In Thy Heart and Wounded Side

Ever since a friend who knew us especially well gifted us The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Mccauley we’ve debated writing this post on Good Friday. And every Good Friday we lose our nerve. We’re being daring this year because we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time venting to journal pages about the version of The Royal Banners Forward Go in Canada’s Anglican hymnal.

We’re the first to admit we do change badly, so it’s entirely possible this is an extension of that. But as we discussed it with a friend -the same friend, in fact, who gave us Trebizond -we realised it was more than that.

‘Some people,’ she said, ‘don’t like blood and gore in their hymns, and they sanitise them.’

And because this conversation was happening over Skype and we could, we threw up our hands and flailed them and said ‘But Passiontide is bloody! That’s the whole point!’

There is a great tradition -at least their is in our variety of church -of not only sacramentalising the blood of Christ, but of mythologising it too. We write liturgies to it, we render it in idyllic paintings of beatific Christs with exposed hearts, and yes, we hymn it. It can be -indeed we have often found it to be -powerfully moving. But when we hymn it like that, there’s a danger we forget exactly what we’re memorialising, especially at Good Friday services as we kiss the cross and take reserve communion. Because the reality of the thing is, however we look at it, that crucifixion was brutal. We’re no historians, and that might be why for us Rose Mccauley’s Towers of Trebizond says it best. She writes of heroine Laurie’s arrival into Jerusalem,

What one feels in Jerusalem, where it all began, is the awful sadness and frustration and tragedy, and the great hope and triumph that sprang from it and still spring, in spite of everything we can do to spoil them with our cruelty and mean stupidity, and all the dark unchristened deeds of christened men. Jerusalem is a cruel, haunted city, like all ancient cities; it stands out because it crucified Christ; and because it was Christ we remember it with horror, but it also crucified thousands of other people, and wherever Rome (or indeed any one else) ruled, these ghastly deaths and torturings were enjoyed by all, that is, by all except the victims and those who loved them, and it is these, the crucifixions and the flayings and the burnings and the tearing to pieces and the floggings and the blindings and the throwing to the wild beasts, all the horrors of great pain that people thought out and enjoyed, which make history a dark pit full of serpents and terror, and out of this pit we were all dug, our roots are deep in it, and still it goes on, though all the time gradually less. And out of this ghastliness of cruelty and pain in Jerusalem on what we call Good Friday there sprang this Church that we have, and it inherited all that cruelty, which went on fighting against the love and goodness which it had inherited too, and they are still fighting, but sometimes it seems a losing battle for the love and goodness, though they never quite go under and never can. And all this grief and sadness and failure and defeat make Jerusalem heartbreaking for Christians, and perhaps for Jews, who so often have been massacred there by Christians, though it is more beautiful than one imagines before one sees it, and full of interest in every street, and the hills stand round it brooding.

Perhaps it is different for different for different readers. When we read that passage the first time though we were on Iona, and we felt the resonance of it in our bones. We’re not often brought to our knees by literature, but we were then. For a little while we closed the book and stared at the cover, and that was enough. Now we go back to it almost ritualistically during Holy Week to give us the grounding for the things we will sing, the texts we will hear read, to remind us how deeply human and imperfect are the roots our faith sprang from, and to remind ourselves that these things we do, the veneration and the Mandata, are more than Anglican tradition.
Because it is Christ we remember. That’s what struck us most powerfully that summer on Iona. Because however literally one takes scripture, crucifixions did happen, and no doubt they were awful. And yet because it is Christ we remember and the occasion becomes triumphal, glorious, even bearable. If we choose our hymns and translations right it can even seem neat. Perhaps in a world that can often feel alive with horrors we need this one clean, bearable hurt. Any yet, for all we’re not theologians we humbly submit that Lent was never meant to be comfortable, nor Passiontide or Holy Week either. We know we ourselves turned to God for His humanity -all of it. When the horror and hurt of the world feels overwhelming we want a God that understands, and of course He does, because what we learn in Passiontide, on Good Friday, all through Lent, is that He has experienced those horrors first-hand.

Yes, part of Lent is sacrifice. Part of it to, as the old anthem has it is a closer walk with God. We take up that cross and its accompanying brutality, and we dwell with it and live with it, and know that we are not alone, however unbearable our grievances. It is there we find comfort, and only then do we turn, hopeful and expectant, to Easter.

