Inter vestibulum et altare plorabunt sacerdotes, ministri Domini dicentes: parce, Domine, parce populo tuo; et ne des haereditatem tuam in opprobrium.

Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord weep and say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach’. Joel 2:17

HERE IS one of the more popular of the Ash Wednesday texts, popular in the rather specialised sense that it has been used by several composers to adorn this gloomy, yet joyful day.  Gloomy?  Spending a day fasting – if one is able to do so – abstaining from meat, and fitting in another visit to church, possibly at some personal inconvenience, sounds fairly gloomy.  Joyful?  There is something bracing in forming with fresh resolve to attend to the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving: joyful in that it always feels good to begin to get a grip on things again, to halt the slide into personal chaos, which often seems to threaten to engulf us.

What is strange about the text – between the vestibule and the altar – is that we haven’t the faintest idea when the prophet Joel was writing.  Was it in the ninth century BC, in the reign of Joash, a date favoured by nineteenth century commentaries?  If so, Joel was one of the very early  prophets.  Or was he a contemporary of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Habakkuk, writing at the end of the sixth century BC, as the Kingdom of Judah was coming to an end?  Or was he writing at the beginning of the sixth century BC, when the exiles were returning from Babylon?  In which case he would be a contemporary of Zechariah and Haggai.  Or maybe he was writing round about 400 BC, during the Persian period, as one of the last prophets.

Apart from demonstrating how much easier it is to look at Wikipedia than to trudge upstairs to consult the bible commentaries, none of that information gets us very far.  We know, from chapter 1, that Joel is dealing with a plague of locusts but is this a real plague of locusts, or is an enemy army the plague of locusts, or is there both a real plague and an enemy army which the plague only too vividly points too?  We’re overrun with locusts and, we infer from chapter 2, from which our reading is taken, something even more dangerous than locusts is poised to strike.

As I said in my Candlemas sermon, crisis and disaster has overtaken Jerusalem regularly for three thousand years.  We might be familiar with the disasters mentioned in the Bible – the Babylonian exile, the battle of the Maccabees, the Fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.  We might even be familiar, and hang our heads in shame, over the conquering of Jerusalem by the first crusaders in 1099, when the Moslems were massacred.  But these events are only some of the many instances of barbarism from which Jerusalem has suffered throughout its history.  So we need not worry ourselves too much whether or not the overrunning with locusts, described by Joel, is literal or allegorical.

What I do want to draw attention to is the activity of the priests, the ministers of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar.  They were weeping and begging the Lord to spare his people.  Some commentators have said of the Thomas Tallis motet In jejunio et fletu, in which these words occur, that, publishing it in 1575, he, a Catholic, was protesting, alongside his fellow Catholic composer, William Byrd, against the destruction of the Catholic religion in Tudor England.

As it is the, words could be describing Homs, in present day Syria.  They could be in Kabul, in present day Afghanistan.  They were certainly the priests and ministers of the Lord in war-torn Europe, during two violent decades in the twentieth century.  And so we could go on.

What I want to say is this: though I have no easy answers for why God has created such a violent world, or, rather, allowed such a violence to metamorphose like a cancer amidst his beautiful creation, we do have to stare the reality of evil in the face.  There are times for dealing with the difficult questions and coming up with ingenious answers, but Ash Wednesday and Lent is not the time for this.  Lent is the time to confront two unpalatable truths.  One is that, whatever they are, evil and violence are nothing more than the playing out, on a grand scale, of the imperfections and unkindnesses, the sins venial and mortal, of each one of us, and us together.  The second is that we cannot sort out Syria or Afghanistan, or the pirates of Somalia, or the abuse of madrassas in our own country, but we can deal with our own imperfections and unkindnesses, we can bring our sins, venial and mortal, to the Lord for pardon and healing.

That doesn’t sound very much – my personal holiness being an agency of change in the world – but is really a great deal.  But, more than that, as Catholics, we still take seriously the weeping of priests and ministers between the vestibule and the altar.  We still take seriously the offering of Mass, for the salvation, spiritual and physical, of the world.  And not just a general, woolly application, but a real sense that each Mass offered achieves some real and actual benefits, not only for those who offer it but, even more, for those for whom it is offered, living or departed.

And, a final thought. That means that we do well to steer clear of the entertainment model of the Mass.  We are not here for ourselves and we are not here to enjoy anything.  And it is time to put back into proportion the ‘fellowship meal’ model of the Mass.  It is scarcely a meal, though remembering the Last Supper is part of remembering and rehearsing the Paschal mystery.  We are here to plead the sacrifice of the Mass.  We are here, playing our part in the drama of the transformation of the world, the bringing in of the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’ (Rev. 20:2).  Meanwhile God has already tabernacled amongst us, and we have Christ, our Great High Priest praying for us at the altar in heaven, as

Between the vestibule and the altar…the priests, the ministers of the Lord weep and say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach’

Holy Rood, Oxford, 6.30pm

Music: The Newman Consort – Jacob Obrecht Missa a 3; Inter vestibulum and Emendemus will be sung during the Ashing to Gregorian chant.

Click here for the pdf file.

