Ray Winch, early April 1997 – and a reflection

Posted on Monday, 5 February, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

This letter is undated, but his allusion to Easter 1997 (30th March) would place it around the first week of April. Monastic Lent is not something easy to live through, though guests were allowed meat on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Indeed, monks don’t receive mail from family or friends and the almost Orwellian atmosphere of the modern monastery is quite overbearing for the dreamer I am! Anyway, I was grateful for this piece of sympathy from a good friend. Actually, as a working guest I was allowed my mail at any time and my freedom.

* * *

Dear Anthony,

I excuse my delay in writing on the grounds that monks ought not to receive letters during Lent and that diligent monks may be bold enough to impose this rule on their captives. Lo, happy Easter; and here is a Winch Puzzle to help you through Paschaltide!

After applying to Mrs Hall and receiving from her a formal invitation, I went to Spanish Place on March 1st. The church was nearly full. The few empty seats were balanced by a small group of which I was one, who prefer to stand through services. There were a few clerics in choir including three Black Monks and a lesser prelate in a mantella. As is always the case on such occasions, the congregation was predominately male. Most of us went to the crypt for a lavish professionally-made buffet. Mrs Hall made a brief speech thanking the curé, etc. For an hour or so there was good humoured conversation. Then some men with authority attempted to clear the chamber. (My attempt to assist him by calling out Domni domaque exite. Per gratias vestras exite was greeted with some applause.) But, when we were all outside and making off in various directions, I realized that there had been no meeting! It was for the meeting that I had gone. I had assumed that, at the very least, there would have been an announcement of provisionally chosen officers and a call for suggestion about future activities. There was not even a collection of the names of those present or a request for means of future contacts, etc. It was a most agreeable way of spending a Saturday, but, it seemed to me, strangely inconclusive. Perhaps an opportunity missed.

Among the present were two undergraduates and a post-graduate whose names I had sent Mr Hall when asking for my own invitation, and the ubiquitous Robert. Also present was the Rev’d Father Michael Mowbray Silver, now known as Archithurifer to the Bishop of Worthing. There were a few sacristy queens, either dissenting Anglicans or Catholics of Anglican vintage.

The service was a High Mass with choreography by Fortescue. However, it differed from the old days on these counts:- then, under no circumstances would High Mass been celebrated in a parish church on a weekday; there were clergy in choir; all were attempting to follow the service; there were many communicants. Unfortunately it was exactly like the old days in that it seemed to be assumed that none were able to follow the Latin directly. Even the lessons were sung without regard of intelligibility.

There was a brief sermon. That, of course, was intended to be understood. The preacher praised the silent Canon. He seemed unaware that this latter was a very late corruption caused by excessively elaborate music for the Sanctus and then applied, by the rubricists, to the Missa Lecta. Obviously the priest read the Gospel to himself before the deacon sang it softly to the north wall. None of the old decadence was omitted.

Robert had me to London again on Good Friday to attend the c. 1960 liturgy at Corpus Christi [Maiden Lane]. The congregation was almost exclusively male but elderly. Most traditionalist services that I have attended – including those at Oxford and Durham – were mostly patronized by boys and young men. Robert said that the authorities at Maiden Lane were not allowed to advertise the services in any way and this explains the congregation. Is this correct? Corpus Christi is obviously the church in the opening pages of How Far Can You Go?, the novel by David Lodge. I think that, in my student days, it was used for early morning “corporate communions” of members of the University. But, as I did not live in the centre, I attended none of these. Univ. Coll. Catholic Society celebrated an academic High Mass each year during the annual Foundation Week. Once, when an undergraduate died, there was Placebo and Dirige. Functions of this sort were at St Anselm’s in Kingsway.

Last evening I had a ‘phone call from a man whose name I did not catch. He seemed to suppose that I knew it. He is a member of C.I.E.L. but, apparently, he had heard of me by another route. It appears that he has set up a small publishing business. I think that he said that he was responsible for the small volume with the Waugh – Heenan correspondence. He said that he would like to publish a small volume by me under a title like Daily Worship in a Medieval Parish Church and an “article in a news-letter” about Catholic Parish Worship before 1955. He took little notice of my protests, that I would find it difficult to set out a book without a colleague (though, perhaps, I rather over did this).

All my longer stuff, except Canonical Mass  has been done with a colleague:

British Empirical Philosophers – Ayer and Winch

The Assumption – Bennett and Winch

La Storiografia Inglese nei Secoli XIX e XX – Flessati [?] & Winch

Would you, by any chance, like to be the Chadwick of a Chadwick and Winch? When you are at your presbytère, possibly time may hang heavily. If I were to come out with all my material, we might cooperate to produce a slim volume. (La Storiografia was done in less than three weeks of a long vac. and there had been no preparation.) This may well not appeal to you: there may well be a multitude of reasons why it may not be feasible. However I cast forth the idea. I suppose I could come July, Aug and Sept.

[I find no further page of this letter in my little folder.]

* * *

April 15th, ’97

Dear Anthony

When I wrote to you recently (my only letter to you at the monastery, posted about April 4th [which accurately dates the above letter], I told you that I had been approached, by telephone, by a small Catholic publisher who wanted me to write up my researches for a book. He had told me that he would follow up the ‘phone conversation with a letter. I had told you that I would send you a copy of his letter when it came. Here it is.

I replied to his letter on April 10th when I said that: (i) I was generally agreeable, (ii) my field was a little less wide than he seemed to think though I was not adverse to some extension, (iii) that I would not expect remuneration – at least for a first edition, though I would welcome, but not demand, a contribution towards any expenses which I might incur. So far I have not heard from him, but I posted the letter only five days ago.

I have become a trifle puzzled by this Saint Austin Press. I have a certain instinctive notion that it is rather more than a publishing venture with a concern for traditionalist Catholicism. It may be excellent but I would like to know. Do you know? I’ll not tell the pursuivants nor even the Curia!

I sent you, on an earlier occasion, a typescript De Divino Officio. This was used as a handout for my lecture last year. As I then explained to my audience, besides providing a document in evidence, it has also a piece of experimental history. I dictated it to a man who had not learnt Latin and who had never been to a service in Latin. The only help I gave him was clarity of diction. We proceeded swiftly. He makes no more mistakes than one would expect of a medieval scribe. Indeed some of the spelling “mistakes” are in the original document. I am sure that you have noticed that “ae” and “e” are often used at random. Thus we discover how Latin was pronounced.

Do you know what is a cappa clausa? Yes, I know it means “closed cloak”; but what is it? It was to be worn if there was no superpellicium available.

I hope that you continue to enjoy monastic life. As I said before, I would jump at the chance of being a custodian at a place like Downside. This time last year I had a most agreeable part-time job. I was then able to do more of my own work than I am doing now.

There is to be a parliamentary election here. It is all very babyish. I shall not vote. No principles seem to be at stake. Each party tries to collect votes by printing out how bad the other parties are.

Vale,

Ray

* * *

The Saint Austin Press
Box 610
Southampton SO1E OYY

Tel. 01703 235966
Fax 01703 346953

3rd April, 1997

Dear Mr. Wynch,

Further to our telephone conversation of the other evening, here are a few thoughts which stayed with me after we had finished our discussion:

It was proposed that you should write a small book, of between 70 and 150 pages of double-spaced type on the subject of Mediaeval Parish life in England, with particular emphasis on the liturgical aspects.

