Monday 18 March 2024

Sham Rock

Years and years ago I may have railed about the nonsense pedalled by pagans (and some Christians) about Easter, but I hadn't any idea that St Patrick's Day was the subject of similar balderdash until a friend of mine posted on LiberFaciorum yesterday. I should resist going down these kind of rabbit holes, but here's the original statement, with my own responses interposed.

"St Patrick's Day - a very very bizarre celebration indeed. A British and Roman priest

That’s the last accurate statement in the passage.

"who attempted to annihilate the Druids,

There’s no evidence of anything approaching this. All the evidence (as opposed to later mythologising) suggests that Patrick’s mission was relatively limited. His Confessio makes it clear that he was highly dependent on the goodwill of the powerful in Irish society, and instead (very, very rarely among Christian missionaries) he says ‘towards the pagan people too among whom I live, I have lived in good faith, and will continue to do so. God knows that I have not been devious with even one of them, nor do I think of doing so, for the sake of God and his church. I would not want to arouse persecution of them and of all of us’.

"conducted exorcisms to banish the great Irish faery deity Ainé, who told lies about the faery,

The only information we have about pre-Christian Irish deities come from later sources produced within a Christian context, such as the Book of Invasions. But Ainé doesn’t appear there: she occurs in the 11th-century The Fitness of Names. There, she isn’t treated as a goddess, and isn’t a supernatural personality, just a powerful woman. In Limerick folklore, she becomes ‘an old woman who was in with the Good People’, not ‘Queen of the Fairies’ as old-style mythologists such as Charles Squire in Celtic Myth and Legend (1919) claimed, or the ‘goddess of summer, wealth, and sovereignty’ as she is now described. There is nothing that links St Patrick with any supposed worship of Aine and his own writings do not mention her.

"who claimed he threw Pagan women who would not convert into the ocean

He doesn’t. We have all the words Patrick wrote about himself in his Confessio and Letter to Coroticus, and that story isn’t in them.

"and they became mermaids,

This statement sounds like it might have come from later hagiography of Patrick, but it seems to be derived from a garbled amalgam of folk stories. I tried to chase it down. In Legends and Superstitions of the Sea (1885), FS Bassett refers to a legend of people who dwelt under the sea (not strictly mermaids) in Wales because their ancestors had refused to believe St Patrick and so had sunk beneath the water, but that’s the closest I can get to any old source for this story. It’s not Irish, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the historical Patrick. I came across references to ‘old women being thrown into the sea on St Patrick’s Day and becoming mermaids’, but they’re all from modern sources.

"who "drove out the snakes" (the Pagan ways)

Indeed an older generation of writers accounted for this legend, which doesn’t date any earlier than the 11th century, by claiming it referred to Patrick exterminating paganism, and therefore by extension pagans themselves. You come across more elaborate versions such as the claims that the Druids had snake tattoos, or revered snakes because they represented the circle of life (that seems especially odd, as snakes don’t naturally curl into circles, and the Druids couldn't have revered animals that weren't around in the first place). There is no evidence for any of it. Today most commentators accept that it’s a ‘just-so’ story concocted to explain the fact that Ireland has no snakes, in the same way that by the 6th century there was a legend circulating that St Hilary had driven the snakes from the island of Gallinara in Italy. The snakes in the story aren’t druids, or even paganism more generally: they’re just snakes.

"and attempted to turn the great bright god Lugh into Lugh-chromain (Little stooping Lugh)

Apart from Lugh being a genuine deity who appears in the Book of Invasions and versions of whom are attested in Britain and Gaul, similar remarks apply to him as to Ainé. There’s no record of St Patrick having any dealings relating to him, and there’s no evidence that the holy mountain eventually called Croagh Patrick was a sanctuary of Lugh.

 "which would become "lephrecaun".

Etymologists now derive leprechaun from the pagan Roman feast of the Lupercalia, so this name for Irish fairy people dates from well into the Christian era of monkish writers who knew what Lupercalia was. It’s nothing to do with Lugh.

"I adore the Irish. I revere Ireland. I have that old blood singing within my veins. But this day is a day to celebrate the survival of the Old Ways despite what this "Saint" represented and the cruel action he took. Today, I wear the green, for the fae, for the Old Ways, for the shining ones and the deep love of the land. Blessings to you all my friends. A blessing on the survival of the old ways, and of the Truth emerging from the distortions of history."

One despairs at people's willingness to take garbled misunderstandings, utterly ahistorical garbage, and other guesses and falsehoods, which could all be corrected with a modicum of curiosity, and call them 'Truth'. At least thoughtful pagans aren't taken in.

