Easter Greetings

Posted on Saturday, 20 April, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I wish all my readers a happy Easter full of the joy and hope that comes from the risen Lord. Should any of us have the slightest doubt, let us remember that there is no otherwise explicable way an image could be printed on the Turin Shroud. I leave you with a little definition given by the great Benedictine monk Dom Odo Casel of the Abbey of Maria Laach.

The pasch is a sacrifice with the consecration of the person that flows from it; it is the sacrifice of the God-man in death on the cross, and his resurrection to glory: it is the Church’s sacrifice in communion with and by the power of the crucified God-man, and the wonderful joining to God, the divinization which is its effect.

Both of these sacrifices flow together; they are fundamentally one; the Church, as the woman of the new paradise and the bride of Christ, acts and offers in his strength. Christ living in time made his sacrifice alone on the cross; Christ raised up by the Spirit makes the sacrifice together with his Church which he has purified with the blood from his own side, and thus won her for himself.

Because of the inmost oneness of being, and the realm of action following upon it, which grows up between bride and bridegroom, between head and body, it follows that the Church must take a share in Christ’s sacrifice, in a feminine, receptive way, yet one which is no less active for that. She stands beneath the cross, sacrifices her bridegroom, and with him, herself. But she does so not merely in faith or in some mental act, but rather in a real and concrete fashion, in mystery; she fulfils the ‘likening’ of that sacrifice through which the Lord offered himself in the presence of earth and heaven, in utter openness, in the total giving of his body, to the Father. Here again we meet the essential meaning of the mystery of worship.

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Viollet le Duc

Posted on Friday, 19 April, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

If there is a subject for the Blue Flower, it is that of the great Romantic French architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814 – 1879). I encourage you to watch this video, which is in French:

Gothic restorations of the nineteenth century might have lacked complete academic authenticity, but Viollet le Duc was a major influence in the Gothic Revival like Pugin in England. Without his work, many great French churches would have crumbled and collapsed after the abuse meted out by the revolutionaries and the merciless weather.

Again, a blessing in disguise, the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris has brought the patrimony of the Middle-Ages and the Gothic Revival into the foreground. Now is the time to appreciate our churches and cathedrals and remember why they were built – man’s homage to the glory of God. Viollet le Duc’s work is a part of this patrimony to treasure, restore and appreciate.

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Sepulto Domino

Posted on Friday, 19 April, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

In the Use of Sarum, we don’t use an altar of repose. The second two hosts of Maundy Thursday are simply put into the hanging pyx. On Good Friday, after the Liturgy of the Presanctified, the third host is put into the Easter Sepulchre as is the crucifix where they remain until the morning of Easter Sunday. The symbolism is somewhat different to the Roman rite that focuses on the prayer of Jesus at Gethsemane and a desacralised church on Good Friday to Holy Saturday. Sarum focuses on the intimate unity between the death of Christ and his Resurrection via this continued Presence. Easter Sepulchres in medieval churches are usually very ornate, and many remain from pre-Reformation days. I use a wooden board on the bishop’s throne (Bishop Damien Mead has sat on it once) and an urn I made some years ago, covered with a humeral veil.

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Notre Dame de Paris

Posted on Tuesday, 16 April, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

It was about the time when the fire alarm was given when I saw something on Facebook. News from mainstream sources was still rare, and only the roof over the crossing was ablaze. The fire brigade was there very quickly. Unfortunately, their equipment was not designed for the height of a cathedral and water dropped from an aircraft would have caused the building to collapse. Most of the roof was lost. Those men are true heroes, and they risked their lives. They finally extinguished the fire in spite of all the difficulties.

There are two big holes in the vault and experts have been called upon to evaluate the stability of the cathedral without its roof. The purpose of flying buttresses is to compensate for the downward and outward pressure exerted by the roof. Modern technology will find the solution, especially as such calculations of compensating forces were current in the thirteenth century!

