Monthly Archives: April 2020

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April 7, 2020

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Holy Week

Wednesday in Holy Week

The Rt. Revd. Richard Chartres

Reading: Psalm 19 — The Heavens declare the Glory of God

WE are so fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the country where Spring glimpsed though our windows can alleviate the oppression of the current lockdown.
One of the priests of our English Church, the poet and mystic Thomas Traherne declared that “You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars … Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold and kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.”
Genuine religion arises from Annunciation — being addressed from beyond oneself.
So often, of course, we make an idol of some projection of our cravings or fantasies. Even those who profess to be atheists constantly refer themselves to some idea or ambition which they find attractive or fearsome — the perfect body; riches; or power. It’s just part of being human. At worst, when bruised, the ego surreptitiously re-ascends by worshipping some projection of its rage or lust for power. Idolatry of this kind is only too visible, in a lethal form, in the conflicts in the Middle East.
In the Bible, as well as constant denunciations of the danger of making gods in our own image, there are a series of annunciations.
In the Paradise Garden, God calls “Adam, where are you?” Then Abraham is instructed to “leave your household gods and begin your journey to a land you do not know.” Moses is commanded to put off his shoes, for “this is holy ground.” He was addressed from the bush which burned but was not consumed. The boy Samuel was called when he was sleeping in the Temple, at a time when the rumour of God was very faint. Then – supremely — the Angel of the Lord addressed the Blessed Virgin, “Hail, Mary, full of grace: the Lord is with thee.”
The bible is full of annunciations, and God speaks through His Word and through His Book of Nature. Almost every day we are being addressed by the glory and the distress of the earth.
The Bible sets the human story and the sacrifice of Christ against a huge cosmic canvas. In our generation, we have been given a vivid account of the cosmic drama by contemporary science. The drama seems to have five acts.
In a series of irreversible transformations, the history of the universe has unfolded from its beginnings about 13.7 billion years ago. Act I is the galactic story. Act II is the formation of planet Earth, just far enough away from our sun to avoid frying but not so far as to become a sterile rock. Act III is the story of the birth of life on Earth, with Act IV concerned with the story of homo sapiens as we emerged, some 160,000 years ago, from Africa to colonise the globe.
The evolutionary story has a material and physical aspect but also a psycho-spiritual aspect. We are, as the Bible and Darwin agree, creatures of the dust –- star dust, in fact; we are participants in a web of life.
The problem is that the apprehension of knowledge, as it has developed in the Western world — a knowledge which has delivered such great power over the earth — has been generated from an “objective” way of observing the world which has tended to divorce us from a sense of our inner connectedness with nature. Dominance has been substituted for interconnectedness, and we have come to see the earth in a God-forsaken way, as a mere theatre for human desire and exploitation, with a diminished awareness that our well-being is bound up with the well-being of the earth.
The consequences of this way of relating to the world around us are brilliantly described in one of the most important — and neglected –books of the first decade of this century, Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and his Emissary.
Act V of our five act drama is just beginning, and it will decide whether humanity is yet another dead end in the unfolding story of life or whether promise will predominate and peril will be surmounted. The President of the Royal Society recently published a book about the prospects for the human race worryingly entitled Our Final Century –- without a question mark (although he has ascribed the omission to a publisher’s error).
Shall we develop the wisdom to channel the power we have acquired from the scientific knowledge and discoveries of the 20th century? Where indeed, to quote T.S. Eliot, is “the wisdom we have lost in knowledge and the knowledge we have lost in information”?
In the Book of Revelation, great multitudes — from all nations and kindreds, people and tongues — stand before the throne and cry out “Salvation and Deliverance belong to God!”. Too often, we have seen salvation exclusively in terms of individuals. That is, of course, vital but the Bible shows us the individual person realistically as someone always involved in relationships with other human beings and with the world of nature. We can perish in a world and a human community that are atomised, but we are saved together.
At the end of The Divine Comedy, Dante describes his vision of divine reality: “all the scattered leaves of the universe bound together in one volume by love”.
Holy Week reveals the plot-line of Act 5 as the old order of selfishness, sin, and death is overcome in an act of self-sacrificing love on the Cross.