We have to think of an imaginative title, but that can wait until later. In the first instance, we need to develop a plan of the book.

The main sections might be:

• the life of a mediaeval parish priest,
• the way in which boys came to be trained as priests or ‘clerkes’, and your evidence for the existence of several clerics in each parish.
• the liturgy, broken down into two sub-sections: (i)the Office, and (ii)the Mass. You might also have a sub-section on special feasts.

One would also need a short introduction, and perhaps a few closing paragraphs. Perhaps I have also overlooked some other areas of study which might make up additional sections.

We also need to decide quite early on about any illustrations which we might like to include. If you could compile a list of up to twenty (maximum) then I could begin to seek permissions for their use. This is sometimes quite expensive, but we will see what can be done.

A Select bibliography would also be useful, and that could be begun now. We could add to it as we go along.

As for eventual remuneration, if we both decide that this is a project with a future, I would guess that we might be able to offer you 5% of the cover price on all sales. This is about the usual level of royalties.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas on all this in the near future. I will perhaps telephone you again in a week or two.

Yours in Domino,
Ferdi McDermott

* * *

That is all I have from Ray Winch. By 1997, he was in his late 70’s and he was only four years from his death. The little I saw of him between the end of my stay at Triors (July 1997) and his death, I found someone suffering from chronic tiredness, depression and the heart and circulation problems that brought on his death. His mind and longing were there, but all slowed down.

In April 1997, I was charged by the Abbot to go and find a pipe organ in England and arrange for its transport to the Abbey. The work of repairs and installation took until July 1997 with the help of some brothers for making a new console and the marble platform on which the organ was to stand. On my return to Bouloire, Ray’s idea of getting me to help him write this small volume was unfortunately forgotten. Perhaps I should attempt to do something on these lines with whatever can be found from Ray’s papers (I do believe someone stepped in and preserved them) and the plans discussed in the correspondence.

I have more faith in Terence Duffy (I have The Stripping of the Altars facing me as I write now) than Ray did, but I would need to try to find other sources for comparison using the amazing amount of stuff available on the Internet. I am too far away from a university library, but references can be found and copied. I’ll think about a plan and whether I could do justice to such a project. Ray tended to get bogged down in details and flights of imagination and forgot the need for the academic methodology in which he was trained. I am sure that Dr William Tighe will come up with some ideas of books and Internet resources to complete those I already have in my liturgy and church history libraries. I’ll do my best, and it will be dedicated to his memory. There will be hundreds of books written by Romantic historians in the mid nineteenth century, also people like J.M. Neale and Wickham Legg. It’s just a matter of having a good plan, and doing the work.

Ray shared the lot of many who have run out of energy and “punch”. If we depend on other people, we won’t get anywhere in life. We have to find the resources within ourselves and take the responsibility of getting the job done. Ray had part-time library work which did him good and encouraged creativity and curiosity. My translating job keeps me motivated and used to sustained work. Life is short, and when our time runs out here on earth, we won’t be able to do any more. I am only too aware of my mortality, as he certainly was – and before death, we are usually faced with declining health, eyes that need stronger glasses, inability to concentrate, the list is endless.

I’ll do what I can, perhaps for the first issue of The Blue Flower.

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Ray Winch, 7th February 1997

Posted on Sunday, 4 February, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

By now, I was staying at the guest house of Triors. Ray gives a slightly different angle on his subject of medieval parish worship, criticising Terence Duffy but without giving details (perhaps we might get lucky in his next letter).

* * *

Dear Anthony,

Thank you for your card and subsequent letter of Dec. 28th [1996].

I am glad to learn that you have returned to the Church. I have an instinctive sympathy for the Anglican traditionalists, but I have never had the slightest temptation to join them. It seems to me that the truth or falsity of Christianity depends entirely upon Catholicism. For a very long time I had supposed that Orthodoxy was, in some sense, a continuation of primitive Catholicism. My study of the history of doctrine undertaken over these last 6 or 7 years persuafes me that I was mistaken, eg. During the 10th to 13th centuries the West added much to Christian doctrine. During the 14th century the Greeks, on their own initiative, received most of these Latin innovations which subsequently appeared in all the dogmatic formulations (though they continued to make a fuss about “filioque”). There is no such thing as the Orthodox Church, but a number of national churches and various splinter groups. Not all are in communion with each other. The Bloomians are largely now in the hands of non-ethnic converts. “Hobbyists” abound. There is little discipline, and popular singing and exotic ritual provide a great part of the attraction. At Oxford there is clericalism and a curious kind of liberalism. The Bloomian clergy are active with “hands-of-the-clock” change. At Oxford the Cypriots seem to have noticed this and seldom care. I doubt if they appreciate Mass largely in fem-speke. There also seems to have been some kind of a local schism over who runs the choir. But I think that I have told you these things before. I have distanced myself from it all.

I am interested in the liturgical conference in France which you mentioned. However, I am a near monoglot. I can manage to read clearly composed French and liturgical Latin. Unfortunately that is about my lot. Also it would need to be inexpensive. Travel, etc. has, for an Englishman, become much more expensive than it was even eight years ago. Even the fare to Paris by the cheapest route is now more than twice what it was when I last went in ’88. However I could manage the cost if it were otherwise worthwhile. What do you think?

Publishing my articles in French? Obviously what I sent you were only exceedingly rough accounts of what I have in mind. I will not attempt to put my matter into presentable form until I know a little about the potential readership. I would hope to provide a type script.

(i) “Worship in English Catholic Churches before 1952”. This I would do entirely from memory – the memory of a youth who had some background knowledge and who lived in London. I often attended liturgical offices in Westminster Cathedral. I remember cycling considerable distances in search of a church where there might, at least, be Sunday Vespers. (Now, in spite of a new rite and the vernacular, things remain much as they were before – except that there are now far fewer participants.)

(ii) “Daily Worship in an English Medieval Parish Church”

My information comes from primary sources, though I would add a little guided guess work closely based on these sources. There would need to be a brief treatment of the clergy serving a parish church: the impossibility of strict rubricism, etc. I would wish to include reasons for maintaining that even the illiterate could, after a fashion, follow even most of the choir office. Then, perhaps, one or two matters which emerge. (a) Public liturgical prayer and the minimal sufficiency of the deed done with the right intention. (b) vicarious prayer and worship.

A few writers seem to have been aware of some of my evidence. However, presumably because they lack experience of public worship in a liturgical language, they are ill at ease with the subject and pass over much – sometimes making obvious blunders as they go. Even Duffy is strangely reticent in this field. Perhaps Duffy had not had the opportunity to attend week day Office in a Greek village. (I do make some use of the comparative method.)

Once again the Newman Society organized a Sarum High Mass in the choir of Merton. This year it was for the Purification with ceremonies and a procession. There was a large congregation which included a number of Catholic priests. In my judgement it was done too fussily to find much favour. It lasted over two hours. A choir sang elaborate music and, accordingly, a few of the adstantes insisted on singing the responses against the official choir. One of the three processional crosses became entangled with a pendant electric light, etc.