This is a calamity for France, Europe and the entire world. Notre Dame represents more than a Christian place of worship, but is also a national cultural symbol. President Macron has pledged his support and generous financial aids. In France, all churches older than 1905 belong to the municipality and cathedrals belong to the State.

An idea came into my mind this morning: a blessing in disguise. Let me explain. The cathedral was in very poor condition and restoration work had begun. The wooden spire over the crossing was surrounded by scaffolding and precious statues has been removed for restoration only a few days before. How did the fire start? An inquiry has begun, and the French authorities will without doubt find out and tell the media.

Over the past few months, churches in France have been victims of vandalism and arson, sometimes committed by fanatical individuals for religious or ideological motives. It would not seem to be the case here, since the public do not have access to the part of the cathedral where the fire started.

The fire united people, religious and non-religious, in grief for this monument of national culture. The media was brought to reflect on Christianity at the roots of French and European culture. People were singing and praying in the street with their priests, who had the bells of their churches ring. What an amazing witness for their faith without any triumphalism.

The cathedral will take decades to restore to its splendour, but the message has been put over this very day. Europe and France are Christian and invite us all to turn to Christ during this Holy Week, Easter and forever afterwards.

* * *

Update: The main organ is safe and has not been damaged by either water or heat. We are still waiting to know that all the masonry is stable and not about to collapse. They have experts looking at it all.

* * *

I have just found this daguerreotype of the cathedral before the restoration work of Viollet le Duc began in the 1840’s.

There were no gargoyles. Viollet-le-Duc added them after having read too much Victor Hugo! In this photo, there is no flèche (spire). We wait with bated breath to know what will be decided for the restoration work.

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As Holy Week approaches

Posted on Saturday, 13 April, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

It has been nearly three weeks since I wrote anything. The smoggy air seems to have cleared a little as has my anxiety over the political situation in England. I probably understand things a lot better as I see the general tendency in Europe and the entire western world. It is tempting to make comparisons with historical examples, but they all fall, because our time is unique. Whatever happens now, we have to become self-reliant in our thought and our readiness to react. My guess is that the war of attrition will wear down the opposing factions, and that the can will be kicked down the road until it disappears.

A part of my Lenten reading has been Alan Jacobs, The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis, Oxford 2018. A gentleman in the eighteenth century who found himself on the wrong side of the law mused that the prospect of being hanged in a fortnight focused the mind. Certainly for many people, living during the second world war did a lot for the instinct of survival, ingenuity, resourcefulness and a desire for more than peace: a forward-looking view to prepare mankind for peace via philosophy and education as well as Christian faith. Ironically, some of our right-wing “gammons” in England are nostalgic for that era, perhaps in some cases for the same reasons of being tired of man’s “foolish ways” and seeking a more elevated vision. I am still reading this fine book, and it has brought me to understand many things about people like Simone Weil, Jacques Maritain, C.S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden. Maritain had a lot of influence on Pope Paul VI, and so reading this French philosopher will answer many questions I have about the “changes” in the Church in the 1960’s. I have Maritain’s Humanisme Intégral in the bookshelf in front of me, waiting to be read.

I have used some of my time of Lenten silence to begin writing a book with the simple and unpretentious title Romantic Christianity, organised into two main chapters respectively dealing with the Christian mystery, the esoteric tradition and the continuing historical role of the Romantic movement. Work is always slowed by translating orders as they arrive, including an entire prospectus on projects of remodelling rapids on rivers in French Guiana so that the entire length of the rivers can be navigable by pirogue boats with powerful outboard engines. These boats are almost the only means of transport into the Amazonian jungle both for passengers and freight. It was quite an education, since the job encouraged me to learn about those countries along the north-east of the South American continent via YouTube videos and articles. The old French penal colony of Saint Laurent du Maroni and the Iles du Salut (including Devil’s Island of Papillon and Dreyfus fame) is still present down there even though the establishment closed in 1953. I have just received another one from Peugeot-Citroën, but a little shorter than in previous months. I don’t find it easy to go from one task to another, but it is necessary. It’s my job.

