3 June: Our devout, noble undertaking.

Procession with Music and dancing, St Maurice, Switzerland, Uganda Martyrs pilgrimage. Today is their feast.

from a homily of Bishop Erik Vardy for Pentecost 2023.

…

The Church is a mixed-voice choir. What shows Christ present in her is the miracle that all these voices are tuned to symphony.

There is a variety of gifts, but one Spirit; all sorts of service, but one Lord; different manifestations of power, but one good purpose. Unity is, in the Church, a criterion of authenticity. When the Church is truly herself, a single sublime Keynote resounds through all her different voices. Jan van Ruusbroec liked to speak of Christ as the Church’s Cantor. We can, I think, go further and say that he is the Keynote. He, the Word by whom all things were made, is the unifying principle of the universe. Likewise he is, at the level of the Church, the foundion of all harmony. To be a Christian is to grow towards perfect pitch …

To speak about communion is easy and pleasant. To live out communion, to deliver oneself to it, is very demanding. To live as a member of Christ’s Body is to breathe the Spirit of Jesus, who emptied himself unto death, giving his life for his friends. We talk a lot about synodality these days. It is an excellent term, but we need to understand it correctly. The Tower of Babel was preeminently a synodal undertaking, though self-destructive, which is why the Lord undermined it. To be on the road together is a fine thing, but what really matters is where one is bound and whose lead one follows. Anyone who claims to be a bearer of the Spirit, and thus to abide in Christ, ‘must walk just as he walked’ (1 John 2.6). Else he or she is a fraud.

Any new melody must harmonise with the Keynote that is from everlasting, otherwise it is but a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal  (1 Corinthians 13.1). Today the Lord gives us his Spirit by which he would renew the face of the earth.

May we, then, be renewed as human beings and become true Christians, messengers of Christ’s hope to the world. And may our devout, noble undertaking find credible expression in our lives. Amen.

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12 May: The Universe Provides, A Review.

Finding miracles and inspiration in unexpected places

The new book from our friend and contributor, Eddie Gilmore,

Darton, Longman and Todd, ISBN 978 1 915412 48 5
Paperback 192 pp

Price: £9.99

Cardinal Vincent Nichols got to see this book before we did! He writes:

‘From a faith-filled perspective, and drawing on his own personal, musical and professional experience, Eddie shows us how important it is to have hope in our lives and to be connected with each other and the world in which we live. In this way, we can glimpse the miracles and opportunities that are in our midst and use them for the benefit of all – the universe does indeed provide!’

Eddie’s first book was titled ‘Looking Ahead with Hope’, so there is a theme evident here. Hope is tougher than optimism, it means being with someone when the optimism has run into the sand, when income has gone, the home is in jeopardy, the prison sentence never seems to get any shorter, loneliness is a daily companion, health and vigour are ebbing away. Through his upbringing in an Irish family in Coventry, his education, his work with L’Arche and the Irish Chaplaincy, Eddie knows these realities, made worse by the pandemic.

Now he feels it’s time to encourage us all to recognise the daily miracles of hope and healing that pass before our eyes, the people whose lived hope is rebuilding communities across the world. Eddie takes us through some events of his post-covid year, introducing some of the characters he meets in that time. He reminds us that the Irish are a nation of singers, a gift that holds people together at home or in exile, a Gift from the Universe that he himself exercises for friends, prisoners, elderly people — and delegates to meetings!

It is important for each one of us to recognise the signs of these post-pandemic times and to bring hope to those we meet day by day or just the once, in passing.

Eddie Gilmore may not be your typical Chief Executive Officer, but he has been CEO of the Irish Chaplaincy since 2017, after belonging to L’Arche for 28 years. He writes regularly for a number of publications including Catholic Times, Intercom (the journal of the Irish Catholic Bishops), and Independent Catholic News. Eddie also contributes to BBC Radio’s ‘Pause For Thought’.

6 May: the Coronation of King Charles III

All manner of trivial stories have been aired regarding today’s Coronation of King Charles III. Who has not been invited, who has declined their invitation? How were the representatives of the British public in the Abbey chosen? Why is the procession route shorter than last time? (It poured with rain and the Queen of Tonga was not the only one who got drenched.) Do duchesses have to wear tiaras? How much will that souvenir be worth at King Charles’s Silver Jubilee? (Not a lot.) 