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April 6, 2020

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Tuesday in Holy Week

The Rt. Revd. Richard Chartres

Tuesday in Holy Week
Readings: 1 Corinthians 1.18-31; John 20.19-23
ONE of the most haunting lines of twentieth-century poetry comes from
a chorus in T.S. Eliot’s play The Rock:
“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
In his letter to the Christians of Corinth, Paul explores the wisdom of
God hidden in “the foolishness of the Cross”. It is a wisdom disclosed by
the Holy Spirit, a wisdom that does not seem plausible to the kind of
thinking and calculating mind that is habitual with us.
The business of the Christian life is to “live and grow” in the Holy Spirit.
After centuries in which the Church in the West has downplayed the
work and centrality of the Holy Spirit, there is in our own time a fresh
appreciation of the role of the Spirit in bringing the Kingdom of God to
perfection.
Unfortunately, the experience of the Spirit has sometimes been
associated with bizarre and unusual gifts. Paul, in his letter to the
Corinthians, warns us about confusing spiritual maturity with the
possession of extraordinary gifts like “speaking with tongues”. The gifts
of the Spirit for which we pray are the basis of living and everyday
Christian life and being enabled to see and hear the wisdom of God.
I was given a salutary lesson in the power and significance of the Spirit
in an unexpected place. I was visiting a centre for the rehabilitation of
drug addicts –- usually men who had already served prison terms.
As I approached the entrance with the Warden, I could see through the
glass doors a giant of a man. He must have been six foot six. The
Warden said, “Bish, that man has had more convictions than you’ve got.”
The little jest made me nervous, but when I got into the hall the man in
question politely asked me to sit down and talk with him.
There began one of those conversations where no one was wearing a
mask. Very often, we are so defended that our conversations are from subject to object.

On this occasion, for whatever reason, we were able to
speak heart to heart, subject to subject.
Much of the evil and distress in the world comes from treating other
people as objects: overlooking them; cutting them down to size.
Communication in the Holy Spirit is different, as we can see from the
story of the first Pentecost. The apostles were gathered in Jerusalem for
the festival with a host of pilgrims from many different countries,
speaking a variety of languages, but they all found that they could
understand what the spirit-filled friends of Jesus were saying.
Just as you do not have to understand German to appreciate Mozart —
and you do not have to have been in prison to empathise with those who
have – so, if we communicate in the Holy Spirit, it is possible to
overcome natural barriers.
We can all too easily make one another ill by our style of
communication, but on the contrary I was beginning to find the
conversation of my new acquaintance refreshing.
If I told you some of the things he told me about the circumstances of his
upbringing, you would not be at all surprised that he had acquired a drug
habit. Many of us go through life complaining about our problems, and
claiming that they are the fault of other people — usually authority
figures. This man, however, was able to say that he had problems and
that they were his responsibility.
The Spirit is a Spirit of Truth which enables us to look within to the dark
continent inside all of us. In the power and company of the Spirit of
Jesus Christ we are enabled to look at the shadows we all try to conceal
and, by looking through them, drain them of power to do us injury. The
Spirit can help us to drain the swamp of craving and fantasy, which we
can so easily project on to others.
I wonder if you have ever experienced a surge of dislike for someone at
first meeting and about whom you knew very little. It is a valuable clue to
what is going on inside us, because one of the laws of the spiritual life is
that we most dislike in others what we are trying to cover up in
ourselves.

The Spirit of Communication; the Spirit of Truth; and then the Spirit of
Power and Healing. My friend had been in the centre for four months. It
was a place of prayer and — while they had not been soft with him — he
had felt listened to, and had been given greater self-respect. He was
determined to stay off drugs, although returning to the place where he
had acquired the habit was going to make that hard. Then he said
something which seemed to me to be one way of summing up the whole
gospel: “If you wanna stay clean, you gotta stay in touch.”
The Spirit of Christ leads us into all the truth, equips us as healers and
ambassadors. Bizarre and showy spiritual gifts can easily puff us up.
Living and growing in the Holy Spirit is the essence of the Christian life.

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April 6, 2020

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ALL EVENTS SUSPENDED

Until further notice church buildings and public buildings are closed.

There are no public events to publicise until further notice.

“Virtual” resources and meetings will be arranged as frequently as possible.

For Holy Week and Easter ideas please check the “categories” list

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PCC

Annual Report 2018

When planning activities for the year, the incumbent and PCC have considered the Commission’s guidance on public benefit and the specific guidance on charities for the advancement of religion.
We strive to enable parishioners to explore and develop their spiritual awareness and to live out their faith, by means of prayer and worship, Bible study and ethical discussion, and provision of pastoral care to all sections of the community.
The work of all three churches is summarised on the parish website, http://www.wiltonparish.co.uk..

The PCC aims to provide public worship appropriate to the varied needs of the inhabitants of the Ecclesiastical Parish.
Where practical this includes ecumenical cooperation with the local Baptist congregation and members of other Christian denominations living in Wilton.

The clergy seek to respond to all requests for the “Occasional offices” of the Church – Baptisms, Marriages and Funerals from those living in the Ecclesiastical parish, or with a legitimate connection with any of our churches and to provide appropriate preparation and pastoral care.