Word from Canada

We’ve been away. It turns out moving countries takes a disproportionate amount of time. Happily, we now consider ourselves experts at international moving, so should that ever be a scenario you find yourself entertaining, this is the place to come for advice. Everything from how to ship an opinionated tortoiseshell cat comfortably across the ocean to wrangling with customs – we’ve done it.

That was back in January and since then we’ve been reestablishing roots, which it turns out takes almost as much effort as surviving customs encounters with your sanity in tact. We think we’re making progress. Us and the cat, who not only has been displaced from Scotland but has been asked to befriend a pair of excitable Canadian Dachshunds on top of it. They’re advancing in fellowship at a rate that makes molasses in January look positively fast, but on the other hand, no one’s lost any blood yet, so we continue hopeful.

A meeting of the Dachshund Embassy with her Imperiousness the Marschallin-Cat as they negotiate worktop rulership.

Ourselves, we’ve been cultivating the resident spikey church, which takes as much pride in its copious amounts of incense as it does in its arts-and-crafts-style windows. We’ve never seen a church so heavily censed as to actually obscure the chancel, and if we didn’t miss having a choir of our own so much we’d probably be relieved to be only a congregant here. In fact though, we like it. Maybe its something about being partially-sighted but we’ve always appreciated the multi-sensory approach of really high church Anglicans to their worship.

And as it happens, we couldn’t have arrived back in Canada at a better time to join them. Between Candlemas and all the auxiliary Lent services we’re now pretty well established as one of their people, and are even getting a reputation for singing the communion hymns because we never did find out if that was verboten from congregants or not. We don’t know how long the median tone in the psalm is either, but by now we’ve got a fairly good approximate guess. Of course, we miss Anglican Chant, and The New English Hymnal, but we suspect that’s because those are the things we know. It’s a bit disconcerting to have to play ecclesiastical One Song to the Tune of Another every other hymn, but it’s hardly their fault.

It turns out though that Palm Sunday is virtually the same across the Anglican Communion, and there are some hymns even Common Praise won’t alter the words too, for which our everlasting gratitude, because if ever we were likely to miss the grandeur of our seaside Scottish Episcopals it was today. But as we came away after a service featuring everything bar the kitchen sink, our only observation to friends half a world away was, ‘Aren’t the Canadian crosses wee and dainty?’

Take it on this chorister’s authority that this elegant thing is *much* more manageable than last year’s outsized palm fronds,

We’ll try and look in again during the Tridium. There are some definite advantages to not having a choir, and one of them is sleep during Holy Week. To anyone bearing the brunt of that musical effort though we send fellow-feeling, very best wishes, and lots of tea. Nothing’s nearly so effective at sustaining a person through that glut of services.

Northanger Re-Visited

Ever behind-times with reading contemporary books, we spent yesterday and today reading Val McDermid’s retelling of Northanger Abbey. This is part of the Austen Project, which accoringt to The Guardian is endeavouring to make Austen’s ‘timeless classics’ more accessible. Now we tend to be of the opinion that timelessness should convey accessibility by default, but that wasn’t our reason for railing against the first 60 pages of McDermid’s Northanger. In fact what irritated us was that those first 60 pages read not like an adaptation, but like a bizarrely translated version of Austen into ‘modern’ English. In some cases, lines like the the inexplicably memorable ‘Do you know muslin, sir?’ actually are translated. Thus Mrs. Allen’s question to Henry becomes, ‘Are you in textiles, sir? A designer perhaps?’ We can’t put our finger on why this rewrite loses the elegance of Austen to us; it just does.

The thing about that kind of self-conscious referentiality is that if you’re going to make the reference, if you want the prose to shout, ‘See what I did?!’ it’s neater to simply insert the quote being nodded to because similarly, ‘No one should emerge from their teens with the name thier parents chose for them’ while no less true than Austen, falls short of its original, ‘no girl wants to be called at sixteen what she was called at six.’ Well it does for us. Why? Partly it’s because language, like clothing, goes through fashions. The cadence of Regency Era English cannot be converted into modern-day English by simply swapping the words about and really, why should it? We would never attempt this kind of word-for-word updating with Old English because whatever the practice then, it is now not normal to the verb at the end of a sentence put. Austen’s English might lack declensions but the theory is the same; any attempt to directly update it word-for-word sounds at best like a round of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue and at worst stilted.