We now arrive at Holy Week, the centre of the Mystery of the Transitus Domini in all its biblical archetypes. There are many esoteric themes too from the Renaissance revival and the rediscovery of the Gnostic scriptures from Nag Hammadi. It is all challenging, but we do well to approach this mystery with simplicity and childlike humility. Each day brings its drama and turn of the tragedy as Christ faced human wickedness and the establishment religion of those days – post-Exile Judaism. As we live the emptiness of Good Friday evening, the first strains of the Alleluia begin to penetrate the stygian gloom.

It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth.

Elgar asked his orchestra to play the Pomp and Circumstance March in D as if the musicians had never heard it. It is a difficult thing to ask of those who have become cynical and jaded. Let us approach this Mystery as if it were for the first time!

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Mit brennender Sorge

Posted on Sunday, 24 March, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

This is to replace an earlier posting which unintentionally caused offence and bad feelings among people I greatly esteem. The title is the German expression Pope Pius XI used to say “with burning concern” as he faced the situation in Europe in his time. It is appropriate to my own feelings, whilst I am at the same time a priest with a duty to avoid getting involved in politics to the extent I have allowed myself to do so. I have also pulled a couple of earlier posts. If anyone wants to find articles on Brexit, there are better sources than I on the Internet.

I have been caught between the informed pro-Brexit opinions of those who are close to me, my concern for my country and for the rest of Europe. When the darkest days of World War II arrived, priests helped the victims to safety and did what they could without adding to the conflict and killing. We are not at war, but the future is utterly unpredictable, even day by day.

According to my latest information, I don’t believe that no-deal Brexit can happen because there are laws preventing it. Maybe it will be May’s deal or the whole thing will be called off. Who knows? It is not up to me.

I am not concerned about my personal situation, because I am a legal immigrant in France and my various approaches to the Administration have gone smoothly and according to the rules. My prayers and hopes go out to the millions of souls who have been disenfranchised in this national crisis, and who have manifested their desires without any violence or vandalism. I empathise with their anxiety and concerns.

As I mentioned in the deleted posting, I have not made up my mind whether to bring this blog to a close or simply suspend it until the situation in the UK is brought to a close in one way or another. I am not the one to get involved in such matters because my autistic condition causes me to lack discernment and I “melt down”.

I ask your prayers. If others with facilities for posting wish to contribute something, they are welcome. Comments are still welcome and I will read (and maybe respond to) them. It is essential for me to wind down and change course.

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Perpetuum Mobile

Posted on Saturday, 16 March, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

When I lived in London, I rented a room at the East End Mission in Commercial Road. I could get to the London College of Furniture at the other end of that very long street in London’s East End on foot or a single short bus ride. When I was there, I met a young man with whom I shared two passions: the Christian faith and machines. Hugh, as he is called, fancied himself as an inventor. Among his ideas was a motorcycle that couldn’t fall over. I can’t remember the principle of its operation, though it was probably some kind of gyroscope to reinforce the stability a running two-wheel vehicle already has. Another was an infinitely variable gearbox without the use of drive belts. He spent hours explaining it to me, showing me crude drawings and calculations. As always, I noticed a lack of rigour in his work and the fact that he had not produced any accurate technical drawings or attempted to produce some kind of prototype to prove the theory through experiments.

Then, he moved onto a perpetual motion machine, claiming that such had been successfully invented in the eighteenth century. This is the legend of the Orffyreus Wheel. The inventor of this device was an odd character, probably a fraud. Whatever, his “invention” died with him. My friend Hugh, who persuaded me to convert to Roman Catholicism from about 1980, thought he could retro-engineer the secret machine in its round wooden box. I am myself fascinated by machines, but I have a more realistic notion of them based on the laws of physics I learned at school, especially those of Isaac Newton. Namely, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Quantum mechanics show a new slant on these questions, but Newton is nearer the mark with machines of human invention. A machine can be incredibly efficient by reducing the friction, for example in its bearings, but the energy put into it from fuel or other external power source is dissipated into heat by friction. If you reduce the friction, and run the machine in a vacuum, it will continue to run for much longer under its inertia (think of a flywheel), but it will eventually exhaust its energy and come to a stop. Foucault’s Pendulum is probably the nearest thing we have to perpetual motion, but it too will stop as energy is dissipated as heat by friction. The device in the illustration above is no more than a very efficient flywheel. It will work and the effect of the weights will prolong the inertia of the wheel, but the energy will still be dissipated at the main bearing and atmospheric air friction.