This Coronation will be watched live by untold millions of people; in 1953 it was recorded on film and flown to the Dominions with all possible speed. Few people in Britain had television but we watched on a big screen in the Co-op hall, the first TV programme I remember. It was an event that brought people together across the world but laboriously compared to today’s instant global transmission. 

What is this event all about? We had Queen Elizabeth’s funeral last year, with the funeral march from Beethoven’s 3rd symphony still earworming in my head. Not everything can be expressed in words. The music for the coronation will be different; King Charles has commissioned 12 works from British and Commonwealth composers to go with Handel who gave us, ‘Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king: and all the people rejoiced.’ With such music we are invited, almost compelled to rejoice, 3,000 years after Solomon, when Charles is anointed king.

We rejoice because, by the crazy workings of the hereditary system, we have a king who is one like us, imperfect, a sinner, but – by the grace of God – leader, representative, voice of the people. 

When he visits a school, factory, ship, railway or bus station, theatre, clinic, hospital, theatre or bridge, he is in loco populi, standing in for the people. A friend who accompanied a spouse to an investiture at Buckingham Palace remembers the event as ‘a moment of national affirmation’. The King represents the best of us, that in us that rejoices to see human flourishing. He also represents God’s goodness, blessing the work he is visiting, blessing the teams doing the work, those who benefit from the work.

The people of Israel wanted a king, to be like other nations. Now we have one because a written part of our unwritten Constitution says so. We can wish him well and pray: 

Almighty God, our heavenly Father,

bless Charles our King,

whose Coronation we now celebrate.

Help him to fulfil his responsibilities,

that by his influence

he may maintain unity, goodwill and peace

among his peoples

and that persevering in good works to the end,

he may, by your mercy, come to your everlasting kingdom;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

A Prayer for Coronation Day

Eternal God, 

You order and govern our world and all that is therein, 

bless, we pray, Charles and Camilla today 

as they are crowned and anointed, 

that amid the pomp and ritual, 

they may feel your loving presence, 

that they may fulfil the roles prescribed for them, 

and that we may, in this kingdom, be better governed, 

and always reminded of your eternal Kingdom which is to come.  Amen. 

Prayers from the Church in Wales and United Reformed Church.

7 March, Lenten Pilgrimage IV: Are you ready?

A few years ago L’Arche celebrated fifty years of life on this earth and forty years in the UK. The big celebration in Britain was a pilgrimage to Canterbury, home to the first British community, L’Arche Kent. Hundreds of people gathered at the University of Kent, before an invigorating walk down to the Cathedral for refreshment as well as prayer. Transporting hundreds of people to this corner of Britain, finding accommodation to suit everyone’s needs – we had a few wheelchair users – and learning prayers and songs, all required tight organisation.

Even so, I managed to raise an eyebrow when I led my small group off piste. I was spotted by the chief organiser who wondered what I was up to. He was relieved when we showed up in good time. Quite simply, one of us was a wheelchair user who needed the bathroom, and my family had a new wet room which suited her fine; it was pronounced ‘an excellent bathroom’ and was right beside the back door.

There will always be the unexpected, and often enough the solution to the problem will be at hand:

Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece. (Luke 9:3)

We could not get away with that in XXI Century Kent, and with so many people with so many special needs, we had to plan and the plan did its job. And the staves came in useful when we reached the Cathedral, for banging on the floor and raising the roof with their percussion! This part of the percussion procession had hand drums and tambourines.

We wish you a joyful and companionable Lenten Pilgrimage!

3 January: An old Scot remembers.

Weeping Willow, Westgate Gardens, Canterbury.

At New Year 1873, William Allingham, the Irish Poet, was in London and called on his Scottish friend Thomas Carlyle, as he told his diary.

London, January 1, 1873. — Carlyle’s at 3. He gives me a book. We walk out.

This morning he said, ‘ after midnight, as Mary and I were sitting together, we heard a chorus of male voices outside the window singing Auld Lang Syne. We peeped out, and saw five or six figures on the other side of the street. I was really touched. I put up the window and said ” Good-night ! ” one of them eagerly replied ” Good-night ! ” and then they all vanished silently away.’