We seek to foster a sense of community within the town of Wilton through the provision of social activities and active involvement in other local organisations.

To facilitate this work, we strive to maintain the fabric of our church buildings and meeting room in good order – taking due note of the recommendations included in our Quinquennial Inspections.

In December 2009 it was agreed that the PCC would discontinue its policy of making annual grants to specific charities and would instead encourage individual Church-members to support such charities as far as they are able. In addition, the PCC nominates a monthly/quarterly Charity – for which donations are invited at Coffee after the principal Eucharist each Sunday – with a balance of local, national and international charities. In addition Wilton’s congregations continue to sponsor the education of Richnaider Paul, in Haiti – through the Charity “SOS Children’s Villages” and, through the Chalke Deanery, agricultural and social projects in the Diocese of Cueibet, South Sudan.

The PCC makes provision for regular public worship in all three churches, as well as a Trust-owned Chapel in Wilton. The former Parish Church, “Old St. Mary’s”, is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust and is used only occasionally for worship.

At the Parish Church, Morning Prayer was said Monday – Saturday and on Sundays either one or two celebrations of the Eucharist have been held.

At St. Peter’s Church, Fugglestone, regular services were suspended from the end of September 2013 due to lack of heating and lighting. Thursday morning Communion services were introduced in 2016 and these were continued in 2018, along with occasional Evening services. These attracted a small but committed congregation, including some of the new residents of the “Wilton Hill” development.

At St Catherine’s Church, Netherhampton weekly morning services were held – alternating between Holy Communion and Matins. Festival services were especially well attended in 2018.

Parish Clergy continued to be assisted by two Lay Worship Leaders, Christine Lawson and Tim Purchase, and by the retired clergy – notably Canon Chris Savage and Canon Michael Goater. The Revd. Janet Mugridge continued to play a significant role at St. John’s Priory and to assist at the Parish Church.

At Petertide, The Revd. Caroline Titley was ordained Priest at Salisbury Cathedral and celebrated her “First Mass” at the Parish Church on 8th July.

In our aim of drawing parishioners, and others, to God through worship
we have again benefitted enormously from the commitment of our Parish Choir, Organists, Ringers, Verger and Altar servers, Eucharistic Assistants, Lectors and Intercessors and have been very well supported by our Churchwardens, Sacristans, Flower Arrangers and team of sidesmen and women – all of whom show admirable dedication. In September, Andrew Hanley was appointed as “Director of Youth Music” and a Junior Choir formed. The children led their first service in October and sang at further Eucharists in November and December and to a very well-attended “Crib Service” on Christmas Eve.
In December, St. Catherine’s Church’s second organist David Brown retired and was replaced by Ben Maton, who had recently also taken over the Treasurer’s role for St. Catherine’s.

After seven years in post, Mrs Ann Hindley stepped down as Churchwarden. Peter Gulliver succeeded her as Senior Warden and was joined by Andy Tyrer as second Churchwarden.

The Parish’s Safeguarding Representative moved to a new post in the Diocese of Llandaff. The Revd. Dr. Stella Wood was appointed as the new PSR – with the added proviso that any concerns relating to members of the clergy should be referred directly to the Diocesan Safeguarding Representative.
The Parish Safeguarding Policy was adapted to reflect changes in terminology in national policies, pending a fuller revision before the next Annual meeting.

The Tuesday morning “Coffee Corner”, held in the Community Centre, lost a number of children – who moved on to school or nursery – and in the summer it was decided that a fresh approach was needed. Initial focus on the older members resulted in a new Friday afternoon group “Young at Heart” – which attracted a membership of some 20+ people and is well supported by a strong team of volunteers, providing cake and refreshments and engaging with the attendees.

The Ecumenical “Open the Book” team continued to meet in the Primary School, on alternate Mondays, to present dramatised Bible Stories and engaging the pupils and staff in various ways.

Two Mothers’ Union Groups and the men’s group, “Grapevine”, continued to meet regularly. Three new groups were introduced in the Autumn: an afternoon Bible Study Group, an evening Discussion group and Christian Mindfulness group.

In July, the Rector shared in the leadership of the “Pulse Camp” weekend at the Hampshire Christian Trust, Lockerly – attended by young people aged 11 – 17 from various Christian denominations including three young people from Wilton.

In April, the Parish Church hosted the Salisbury Branch of the Prayer Book Society, for their AGM and Evensong. A second Branch Evensong was held at Michaelmas and an Advent Carol Service at St Catherine’s in December.

