Franciscan Salesian

I have another reason for calling this blog Gallican Anglican. In the remainder of the service following my ordination to the priesthood (a truly life-threatening experience, but more about that later) I found myself thinking two completely unrelated thoughts (along with a great many others, since ordination is not something that you can simply take in your stride). The first was the happy realisation that I would never have to read another book without coloured pictures in it ever again - i.e. no more exams. The second was the regret that I had not taken Francis as an ordination name in honour of St Francis de Sales.

I find some of the canonised saints rather alarming - Pius the Fifth, for example, stoking the inquisitorial fires and encouraging the Spanish Armada. But not Francis de Sales, and this for a number of reasons. Firstly, the example of his extraordinary holiness during what seems to have been a kind of nervous breakdown when he was a young man. For some reason he was convinced of the truth of the Augustinian doctrine of predestination: election to eternal joy for the few, and reprobation to eternal agony for the rest. And he included himself in the rest. But even so he made up his mind to serve the Lord in this life, before he was unable to do so in the fires of hell. That's pretty good, but it gets better. After months of this, in great agony of mind, he found himself in a Parisian Church saying the Memorare (Remember, O most loving Virgin Mary, that it is a thing unheard of that anyone ever had recourse to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thine intercession, and was left forsaken ... ) when he heard the voice of Christ saying to him, "I do not call myself the Damning One, my name is Jesus."

From that moment St Francis was completely restored, and went on to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers and writers of the western Church. He also went on to convert large swathes of Calvinists to a less sadistic deity than the one they had believed in hitherto, and as I noted in my last entry, he had that sane and sensible attitude to the office of the Roman Pontiff which all good Gallicans had, saying to Mother Angelique at Port Royal, "It is the duty of ecumenical councils to reform the head and members: they are above the Pope ... I know this, but prudence forbids my speaking of it, for I can hope for no results if I did speak. We must weep and pray in secret that God will put his hand to what man cannot ..."

As to my life-threatening ordination to the priesthood it took place in St Paul's in London years before the advent of the rather comely nave altar which adorns the cathedral now. However, there was at the time (1976) a temporary altar perched upon what looked like a very large box. There was not a great deal of room on the box, and besides the altar, most of it was occupied by Gerald, Bishop of London, Hewlett, Bishop of Willesden, and a number of others. In the late forties of the last century polio was becoming fashionable again in New Zealand, and I foolishly succumbed. For three or four years thereafter I wore callipers, but even so I have never really been all that steady on my feet, even when sober. Thus kneeling down before a rather large bishop on a very small ledge was somewhat alarming. Would I do an Otto Klemperer and fall backwards off the podium? Would my ordination on the top of a box be the immediate precursor to my funeral inside one? Only quick action by the bishop of Willesden prevented it. But I fear that before long he may well have wondered why he bothered.