Hugh has often telephoned me about his belief of having solved the mystery, but each time, I asked him about his working drawings, engineering calculations and whether he has successfully built a prototype of the machine. All these possibilities were impeded by his lack of finance. I had to explain that though I am fascinated by machines, I am not an engineer or a physicist, and cannot be of any help. He would have to do his own work and bring it to a conclusion or move on to other things in life. Sometimes, we have to be humble (truthful) and know our limits. Hugh sent me a fascinating book about the Orffyreus wheel and other weird ideas and phenomena, but I was never satisfied with an explanation of why an idea could ever become a working machine doing what it was claimed to do. Perpetual motion is impossible, but there are devices that are incredibly efficient in terms of energy conservation. This is where an inventor can truly excel.

Why this subject? I hit me on the head as I read the blog article This is what a politics based on lies looks like. Its author, like Hugh, attempted to build a perpetual motion machine. He was confronted by the impossibility of such a device, and the explanation of his father who was a mechanic in the army. We now move out of the world of physics and mechanics into the notion of truth. Whilst researching Romanticism and German Idealism, I have had to consider different notions of reality and truth between the physical and the metaphysical. To understand something of the complexity of epistemology (theory of knowledge and truth) we can try to read Foundationalism. In our experience of life, truth seems to be self-evident, but there are quirks and inconsistencies that our traditional logical reasoning cannot solve. I have experienced the paradox, the clash of two or more truths that seem to be self-evident to the believer. According to anti-foundationalism, truth is not something we can possess, but something beyond our own experience towards which we aspire by Sehnsucht. You might care to read this pdf article on some of the ideas of Hölderlin and Novalis from the Jena school, which you might find as tiresome as the perpetual motion machine! The foundation is the basis on which we believe an idea or phenomenon to be self-evident.

This is also the impression I have had of the political situation in the UK. Brexit is based on a contradiction between hard Brexit and the Good Friday agreement that brought peace to Ireland. The backstop is a proposed solution, but the whole thing is based on lies, smoke and mirrors. There is not even an aspiration to truth. Brexit is like the perpetual motion machine. It is impossible without the UK giving Northern Ireland to Ireland or invading and occupying Ireland, something the EU will not allow. It would be an act of war by the UK, like Germany invading Poland, France and other countries in the late 1930’s and 1940.

One thing that will help us with the conundrum of Brexit will be Aristotle’s Principle of Non-Contradiction. This principle is not universally applicable, but will do nicely in this situation of earthly life and Britain’s political shenanigans.

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Casino Brexit

Posted on Thursday, 7 March, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

There are speculations about next week’s votes in Parliament. Here is a text I found on a Facebook group.

Reported Developments

The Financial Times and other outlets are reporting:

(1) The vote on the Withdrawal Bill next Tuesday will almost certainly fail. Peston is writing that he has not met a single minister or MP who thinks it will succeed. Cox will probably bring nothing back from his negotiations in Brussels and even if he does, it will not be nearly enough to satisfy the DUP/ERG.

(2) The bill to be voted on next Wednesday to rule out a no deal Brexit will almost certainly pass. The government will allow a free vote. (It will be particularly interesting to see how May herself votes, as she has been preaching all along that no deal is better than a bad deal. As she has tried to change the WA, presumably because she thinks it is a bad deal, she has to lose credibility or propose no deal chaos. And yet she negotiated and agree with Europe the Withdrawal Agreement…

(3) The vote on Thursday to ask Europe for an extension, will almost certainly pass, or a vote for no deal, makes no sense. There will be amendments, proposing that the extension be from a couple of months to two years. Again May dare not whip her MP’s on this vote or she would be faced with at least 20 Cabinet ministers and others from her government.