A training course for Lay Pastoral assistants was run, from February to July, co-led by clergy and an experienced LPA, Tim Purchase. Four new LPAs from this parish were commissioned on St Edith’s Day, along with a fifth from the Chalke Valley.
The rejuvenated “Pastoral Ministry Team” subsequently adopted a pattern of monthly meetings to establish priorities – reviewing patterns of home-visiting and “Home Communions” and monthly Communion Services were established in two residential complexes: Olivier Place and Pembroke Court.

Services for Holy Week and Easter followed the comprehensive pattern established in 2015, following a major review. These were well attended, as was the Ecumenical “walk of witness” on Good Friday.

In early September all three of our Churches welcomed participants in the Wiltshire Historic Churches Ride and Stride, while we deployed one cyclist to visit Churches in the Wylye Valley.
Pastoral Offices

In 2018, parish clergy officiated at 17 baptisms, 4 weddings and 19 funerals.
(In 2017 – 19 baptisms, 12 weddings and 17 funerals.)

Community

Members of all three churches are involved in other community groups and organisations – including Wilton Community Centre, Public Library, Burnbake Trust, Alabaré, Riding for the Disabled and also assist with events such as the Christmas Day lunch for the elderly. A number of church-members are Trustees for almshouses at St John’s Priory and St Giles’ Hospital and for three separate Educational Trusts.

As Trustees of the Wilton Middle School Educational Trust, the Rector and Churchwardens contributed further significant grants to local schools, the Youth Centre in Wilton, Youth Action Wiltshire (for work with Young Carers) and provided assistance to a Nursing Student and an Apprentice Carpenter. The Rector continued to represent Wilton at Area Board “Youth Network” meetings.

The Revd Caroline Titley serves on the Board of the Wilton Community Land Trust and as a Trustee on the Church of England Pensions Board.

In January the Primary School was placed in “Special Measures” and in August became an Academy, as part of the Salisbury Diocesan Trust. A considerable amount of support has been given by Foundation Governors – Ivan Seviour (Chair of Governors), Revd. Caroline Titley and Ben Kinsey. After ten years as Governor, the Rector stepped down from this role, but maintains an active pastoral role among staff, pupils and parents. A Baptism service was held at the school for one of the pupils, attended by staff and pupils from Years 1 and 2.
In September, a favourable, external review of “Christian Ethos” drew attention to the quality of support provided by Parish clergy.

Educational visits to, and services in, both the Parish Church and St Catherine’s Church have been arranged, involving local Primary schools and nursery schools.

A steady flow of tourists and pilgrims visited the Parish Church throughout much of the year, with a number of U3A groups arranging guided tours, aided by our dedicated group of “church guides”.

Wilton’s “Mayor’s Sunday” service was held on St Edith’s Day, in the afternoon, and attended by members of the uniformed Youth Organisations. During the service, the school’s new Headteacher, Richard Boase, was formally welcomed and commissioned.
Remembrance services took on a particular poignancy in 2018 – marking the centenary of the Armistice – and were well attended in both St. Catherine’s and the Parish Church. A banner was created for the Parish Church, by children from the Primary school, Cubs and brownies, commemorating 290 soldiers from WW1, and was hung from the gallery during the season of Remembrance.

Wilton’s annual “lighting of the Christmas Tree and Children’s Nativity” provided further opportunities for ecumenical cooperation and partnership with other Town Team organisations.

The Rector officiated at the annual Carol Service for the Pembroke Centre (Riding for the Disabled).

Year 5 Pupils from the Primary School attended a special 50th Anniversary Christingle Service at Salisbury Cathedral and, on the final day of term, a “whole-school” Christingle Service was held in the parish Church.

The Christmas Fayre was again held in the Community Centre, with a similar format to previous years.

The new Parish “Newsletter” was delivered to all dwellings in the parish in March, June, September and December. Costs of production were met from advertising charges, involving a number of local businesses.

Buildings

St. Mary and St. Nicholas’ Church:
The Town Council continued to arrange the grass cutting, and other aspects of the churchyard continued to be maintained to a high standard, largely due to the efforts of Nick Barsby, Neill O’Connor and David Fraser.
Further works were undertaken to upgrade the electrical installations and, in September, the lighting system was adapted to house LED bulbs throughout, resulting in vastly improved light levels and presentation of the building and reducing energy consumption and running costs.
St. Catherine’s Church
In March, the church suffered a break-in, resulting in a broken window in the South Aisle and damage to the Vestry Door Frame. Cathedral Glass was instructed to repair the window and Mouldings Builders Ltd was asked to tender for repair of the woodwork. It was also proposed that the porch should be repaired and estimates sought.