Then with a laugh he added, ‘ Truly the songs of Judah in a Babylonish land ‘ ! and afterwards quoted Burns’s burlesque lines : — We hung our fiddles up to dreep*. He spoke of ‘Hogmanay ‘ in the streets of Edinburgh, hot punch and kissing.

*Nae mair by Babel's streams we'll weep,
To think upon our Zion;
And hang our fiddles up to dreep,
Like baby-clouts a-drying:
Come, screw the pegs wi' tuneful cheep,
And o'er the thairms by trying;
Oh rare! To see our elbucks wheep,
And a' like lambs' tails flyin'
                                        Fu' fast this day!

In Psalm 137 the poet sings of the people of Israel refusing to sing in exile, instead hanging their musical instruments on the willows beside the rivers of Babylon. This willow was just coming into leaf in Spring. Carlyle was not a conventional Christian believer, more of a life-long enquirer, but he enjoyed the tribute of being serenaded with song from the first-footers – who vanished silently away rather than expect their dram of whisky. Hogmanay seems to have been carnival time in Edinburgh 200 years ago, when Carlyle was a young man there.

Burns was not the man to indulge for long in melancholic reflection; rather he looked forward to the fiddlers’ elbows whipping the strings and getting people to dance. Perhaps the exiles’ songs of Judah contributed greatly to the fellowship, friendship and community of the Chosen People.

28 December: Wide awake with a broad smile and with her face shining.

It’s the feast of the Holy Innocents, when we recall King Herod slaughtering the infants of Bethlehem in case they were a threat to him. I hope readers do not see any disrespect in our sharing Eddie Gilmore’s post about the power of music to stimulate people with dementia, but many of them are as dependent on others’ care as a new born baby is. One friend forgets she has had breakfast soon after the meal; she needs someone to make sure she gets enough to eat.

All manner of capacities can be diminished in dementia. Unavoidably at times, people switch off from their surroundings. Due to covid, stimulation from outside had diminished and Eddie found it hard graft to win over his captive audience. But he persevered.

Eddie does not draw a moral from the tale but you may find one yourself. Here follows a short passage, and here’s the link for the full article.

I tried a couple of livelier numbers and slowly but surely I started to get a reaction from the audience and some of the staff were also getting animated. Several people sang along to the chorus of Molly Malone, and when I launched into It’s a Long Way to Tipperary in honour of Delores it didn’t exactly bring the house down but it wasn’t too far off. At one point a young doctor apologised to me that she would have to be taking some people out one by one to take their blood! ‘Don’t worry, I’ve had far worse distractions when I’ve been playing,’ I assured her. You just have to keep going!

Keep going I did, and I noticed that one or two other staff members had crept into the room and were clearly enjoying what was happening. And I noticed that some of the residents, who had appeared almost lifeless at the start, were now moving their bodies in time to the music. I did a couple of ‘favourites’. For Ann, the Irish member of staff who organises the session, I sang The Fields of Athenry. And I did When you were sweet sixteen which is the favourite song of my wife, Yim Soon and also much-loved by my mum. And in honour of my mum, a Newry girl, I did ‘The Star of the County Down’.

I invited requests from the floor and there was one for The Belle of Belfast City which I happily launched into. Then a carer from Greece asked if I knew any songs from Mayo! Luckily I did, although I needed her to bring up on her phone the lyrics to Take me back to Castlebar. After that, someone reminded me that the favourite of Martin, a Cork man sadly no longer there, was Wild Rover. I finished with that, and that one really did bring the house down! By that time, even the Dublin lady was wide awake with a broad smile and with her face shining.

Book Review: Hopeful Eddie is looking ahead

Many readers of this blog will recognise the name Eddie Gilmore. We’ve shared a number of his blog posts for the London Irish chaplaincy and it’s good to have a selection of them gathered together in this book, Looking Ahead with Hope.

It’s a teasing title. No human can look ahead without looking back; try it sometime. The important thing is to believe that we – and more to the point, God – can build on the past. If that’s going to happen we need to get down to the bedrock of grace at work in our lives.

That grace often manifests itself in Eddie’s life in the form of music: singing at his mother’s 90th birthday party or a L’Arche retreat in the French Alps – Eddie was with L’Arche before joining the chaplaincy, the lack of singing as church congregations returned as covid retreated.

Eddie revisits those lock-down days, learning to live with people for 24 hours a day, long walks with family members, open-air conversations with passing acquaintances, the pluses and minuses of communicating by Zoom. We got through, but looking ahead, what have we learnt?