(4) Losing the Withdrawal Bill will effectively mean May has lost control of the process, and Parliament will take over. With the breakdown in party discipline, we move into an area of uncertainty. The Spectator in an editorial today is warning MP’s to vote for May’s deal or risk a soft or no Brexit. The consensus is that anything that follows will either be a soft Brexit or less likely, no Brexit. There is absolutely no parliamentary majority for a hard Brexit.

(5) There is no present majority in Parliament for a second Referendum, or at least not enough of those who privately would like R2 have yet come out.

(6) Thee is growing support for Norway plus, especially in the Labour Party, and interestingly, among the leadership. Corbyn and others met Tory proponents of Norway plus yesterday in the Commons.

(7) (5) and (6) have to be seen in the context of a) the vast majority of MP’s voted Remain; b) the breakdown of party discipline leading to free votes (de facto, as if not free, the whip would be ignored); the probability that with the breakdown in Government policy, pro Remain Cabinet ministers and other Remain Tory MP’s would break cover and support Norway plus or possibly R2.

(8) My own view, as a passionate Remainer, is that we should be wary of falling into the trap which it looks like the ERG has fallen into: rejecting something which is good, in the hope of gaining something perfect, and in the process losing both.

I also believe that if we stayed in the Single Market and Customs Union, it would be far easier for a pro European government to negotiate our eventual re-joining.

I don’t know what to make of all this. Just a few ideas:

The MP’s will vote against no-deal, but not for blocking no-deal. So no-deal is still on the table and Theresa May can still try to use it to force through her deal – but May’s deal will be defeated. All that will be left will be no-deal or no Brexit. May can only go so far, because she would have the Cabinet against her.

A lot will depend on how long the EU will allow the Article 50 extension to go. May wants it short. The EU would make it long, and everyone would die of boredom over the next couple of years – during which anything could happen (General Election, implosion of the political system, etc.). So much harm has been done to the economy that all the squandered millions and billions would have to be paid from the taxpayer’s pocket. So taxes will go up, the pound down, pensions will be hit, the NHS as well. The Tories are really going to be hated! Labour is discredited and the Tories can’t last for long in these conditions. The new party formed of ex-Labour and Tory MP’s, or a swing to the hard-Right? Could May call a General Election the day Brexit is delayed? To what end? That seems doubtful.

We have to have a delay, otherwise it’s off the cliff-edge we go and without a parachute. Between the fear mongering and “It will all be OK”, there is something ominous and very nasty waiting for us all, even for those of us living in other countries. Perhaps she is really mad enough to want no-deal and make sure there is no alternative – Nero Decree and commit suicide? That would seem to be melodramatic and Mrs May is not Hitler!

There is no Parliamentary majority for a second referendum, and in any case, the result might be the same, either through propaganda or informed conviction based on certain reports of the Lisbon Treaty of 2009.

If May loses control, Parliament will take over, but that leaves uncertainty. There is the point that you can’t vote for no-deal, but rather for something to make no-deal unnecessary. That is precisely May’s position – my deal or no deal. But, there is no majority for May’s deal. We have agonised with that for months – years. It isn’t that the EU is being intransigent. The only way to get rid of the backstop is to colonise Ireland or let Ireland have Northern Ireland. Either way, Paddy from the IRA will be making bombs in his bicycle shed! Fun for the whole family…

The UK asks for an extension. The EU will truly get control and make Brexit quite impossible. There has to be an acceptable purpose for the extended time. No extension. No deal. No taste for Nero’s fires and bombs. Then all that’s left is revoking Article 50 – goodbye Brexit… Could May do that without Parliment agreeing to it? Perhaps, given the “extreme emergency” character of this situation, would a Prime Minister call Parliament when responding to a declaration of nuclear war? I doubt that it would be a physical red emergency stop button like on a machine. Would she just sign a piece of paper? If it does require Parliamentary approval, then the UK just has to face the inevitable and some demagogue with a moustache and jackboots to “sort everything out”… Bo-jo and Lord Snooty are still clean-shaven – for the time being. If it is no-deal and the things we fear come true, then the future is a coup d’état or a revolution, but, mind you, Brexit could be that revolution or coup d’état. No-Brexit could go on the table but only at the very last minute.