St. Peter’s Church
In February, the church suffered a break-in through a vestry window – resulting in significant damage to the glazing and also to the casing of a donations box in the church. Cathedral Glass was instructed to repair the window.

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April 6, 2020

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Words from Mark

An “Unholy” Week?

Palm Sunday 20

Here we are then at the beginning of Holy Week – and yet, it doesn’t really feel like it!

For me, this is normally the busiest time of year:
with a range of services and acts of worship to be prepared and delivered;
special services to be “re-learned” and then rehearsed with the team of servers;
practicalities to check – such as the building of the Easter bonfire or the acquiring of super-sized chocolate eggs for our two main congregations;
liaising with our friends at the Baptist Church ahead of Good Friday’s walk of witness.

So it’s very odd this year to find myself still busy – but doing none of those “normal” things,

Instead, together with Caroline, our Curate, the main task, just now, has been in trying to keep some form of contact with the members of our congregations and also to offer some kind of Easter experience for the communities around us.

And so the last 2 weeks have involved, not only busy phone lines, but something of a crash course in social media! Our Facebook page has been hastily reordered – the world of You Tube has been explored and our Parish website linked to more resources, such as meditations and prayers for use at home.

And then, of course, there’s been the corresponding task of writing, selecting, recording and editing material to post at those various “outlets”.

That’s been an interesting experience – if at times frustrating and equally at times very moving in the responses that I’ve received.

But none of it quite takes away the sense of “absence” – the sense that this is not how Holy Week is meant to be.

And that brings with it a sense of powerlessness – even if that is coupled with a conviction that staying at home IS the right thing to do just now.

What I think a number of us are experiencing is a kind of “slow motion” Easter: we’ve already sensed the loss and uncertainty that Jesus’ friends experienced as he was lost to them.

There was a palpable sense of shock – when churches were closed, and our normal way of worshipping together taken from us.

Even being told to stay at home – in fairly stark terms – was quite hard for those of us more used to be out and with other people. That loss of freedom is difficult.

And it’s proved something of a shock for families used to going their own separate ways during the day – for work or school or college: suddenly being together all day and every day, with no other company to dilute the mix, demands new rules of engagement if the battle for personal space is not to be lost as well.

Harder still is the enforced separation of those unable to visit loved ones who are sick or dying – and the double sense of isolation that brings.
We share perhaps the disciples’ sense of disorientation as familiar patterns and routines are lost. Like them we find ourselves in a situation where everything we thought we knew – everything we were expecting – has been thrown out. We don’t know what is going to happen next; we don’t know when we’ll get back to “normal”, or even what “normal” is going to look like when we get there.

And there’s a certain amount of confusion around too.
I have to admit that I sometimes struggle to remember what day it is, now they all seem remarkably similar!
And for those now working from home for the first time, there’s the fresh challenge of demarcating work time and family or leisure time: how do we know when to “clock on” and “clock off”? Can I do a couple of extra hours work today, while it’s quiet, then a bit less tomorrow?
And will I remember?!

Am I, at this moment, professional, partner, parent or all three at once?

How can I anchor myself in these strange waters that I’m now forced to navigate?
Shock, disorientation, confusion – in many ways, our loss of church worship and the loss now of our usual Holy Week observance, both sound rather like bereavement.
Those three emotions, that we usually associate with grief, do seem to be present now, as we live through this gradual and sometimes painful process of adjusting to a different way of living.

We shouldn’t be surprised then if sometimes we find it hard going – if our emotions sometimes lurch in response to certain triggers: living where we do, alongside the Parish Church, I can’t help noticing the lack of bells on a Monday evening; or of the sound of organists practising on Tuesdays and Wednesday; or of the strains of the choir on Thursday evenings.
For now the church stands silent – a physical reminder of the “absence” we feel – a reminder, we might say, of the silence of the tomb.

This, then, is our Holy Saturday experience: like the disciples we know what we have lost, but we can’t yet see the joy that lies beyond. Like them we are forced to hide away, in the relative safety of our homes. Like the first Christians, we are forbidden to gather in public.
And yet we do know that this will not last for ever –
we don’t yet know when it will end, but do know it will.

A very particular perspective on this was offered, this week, by Terry Waite – who, in the 1980s, was envoy for the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie.
In 1987, Waite was sent to Beirut, to try and negotiate for the release of two American hostages. In the event he was himself taken hostage, and kept in cramped conditions for over four years.

It’s with a particular wisdom, then, that he gave advice to any of us struggling with our current isolation.

First of all, he said, we need a change of mindset: we are not “stuck” at home, we are “safe” at home”.

There is a real difference.