I hope that you are content with life in the monastery. I would enjoy it; though obviously you may have difficulties of what I know nothing. My own personal problem is that I am unable to discipline my daily life. I have insufficient will power to deal adequately with small matters. When I had the fixed hours of the job at the Union Library (Dec. ’95 – Oct. ’96) I was enormously happy. Now I am not. I do less academic work now than I did then. I wish that I could be a custodian at a place like Downside. Robert Stephen Mundi is, in some manner, around. He is using my address, but living surreptitiously in an office in the City and doing some work for a City church. His terrific intelligence, enormous self-confidence and ability to do without possessions are staggering, at least I find them so. I suppose that few others know how he tended Ronald Head – the aged vicar dying from cancer.

I am in the history library. I read “the people would not have understood the service because it was in Latin, but they would have known what type of feast it was from the colour of the priest’s chasuble. This is nearly as anachronistic as that Hamilton fellow whose description of Holy Saturday in the Middle Ages is an account of the new rite of 1950! I await the opportunity to read “Most people leaving church bought a copy of the current ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ to read after Sunday dinner”.

Vale, Ray

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Ray Winch, 8th December 1996

Posted on Sunday, 4 February, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

For a little context, I had not written to Ray for some time, and I had returned to France after leaving the Anglican Catholic Church under Bishop Hamlett. I had returned to France and was staying with Fr Jacques Pecha at the Presbytery of Bouloire prior to my stay at Triors Abbey. In this letter, Ray gives some context to his notes about medieval parish life. I did not keep copies of my own letters to him, which I assume by now to be lost.

I appreciate his dry humour when commenting on my work with organs and his pun between the musical instrument and an organ of the human body.

* * *

Dec. 8th, ‘96

Dear Anthony,

I follow up the card I sent you some months ago in hasty reply to your note asking me for something to publish.

I have this address in Newcastle-under-Lyme: but Robert S. says that he had heard a rumour, at third hand, that you had returned to France, though perhaps only for a visit. Accordingly, I intend to address this letter to your family home, the address of which, in your autograph, I find in a note book.

I had heard that, at Newcastle-under-Lyme, you had set up a workshop for the repair of organs. (What about a new kidney for a man I know?!) Anyway I hope that all goes well and would be pleased to hear from you.

From Dec ’95 until Oct ’96, I had an enormously enjoyable part-time job running, in company with two others, the library of the Union Society. One of the other two, whom I had helped to promote, was offered and accepted the full-time job. His first act was to secure a part-time job for his “bird”! This he did by getting rid of me. I had taken him for a good-humoured friend. Now I know how the Kremlin worked.

I guess that the occasion of your wanting to publish something has now gone. Anyway, I enclose some rough ideas on two topics. I present them only as history. “Parish Worship” I began when you asked me to do something for “Altar”. Last April I used the matter for an “ex tempore” lecture to the University’s Medieval Church History Post-Graduate Seminar. About that time, Robert asked me for matter which he could publish in booklet form. I think he had in mind a “St Alban’s Press” or some such. But that, he did not pursue.

Journals, movements, even churches, come and go at breakneck speed. (Remember B.O.C. [British Orthodox Church] formed at this Council of lewis in ’91? B.O.C. lasted only for a few weeks – and it had the advantage of: (i) the support of most of the “non-ethnic Orthodox” notables and (ii) “probably Rome acceptable valid Episcopal orders”. B.O.C. was a most extraordinary episode.)

In September I spent six days in Manchester. I obtained lodgings in a men’s hall of residence suggested by the Univ. of Manchester. As there were several undergraduates in residence, there was a pleasant sociable atmosphere. On the second day I discovered that I was in a Catholic institution. On the morning of my departure, I accidentally opened a wrong door. It revealed a well appointed traditional style chapel. As I was about to leave a young man said “I’m about to drive into the centre. Would you like a lift?” “Thank you. Yes”. Then, struck by a sudden thought, ‘Is this a house of Opus Dei?” R. “Yes, it is. I’m late. Please wait a moment while I get my car”.

Have they been told that the Penal Laws no longer apply? Do I really look like a pursuivant? I wonder. Each day I was away from the house between breakfast and dinner.

Why so furtive? I continue to wonder. The general good humour in all else was, I am quite sure, not contrived. It was exactly what I would expect from any similar group of educated young men.

I am physically well. I spend most of the day in libraries or sitting in a chair with a very active speculative mind about its affairs. Robert Stephen Mundi is formally in residence, but usually away in London. I spend far too much time abed – not asleep, but thinking.

Please greet me to Michael Wright and such others who know me as I suppose that you are in contact with them.

All the very best,

Ray

 

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The Blue Flower

Posted on Saturday, 3 February, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

In the light of my postings about Dr Ray Winch and the old Gregorian Club, a correspondent suggested that I might set up some kind of quarterly journal which I would set up and publish in a pdf file. I would invite contributions by PayPal without charging a fixed sum. Any money collected would be used for buying books or other expenses involved in finding information in libraries and websites requiring payment for subscriptions.

What is important is the overriding theme. It has to be wider than promoting the Sarum liturgy or a particular institutional Church. It is like going up in a rocket from a single house and seeing a picture that becomes bigger and bigger. I am increasingly convinced that one influence and one influence alone allowed the revival of Catholic Christianity in blood-drenched Europe in the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth. It was Romanticism, which gives the reason for this title of the journal. We discover that the blue flower (Blaue Blume in German) is a central symbol of the Romantic movement. It represents desire, yearning and love of the eternal and unattainable – not just pretty girls but a spiritual and mystical aspiration! It is also a symbol of hope and beauty. It is central in the famous expression in many of our liturgical prayers: doceas nos terrena despicere et amare caelestia. We are aliens and exiles on this earth, and our longing is for something we will never find here. If that is not Sehnsucht, I don’t know what is!

Not all Romanticism was very pious or even moral, and some of the English poets of this movement died tragically, slept with just about anyone and were close to atheism insofar as they espoused the ideas of the French Revolution. Another movement in the same main themes of Romanticism sought an ideal of Christian living and spirituality that left behind the ashes of the old regime and yet rejected the excesses and barbarity of the Revolution and the Terror. Romanticism began in eighteenth-century Germany and England and formed a basis of a new Christian and Catholic revival.

My own aspiration to revive the medieval uses of England and elsewhere in Europe coincided with my attraction to the ideas expressed by Romanticism and the various artistic and aesthetic movements that arose in reaction to excessive rationalism, industrialisation, the exploitation of poor people, the destruction of the natural environment for greed – and in favour of art, craftsmanship and integral Christian living. How many poor East-End and South Coast parishes had the benefit of holy priests nurtured in this movement when they were at university?

Red Dreher’s ideas have not escaped me with the idea of adapting some mitigated form of monastic observance for lay people, families and secular priests. Perhaps such a movement might be formed with the approval of the present-day Roman Catholic Church bureaucracy, as was Opus Dei in its time. I am certainly not attracted to expressions that can all too easily become regimented cults under the aegis of a powerful and ambitious person. That is the way Roman Catholicism works, and some are happy with such a way of life. Rod Dreher’s writings merit careful study, because many of the themes concur with what I am trying to offer, even if from another cultural standpoint.

Romanticism has become the centre of my aim and meaning of life, because it underlies everything that has been good for Christianity over the past two hundred years. It founded the deepest Sehnsucht of the Oxford Movement, German Idealism, the great Russian philosophers like Khomiakov, Berdyaev, Dostoyevsky and others, the French monastic revival and the noblest elements of Liberalism and Modernism (the terms being understood in their strict historical context). Our own Ritualists, ecclesiologists and slum priests all came under the influence of the most profound longing of Romanticism for a medieval and spiritual world, at least something other than grim factories, grotty houses, long working hours with dangerous machinery and the Protestant Work Ethic.

