What is in Kelvin's Head?

All Souls

02/11/2015

All Souls Day is a rehearsal for my own funeral.

I realised this a few years ago when someone commented that the All Souls Requiem at St Mary’s seemed to be a particularly important time of the year and was appealing to more people than it used to. When I sat and thought about it, I realised that what I was doing each year in preparing for it was preparing for my own funeral and that at some level, part of what gives me life and energy at St Mary’s is building a community that would know exactly what to do if I dropped down dead.

Some people might think that rather morbid but it isn’t. I don’t think that much about death. Keeping All Souls is actually a way of helping ourselves let the dead be dead without fixating constantly about them. After last night’s Requiem for All Souls it simply felt to me that all was as it should be. Those whom we care for had been commended to God’s love, we had prayed alongside one another in our remembering and we had done so in the most beautiful way we could do.

There are many things about All Souls which touch me. One is the use of the Eucharistic prayer for Easter. That’s what we do whenever there’s a funeral that is a Eucharist too. When someone dies there’s a snatch of Easter Day about the proceedings. In the first light of Easter, glory broke from the tomb, after all.

Last night’s requiem was sublime. The simple tunes of Rutter’s Requiem taking us on a pastoral journey. We saw that death is real. We saw that grief is raw. And we knew that God is love. The music was incredible – the choir literally singing to raise the dead.

At least, that’s how it was for me.

The double Feast of All Saints and All Souls is one that always takes my mind abroad too. I was in Sweden for it one year, the year before I was ordained. My memory is of people going to the graveyards and lighting candles on the graves. A little of the first snow of winter had fallen and there was mist swirling around the graveyard trees as people wandered the quiet pathways thinking about those who had died.

I remember someone telling me that they always lit candles for their parents and then crossed the graveyard to light another one on the grave of Dag Hammarskjöld – All Saints and All Souls always mingle.

And then three years ago I was in America at this time of year.

It seems to me that Hallowe’en has suffered rather at lot in its return trip back across the Atlantic to these shores. It seems now to be an excuse for very poor fancy dress bought from cheap outfitters by people who want to get drunk looking like a pirate or Wonderwoman.

Rather more interesting in the US these days is the set of traditions that the Latino people bring to this time of year. Some of the solemnity that northern Europeans cultivate when thinking about the dead is challenged by those who want to celebrate their dead with an enormous party.

This is what this time of year looks like in one of the churches that I visited during my sabbatical – All Saints’ Church in Chicago – a place which knows how to party.

In the midst of life we are in death.

And vice versa.

24 responses to “Good Vicar, Bad Vicar”

Josh

02/01/2014

Being a good vicar to stony, unreceptive hearts might require a pickaxe to reveal gemstones within. It must be tough to minister to jerks and meanies, no? We lose faith in people easily – I certainly do. But a good vicar – a loving parent – doesn’t give on up one’s children.

A good vicar might depend on the eye of the beholder. Whether you believe vicars and congregations are intrinsically good or evil might get you called a Pelagian or an Augustinian depending on who you ask. Faith in the work of a vicar or the reception of the congregation depends on good faith and co-operation – what then do we place our faith in? Hardly Protestant thinking, when faith is dependent on work, manifestation, and epiphany. A bad vicar might be sent to good people. A good vicar might be sent to bad people. Whether a vicar or congregation is subjectively or objectively good is a difficult question to answer.

It is then that I prefer to see both the vicar and congregation not as “good” or “bad” but rather as equally “beloved”. However large the congregation, or even the vicar’s skill shouldn’t matter then. But that raises the question: Who then do we love if we are so beloved by God? Perhaps love might be the answer. A vicar and congregation who sees and knows themselves as equally and lavishly beloved of God will love each other. Love makes congregations meaningful and precious, no matter how small they might be.

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Josh

02/01/2014

And if I might add to my previous comment – And love also makes vicars meaningful and precious, no matter how small the congregation might be.

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Rosemary Hannah

02/01/2014

Yes – things which make the practicalities of small congregations include:
the laity in most senior positions find it hard to see the inclusive love of God and to see the value of prayer and spiritual exercises, a shortage of laity with administrative abilities, a tiny handful of parishioners prepared to insist on unhelpful things all the time (the oldest liturgies every week, the kind of behaviour small children cannot sustain all service long, particular dress in those at church on Sunday to name but a tiny selection). In a larger church these things can be contained (one nasty comment for lady x outweighed by five or six lovely ones or simply finding somebody to be treasurer who can cope with the job). In a small church, however good the vicar, the nasty comment carries more weight, and the sorting out of the finances may take days of clergy effort. It is always hard to get from a tiny congregation to a large one.

That said, I have sat through sermons so mind-numbingly boring and inappropriate that I have actually moved to another church.

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Paul Waddington

04/01/2014

If one looks at the larger picture, the Archbishop’s optimism seems misplaced.

According to the 1851 census, about five million people attended a Church of England service on the census day (a Sunday). The population of England and Wales at the time was about 17 million. These are round figures and I know that there were difficulties with the religious census, but they are good enough to demonstrate my point. Roughly speaking, about 30% of the population attended a CofE that Sunday.

Recently published figures estimate average Sunday attendance at CofE churches at about 900,000. That is about 2% of the population of England. Wales is now excluded.

So taking the long view, the trend is rather depressing for the CofE. Compared with 1851, fourteen out of fifteen no longer attend church regularly.

As an aside, the 1851 census indicated a church attendance for Catholics of about 350,000. That is about 2% of the population. I understand that the current figure is very similar for Mass attendance is also around 900,000 or 2% of the population.

Other recent research has indicated that the age range of CofE congregations is skewed towards the upper end. Certainly in my local parish, it is unusual to see anyone under the age of 60. I do wonder how many there will be in, say, 15 years time.

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1. Kelvin
  
  04/01/2014
  
  Thanks Paul – I find that bishops generally tend to accentuate the positive when it comes to thinking about numbers in church. Whether that is because they only go to events that are comparatively well attended or whether it is actually because it is their job to be upbeat about possibilities is not clear to me.
  
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Pam

04/01/2014

It is complicated – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – poor adjectives. The rector is the leader of the congregation and needs support and trust. But, I think, no longer is the vicar held in such esteem as not to have to earn that support and trust. A good thing, mostly. Churches grow for all sorts of reasons – the level of involvement with non-believers, a prominent noticeboard and outstanding bikke and slice-makers all help.

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