In the case of Austen’s prose though, it’s more than the prose fashion of the period because her writing stands stylistically apart from her contemporaries. Put her beside Maria Edgeworth and you’ll see what we mean. It’s not only the balanced sentences and the elegance of her writing, there’s an asperity to Austen’s wit that is not only too often overlooked but makes her style nigh impossible to replicate. It is -dare we say it? -a truth universally acknowledged that no one but Jane Austen could write like Jane Austen.

In proof of this McDermid’s story takes off when she relaxes the paint-by-number approach to retelling, stops trying to tick referential boxes and settles into narrative adaptation. Twilight -obsessed, vampire mad Cat Morland is a stroke of genius. John Thorpe is if possible worse than before because one thing that does translate is his obnoxious preoccupation with speed and stylish transportation. In an inspired scene set in the run-up to arriving at Northanger, McDermid leans heavily on the idea (implicit in Austen’s prose) that Catherine’s first sleepless night is largely fuelled by Henry’s extravagant fantasies about the place. Better than that, here Catherine encourages him in his hyperbole, even plays along a little, giving her more agency than might be expected by readers familiar with Northanger. In so doing, it gives her the inner life that Austen never quite convinced us Catherine had. We loved her, of course, but Catherine Morland never felt to us as if she was prone to thinking, which explanation we used to playfully cite in lectures for the lack of third-limited prose.

In that sense, McDermid succeeds at re-enervating a beloved classic. True to the spirit, rather than the letter of the text, the book fizzes with energy. The only catch for us is the jarring hyper-modern lingo. For instance returning to her rectory home by coach, Cat texts her father, ‘Fone dead b4. Mist u.’ Look, we get that kids texting use numbers for letters, and abbreviate whole words. But ‘Fone’ for ‘phone’ and ‘mist’ for ‘missed’? It’s not only that though. We’ve never heard teenagers talk the way Cat Morland and Bella Thorpe do, even allowing that we use ‘totally,’ ‘like,’ and ‘so’ considerably less than your average teenager. We know girls of 17. Whatever and however they write online, we have yet to hear one say in all seriousness that something is ‘totes amazeballs.’ Granted, we may be out of the loop. But of one thing we are certain; no girl of seventeen has called anything ‘the bees knees’ since our last encounter with an Enid Blyton book -except Cat Morland and Ellie Tilney, naturally.

In all fairness, we think this kind of hyper-exaggerated slang is intended as satire in the way that Austen’s Northanger was initially a vehicle for the satirisation of the inflammatory register of the Gothic fantasy and the hyperbole of the language of sensibility. The fact that we can’t tell, and the fact that it too often reads like a dire effort to capture modern parlance is problematic. Luckily for our nerves -which were close to resembling Mrs Bennet’s at her most overwrought – it relaxes considerably once Cat is ensconced at Northanger Abbey.

And as quibbles go, we’ll take it, because there is wit and sparkle -and some beautiful similes -to be had from McDermid’s prose. Read it, indulge in and enjoy it. Just don’t, for God’s sake, ask for or expect Austen, because that is unreasonable and unfair in the extreme.

English Toffee and Poetry Fragments

We’re doing the unheard of this evening and brewing tea in a mug. We’ve reconciled this with our conscience by deciding that what we’re really doing is christening a gift of a Christmas mug with a cup of English Toffee tea. Also, we’re too tired to observe the complete sacrament of tea. This is a shame, as English Toffee is clearly a tea that deserves sacramaentalisig. It’s a beautiful balance of Pu’erh tea and toffee flavour -enough to give it a shape but not so much as to trigger our lack of a sweet tooth into protest. Chiefly though it’s existing to revitalise us.

Somewhere on the internet there exists a wonderful rewrite of ‘Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones’ to an Easter theme, and it begins, Now Christ is risen from the dead/the Choristers can go to bed… Sadly, no one has yet troubled with a Christmas equivalent, but you can take it on good authority that the sentiment is the same. More so, in fact, since the marathon combination of the Tridium and Easter taps into reserves of energy that Christmas Eve doesn’t begin to plumb. Probably there is an interesting theological nuance to be teased out here, but we don’t feel equal to the task presently.

The Canadian family will vouch for the fact our brains are still somewhere in the choir vestry, probably frozen due to the boiler failure we continue to experience. Forced to explain what a minced pie was (one of the relocated Canadians rather sweetly worried it might not be vegetarian) we managed to garble things about boiled fruit and sugar but didn’t do much better -though we did usefully recollect that Cromwell once banned them.

Here, before we settle into a long day of restorative reading, is one last poem for the last of the Advent teas. There might be more of it, but the version we’re recording comes hand-written from the inside of a Christmas card . We relay it with warm wishes for a Happy Christmastide.