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.  Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.  1 Cor 10:31 – 11:1

THUS ST PAUL sums up the discussion of the issue of food offered to idols, a pressing practical issue for the Church in Corinth.   It all seems pretty remote from our concerns – food offered to idols – but can we squeeze anything more from this than a few pious platitudes: do everything to the glory of God; give no offence to anyone; be imitators of the saints, as they are imitators of Christ?  Those pious platitudes are not to be set aside lightly.  The world would be a very different place if even Christian congregations managed to live up to them.  But they are the kind of thing we already know, the kind of yardstick against which we measure ourselves as we prepare to use the Sacrament of Penance.  And, by the way, if you haven’t yet got into a regular habit or pattern in that respect, the rule of the Church requires an annual, Paschal use of the confessional and it is nearly a year since you all first did that as Catholics.

But, moving beyond the exhortation to holiness and good behaviour, is the world of Corinth irretrievably remote from us and our concerns?  Let us briefly visit in our imagination the meat market of Corinth.  A couple of inscriptions from the time indicate that the market had been given to the people by the city’s ruling classes and, after the games or other big occasions, meat was sold there at a bargain price, for the benefit of poorer people.  A little bit like the lowering of prices in Marks and Spencers’ Simply Food towards the end of the day, when  things approaching their use-by-date are sold off cheaply.  The problem is that the meat à bon marché in Corinth was not from the shelves of the local Marks and Spencers’ but from the temples in which food sacrifices had been offered to the gods.  The dilemma for the Christians was two-fold.  First: could they purchase this meat?  Many, if not most, Christians were from the poorer social classes.  Here was a pressing housekeeping issue.  Second: if they were invited out, were they to have scruples about the Bœuf Bourguignon served to them?  We’re not quite sure what ‘invited’ might mean.  St Paul might have been talking about being entertained at home by pagan friends.  The verb he uses – kaleō– is used of being invited to dinner, and some manuscripts add ‘to dinner’.  But it’s possible that he is talking about a bun fight in the precincts of a pagan temple, rather like the bun fights in church halls which are such an important part of our culinary patrimony.  Can we eat the sausage rolls or not?  Or, as clergy on hot days at funeral teas ask themselves, ‘how long have those slices of ham and chicken drumsticks been sitting there’?  The sensible priest is a vegetarian when there is no ‘r’ in the month.

It’s impossible to see the discussion at Corinth without looking back to where St Paul is himself coming from – rabbinic Judaism, in which there are strict rules about what food may be eaten and when and with whom.  And without looking forward to his own discussion on the Holy Eucharist, a discussion which he resumes in the second half of the next chapter of 1 Corinthians.  It is logical that St Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, has broken so thoroughly from Jewish dietary laws that he refuses to be over-scrupulous about pagan meat.  It is also logical that, when it comes to the Eucharist, he is concerned about the proper approach and the proper procedure.  Meanwhile, he is happy for the Corinthians to eat food from pagan sources.  Provided that offence is not given to others, and provided that such meat – whether bought or served up – is consumed without regard to whatever its previous use might have been.

We could think ourselves into a parallel situation.  Supposing someone had an objection to the way some halal or kosher meat is slaughtered.   Such scruples might make dining on the Cowley Road or in Golders Green rather tricky.  We know that most animals slaughtered according to religious rules in this country are stunned before their throats are slit.  But should we interrogate the Bangladeshi waiter, the Jewish chef before settling down to eat?  Or do we say to our host at a supper party – is that Fair Trade tea you are serving?  I haven’t drunk Nescafé since the General Synod mounted a boycott of Nestlé some years ago.  The little pamphlets of the Catholic Truth Society used to reassure their readers that it was better to accept meat from a non-Catholic host on a Friday than to cause embarrassment.

My own view is that these somewhat contrived modern examples of the Corinthian dilemmas do at least alert us not only to the importance of the platitudes – do everything to the glory of God; give no offence to anyone; be imitators of the saints, as they are imitators of Christ – but also to some of the complexities of living – as the Corinthians did and as we do – in a pagan society.  Issues such as fair-trade versus market forces, globalisation versus a healthy local economy, are matters on which, as Christians, we have something to say.  But, even more to the point, are some of the crisis points: the airline stewardess disciplined for wearing a crucifix, the Bishop of Oxford suggesting that the Muslim call to prayer should resound throughout East Oxford, the judge’s ruling that it is unlawful for prayers to be part of the Council agenda.  These are matters – and gay marriage is the most challenging present one – which are decided not by the Church, nor even by Christian England, but by what is in many senses a secular state, promulging the laws of a secular Europe.   We are indeed back in pagan Corinth.

Therefore,

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.  Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. 

from 5.30pm – Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament

6pm – Sung Vigil Mass

Music of the Mass: Morales, Missa Ave Maris Stella (S, B, A); Tallis, O Salutaris – The Newman Consort

Preacher: Mgr Andrew Burnham

And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them’.

The introit of today’s mass is something of a prize plum for those interested in texts and translations:

Come, let us worship God, and bow down before the Lord:  let us shed tears before the Lord who made us, for he is the Lord our God.