For everything to come to no-deal or no-Brexit, it would be an incredible gamble for the highest stakes, hence my title for this article and the photo out of a James Bond film. Winner take all. Survival of the fittest. Indeed the UK would be quite godless! The time is nearly up, and we should already have an idea next week, and certainly by the end of this month. The winner will be laughing his way to the bank and the country will be up for grabs by the highest bidder. Or not.

I would love to be wrong and be rebuked for my lack of faith in sunlit uplands and blue unicorns, or some glorious future that would materialise after we’re all dead. I have long been horrified by the shambles of this process, the wanton irresponsibility and inability to make decisions and stand by them. As I say, the Lent may be long and not merely forty days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday. It is sometimes suggested that a little suffering is good for the soul – but I would take back such a thought immediately, because those who would pay the most would be the weakest and most vulnerable.

The European Union isn’t everything. Macron here in France is of the opinion that it does need reform and a better idea of its identity. There are many threats in the form of populism and a swing to the hard-Right in some countries, with a possibility of a Fascist resurgence. The identity the EU has tried to forge isn’t just money and oligarchy but also the fruits of suffering through the years from 1914 to 1945. That fruit must be a new Christian and spiritual humanism and a new world so ardently desired by the Romantics throughout the years of the Jacobins and the Napoleonic Wars. The UK risks becoming like France in the nineteenth century, unstable and unworthy of her vocation.

I fear that when Holy Week arrives, the Lamentations of Jeremiah will take on a whole new meaning.

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Christian publishing during the Occupation

Posted on Thursday, 7 March, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

After my last posting, one of my faithful commenters (David Llewellyn Dodds) jogged my mind, and I mentioned in my comment replying to his I am presently reading Alan Jacobs, The Year of Our Lord 1943. Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis, OUP 2018. Through this book, I am coming to have another understanding of the minds of writers and intellectuals during the worst years of the war. 1943 was the turning point when the Nazis began to be on the defensive and the war was turning against them. Some days ago, I mentioned the film Nuremberg. At first, the Allies wanted to take the Nazi war criminals out and shoot them, but the idea came into the minds of the judges and the chief prosecutor Justice Jackson that if they were to do that, they would find it difficult to claim moral superiority and a greater degree of humanity than the enemy? Going to war against Hitler wasn’t everything, though it seems that there was no alternative historically. We had also to take the moral high road. I believe we did that through Nuremberg, bringing justice to the guilty and setting a new standard for international law and the cause of peace.

My generation has not had the experience of war, occupation or siege, but it is not difficult to imagine through reading and watching films. I remember the tortured face of my grandfather if I asked him too many questions about his experience as a prisoner of war in Germany. There is the old saying of Samuel Johnson: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully”. I read that and instinctively put my hand up to my throat as if to protect it! The proximity of horror and death brought many to profound thought and especially to faith and prayer. For others, it had the opposite effect like for Elgar and Vaughan Williams who lost their faith during the 1914-18 war. The effect of war cannot be neutral or banal for the normally constituted person.

I have only begun to read the book mentioned above, but it looks very promising. In this vein, David wrote to me and asked for the following guest posting to appear on this blog.