Thursday 14 March 2024

Bottom Up (or another part of the anatomy)

The Deanery Chapter gathered yesterday to hear the head of the Mission Department at the Diocese talk about lay ministry. That's what the deanery secretary had told us, but he didn't, except in passing. Instead he said he was there to 'begin a bottom-up conversation about how we resource parish ministry in ten years' time'. 'I want to record these conversations', he went on, putting a small flashing device on the floor, 'and I'll feed it all into an AI processing program to pick out the details later'. That made sure most people didn't want to contribute anything at all. He outlined his impression of the pressures on parishes, particularly in terms of finding laypeople to fill important roles, and suggested that we were working within a structure designed for a time when 45% of the population was in church on a Sunday at a moment when that figure is more like 1.5%. The diocese would work with parishes to try to provide for the continued existence of worshipping communities into the future, 'developing creative solutions tailored for local circumstances', etc. etc. It would all have sounded more convincing did we not know that the parish of Manton, which fell vacant just before Christmas, has already been told there's no question of their previous full-time incumbent being replaced and instead they will have someone on house-for-duty. Bottom up? Certainly, if you'll excuse the vulgarity, the phrase 'my arse' comes into any response. 

Still, there's a serious question to be asked about the pattern of Anglican church life in a choppy and uncertain future. As some of my colleagues complained, worshippers simply will not willingly be relocated from one church to another, even for a Sunday, and the reason for this is not just cussed awkwardness but because their experience of Christian community, and therefore of Christian discipleship, is deeply linked to a particular place. 

The point is that we are called into community, and that community, the group of people with whom we journey and experience what it means to be Christians, has to have a degree of continuity over time. It has to be deep and committed, especially because, in the Catholic way of looking at it, it isn't something we fundamentally choose ourselves, and Christian churches are not primarily voluntary associations of people who come and go as they decide. We acquire obligations and those obligations shape who we are becoming. We enter into a something which existed before us and will exist after us. The primary way the life of the Christian community is shaped is the action of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments. Each community is eucharistic and baptismal; each community hallows time through the rhythm of its daily prayer. 

Signs of continuity are not absolutely necessary, but they are helpful. They include the buildings we worship in, which acquire their own personalities. We have a relationship with those physical surroundings and they come to shape our spiritual lives and imaginations. Ordained ministers are another sign of continuity because they are sent into the community from outside it, and occupy an office in a visible sequence unfolding across time. Bishops are the paramount mark of the continuity of the Christian community, linking together individual, local communities into an Apostolic lineage. You can imagine Christian communities persisting without historic buildings or ordained leadership, but their presence makes continuity easier to maintain. Without them, they may well drift in many directions, and the task would be all the harder. 

Tuesday 5 March 2024

A Problem Shared

Faye started attending the church quite recently after her mother's funeral, and attending quite frequently. She even brought a friend to one of the masses on Ash Wednesday, and took part in contemplative prayer sessions more than once. I knew from conversation that she was reassessing aspects of her life and wondering where she might go next. She was full of ideas and reflections and I thought she might be a useful person to have around, even if this initial burst of enthusiasm might not last. I began to speculate about what I might ask her to do.

Then having emailed out the weekly news sheet I had a reply from Faye: 'Please remove me from the mailing list.' That was all. I'd seen her at a service two days before and she'd spoken in the usual friendly, thoughtful manner. What had happened? I said I would if that's what she wanted, but also suggested she might like to speak to me. Was it some kind of disappointment? Something she expected to happen and hadn't, or someone who'd said something stupid and unhelpful? (I couldn't see how it could have been me). Although I'm used to people who come to worship for different reasons and seem enthusiastic, but then disappear after a short while - the sort of disturbance that impels souls towards church often impels them away from it again - this was a particularly extreme version of the phenomenon. I couldn't think of anything else that afternoon. How sad it was if Faye had had some sort of negative circumstance and it was never addressed, and she was left to deal with the disappointment.

In the end, after an evening service, I spoke to Estelle who was one of the people who'd spoken to Faye at the prayer sessions (another faithful person who turns up to everything, but has done so all her life). She reminded me - without being able to cast any particular light on the matter, as she last saw Faye exactly when I did - that Faye was in an uncertain place and subject to all sorts of questions and upsets that were nothing to do with us. I commended Faye to her prayers and was very grateful. 

It would be easy to think that as pastor I should keep this all to myself and deal with it. In fact merely by hearing what Estelle had to say, which was nothing very remarkable, I found I was able to break out of my cyclical gloom and move on. 'We are the body of Christ', we say: it's not just me alone. We may never discover what happened to Faye, but the Lord has the prayers of a better soul than me.