Those of us who know the vernacular tradition of English psalmody may be surprised by the inclusion here of a reference to shedding tears before the Lord who made us. We know our Coverdale, and our BCP Matins, and this is not quite how the Venite goes: ‘O come, let us worship, and fall down: and kneel before the Lord our Maker’. So it is in the modern Roman Breviary, too. But the version of the psalter from which this text is taken comes to us from a different tradition. St Jerome, it seems, was too prolific a translator for his own good. He began by using as his yardstick the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Scriptures, and revising such Latin translations as existed to bring them all into line with the Greek. This, the Roman Psalter, was what got used in the Missal. In the Office itself, however, and in the Vulgate bible, and in the emerging corpus of Gregorian chant, they favoured Jerome’s second run over the target, based on a side-by-side compilation of texts known as the Hexapla. This was the case, apparently, in most places except England, where they favoured the Roman Psalter, and used it until the Norman Conquest. Oh yes, and they used it at St Peter’s, and at St Mark’s basilica in Venice. St Jerome then had a third try, using the Hebrew text as a basis, but it doesn’t seem as though anybody much found that any good. Confused yet? You will be.

When the first translations were made into English, they did use the Hebrew texts, and subsequent translators and revisers either did that or, like Myles Coverdale, they admitted that they couldn’t actually read either Greek or Hebrew especially well, and cribbed from Latin, English and German versions. Except Dr Challoner, of course, who translated his Douai-Rheims Bible from the Latin, so as to make the point. So, the Greek tradition enjoins us to tears; the Hebrew tradition enjoins us to bend the knee, and the Ordinariate – being all things to all men for the sake of the Gospel – will enjoin you do to both, in the most accurate and sacral English available.

I tell you this because this dual concept of worship and weeping, this cardinal dilemma of creatureliness, is right at the heart of today’s liturgy. St Augustine, in his commentary on this psalm, glosses this verse as follows:

mourn before the Lord: fearlessly mourn before the Lord, who made you; for He despises not the work of His own hands in you. Think not you can be restored by yourself. By yourself you may fall off, you cannot restore yourself: He who made you restores you.

‘He who made you restores you’. ‘And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them’. We hear, in St Mark’s text, important echoes. Later in the Gospel, Our Lord commands the disciples to go out and preach, and they do, and they anoint the sick, and the sick are healed. In the Epistle of St James, we find that sacramental text

is any among you sick? Let him call for the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Our Lord has instituted the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, and St James has told us how to go about it. ‘And the Lord will raise him up’: ‘and he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up’.

As creatures in a cosmos in which we are allowed to sin, we will encounter illness, sickness, sin, death. But for those of us who, in the normal way of things, are not afflicted in what we might consider exemplary ways, we have the danger of tripping over the precipice of good intention and plummeting into the abyss of platitude. As the poet didn’t quite say, ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, perhaps you haven’t understood the gravity of the situation’. We each have our cross, but some have found just the right spot between the shoulders. But even Our blessed Lord stumbles, and more than once. ‘Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good’, and that said by the righteous man Job, is surely not far from any of us. This is part of what it means to be created. This is why St Paul tells the Colossians the he is making up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions: not because the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord are, in some way, not good enough; but because we are baptized into them. We have to co-operate with God’s grace in such a way that we allow our sufferings to unite with Christ’s, that we allow the objective fact of his Redemption to be the reality which orients our very selves. Christ’s boundless compassion, his suffering with us, in the world as it is, if we let him, transforms suffering from an inward, individualized, atomizing process into one which allows suffering to be used for the good of others, for a witness, offered up for the benefit of the Holy Souls in Purgatory.

That is why the sacraments are as they are. When we need them, they are, simply, there. In this sacrifice of the Mass, He is with us, inviting us into Himself even as we take Him into ourselves. This holy exchange, this sacred commerce, has been wrought into poetry and symbol for century upon century. The late Welsh Catholic poet and artist David Jones (who would, it seems, have been eligible for membership of the Ordinariate, since his mother was an Anglican), speaks, in his poem Kensington Mass, of the kiss which the priest bestows on the altar: as the rubrics say, ‘osculatur altare in medio’: ‘he kisses the altar in the middle’. Says Jones of the priest, standing there on our behalf:

He has no need of
the rubric’s nudge: osculatur altare in medio.
for what bodily act other
would serve here?
Creaturely of necessity,
for we are creatures
Our own salvation
were it possible
Could be no other than the rubric’s osculatur.

Fearlessly mourn’, says St Augustine, ‘let us shed tears before the Lord who made us, for he is the Lord our God’. Since Candlemas, we have turned to use the Ave, Regina Caelorum as the anthem to Our Lady. The collect which sometimes follows us beseeches God to grant support to our frailty, that we who commemorate the holy Mother of God, may, by the help of her intercession, arise from our iniquities. We get the same message in the Offertory antiphon from Psalm 17: ‘Render secure my footsteps in your paths so that my feet do not slip; Incline your ear and hear my words’. As we turn through the ’gesimas with Lent on the horizon, let us pray – and ask Our Lady to pray – that we may not be afraid to let Our Blessed Lord take us by the hand and lift us up.

And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them’.