I don’t know whether any kind of community of people living according to such ideals would ever “work” or get off the ground. Human sin usually gets in the way, and democracy and personal freedom in a community are very difficult things to work out. There have to be some safeguards, as any “intentional” community has experienced, whether its purpose is tree-hugging, veganism or some ideal based on Tolstoy or the Hippies in the 1960’s. If the basic design is right, then perhaps it might work – but it won’t happen overnight.

What can be brought into being right now would be a journal that would be more far-reaching than blog postings that are characterised by spontaneity and laziness from proper academic methodology. Topics could be extremely wide and varied, from classical and romantic (the words being intended in their wider and analogical meanings) philosophy, a more mystical and spiritual meaning of the Church beyond formal membership or this or that institutional Church. I am utterly convinced that we much transcend denominational polemics, otherwise Christianity is over for having lost all meaning and relevance. Newman did become a Roman Catholic in 1845, but he saw the tendencies that would make him increasingly unsettled. He saw the problems in the remnants of Georgian Anglicanism, and the need for something both new and old. Keble, Pusey, Neale and others remained Anglicans, but their real aspiration was elsewhere, far beyond the politics and squabbles of their day.

The conditions of our modern world are quite analogous with the chaos of the period from the 1790’s to the defeat of Napoleon. Industrialisation is replaced by advances in science that seem no better for man’s welfare than the idea of sewing bits of dead bodies together and “galvanising” them with electricity in 1816. The attraction to the “dark side” has its parallels in modern cinema and art. The Romantic movement underlies the aspirations of many of our young people and those tempted by post-modernism and nihilism. These instincts and yearnings could be channelled if someone knew how to understand what is going on in their minds at a philosophical level.

Perhaps under the symbol of the Blue Flower, we could unpack and understand what this vast movement tried to give humanity and the world, partly through Christianity and partly through atheism or neo-paganism. Articles on the liturgy would be welcome as part of this wider vision, as would pieces on history, philosophy, theology, personalities of the period over the past 250 years or so. I invite readers to offer ideas about putting such a project together and keeping it going for years. Perhaps it might be possible to have a conference in a rented part of a convent or something like that, but that would be exceptional for reasons of finance and practicality. The Internet offers us a means of communication we have never had before. This blog has now passed its sixth birthday, and that is pretty good going. Electronic information storage, however, is just as fragile as that library in Oxford where the reader may not kindle flame or fire!

A journal in pdf form will be available for a wide circulation, and people will make their own hard copies of complete issues or the articles that interest them. I would like the articles to be properly researched and worked on with proper academic methodology citing references and authorities. That will be as much a challenge for me as for anyone else who had been to a university. My correspondent suggests a book review, a substantial article and perhaps a blog-like reflection from different authors. I invite anyone interested in helping with such a project to contact me (write a comment on this blog and I’ll have your e-mail address) and contribute to the “design” and planning of this project.

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Wisdom for the coming Lent

Posted on Friday, 2 February, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

Our Archdeacon, Fr Ray Thompson, has just sent out a circular message

February 2018

My dear friends and colleagues,

Do you ever wonder why Jesus went into the desert to be tempted by the devil for forty days? There is no doubt that temptation exposes us to the danger of sin, and temptation is always serious business for the Christian. At the same time, paradoxically, temptation does have a positive value in the Christian life. Temptation tests us and strengthens us in the struggle against evil. Jesus went into the desert to be tested by the devil. His human nature grew in strength and his human mind and will grew in firm purpose and dedication as he struggled with Satan. Those who have met evil face to face and have struggled with it have a spiritual toughness and resolve that endless hours of quiet prayer alone cannot give. Being tested is an important part of growing in faith, strength and conviction. A person who has never encountered the spirit of evil and has never faced opposition from others or the impulses of his or her own desires may well be a person who has not grown spiritually. Lack of exercise of our minds and wills in practicing the virtues that make us strong may leave us weak and spiritually out of shape.

In dealing with temptation we need to be careful to trust in God’s power, not in our own. Yet a life without testing is a life without strength. A prayer life without struggle is a prayer life without power. A Christian that avoids the trials and struggles of the world is a Christian who is unlikely to find Jesus as he or she attempts to walk the way of the Cross. Jesus went into the desert to be tested by Satan. Temptation is serious business. It is always dangerous. That is why Jesus taught us to pray “Lead us not into temptation.” But an over-safe and comfortable life without the struggles that strengthen and deepen the faith, the virtues and the commitments that make us Christian, is also dangerous.

Jesus began his journey to the Cross and Resurrection by meeting the devil face to face. What is the devil that needs to be faced in your life and in my life this Lent? Are there weaknesses, sins and demons in our hearts that we need to face? Jesus went into the desert for forty days to be tested and tempted by the devil. After he had faced evil honestly and squarely he embraced the rest of his life, including the Cross.

May the temptations and trials of life purify and strengthen us as we embrace the way of the Cross during the season of Lent.

With every blessing

Fr. Raymond Thompson, Archdeacon

* * *

He adds a checklist and a poignant reflection:

Fasting and Feasting – a Lent checklist

Fast from worry, and feast on divine order by trusting in God.
Fast from complaining, and feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives, and feast on positives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures, and feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility, and feast on tenderness.
Fast from bitterness, and feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern, and feast on compassion for others.
Fast from the shadows of sorrow, and feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from idle gossip, and feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from judging others, and feast on the Christ within them.
Fast from apparent darkness, and feast on the reality of light.
Fast from thoughts of illness, and feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from words that pollute, and feast on the phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent, and feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger, and feast on optimism.
Fast from personal anxiety, and feast on eternal truth and serenity.
Fast from discouragement, and feast on hope.
Fast from facts that depress, and feast on truths that uplift.
Fast from lethargy, and feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from suspicion, and feast on honesty.
Fast from thoughts that weaken, and feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from problems that overwhelm, and feast on prayer that underpins.

* * *

In times of severe testing one is sometimes faced with a stark reminder of what one takes for granted. I am referring to the fact that when we are healthy and fit and active, we often completely take for granted how precious a thing it is to enjoy good health and how lucky we are to be able to dash about indulging in all kinds of “busyness”. When I went into hospital eight years ago (and again a year later), little did I realise that there lay ahead of me months of enforced inactivity and recuperation. Never before had I appreciated what it means just to be able to speak. The frustration I encountered at not being able to be heard, and not having the strength to perform such small tasks as my four-year-old granddaughter could do with ease, made me realise just how fortunate we are when we are blessed with good health of body, mind and spirit. My sadness at that time at not being able to celebrate the Sacred Mysteries and preach the Word of God made the keeping of Lent, Easter, Pentecost, etc., a very different experience, and led me to have a deeper appreciation of the sufferings and frustrations of those who had much more severe disabilities than mine.

For many months now I have known what it is like to experience the pain of unimaginable grief, and to be completely overwhelmed and exhausted by it. We have also been given cause for much anxiety over the fragility of health of our Father in God and Bishop Ordinary, realising how much he means to all of us and to the Diocese, the wider Church, and the cause of the Gospel. There are times when God turns things upside down, and calls us to re-evaluate our part in His plan and to see the bigger picture – a picture that may not put us at the centre of things quite as much as our egos may have led us to believe. But … there is the undeniable fact that after anguish comes resurrection.