Saturday 2 March 2024

Jaws 2

A return visit on Thursday to St Augustine's Aldershot gave me the chance to check through the vestry there. I found my second local instance of one of the 'Jaws' chasubles promoted by the Church Society and made by Watts during the 150th anniversary of the Oxford Movement in 1983 (the other one's at Nork); a range of Slabbinck/Vanpoulles creations of varying tastefulness; and a couple of battered fiddlebacks the current incumbent knew nothing of. There's a drawer labelled 'BLACK' with nothing in it, which tells its own story.


Tuesday 27 February 2024

St Catherine in Guildford

Although I am posting here less these days, it's still the only place I have to disseminate images of the blessed Great-Martyr Catherine I happen to have found. My researches into Surrey Anglo-Catholicism are now taking me on return visits to some churches to check their kit as well as the buildings themselves, and last week I was rifling through the drawers at St Nicolas's in Guildford. One contained this stole embroidered with what seems to be St Catherine even if the wheel isn't all that clear - just a broken fragment emerging from behind the figure, and, oddly, in front of her sword. That must predate about 1930. I wonder why it was made; an awareness on someone's part of the medieval chapel just south of the town, perhaps?

Happily at St Nic's they have just uprooted the slab-like nave altar installed in 1978 and moved it to a side chapel where it serves the Romanian Orthodox community who use the church on Sunday afternoons very nicely. The central axis of the building is now clear again all the way up to the high altar at the far end. 

Thursday 22 February 2024

Erasure

A longstanding member of the church dies before their time after a short illness. There is tension in the relationships involved, although all of them are of longstanding too – no suspicious new partner within the last few years, for instance, as sometimes happens. But their experience as a Christian is part of this; for some reason, which is never stated (at least to me), their blood family have problems with it. Unless the deceased was, towards them, utterly different from the sweet and gentle person they appeared to me and everyone else, it’s hard to account for. Anger against the relationships that went along with their church life? Anger at God for letting them die?

It's arranged that I will do the funeral, and I have an initial meeting with the deceased’s children. Their requirements are not easy to meet but I prepare to try. But a week beforehand the undertaker phones me and, clearly embarrassed, tells me my services aren’t wanted after all. There will be a civil celebrant instead. It would be untrue to say I’m not saddened, but it also relieves me of the impossible task of having to keep everyone involved happy. I imagine I won’t be welcome at the funeral and so stay away: many other members of the church do attend, and find there’s no mention at all of the faith that was such a central part of the deceased’s life from childhood.

The family got what they presumably wanted, but they will always carry the awareness that, at the moment when most people try to sum up the life of someone they love, they chose to scrub out whole areas of the life concerned. Saddest of all, I imagine it will never be talked about, never dealt with, a rage that’s never questioned, a wound that never gets healed.

Sunday 11 February 2024

Further Observations on the Abyss

Being overtaken by black moods and in fact talking about them is nothing new for me or this blog, but I have some revised or additional things to say about it.

1. The episodes seem to get more intense as I get older. It may be because they are now tangled up with my sense of mortality and the question of how far I might or might not fight a serious illness should it come my way (or when it does), or with issues of how far I’ve made the best use of my life hitherto. I say more intense: that doesn’t mean longer in duration, rather that they feel more dangerous.

2. There is nothing positive or useful about them. They bring no new insights or sympathies – except perhaps for other people who are afflicted in the same way – and in fact they clog up and obscure clarity of thought and vision.

3. There is no shifting them by effort, or by trying to spot and avoid the conditions that give rise to them. This is because this enemy is subtle, and can make use of any stimulus to achieve its result, no matter how innocuous. Most of the time you won’t even be able to spot or isolate the origin of the mood: it moves as quick as thought.

4. But if there is no guilt either in suffering from black thoughts or being unable to dispel them by will (and that kind of guilt can just deepen and intensify the thoughts), neither should they be acquiesced in. They need to be positively closed down whenever you find yourself caught up in them (and ‘find yourself’ is the correct characterisation, because it will happen before you know it), or they will deepen.

5. In fact, I am reticent about talking about them at all, for fear that they might catch! The cunning of this condition is such that recognising that others suffer from it could itself be an encouragement not to resist it when it comes, not to treat it as the adversary of all things human it really is.

6. It absolutely needs outside intervention to cure. If nothing the sufferer can do will shift the black mood, and it can be fuelled by absolutely anything, the best kind of intervention is a surprise, including to the person (if there is one) who brings it about.

7. The contribution the sufferer makes is therefore to be open to intervention, to be willing to put themselves in the kind of position where something surprising, unchosen and unanticipated can take place. A deliberate exposure to (say) the company of other people may not work, but it provides the space and occasion for something to work, and that’s about all we can do.

8. We must always rejoice and offer thanks whenever the danger passes.

Now then, does that help!