All Saintstide

[yrieithydd]

I suppose my keeping of the feast began with Sunday evening's joint service at Robinson. The choirs of Robinson, Churchill, Fitz and Girton came together to sing the Mozart Requiem. They had performed in in concert (with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet leading the orchestra) 9 days previously at Fitz to which I had not gone. This time they did it liturgically although without the Sanctus/Benedictus.

The music was superb although the soloists in the Recordare were a bit quiet. It was an interesting mix though. We had the lections (well two of them) for All Saints' day but a Requiem Mass which to me is an All Souls' Day think. Fr Malcolm (from Girton) gave an interesting meditation on the God of tears. I was disappointed that the college clergy did the readings and prayers themselves; yes I know that there were 5 of them (I presume the fifth was an ordinand on attachment to one of the colleges), but I thought it would have been nice for someone from the congregation to do something. There was one particularly interesting juxtaposition which was between the Offertory sequence and the (alternative form of the) Prayer of Humble Access. The Offertory as with other bits of the Mass were focussing on our sinfulness and God as judge and the Day of Wrath which gave an interesting contrast with the emphasis on God's love and welcoming of us, unworthy though we be of the Prayer.¹ It also got me wondering about the origins of the texts used in the Requiem.⁴ I was also disappointed by the fact that congregation failed to read the instruction in the service sheet about leaving in silence when ready.

Last night, I went to Evening Prayer and was amused by my brain. The NT reading was the end of Hebrews 11 (starting with not having time to list the others) and the start of Hebrews 12. At the Beyond Belief meeting, I'd suggested a couple of themes (because of it being All Saints' tide) which were `Running the Race' and `Clouds of Witnesses'. The former got a lot of discussion at least. In the course of the discussion which also focussed on evangelism and the idea of bringing people to Jesus, I quoted `looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith'. My brain however, was refusing to return the context for any of this phrases. Thus when we had:
¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
I was amused by the fact I'd been referencing one passage without quite realising it.⁶

I went to Mass at LSM for All Saints' Day itself. I'd invited caliston who'd expressed an interest in coming to LSM and All Saints' Day seemed like a good idea because I wasn't serving so would be in the congregation and thus able to make sure he knew where he was and also because being during the week it meant it wasn't taking him away from his own Church. This cunning plan did not entirely work. I noticed Dave looking out at the congregation in a `we haven't got enough servers' sort of a way and then he came to speak to Paul, Kasuko and then me. elise and the_alchemist had both failed to observe the rota and Sam didn't turn up either. This meant the the rota'd torchberers became acolytes and Kasuko and I became torchbearers and Paul was crucifer (which I'm not sure he'd done before). We managed. I even managed to keep the torchbearers in to sing most of the Offertory hymn (For all the Saints and in fact I think going out once we'd been censed was good, though I was amused when the crucifer tried to follow us.

After tidying up (I managed to extinguish the angels though amusingly in a different wrong order to the one in which Dave lit them; given when I realised the wrong order I'd done I should have done it in reverse of what he'd done but didn't think fast enough), there were drinks in the parish room and then emperor⁷, mr_ricarno, myself, caliston set off to the Bella Italia (having failed to persuade meirion and the_alchemist to join us) and were later joined by Father Andrew and Sarah Martin. mr_ricarno and I caused amusement by sharing a Godfather for two and demolishing it in short order⁸ despite the fact that we were talking at the time! Discussion ranged fairly widely with Fr Andrew being dubious about the Goth Eucharist on the grounds that it was in danger of creating a ghetto. We were also asked to define a Goth by Sarah which we didn't do very well.

Afterwards, emperor invited people back to his for Gin, so mr_ricarno and I went back there. Gin was particular important as mr_ricarno admitted that he'd been attending LSM for a year but still hadn't had GIN!



Tonight we have All Souls' with the wonderful black High Mass set. In the light of last night's discussion, emperor suggested that he should advertise it to the Goth community.



¹Tim and I, in the planning meeting for Friday's Beyond Belief service yesterday, were disputing again,² this time about what God's view of us was. This came from talking about the way of evangelising, with the CICCU being very clear that people had to realise³ their sinfulness before they could believe. A bit later, he said something about realising what God's view of us was, and I said `yes, realising that he loves us' whereas he meant `that God sees us as sinful'.

²He is from a very conservative evangelical background and tends towards creationism. Another discussion point yesterday was whether talking of Christ as the `second Adam' necessitates the `first Adam' being a historical person. His objection was that if you take the first Adam as a concept, then what's to stop the second Adam just being that. But despite this, he is open to talking to those of us from other traditions. He did though say that he thought the CofE would split with the evangelical wing being disestablished and the liberal wing would remain under the State. He wasn't quite sure how to answer my question about the Catholics. He asked what their position on abortion and homosexuality and women preachers were (which got us into the abortion debate). I found that a very odd place to split. It wasn't theology but its social outworkings which were key.

³Actually, I agree with that. What I disagree with is the fact that CICCU seem to think people will come to this realisation by the repeated assertion of it whereas I think it is in contrast to what is offered in Christ.

⁴Is the text of the Dies Irae in Mozart's Requiem different to that of Verdi's? I'm sure there was a line I half-remember from Verdi which wasn't in Mozart. For some reason, my brain associated the syllables of one bit with mixamatosis⁵ and I couldn't see which bit that would have been in the text we had.

⁵Yes my brain is strange!

⁶This was possibly particularly amusing because at one point, Tim made the point that in debates and things evangelicals often look more impressive because they will just quote Bible passages with authority and that often Liberals don't know there Bible well enough and Simon (the Chaplain) had said something about sending them to me. My comment was that we tended not to go in for soundbites which doesn't go down well in our culture.

⁷Who had been very Catholic and rushed from Mass at Selwyn where he'd been thurifer to Mass at LSM!

⁸As we said, one has to eat fast to ensure that the other doesn't eat more of it!