* * *

I find this circular moving. Fr Ray speaks of his grief on losing his beloved wife, and I think many of us share this experience and pain. My own mother left this world five years ago in February 2013. Even when we believe and hope in eternal life given to us by Christ’s Mystery, it is about the hardest experience to go through other than illness and dependence on others to tend our needs. The years take their toll and spare none of us.

The message of Lent in its most profound meaning is to gain self-knowledge and self-acceptance, to fast from sin and those things that can lead to sin. The liturgy of Lent invites us to see the essential things often hidden by the distractions of material wealth, convention, bureaucracy, power over others and rationalism. We are brought to seek the light of the Transfiguration, to be free of the demons and the “Old Black Dog” that haunt us, and finally to contemplate this epic transformation of the incarnate Word passing from life, to death and to new life. Lent is initiation into a Mystery Religion, but not any old one like Mithra or Isis and Osiris, but Christ who was the perfect realisation of the prefigurations and obscure images in ancient Paganism and the Old Testament. The Church made Lent for new converts, but also to renew that catechumenate in ourselves who otherwise take everything for granted.

Each of us has now to get on our marks and run the race. The analogy of competitive sports has a limited amount of meaning, though asceticism is a question of discipline – the means whereby you are trained in orderliness, good conduct and the habit of getting the best out of yourself – as we sometimes had to copy out at school as a punishment for a minor infringement of rules (see excursus below). This is a fact that none of us can escape, the stuff of athletes, soldiers and concert pianists. The work has to be done before we can expect any return from our investment. But, it isn’t only about grittiness and gung-ho, even though we have to be resilient.

My message about Romanticism conveys something else, and not sinful self-indulgence. It is about love of beauty, nature and the channelling of our feelings of alienation and longing for the unknowable. The work Lent imposes upon us can also include writing, works of art and periods of time alone in nature, be it on land or the water (yes, sailing when the weather improves!). It can also mean the themes I have been expanding upon recently about Dr Ray Winch: academic study and education rather than bitter polemics and rudeness to others on account of their stated opinions. We humans will never understand each other – let us not make it any worse!

It is not about making life unpleasant, otherwise we will be confronted by Oscar Wilde’s rebut “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful”. What he means is the pharisaical and conventional understanding of temptation, the sweet chocolates that are naughty but nice – the very selling point of the confectionary retailer! Fr Ray’s checklist speaks of the real temptations and sins which often come from a perverted sense of virtue and self-righteousness. This work of Lent is not something to make us “respectable” and “in” with society, rationalism and status – but transparent to God, ever more conscious and sensitive to the reality beyond our material perception, yearning ever more for our true Blue Flower which is not on this earth but in heaven. If we can keep our minds focused in this way, then we might achieve something by the time we sing the Exultet before the Paschal Candle…

* * *

Excursus: the actual text of my school discipline copy, which I have just obtained from my old alumni association.

It is quite a shock to read this text with an adult understanding and the experience of life we have had. It jars the memory with the familiarity of these sentences and phrases. Does an adolescent really understand these concepts? We would copy it out and even know it by heart, but only now do we understand the establishment mentality behind it, even though much wisdom is contained therein. Young boys have to be kept in order, and it can’t be easy to get the message over whilst refraining from insulting human intelligence!

This punishment was normally administered by house monitors for minor infringements of house and school rules, typically for talking in the dormitory after lights-out or during preparation in the common room (6.30 to 8 pm). Corporal punishment was very rarely used in my day and only for serious offences like bullying and fighting. The grades of severity were as follows:

1) On special pink paper obtained from the housemaster, which involved a comment or telling-off from him concerning the breach of discipline:

  • Double Card, this definition of discipline and a list of nineteenth century history dates on the other side of the card, all copied twice;
  • Single Card, the same but copied once;
  • Double Copy, the definition of discipline only written twice;
  • Copy, the same but copied once.

2) On ordinary white paper, which meant that the matter did not have to be self-reported to the housemaster, but simply settled with the monitor concerned, the White Copy. It was normally a Single Copy without the history dates.

Here is the text of the Copy.

IMPOSITION COPY

(Copy out the passage below in your best handwriting, on paper obtained from your housemaster. Only your best writing will be accepted.)

“DISCIPLINE”

Discipline is the means whereby you are trained in orderliness, good conduct and the habit of getting the best out of yourself, all of which are essential to the well-being of the School.
Discipline may take several forms, but the crucial test of its soundness is whether it represents a real sense, on your part, of the rightness of the behaviour that is expected of you. It cannot be considered good unless it is founded upon worthy ideas of conduct that are becoming, or have become, embedded in your character.

An outward show of order can, of course, be maintained by force or fear, but mere repression is effective only while you are immediately under the authority that exercises it. When you are released from this authority, you tend to revert to other modes of behaviour, and, if discipline has not become self-discipline, you may be left at the mercy of any dominant unruly personality or of the whim of the moment.

Discipline implies the teaching of certain rules of behaviour which experience has shown are necessary for the smooth running of our corporate life, and forms an essential part of the tradition of this School.

The basis of good discipline, then, is the willing acceptance by you of the School’s standards of behaviour.

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Romanticism and Christianity

Posted on Thursday, 1 February, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

At the risk of repeating myself, one is always intrigued by the coincidence between the Oxford Movement and the foundation of Solesmes by Dom Guéranger or the Dominicans in France by Fr Lacordaire. These two extremely significant aspirations were part of a wider movement, not necessarily shared by people who knew each other or were part of the same group. This is the context of Romanticism which spread across Europe, in France as well as England and Germany. The movement’s ideas were shared by the Italian founder of a congregation of priests, Antonio Rosmini.

Romanticism took faith and Sehnsucht out of the limits of Churches and institutional Christianity, spreading far and wide a kind of “leaven”. Expressions were often quite rebellious like early Liberalism and Modernism. It brought Christianity out of its marginalised position back into the salons of society. The Church in France was very badly affected by the Revolution, devastated and left for dead. It was a “second Reformation”, but anti-religious and atheistic.

Only this morning, I was listening to a You Tube video about the clash of the ideologies in America. The Left has found itself too criticised by atheism and “free thought”, and finds its best ally in “liberal” establishment religion. Likewise, in the 1790’s, philosophical rationalism was as much a victim of the Revolution as faith. Romanticism grew against the backdrop of a chaotic world and the downfall of both the institutional Church and the Rationalism that came from a more peaceful era.

Those who lived in that bloody era from the day the French guillotined their King to the defeat of Napoleon had to abandon their illusions, like Wordsworth who returned to England. It was in giving up these illusions, after having had so much hope in the Revolution, that a new worldview was born. It coincided with William Blake’s revolt against the worst of the Industrial Revolution in England and the first aspirations to a German nation.