* * *

Christian publishing during the Occupation

David Llewellyn Dodds

Remembering the end of the Second World War and  the Dutch war dead in May, my thoughts turn more than usual to what it was like here under the Nazi Occupation. Such a sharpening of attention came even earlier this year, as part of my Lenten reading was in Wierookgraan: Gebedenboek in Verzen [ something like ‘A Grain of Incense: A Prayer Book in Verse’] selected by Henk Kuitenbrouwer and Gabriël Smit, which received its Imprimatur on 17 May 1944 (the day before the Ascension Feast that year) in Joppe. And we often read the appropriate Lessons and Propers at home in a handsome little pocket Missaal which received its Imprimatur a bit earlier on 2 April 1944 (Palm Sunday that year) in Laag-Keppel. It was not till almost exactly a year later that Laag-Keppel – and Joppe – were liberated. Both volumes were published by Het Spectrum, Utrecht. So was our copy of Frits van der Meer’s excellent Catechismus – with the foreword by Archbishop de Jong dated the Feast of St. Lucy, 1941. Would I guess these fine books were printed under Occupation  if I did not see the dates? I am amazed how far it was possible to get on with normal, good work. By contrast, our copy of Paus Adriaan VI, which W.S. Jurgens calls his “vrije Nederlandsche bewerking” [‘free Dutch adaptation’] of Else Hocks’ 1939 German biography, lists publishers – Strengholt in Amsterdam, and Standaard in four Belgian cities – and an Imprimatur, but has no date anywhere.  I can’t remember if I first looked up the publication date elsewhere – 1942 – or was surprised by what seemed a word of encouragement between the lines, about a quarter of the way through, in the chapter, ‘Het Vaderland’, such as: “zulk een volk staat stevig op zijn grond, houdt oog en oor voor gevaar gespannen open en waantrouwt alles wat ongewoon is. De aldus met zoveel strijd verwonnen karaktereigenschappen van de Nederlanders zouden zoowel op geestelijk, zedelijk en religieus gebied proefhoudend blijken te zijn.” [‘such a people stand firmly on their ground, keep eye and ear open for danger, and distrust all that is unusual. The character traits of the Dutch so won with so much struggle should show themselves to survive being put to the test in the spiritual, moral, and religious realm.’] Here was a good book in its own right which also had what seemed to me a clear wartime subtext. But the other three I mentioned surely consciously intended to aid the reader to live thoughtfully, prayerfully every day of the year (Van der Meer has a special index related to the cycle of the Church’s year) despite the Occupation.

If we can compare Wierookgraan to Herbert’s Temple, Stalpart van der Wiele’s collections, Keble’s Christian Year, and Guido Gezelle’s Tijdkrans  [‘tijd’ is ‘time’ and ‘krans’ includes senses of garland, wreath, and crown – a rosary is a ‘roszenkrans’] as a collection of poems, we can also compare it to another wartime work (in prose), Charles Williams’s New Christian Year (1941), as an anthology drawing on many different writers. If Stalpart and Gezelle can be found in the dbnl.org and Herbert and Keble in various places (see their Wikipedia articles), sadly I have had no luck finding Wierookgraan online. Happily Williams’s always-rewarding daily readings are very conveniently available:

http://tomwills.typepad.com/thenewchristianyear/

David Llewellyn Dodds (originally published in The Grapevine, the monthly news letter of the Arnhem-Nijmegen Chaplaincy of the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe, in May 2018)

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Parce Populo Tuo

Posted on Tuesday, 5 March, 2019 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

Once again, we arrive at the gates of Lent after the short period of preparation called the Gesimas, after the Sundays of Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinguagesima. This is the time in many places when Carnival is celebrated – the word meaning “good bye to meat” and the embracing of a vegan diet except the Sundays. The full rigour of a diet without meat or other animal products is now only to be found in some monasteries and the stricter Eastern Orthodox Churches. For us in our times and living an active life, a good compromise is to abstain from meat on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and to simplify our diet. The point is doing something that is healthy both for our souls and bodies to prepare us for the Paschal Mystery by revisiting the journey of the ancient catechumens in the early Church as they prepared for Baptism.

I have just returned from my chapel, having put up the Lenten Array according to our English tradition and burning old palms to make the ashes using a blowtorch and the metal lid of a jam jar. Once the burned bits have finished smouldering, I use a teaspoon to powder the ashes and put them into a little pot in which they will be blessed tomorrow. Being a cleric, I will be imposing ashes on the crown of my head where traditionally the Tonsure is shaved. The dirty crosses on the forehead are a later custom adopted for the laity.