In order to cultivate that positive frame of mind he suggests 4 practical steps:
1 – keep your own dignity – don’t sit around all day in your pyjamas!
2 – Form a structure to your day – that might mean set times each day for prayer, for exercise, for meals
3 – Be grateful for what you have – not least for the shelter that our homes provide, and something not everyone does have.
4 Read and do something creative – don’t just sit and fret about things, feed your mind.

So, can we use this enforced stillness to notice the good things that are there for us?
Without the usual volume of traffic we hear the birdsong more clearly.
Without our daily encounter with the usual people, our fleeting conversations – from a distance, on the phone or by other means – somehow mean more to us.

Can we use this time to really appreciate the things we are missing – even simple things, like pasta or Reeve’s cakes!
Can we use this time to really appreciate the people we depend on – those in our pharmacies and medical staff, for example.

And what about the things we can now do – that we’re normally far to busy for – or that we can now do differently, in more creative ways?

One of the many posts that caught my eye on Facebook read “In the rush to return to normal, it’s worth asking which parts of normal are really worth rushing back to.”

We can learn from this experience – we can grow through this period of restriction and come out the other side renewed and refreshed.

We can yet discover again what is truly precious to us; what is vital to our communities, our society, our planet;
what is fundamental to our faith and our church.
Of course, I am NOT trying to suggest that this pandemic is some kind of blessing in disguise: for those who have lost loved ones, Covid 19 represents a devastating loss that can never be undone. It would be crass to suggest otherwise.

And yet, even then, our faith refuses to see a dead end.

The experience of Good Friday was agonizing for Jesus himself AND for those who loved him – forced to stand by helplessly, unable to do anything to ease his suffering.

We know now that through his suffering the world was changed for good – God’s love for us revealed,
the way to eternal life opened to us.

From this time – with all its frustrations, hardship and grief – still good things can come and will come, if we enable them to.

May God give us grace to trust in him who suffered, died and rose again for us – knowing that we will rejoice again, in his presence and in each other’s company. Amen.

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April 5, 2020

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Holy Week

Monday in Holy Week

The Rt Revd Richard Chartres

I John 4.7-21
Love
THE new community which Jesus came to inaugurate is built up by love. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” [I Corinthians 8.1].
But in modern English “love” is a somewhat shop-soiled and sentimentalised word, and it is often confused with an emotional state. In his book A Month of Sundays, the American novelist John Updike says, “Love, you old whore of word — we’ll let you in this once, but only fumigated with quotation marks.”
Love for God is not some emotion which comes and goes but self-giving. God so loved the world that he was generous and gave his very self to us in the person of Jesus Christ [St John 3.16], who is our teacher about authentic love.
There are three obvious marks of Christ-like love.
1. [Luke 10.25-37] Jesus tells the familiar story of the Good Samaritan in response to a question about the limits on love. We should always be at work pushing back the limits on love, and, in a joined-up world, our capacity to show Samaritan-like generosity now extends far beyond our town, but it should nevertheless begin there, and in our own families.
2. The love of the self-giving God is not coercive. In Holy Week, we are shown the tragic extent to which we are free to reject the love of God. Authentic Christian love should not involve the blackmail of “Think how much I have done for you”. Parents have to make the discovery—painful though it is — that “love lies in the letting go”.
3. Authentic love involves a gift of power. Jesus is at the mercy of the crowds, the priests, the Roman soldiers; and he died out of love for those who spend their time passing judgement, inflicting punishment, and building tombs. The hymn My song is love unknown is a wonderful meditation for Holy Week and speaks of the love of Christ as “Love to the loveless shown That they might lovely be”.
I remember confirming a teenage girl who told me that she meant so little to her father that she could never make him angry. She understood that authentic love involves a gift of power, and entails suffering.
All this could add up to a self-lacerating style of life, far from the joy we see in Jesus in the company of his friends, in talking with them and sharing food. The teaching of St Bernard on the Love of God gets the balance right. He says that we all begin life by loving self for self’s sake. We are programmed to survive in this way.
Sometimes we get religion, and treat God as an asset in achieving our own ambitions –- loving God for self’s sake.
Then the way is open for the Copernican revolution, when the centre shifts from ourselves to God himself, and we begin to love God for God’s sake.
But that is not the end of the story because, if we have followed Jesus Christ the human face of God through his Passion in which he loves his enemies into love, we can acquire a love of self for God’s sake.
Love of Self for Self’s sake
Love of God for Self’s sake
Love of God for God’s sake
Love of Self for God’s sake

“Beloved, if God so loved us we ought also to love one another” [I John 4.11].