From ‘THe Gude and Goldie Ballats’

(attributed Martin Luther, translated John Wedderburn)

This day to you is born ane child

Of Mary meek and virgin milde,

That blessed bairn being and kind

Sall you rejoice baith hart and mind.

Christmas Eve and Twelve O’Clock

In what turns out to be grand Christmas tradition, the heating failed this evening at Midnight Mass, so we’re drinking a late cup of tea with just cause. It’s a black tea laced with candy cane and peppermint, and aptly called Santa’s Secret -and it’s exactly what we need. Our hands are still cold. Also, we’ve sung almost continuously for two hours and our voice gave out somewhere after the last top G in ‘Hark the Herald.’ We’ll do it all again tomorrow and gladly, but in the meantime, tea is welcome, especially when it tastes so nice as this one does.

Strictly speaking, we’re now into Christmas day, but as somewhere it’s bound to be evening still, here’s a poem by Thomas Hardy that has it’s roots in an old belief that at midnight on Christmas eve the oxen kneel to observe the Christ. Enjoy it -and Happy Christmas from Scotland!

The Oxen

Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

Myn Lyking

Winter in Scotland and it’s been driech, which in plain English means it’s been raining doggedly since Thursday, when Murphy’s Law being in good working order, the family arrived. We’ve been trying to defend the appeal of a seaside town with sideways wind and twilight at 3 ever since. For our part, we’re combatting the weather this evening by drinking a late pot of Kashmiri Chai. It’s lighter than most chai, with a base in green tea; we discovered this pouring out, when the colour initially suggested the tea was understeeped. In fact it’s meant to be a golden colour. It’s further embellished by cinnamon, nutmeg and marigold flowers. And being chai, it is the ideal antidote to winter, whatever the weather.

We haven’t had much time spare for poetry hunting of late, what with trying to acclimatise three Canadians to Scotland. But last Sunday we were gifted a new carol by the conductor of our choir who told us to open Carols for Choirs to ‘Myn Lyking’ as if everyone knew of it. They should, so here this evening is both the Middle English text for you, and the carol to accompany it.

Myn Lyking

15th Century (set by R. Terry)

I saw a fair mayden sytten and sing
She lulled a little childe, a sweete Lording.

Lullay mye lyking, my dere sonne, my sweeting.
Lully mydere herte, myn own dere derling.

That same Lord is he that made alle thing,
Of alle lord is his is lord, of alle kynges King.

There was mickle melody at that chylde’s birth
All that were in heav’nly bliss, they made mickle myrth.

Angels bright sang their song to that chyld;
Blyssid be thou, and so be she, so meek and so mild.

The Year’s Midnight

The sun set, if you’re curious, at half-past three today. We’ve been sitting in darkness ever since, writing lots and drinking tea. We made the mistake of going out at midday (twilight?) and got caught in torrential rain for our trouble. We should have known better than to risk the excursion without a hat. But the thing about St. Andrews is that it does very particular, almost localised weather. It wasn’t raining, looking out the french windows at the back of the house. It was raining out the front.

Tonight we’re drinking spiced apple tea. It smells of what we’d call apple cider -the non-alcoholic cider particular to Canada, with clovers, cinnamon and nutmeg in. The flavour of it is lovely, but sadly it’s not designed for a tea-infuser. The pieces of dried apple and clove are too big. No matter, we’re just going to have to drink it in vats, and that’s not something we’ll complain about.

Here, as promised, on the year’s midnight, is John Donne’s ‘St Lucy’s Day.’ Never was there a more apt summation of the fleeting Scottish winter day.

A Nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day

Joh Donne

‘Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,

Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;

The sun is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

The world’s whole sap is sunk;

The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,

Whither, as to the bed’s feet, life is shrunk,

Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,

Compar’d with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be

At the next world, that is, at the next spring;

For I am every dead thing,

In whom Love wrought new alchemy.

For his art did express

A quintessence even from nothingness,

From dull privations, and lean emptiness;

He ruin’d me, and I am re-begot

Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,

Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;

I, by Love’s limbec, am the grave

Of all that’s nothing. Oft a flood

Have we two wept, and so

Drown’d the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

To be two chaoses, when we did show

Care to aught else; and often absences

Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)

Of the first nothing the elixir grown;

Were I a man, that I were one

I needs must know; I should prefer,

If I were any beast,

Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,

And love; all, all some properties invest;

If I an ordinary nothing were,

As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.