Newman and Guéranger were Romantics who sought to transcend the limits of consciousness. We do find the grain of the old Gnostic understanding of the spark of divinity in each of us, our longing for the unattainable and our alienation from the sophistries of this world. The Romantic refuses to be a prisoner of materialism. We can penetrate that veil and discover “in a glass darkly” the wonders that lie beyond. There were Romantics and Romantics – the dissolute young English men and women writing horror stories as they overlooked the stygian gloom over Lake Geneva. There were also William Blake and Novalis, the latter of whom has attracted my interest more recently. I am presently reading the novel The Blue Fower by Penelope Fitzgerald which portrays the youth of  Friedrich (Fritz) von Hardenberg in the 1790’s. The style is quite fragmented but the themes come through, notably the blue flower symbolism of the desired, whether it be the beloved other person or something much greater and beyond. Novalis was in his own way a mystic, and in my mind one of those beautiful souls that can be compared with the saints of the Church.

Throughout the Oxford Movement and the generation of priests who founded parishes and introduced a Catholic ethos in devotional life and the liturgy, we find poetry and love of things medieval. This too was a sign of Sehnsucht as has figured in my own life.

It is said that the Gospel has always made itself accepted in various cultures and ways of life. Some of these cultures are conditioned by love, kindness, beauty and many of the qualities that characterise Romanticism. Others are ruthless, competitive, rationalistic to the point of chasing out all traces of humanity – and these cannot accept the Gospel without transforming its meaning.

There are signs of Romanticism in our present-day world, as we are brought to experience upheavals that can compare with the 1790’s. We are the sons and daughters of the European and world wars of the twentieth century. Even if we were not yet born then, the bitterness is felt everywhere to this day. We see ultra-rationalism in politics and science, and the reaction is already there in the form of those who research into quantum physics and the notion of consciousness as being above and beyond the physical organism. Some forms of Romanticism are merely fads of fashion and popular music, the so-called “steam punk”, but there are also aspirations to alternative societies including the so-called Benedict Option.

I would like to keep putting ideas out there to encourage such a movement or plurality of movements and individual persons. If this becomes a fashion or a trend, it will of that fact be destroyed, perverted and waylaid. I think of that little Gregorian Club of Ray Winch that held a few talks in Oxford and published a few pamphlets. It crossed denominational barriers with a vision of a mystical Church, a greater Blue Flower than any of us could imagine. I have tried to do this in my blog, since I am not in a community and my lifestyle is far from ideal – as many people’s are. It won’t be in a single and coherent group, but as nebulous as the first Romantic movement was. That is the nature of it. Its unity is transcendent.

Perhaps this will bring a new understanding of the Church in our time when the mainstream institutional Churches are dying. England has once again fallen into crass materialism, just like France and everywhere else. We need to detach ourselves from the nostalgia we feel for times and places, because the Desired is within ourselves as well as transcendent and beyond. You don’t go and live in Germany because you like Bach or Schumann – because you will be disappointed. Those two composers were persons with their unique link with the divine, and they just happened to be Germans. I was born and brought up in England. The fortunes of my country have not left me indifferent, nor do I falter in my love of my origins and what our English values mean (or used to mean) – but my patriotism extends elsewhere. It isn’t France! I feel quite alienated and foreign here, even with the good things of this country. No, it isn’t a place or a time, whether it be the 1950’s, the early nineteenth century, or any-when else.

I have made serious errors in my life through the pain of nostalgia. I read an article about a working man of 52 who left his wife and children to live as a “girl” of 6 years with a couple of friends willing to assume the role of “Mummy” and “Daddy”. It wasn’t a joke! Childhood can be an emotion of nostalgia that brings people to very serious mistakes and perversions like pedophilia. Nostalgia for childhood is very powerful, and it isn’t without accident that Jesus exhorted us to “suffer the little children to come to him, for such is the kingdom of heaven”. Again, we are told that being like a child will bring us to God’s kingdom – not through the face of the above-mentioned man – but through imagination, spontaneity and fervent desire. Our inconsolable longing for what we have is nostalgia, but there is a higher desire, for God, for the Universal, for that which lies beyond the Veil.

I do believe that this yearning is one of the most important aspects of Romanticism (whether or not we use the word, because labels are only of relative value). It is not something that will regenerate the dead parish churches and cathedrals of institutional Churches but may found a new Christian movement. There is no use speculating.

Just sow the seeds. That’s all we can do.

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King Charles the Martyr

Posted on Monday, 29 January, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I celebrate this feast as per the following proper, which some might find useful. I found it in an early version of the Anglican Missal.

January 30th.
CHARLES I OF ENGLAND, K. & M.

Introit. Domine in virtute tua. Ps. 21.
The King shall rejoice in thy strength, Lord, exceeding glad shall he be of thy salvation : thou hast given him his heart’s desire. Ps. ibid. For thou shalt prevent him with the blessings of goodness, and shalt set a crown of pure gold upon his head. V. Glory be.

Collect.
Blessed Lord, in whose sight the death of thy saints is precious : we magnify thy Name for thine abundant grace bestowed upon our martyred Sovereign ; by which he was enabled so cheerfully to follow the steps of his blessed Master and Saviour, in a constant meek suffering of all barbarous indignities, and at last resisting unto blood ; and even then, according to the same pattern, praying for his murderers. Let his memory, O Lord, be ever blessed among us ; that we may follow the example of his courage and constancy, his meekness and patience, and great charity. And grant, that this our land may be freed from the vengeance of his righteous blood, and thy mercy glorified in the forgiveness of our sins : and all for Jesus Christ his sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Who liveth.

The Lesson from the former Epistle of blessed Peter the Apostle. 1 St. Peter 2. 13.
Dearly beloved : Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake : whether it be to the king, as supreme ; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men : as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men : Love the brotherhood : Fear God : Honour the king. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye shall take it patiently ? but if when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently ; this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called : because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps ; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.

Gradual. Ps. 112. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord : he hath great delight in his commandments, V. His seed shall be mighty upon earth : the generation of the faithful shall be blessed.

Alleluia, alleluia. V. Ps. 21. Thou shalt set, O Lord, a crown of pure gold upon his head. Alleluia.

After Septuagesima (omitting Alleluia, and the verse following) is said :

Tract. Ibid. Thou hast given him his heart’s desire : and hast not denied him the request of his lips. V. For thou shalt prevent him with the blessings of goodness, V. Thou shalt set a crown of pure gold upon his head.

+ The Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. St. Matt. 21. 33.
At that time : Jesus spake this parable unto the multitude of the Jews, and the chief priests : There was a certain householder which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first : and they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying : They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves : This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the Lord therefore of the vine yard cometh, what will he do unto those husband men ? They say unto him : He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. Creed.

Offertory. St. Matt. 7. 12. Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them : for this is the law and the prophets.

Secret.
O Lord, our heavenly Father, who didst not punish us as our sins have deserved, but hast in the midst of judgment remembered mercy : we acknowledge it thine especial favour, that, though for our many and great provocations thou didst suffer thine Anointed blessed King Charles the First [as on this day] to fall into the hands of violent and blood-thirsty men, and barbarously to be murdered by them : yet thou didst not leave us for ever, as sheep without a shepherd, but by thy gracious providence didst miraculously preserve the undoubted heir of his crowns, our then gracious Sovereign King Charles the Second, from his bloody enemies, hiding him under the shadow of thy wings, until their tyranny was overpast ; and didst bring him back in thy good appointed time to sit upon the throne of his father, and together with the Royal Family didst restore to us our ancient Government in Church and State. For these thy great and unspeakable mercies we render to thee our most humble and unfeigned thanks ; beseeching thee, still to continue thy gracious protection over the whole Royal Family, and to grant to our gracious Sovereign King N. a long and a happy reign over us : so that we that are thy people will give thee thanks for ever, and will alway be shewing forth thy praise from generation to generation. Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour ; our only Mediator and Advocate.