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April 4, 2020

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Holy Week, Uncategorised

Holy Week Reflections

Holy Week in Wilton

The Rt Revd Richard Chartres

HOLY Week begins with cheering crowds on Palm Sunday, but the applause soon turns to cries of “Crucify him!”. As the week goes on, Jesus is betrayed by a friend and deserted by the community which he had gathered around him. Finally, he faces Pilate – alone, but not entirely alone. The Passion story shows him all the time closely in touch in prayer with God his Father, until that last haunting cry from the Cross at the ninth hour, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?”
There are so many resonances in the story of Holy Week as many of us experience a compulsory retreat. Looking at the story of our own lives and reflecting on the story of Jesus Christ can uncover some of those questions about the meaning and direction of our lives which we are usually “too busy” to face.
There is much to encourage us, even in a time of real crisis. We are rightly encouraged by the upsurge of volunteering. Those who just think of looking after Number One shrink. As Jesus said, “whosoever will save his life will lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake will find it”. Holy Week takes us to the profound depths of this truth, which makes sense of our lives and which animates the universe.

Matthew 21.1-14
ON Palm Sunday, Jesus the prophet of Nazareth in Galilee, makes his entry into Jerusalem. Salvation comes from the provinces, but the final act of the drama is played out in the capital. It is as the prophet Zechariah foretold, “Shout O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold thy king cometh unto thee, righteous and victorious and riding upon a colt, the foal of a donkey” [Zechariah 9.9].
Even in the present crisis, people cry out for a saviour and are savagely disappointed when the quick fix does not materialise. Then the blame game begins.
The prophet Zechariah expected that the appearance of the “king” would bring about the rout of Israel’s enemies. “I will stir up thy sons O Zion against thy sons O Greece and will make thee as the sword of a mighty man” [Zechariah 9.13].
The crowds in Jerusalem hail Jesus as a liberator. “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!” Using a phrase from the Psalms [Psalm 118], they look back to the glory days of King David and the monarchy; days when Israel was strong and defeated her enemies. Such memories made a painful contrast with the situation of Jerusalem in the days of Jesus: an occupied city, with a garrison of Roman soldiers in a fortress overlooking the temple. No wonder, as the gospel says, “all the city was stirred”.
The crowds were, however, soon disillusioned. The triumphal entry to Jerusalem is described in chapter 21 of St Matthew’s Gospel, but already by chapter 22 we are shown a scene which explains why the crowds were disappointed. Some of the learned élite, hoping to collect evidence to convict Jesus as a threat to the imperial government, show him a coin and ask whether or not it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. The coin in question probably bore the image of the Emperor Tiberius with the legend “Son of the divine Augustus”. Jewish ultra-nationalists refused to handle such coins, but Jesus took the coin and said, “Render to Caesar the thing that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”
In the ancient world, Caesar was treated as divine; but Jesus refuses to identify the Imperial Regime – or, in our case, the Government — with the will of God. He does, however, acknowledge a proper place for the government of Caesar. There is a secular sphere in which people of different beliefs can co-operate under the rule of law without putting into question our ultimate loyalty — as Christians — to God, as we see him in Jesus Christ. The Christian faith does not make God into Caesar, and we can with a good conscience pay our taxes and follow government instructions as the crisis unfolds.
But the crowds with their memories of the warrior King David were expecting a rather different kind of liberator, and their hosannas were short-lived. By the end of the week the hosannas had turned into a chant of “Crucify him!”
As we view these events from the other side of the Cross and Resurrection, we can hail him as the true king for whom the human race is longing. As he comes on an ordinary beast of burden, we can see him as king of a new style of kingdom. By welcoming his advent, we are called to responsibility for building this kingdom, and for building together the church as a foretaste of the kingdom; a community of trust and celebration which can be seen and experienced as an authentic vision of the realm of King Jesus. This responsibility is still one to be exercised in our restricted circumstances.
Our cries of Hosanna, and our recognition of Jesus as the King who comes in the name of the Lord, commit us to praying down this kingdom and to living it out in the here and now: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

