d been recoomended for training in late June, and having a fairly busy summer with the family, I was still processing the reality of it all when September hit!! Slowly the information began to trickle in from college and thanks to the wonders of 21 C technology all of us new first years were able to talk and start to panic each other! It is a very strange experience to start work on a course with a distinct year group, with whom you know you are going to be working, but not to have met them yet, nor to have a First Day of Term!
One unit of the first module down, our first residential weekend was a fortnight ago, a beautiful sunny late September weekend in the perfect setting of Salisbury Cathedral Close. My previous four years of study 20 odd years ago, began in the not architecturally dissimilar surroundings of Cambridge, on similarly beautiful autumn days so it did feel familiar!
this is more or less the view of the cathedral from the front of college – from the north-east.
The weekend was great – very encouraging, and energising, time to start getting to know the others with whom we would be working for the next 3 years, and plenty of wondering exactly how we got there and pinching ourselves as it still didn’t seem real! Real it very much is though and I think we all left on the Sunday afternoon feeling ready to get on with the study and really enjoy the next few years as we prepare for what God is calling us to.
As a rather fitting finale to the weekend, 2 of my fellow students & I slipped into the start of the 750 year celebration of the consecration of teh Cathedral in 1258. The Archbishop of Canterbury had preached & presided that morning and in the afternoon he was due to consecrate the new font – which is a thing of incredible beauty & symbolism, in a special service. We knew we couldn’t stay for the whole service and indeed would not have attempted to as we’d been told it was ticket only and packed out – however we managed, with the help of some sympathetic stewards, to stand unobtrusively by the south door, hoping to see the processions – what we hadn’t realised that ++Rowan was making his entrance through the massive West doors, to where the choir and cathedral chapter had processed, we were literally yards away, right next to the offical film camera! It was quite a spectacular entrace, with trumpets, the choir singing and colour and amazing sound everywhere. Salisbury certainly were giving him a welcome!
Sadly we had to slope off then, but it was a fitting end to a fairly amazing weekend!