Communion. St. Matt. 16. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Post-communion.
O Lord, we offer unto thee all praise and thanks for the glory of thy grace that shined forth in thine Anointed, our Sovereign King Charles: and we beseech thee to give us all grace by a careful studious imitation of this thy blessed Saint and Martyr, and all other thy Saints and Martyrs that have gone before us ; that we may be made worthy to receive benefit by their prayers, which they, in communion with the Church Catholic, offer up unto thee for that part of it here militant. Through.

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Darkest Hour

Posted on Saturday, 27 January, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

Sophie and I went to the cinema today to watch Darkest Hour, the film made last year about Winston Churchill in the spring of 1940 when all the odds were against England. Here is a trailer from YouTube:

What this film has done for me is to restore my devotion to and veneration for the greatest Briton of modern history. Early in the film, Churchill was portrayed as cantankerous, rude and unfeeling, perhaps as vulgar and mad as old King George III back in the eighteenth century. He drank whisky with his full English breakfast! He has been denigrated quite a lot over the last few years in the name of historical realism. I thought the film would follow the trend.

However, there are several things I noticed in this film, his deep humanity and emotional suffering under the weight of the decision of whether to try to negotiate with Hitler or defend the honour and freedom of his country. King George VI also comes through as a man of humility and a profound sense of duty to his people. Mrs Churchill is the women with an uncompromising character but yet the ability to support and strengthen her husband in these terrible times – true feminism in my reckoning. Following the King’s advice, Churchill takes the London Underground to Westminster, and asks ordinary people to advise him. Never would England surrender, and every man, woman and child was for fighting for our freedom. On the basis of Vox populi vox Dei, the principle of the Jury of a Crown Court trial, Churchill won the support of England’s entire political establishment and the people. Here is his famous speech which brings tears to my eyes:

That is the stuff of which my grandfather was made. He was taken prisoner in Dunkerque as he (Captain in the Green Howards Regiment) and his men fought to the last. Those men made the true nobility of my country. We can look back at World War II and take our victory and Hitler’s defeat for granted. Would we have liked to have lived in May 1940 when all seemed to be lost, darkness would conquer the earth with all its bestiality and love of death?

I have expressed opinions on the question of the just war. I tend towards pacifism, but if there was ever a just war, it was against Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. There is no compromise against evil, only the bitterness and determination to win the victory like the Knights of old.

Those days were not mine, but I might live long enough to see worse. Propaganda and fake news make the world that much more difficult to understand, knowing who are the “goodies” and who are the “baddies”. Some try to get us to believe that we would end up at war with Russia. Others try to pass off Donald Trump as a “new Hitler”. I don’t buy any of it. There would be no just war against either. I read alternative news as well as mainstream sources, and try to form a balanced judgement – and it isn’t easy. I see more evil in our own midst, in globalism, in our corrupt western political establishments. I would not like to live in Putin’s Russia, but I believe he is more a force for good than for evil. The Muslim Caliphate is an evil enemy, and I hope and pray our rulers and leaders will take decisive action to make sure they do not end up dominating us and imposing their ideology of death in the name of their totalitarian god.

If it is of any consolation, May 1940 was just as confusing then as many current events of our own time. History could have turned out so differently, and the idea is horrifying. The film Fatherland is much more tame than what might have happened. We have seventy-eight years hindsight. The men who fought and died then were not supermen, but ordinary people like you and I.

War is that one terrifying mystery of sinful humanity that deeply depresses me, but even more so the possibility of totalitarianism, evil ideology and the darkness of madness.

Κύριε, ἐλέησον…

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Playing Classical Music on your PC or Smartphone

Posted on Friday, 26 January, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I have been through the wars trying to find the best way to play my favourite music on my computer (with an output to my stereo amplifier and speakers) – or on my smartphone through a portable speaker or earphones. The problem is that most music (mp3) applications assume that everyone listens to pop music – therefore everything is organised into albums, artists and songs. The application does this through data contained in the mp3 files, whether you copied them from your CD collection or downloaded them from YouTube or similar sources. In extreme cases, the application will delete files from your computer and decide what you should be listening to from streaming sites.

Windows Media Player used to leave files in the folders you put them in, and simply followed that system. Now, you are likely to find everything under “Unknown Artist”, Unknown Album” and “Unknown Songs”. Now, that’s really practical <sarcasm>, and in the best cases I find that half my Elgar or Mozart collections have disappeared under the names of the orchestra conductors or something even more esoteric. One solution is to edit the “metadata” in the files – which is really tiresome – which in any case will still be assumed to be the latest hits from Heavy Metal Shithead or whatever.

How do we escape the tyranny of the artists, albums and songs? I found some of the very rare applications for smartphones and computers that simply play your files from the folders where you put them on your hard disk.

For the smartphone (Android) – Folder Player which costs almost nothing for the full version. Music Folder Player was made for people who don’t like to see music displayed based on artist, album, track or playlists. If you prefer organizing your audio tracks in folder this may be the right player for you. There is a free version that you can try on your phone before buying the full version. It works fine for me.

Finding something for a computer is not easy. Google searches will point you to the applications designed for pop music. I came up lucky by finding Micro Music Player. Read through everything carefully to make sure it is compatible with your computer and operating system. There are versions for Windows and Linux. I don’t know about Apple-Macintosh. You organise your files yourself in folders under names of composers or whatever you want, and you select those folders manually, and the application will play everything in that folder – no frills and no “unknown …”. It isn’t perfect for everything, but I haven’t found anything better.

Of course, you can go on playing CD’s as in times past, or even tapes and vinyl records. The nice thing about having music on a computer is not having to look through rows of disks to find what you want. The point of any of these applications is organising things so that you can find things easily. That’s what computers do!

Please note that I’m not advocating illegal copyright violations, and that I assume you have paid for and bought the CD’s or downloads from the Internet that can then be copied for your own private use in this way.

Happy listening.

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Dr Winch’s Gregorian Club

Posted on Thursday, 25 January, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I am dwelling somewhat on Dr Raymond Winch (1921-2000), because I think I have some understanding of his thought underneath the enthusiastic rhetoric of his desire to get western rites accepted by existing Eastern Orthodox Churches. This understanding was brought home to me by several nights of discussion with him, until I was so exhausted I had to repair to some grubby bed in a spare room. My need for sleep was one of my great regrets as the daylight began to appear through the windows. I remember the shelves of books and the lectern from which he said daily Office from the Monastic Breviary. He was truly a hermit, a medievalist Romantic, and almost a Starets in his own way.

From the first time I met him during Holy Week (western) 1988 until his death in 2000, I counted him among my personal friends. I usually dropped in to see him when I was travelling between the south of England and my parents’ home up north. I also enjoyed days in Oxford and especially in the churches, college chapels and the bookshops. Ray’s conviction in Orthodoxy was already fading in the 1990’s, and he did not encourage me to seek out any “solution” with Orthodoxy. It was frustrating to me that the idea would remain academic. Since then, there have been successful initiatives in the Antiochian Church in the USA, and the Russian Church outside Russia has something, of which there are some small congregations in England – quite comparable to ours in the Anglican Catholic Church. I abandoned any serious idea about Western Orthodoxy from about 1999. I try to be courteous with those who believe they have found the “true church”, but to me it is little more than hyperbole and ideology. I was sad for Ray towards the end of his life when he was attending Roman Catholic masses, but the “punch” had gone from him. He requested a secular funeral, at which I was not present, living as I was at the time in western France.