THERE are many ways of describing what the kingdom would look like if it arrived in Wilton. Here are just three themes especially relevant to our current crisis.
There is nothing wrong with loving one’s own country, but the backward-looking vision of the crowd on the first Palm Sunday had divided the world into “us” and “our enemies”. In Jesus Christ, however, there is no East or West. “In one Spirit we were all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free: and were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
We are called to build a kingdom in which there is a wider and wider “us”. That is even relevant for a community like Wilton. I pray that the upsurge of neighbourliness which we have witnessed may deepen the channels of communication and increase mutual respect as we grow together as members of one body. As Christians, we must be at work day by day extending the boundaries of the kingdom by loving and serving our neighbours indefatigably, and especially — like the Good Samaritan — when our neighbour does not belong to our tribe and has no way of repaying us.
A wider “us” but also a deeper “now”. The crowds were looking back to the glory days of the independent kingdom. Their memories were of triumph and conquest. The arrival of the king, not on a white horse but on a donkey, like a magnet draws out of the biblical narrative a different pattern of memories. Humility and self-giving involve sacrifice and suffering, but in the light of Christ’s cross and resurrection we can see them as the way to build the kingdom that endures. The kingdoms and empires of the earth are established in blood taken. The coming kingdom of heaven is founded on blood given. It will be a kingdom of justice and well-being for all, which does not depend on the violent domination of one group by another, and which does not lead to the unequal exploitation of the fruits of the earth by the rich.
Sometimes it feels as if we are too busy looking back with nostalgia to a remembered golden age to look forward with any expectancy. Any church in which the Spirit of Jesus Christ is lively always has a sense of the coming kingdom. We are not called to drop out into some other “spiritual” world. We are not called to be at ease in this passing dispensation. We are to anticipate the world to come.
The Christian “now” is nourished by remembering the Cross and the suffering of Jesus Christ at the beginning of this week of his Passion, but our “now” is also marked by a longing for the kingdom of God of such intensity that our expectancy exerts a gravitational pull on the present. Ours is not a fantasy faith. Holy Week reveals the cost of entry into the kingdom, but its climax is in the joy and new life of the Day of Resurrection. If we want to experience that joy then every day we must seek to pattern our own life on the life of God, “who so loved the world that He was generous and gave Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ”. Jesus embodies God’s plan for the spiritual evolution of the whole human race.
A wider “us”, a deeper “now”, and, lastly, a better “good life”. Jesus Christ borrowed the donkey on which he made his entry into Jerusalem. He ate his last supper with his friends in a borrowed room. As it says in scripture, “foxes have holes but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”.
We all need food, clothing and shelter. One of the most promising things about own time is the way in which millions of people have been lifted out of poverty (as defined by the UN in the Millennium Development Goals). But, beyond a certain point, we are being sold the idea that having things is the recipe for happiness. At every turn we are presented with alluring pictures of the good life that will be ours if we have more things to live with. I remember a witty trader inviting me to step into his shop with the words “Come in and buy what you know you don’t need”.
Some people are compelled to live a simple life. I remember a Church Army sister who had devoted her life to the service of homeless women. She didn’t see the point of Lent because she lived lean all the time, but for some of us the present restrictions are an opportunity to review our pattern of consumption.
The open secret of the good life is not more and more things to live with but more and more to live for. As a priest, I have often had the privilege of accompanying people as they die. Very few are full of regret that they did not spend more time in the office. The regrets are most often about neglected and broken relationships. The Christian vision of the good life is not having more but being more.
In Holy Week, as Jesus Christ hands over his life to the Father; as he prays for his enemies and says “Father forgive them”; as he commends his mother to the protection of the Beloved Disciple, he offers us a pattern of life which is a blessing to others. It is a life which contains the promise which Jesus holds out to us in the gospel of St John, of “life in all its fullness”.
A wider “us”; a deeper “now”; a better “good life”: aspects of the kingdom which Jesus Christ this day rode into Jerusalem to inaugurate. Our hosannas hail his advent as king, but we know that his is a throne which is not occupied until he suffers death upon the Cross. Please pray for me as I pray for you as, together, we look again at our lives through the glass of his Passion.

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April 2, 2020

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Holy Week Resources

A musical meditation for Holy Week

Ailsa Dixon’s Variations on Love Divine is a set of 19 short pieces for string quartet, woven around Stainer’s familiar hymn, exploring the meanings of divine love in a series of scenes from the incarnation to the ascension and a final vision of heavenly joy.  In an essay on the use of hymn tunes in classical music, likening the work to Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on the Old 104th Psalm Tune, Simon Brackenborough writes, ‘There is something quietly thought-provoking about Dixon’s insistence on using this modest, contented-sounding tune to cover such large theological ground… the message of this work seems to be that a whole world of religious meaning can be revealed through even the smallest means.’  The titles given to each movement (spoken on this recording) suggest that the composer intended the sequence of variations to be followed by the listener in a kind of musical meditation, from the opening of John’s Gospel, ‘In the beginning was the Word’, through the entire span of the Christian theological scheme.  This spiritual journey takes the listener through a sound-world that is by turns mysterious, lyrical, dramatic, poignant, and finally exultant in ‘The Song of Praise and the Dance of Joy’.

 

The following is an extended meditation on the 14 Stations of the Cross (c. 45 minutes)

Please note: you will need to adjust the volume UP for this video.