There could have been no singing and no party for his mum’s birthday in lockdown time, which put a stop to many of the chaplaincy’s ministries. Music was important in prison ministries too. The old, well-known songs awoke something in the hearts of the captive audience members, giving hope of another life outside prison. Special food on days the chaplaincy team were able to gather people together: it was in HMP Chelmsford that Eddie learnt to enjoy bacon cabbage and potatoes! There, too, Eddie reflected, that ‘for a couple of hours we’d been fellow human beings, enjoying good food and music, and one another’s company.’ And the musicians were changed by the experience (p73).

This book will inspire you to look ahead with hope, because Eddie Gilmore knows how to look back in gratitude. A Christmas present that somebody you know will be grateful for.

Will Turnstone.

Looking Ahead with Hope, Eddie Gilmore, DLT, £9.99. See the DLT site, where there was a good discount offer as we went to press.

Concert of Hope -27 November.

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The Sisters of Minster Abbey are holding a Concert of Hope, an evening of celebration with local choirs and musicians.  You are very warmly welcome to join us at St Mary the Virgin Church, Minster on 27th November at 7pm. Entrance is free and there will be a retiring collection for the work of “Canterbury for Ukraine”, an Incorporated Association of volunteers helping Ukrainian refugees to settle in Canterbury and East Kent. Canterbury for Ukraine have been vital in providing support to enable the Sisters to welcome a Ukrainian family to Minster. We now want to support them so that they can continue to offer assistance to those welcoming our brothers and sisters from Ukraine. We realise that not all of our friends are local enough to attend the concert on the night but some would like to make a donation. We have set up a Go Fund Me page to make this easy- just click below

DonatePlease pray for the success of this Concert of Hope! We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the night! Love and prayers Mother Nikola and the Sisters of Minster Abbey

16 September: A Warm Winnipeg Welcome

From Wikipedia

 

Our daughter invited us to the open air theatre to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As always, the players found new angles in the text that had not occurred to me. But as the bats flickered overhead, I was transported back to 1977, the year Elvis died, the year of ‘A Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille’, and my summer in L’Arche Edmonton. Hold on! You were watching Bottom, Titania and all the mixed up parties in the woods of Athens! But there were bats at an open air play in Canada, too.

I’d arrived in Ontario, visiting former L’Arche Kent assistants, but was now taking the Greyhound bus across Canada to Alberta. After riding past Lake Superior and the start of the prairies, I was in Winnipeg, tired and dirty and very hungry. This was before we had international debit cards so my money was in traveller’s cheques which I could not exchange as the banks were closed. After setting aside the coins for a phone call I had less than a dollar to spare.

‘Hi Maurice, we didn’t know what time to expect you! Just stay there by the bus station, we’re all coming into town to watch Fiddler on the Roof.’ I was still hungry, but had just enough cash to buy the cheapest dish on the restaurant window menu – the chef’s salad. It was a good bowlful but did not convert me to veganism!

L’Arche Winnipeg and I found each other. I was taken into the arms of the community at once; tiredness disappeared in the drama of the show. I regretted not being able to stay longer but I had time to visit the farm and help harvest the first sweetcorn, the sweetest I ever tasted.

Maize growing.

I heard a few people’s stories before leaving for Edmonton. To an Englishman the name Portage la Prairie suggested early voyageurs making their way through uncharted lakes, but it had a big hospital like those that our founders came from. Read two L’Arche Winnipeg stories here. 

It was good to see L’Arche growing in an environment completely different to rural Kent, and to be treated like ‘one of us’. And it’s good to see from their website that the community is still active and contributing to their neighbourhood. 

28 July: My vocation today XX: to accompany or correct?

walking together

It was as short a post as ever I posted:

Are we being called to accompany rather than correct?

This is from a post by Eric Clayton, who was irritated by a bossy safety feature on his car. And that question and its link were to be today”s post, until the very same day I read another Jesuit writer’s wisdom, which answers the question pretty well:

We’re all members of a band, each of us with our own instrument to play. And we play best when we each add our part and don’t try to tell everyone else in the band how to play their instruments.

That was Brother Guy Consolmagno, of the Vatican observatory on astronomy and Sir Paul McCartney.