What seems most salient in his approach was that he was an academic and believed that learning as well as piety was an essential part of Christian culture. He was not interested in “evangelising”, founding a parish, getting ordained in this or that Church. He prayed, read and passed on his wisdom through discussion and dialogue, through friendship and concern for men younger than himself. There was never anything improper or lewd about Ray, at least in my experience.

He often referred to the work and experience of Joseph Overbeck in the late nineteenth century and, in the twentieth, by Alexis van Mendesbrugghe and Eugraphe Kovalevsky. He contended that the Roman Canon had no need of a descending Epiclesis, and that the Supplices te rogamus was perfectly sufficient for this purpose and theological meaning. The Roman Canon had no need of any reordering and that it was perfectly acceptable to Orthodox liturgical and sacramental theology.

He became Orthodox long before women’s ordinations in the Church of England, but in any case, he had been a Roman Catholic like Overbeck. The prospect of Anglicans wanting to become Orthodox was passed up as an opportunity. Ray attended the Byzantine Liturgy for many years, but with an increasing awareness that he was not in his own liturgical culture. He knew that post-Tridentine Roman Catholicism had little to do with the medieval Church even though the 1570 Pian missal was almost identical to the old use of the Roman Curia. He was often seen in the Oxford Union and Bodleian libraries until his death, researching mainly English church antiquities and ordinary parish life in the 14th and 15th centuries. He was no longer quickened by what he had found in Orthodoxy.

I have cheekily suggested that he was one of the last of the Oxford Movement, like Pusey and Keble, but the latter two were clerks in holy orders of the Church of England. In itself, it is a serious anachronism, but might be considered by analogy. It has confirmed me in my own educational approach, not having a regular pastoral ministry here in France as a priest. Far away from those wonderful libraries, where a new member swears an oath never to kindle therein any fire or flame, I have the advantage of the Internet and have access to an immense quantity of published texts and websites. My work as a translator leaves me with leisure time to read and study, and I believe my life is finding a certain regularity and order so that I can begin again to work as I did at University. This is a true ministry, and I largely owe it to Ray Winch.

There is little about Ray or the erstwhile Gregorian Club on the Internet other than what I have put up myself. However, we read in a recently published book, Orthodox Identities in Western Europe: Migration, Settlement and Innovation, edited by Ms Maria Hämmerli, Dr Jean-François Mayer, Farnham 2014, pp 281-282.

While this overview covers most of the developments pertaining to the Western rite in (canonical) Orthodox Churches in Western Europe, it should also take into account efforts by various individual Orthodox faithful, although they have not resulted in the creation of parishes. One example was Raymond Winch (1921-2000), who converted to the Orthodox Church from Roman Catholicism, but kept a strong interest for the Western liturgical heritage. ‘His interest in the idea of a Western Orthodox rite originated in his previous dissatisfaction with the reform of the Roman Catholic liturgy following the Second Vatican Council. He founded in Oxford a Gregorian Club ‘for the restoration of Orthodoxy’s Western heritage’, for missionary reasons, but not only, according to the Statement of Principles: ‘Hitherto the great heritage of Latin Christendom has in some measure been preserved by those who are not Orthodox. Now it is being rapidly abandoned. We believe our heritage to be of great intrinsic worth. If it is not to be lost altogether, we Western Orthodox must make it our own once again. We wish to worship and live according to our own traditions – those of our saints’. The Gregorian Club did not envision separate Western Orthodox dioceses, but hoped for the unity of the Church, with one bishop in each place, over communities of different rites. The Gregorian Club did not last, but it had a few issues of a bulletin as well as some booklets printed, including what its founder envisioned as the ‘Canonical Mass of the English Orthodox’. [Footnote: ‘Rev. Anthony Chadwick, a priest of the Anglican Catholic church, has made this out-of-print text available online (Winch 2007).] A supporter of the Club published a study suggesting that the ‘historical point of departure [for a restoration of a Western Orthodox rite] must be the period before the schism, about 800-1000 – obvious, one would have said, yet none of the previous Western Orthodox restorers has taken this line’ (Coombs 1987: 60).

Ray, in 1989, organised some talks in Pusey House, and this leaflet found itself taped to windows of bookshops and libraries. Fr Martin Reinecke, a German priest, was at Fribourg at the same time as I was, also studying with Dr Jakob Baumgartner. I introduced him to Ray, and the idea came up about these talks. I prepared mine from my licentiate mémoire, which in abridged and revised form found its way into The Clark Companion to Liturgy edited by Dom Alcuin Reid (London 2016), pp 107-131. I was intrigued to be called Dom, but I was already a cleric in minor orders.

It was all a long time ago, but there were about 20-30 present at each talk, mostly people from the University, but a few friends from London too. The emphasis on Western Orthodoxy was practically gone, and it was now a question of working on our liturgical heritage regardless of which institutional Church we belonged to. This became a lasting principle for me, which formed the basis of this blog and my Sarum group on Facebook. Courtesy, absence of polemics, serenity for study and the use of our rational faculties. Briefly, it is the spirit of the university, of that fanciful community of canons that survived the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation and Vatican II!

His musings about this community were sometimes not very clear. I remember little about it, but he did imagine a college of canons as something like the Counter-Reformation Oratory and the university college – but for clerics. The foundational charter was so strong that it stood amidst the vicissitudes of the centuries. It rang close to a dream I had of finding a European diocese that hadn’t changed, perhaps in the French Massif Central or southern Italy. I found parishes like Le Chamblac (Fr Montgomery-Wright) and Bouloire, priests in Opus Sacerdotale, but nothing I could join in view to ordination and ministry. Anything that was “traditionalist” was reconstructed in the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre or a few conservative diocesan ordinaries like Cardinal Siri in Genoa. Msgr Wach’s Institute of Christ the King, with some Oratorian aspects but heavily baroque trappings came close, as did the Canons Regular of the Mother of God who have a magnificent monastery in Lagrasse, southern France. They too are reconstructions, though much less “military” than the SSPX.

I explored Western Orthodoxy from about 1988 until the following year. There were lovely ideas, but nothing accessible to me. To join a Church in the USA, I would have had to go to one of their parishes. Self-financing and with no guarantee, and with no basis for getting a Green Card. Yeah, I have heard that one before. It’s better to eat cake here in Europe, but I can’t blame a priest for imposing conditions. We do in the ACC.

I certainly wouldn’t attempt to run a club. I don’t have the “people skills”, any more than Ray did. A great idea fizzled out, because he wasn’t the right man for it. Someone else would have had other ideas… At the basis of all this is the reality of academic study and education as a form of Christian ministry, promoting our culture and basis of spiritual life and stability. The Gregorian Club was a pre-internet forum, and its purpose can be amply served by blogs and discussion groups. There is no need for anyone to be a member of anything – simply to learn, study and discuss.

There is something of Ray’s legacy in my work, and I’m proud of it. May he rest in peace and attend that Liturgy of which our own is but a dim shadow!

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