You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun

At this time to the Goat is run

To fetch new lust, and give it you,

Enjoy your summer all;

Since she enjoys her long night’s festival,

Let me prepare towards her, and let me call

This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this

Both the year’s, and the day’s deep midnight is.

Spiced Tea and Cats

We’re steeping a pot of what calls itself Cardamom French Toast Tea, and so far all things are promising. We gather from both grandmothers that Canadians -or perhaps its only our family -deem the correct way to eat this delicacy involves tomato sauce. As we’ve never agreed with this particular doctrine, we’re relieved to find the tea (it’s a black tea at its roots) tends towards cinnamon and maple, no tomatoes involved. It tastes of spice, which is more than welcome; we’ve long been partial to spiced black tea but ran through our Wittards stock some time ago. We’ll make do with other things, but there’s nothing like Wittards Imperial Blend, or Kusmi’s Prince Vladimir with its cloves and vanilla, to take the cold out of a winter afternoon. Cardamom French Toast does not fall short.

We’re seriously tempted this evening to give you the series of limericks about the Marschallin-cat. She’s at our elbow and most insistent that we pay her suitable homage. But there are almost certainly superior writers who have treated much the same theme. Our favourite comes from a collection that purports to be written by cats and begins, unforgettably, why are you screaming?

Why Are You Screaming

(Francesco Marciuliano)

Why are you screaming?

Did I do something wrong?

Why are you crying?

How can I make it right?

Would you like it in a different colour?

Would you like it in a different size?

Would you like it in a different room?

I just wanted to show my love,

I just wanted to express my thanks,

I just wanted to lay a dead mouse on your sheets.

But now you are screaming,

And I don’t know how to make you stop.

Happily for us, all Miss Marschallin’s dead mice are shades of blue. Much less screaming.

Just the Ordinary Thing…

Everything we’ve been saying for weeks about green tea being the perfect compliment to fruit and nuts is realised in tonight’s tea. It’s an almond green tea that would be much too sweet were it herbal. As it is it’s a beautifully balanced cup that tastes a bit like drinking an almond slice. We’re drinking it in leisurely fashion and musing on church and family, because part of them visiting means trying to explain Scottish Episcopalianism to long-term Presbyterians.

There’s no good way of explaining why this is fraught and complicated except to try and describe the service from the ‘other side’ of the pews, as it were.

No one is thinking very hard about the clockwork and how it fits together because we’re all doing six different things at once. The thurifer’s censing the choir, who are trying not to asphyxiate because they are trying to sing, and while all of that is happening the priest is preparing the altar for communion and the congregation is anticipating the moment the thurifer turns on them so they remember to bow, and so it goes on. And because it’s Christmas there are half a dozen furbelows that have been added to make sure everyone knows it’s Christmas (because the midnight service mightn’t give that away), which means we’re all guessing. The choir are trying not to melt the folders and the organist (who only has half the asperges and that in a completely different setting to the one his choir is canting) is approximating how long to improvise for and watching the communion queue to see whether to deploy the emergency communion hymn, and there’s always going to be a surplus of wafers ‘just in case’ because it’s one of those occasions when you anticipate the 500.

The point is, none of us knows what we’re doing, not really, and it doesn’t really matter. We’ll still try and explain, because that’s part of giving them welcome, and we’d hate for them to feel all adrift somewhere that’s made us so at home. Also, we know the service book isn’t exactly expansive in its communication. We’ll do our best, but S. J. Forrest still says it best in his critique of services, and we’re seriously tempted to let him have the last word.

What’s The Use?

by S.J. Forrest

(transcribed by Father James Siemens, AF)

‘Oh just the usual thing you know; the BCP all through,
Just pure and unadulterated 1662;
A minimum of wise interpolations from the Missal,
The Kyrie in Greek, the proper Collects and Epistles,
The Secret and the Canon and the Dominus Vobiscum,
(Three aves and a salve at the end would amiss come);
To the “militant” and “trudle” there is little need to cling,
But apart from these exceptions, just the ordinary thing.’

‘Oh, just the usual thing you know; we’re C of E of course,
But beautify the service from a mediaeval source,
With various processions, and in case you shouldn’t know,
There are tunicled assistants who will tell you where to go;
And should you in bewilderment liturgically falter,
Just make a little circumambulation of the altar.
The blessing, like a bishop, you majestically sing;
But apart from these exceptions, just the ordinary thing.’