What will Lent mean to me this year. For us all, it is a journey towards the renewal of our Transitus Domini, an expression full of meanings in the archetypes of the Old Testament and the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. Some of us will be wanting to work on something particular in our spiritual lives. I certainly intend to read more, especially the Humanist dimension of Christianity, which I believe is the only thing that will save the Church, not as an elite institution, but the communion of all in Christ. We will certainly reflect on the crisis of seeing what we have held dear for much of our lives being taken away, first our Churches, and then our countries and fatherlands.

Coming back to the old tired subject, I read How Brexit will save Britain today. It confirms my reflections on the new middle ages, the hymn to the night as we expiate our pride and embrace a new chapter of our history. My other thought was the story of Charles Dickens The Tale of Two Cities, and it being the turn of England and the UK to suffer a revolution it has not seen since the seventeenth century. What form that would take, I have no idea, and I can only pray there will be no violence or loss of life.

I do remember something from school history – that we escaped revolutions in critical times like the 1790’s, 1830, 1848, 1870 when there was so much instability in Europe, because our political establishment was able to enact the right reforms at the right time to lower the pent-up pressure slowly and safely. The status quo was maintained. In the twentieth century, the UK alone escaped occupation by the Nazis because of the natural barrier of the sea and the courage of the Royal Air Force. This certainly made many of us English feel apart and special in some way compared with France and most of Europe at one time or another occupied and oppressed by the Axis. We also have a highly archaic system of constitutional law and jurisprudence, which may be an advantage or a handicap (depending on which way you look at it) in comparison with the Napoleonic Code or France’s five Republics and the new Germany after 1945 and the reunification of that country in 1990. We have laboured with an archaic system for centuries, and the rest of Europe has a modern constitution and code of law for each country.

As for us all, Christians during Lent or our countries facing the future, we have to stare into our souls and take stock of our existential crisis. The UK, if no-deal goes ahead (or any kind of Brexit for that matter), is about to declare war on itself and become a defeated nation like Germany in 1945. No enemy was needed, and at no time has the European Union uttered the slightest threat in England’s regard.

I don’t know what is going to happen. There are plenty of rumours and sensational news articles, stories of chlorinated chicken and junk food, of shortages of medicines and toilet paper. These seem to be scare strategies for people used to thinking only about their daily lives (as I too have to). The main religion of England is no longer Christianity, but has for a long time been that of Mammon, the worship of money and power. Our country has more or less returned to the Victorian era when medicine and a home were luxuries and the poor cannot even appeal to the charity of religious communities. In the Victorian era, philanthropy was something that Oscar Wilde found wanting in sincerity or true compassion:

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Christ was not merely the supreme individualist, but he was the first individualist in history. People have tried to make him out an ordinary philanthropist, or ranked him as an altruist with the scientific and sentimental. But he was really neither one nor the other. Pity he has, of course, for the poor, for those who are shut up in prisons, for the lowly, for the wretched; but he has far more pity for the rich, for the hard hedonists, for those who waste their freedom in becoming slaves to things, for those who wear soft raiment and live in kings’ houses. Riches and pleasure seemed to him to be really greater tragedies than poverty or sorrow. And as for altruism, who knew better than he that it is vocation not volition that determines us, and that one cannot gather grapes of thorns or figs from thistles?

O tempora, o mores! We are not very different now. Perhaps we are about to be taught a lesson. Our political system, both conservative and socialist, is rotten and unfit for purpose. It all needs to be swept away. The humiliation will be complete, and I can only hope that redemption and God’s forgiveness will come out of it. Read the article and ask yourself the question – Could it be true? Are we not a roaring mouse?

… perhaps we will get the revolution we actually need.

I don’t hope for a revolution, for violence or for death, but rather in the words of our Prayer Book:

Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness, and live; and hath given power, and commandment, to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins : He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance, and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him, which we do at this present; and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure, and holy; so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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