‘Oh, just the usual thing you know; but very up to date,
Our basis is the liturgy of 1928,
With lots of local colouring and topical appeal,
And much high-hearted happiness, to make the service real;
Our thoughts on high to sun and sky, to trees and birds and brooks,
Our altar nearly hidden in a library of books;
The Nunc Dimittis, finally “God Save The Queen” we sing;
But, apart from these exceptions, just the ordinary thing.’

‘Oh, just the usual thing you know, we trust that you’ll be able
To mingle with the reredos and stand behind the Table;
(For clergymen who celebrate and face the congregation,
Must pass a stringent glamour-test before their ordination!)
Patristic ceremonial; economy of gesture,
Though balanced by a certain superfluity of vesture;
With lots of flanking presbyters all gathered in a ring,
But, apart from these exceptions, just the ordinary thing.’

Levity from the Choir

Six o’clock this evening found us drinking Sleigh Ride tea with our academic daughter on the eve of her departure as it were, and talking Christmas traditions. We have family coming soon, and that means shortbread and thumbprint cookies. It being the fourth Sunday in Advent also means that the angels get added to the Nativity unfolding on the coffee table. If that sounds illogical, it probably is. We’ve cribbed the pattern of building the scene from a former minister and have done our best to replicate it, and can’t remember what he did except that everything seemed to end up at the crib by Christmas Eve bar Christ and the Kings. But we’re mostly Anglican, and it’s a tradition, and that naturally means it’s set in stone for the next thousand years at least. On which note by the by, as the annual tradition of the candlelit service looms ever nearer, we feel the need to issue the following friendly reminder;

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The Benevolent Choirs Act, issued alongside the 1970 liturgy, means that we in the choir stalls don’t have this problem, being gifted instead with tall candles in glass casing. There is no flimsy cardboard or spindly half-spent candles; these sit stolidly on shelves that make balancing one’s music awkward. Also, because there is no Music Folders Protection Act, the folders are still prone to melt if held too close to the candles by preoccupied choristers.

We’re dwelling on candles this evening because bizarrely it was revealed this morning that today’s Advent candle was being lit for Mary. Having never realised that the symbolism of the candles changed with the church year this was a surprise; we’ve always supposed the Gaudete Sunday candle is pink as much because it’s a Marian colour as because it’s nodding towards it’s mirror Sunday in Lent, Rose Sunday. Mind you, the calendar also says today is Laetare Sunday, so called because one sings the introit ‘Rejoice O Jerusalem,’ whereas in fact we sang the Advent Prose, which is gorgeous but sounds more like the wail of people anticipating the Apocalypse than a shout of jubilation, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Good Presbyterians of the kind we grew up with, of course, have none of these problems because good Presbyterians don’t give the days Romish names like Gaudete Sunday and they let the candles stand for nice things like peace, hope and joy. They’ve probably never heard of the Advent Prose (the ones we grew up with certainly hadn’t) either. We are not good Presbyterians. We gave up sometime after acquiring our first rosary. Great-Grandmother Grace is spinning in her grave, and the fact that we’ve since allied ourselves with the Scottish Episcopacy probably hasn’t slowed her down all that much.

We should, here, give you a Marian poem in the name of thematic relevance, but we’re afraid to look for one as the vast majority are almost certainly doomed to be soppy. Instead have a bit of ecclesiastical levity. Mine might be spiky people who give Latinate names to Sundays and look dangerously over the precipice at Rome all too often, but we do know better than to take ourselves too seriously.

Hilarity, or Hymnody

(Unknown) -to be sung to ‘Aurelia’

Our church is mighty spikey
with smells and bells and chants,
And Palestrina masses
that vex the Protestants.
O happy ones and holy
who fall upon their knees
For solemn Benediction
And mid-week Rosaries.

Though with a scornful wonder
men see our clergy, dressed
In rich brocaded vestments
as slowly they process;
Yet saints their watch are keeping
lest souls be set alight
Not by the Holy Ghost, but
by incense taking flight.

Now we on earth have union
with Lambeth, not with Rome,
Although the wags and cynics
may question our true home;
But folk masses and bingo
can’t possibly depose
The works of Byrd and Tallis,
or Cranmer’s stately prose.

(Here shall the organist modulate)

So let the organ thunder,
sound fanfares “en chamade;”
Rejoice! For we are treading
where many saints have trod;
Let peals ring from the spire,
sing descants to high C,
Just don’t let your elation
Disrupt the liturgy.