Holy to the Lord

Well, I have moaned and groaned about Austrian Masses (or at least the manner thereof) for long enough, so now for something just a little bit different. Last Sunday we went to the Stift Heiligenkreuz, otherwise the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Cross in the Vienna Woods.

Heiligenkreuz was founded in 1133 by the Margrave of Austria, later canonised as St Leopold, and alone among Cistercian monasteries has been in continuous existence from that day to this. It is also the largest religious community in Austria, and is stuffed full of healthy-looking young monks, something which you wouldn't naturally expect these days, I do believe.

The Abbey Church itself is one of the wonders of the German-speaking world, and is acknowledged as such. After a high and narrow romanesque nave with its transept, comes a most magnificent gothic Hallenchor, as wide as the transept itself, and filled with the most beautiful thirteenth-century stained glass.

On our way into the Church one of the afore-mentioned healthy-looking young monks, nicely turned out in the full white cistercian choir habit gave each of us a bilingual service booklet (Latin and German) together with a "Gruess Gott" and a beaming smile. With Tim and Pip, and Tim's mother Elaine, I tottered rather precariously (helped however by my new walking stick) to our pew near the front of the nave, and just in front of the baroque choir stalls inhabited (no pun intended) by the monks. Beyond them was the altar in the beautiful Hallenchor.

The priest in his green chasuble, assisted by two minsters in albs, arrived and stood before three low seats in front of (but not too close to) the altar which itself sits under a rather magnificent neo-gothic baldachino raised on a couple of shallow steps above the level of the sanctuary floor and the seats of the sacred ministers.

The readings, sermon, and intercessions were (quite properly) in German, but the rest of the mass was in Latin - I'm delighted to tell you. Most of the liturgy was chanted very beautifully indeed - the monks of Heiligenkreuz have made a best-selling CD, which I was actually given last Christmas. Their singing sounds even better in situ.

The service was celebrated quite simply. At the offertory the sacred ministers stood behind the altar, facing the people. This was the only time at which incense was used. The celebrant chanted the canon (in German they call it the Hochgebet - the Great Prayer) as he did the introductory rite (which included the the asperges) the collect, the prayer over the gifts, the post communion prayer, the blessing and the dismissal.

Everything was done with great gravity and serenity. There were no cheery welcomes, the monks themselves read the lessons and the intercessions, and the only music was the unaccompanied singing of the celebrant and the monks - assisted in the responses by the people in the pews.

There was however, something of an exception to the gravity and serenity of it all, and that was the celebrant's sermon. It lasted for about fifteen minutes and was based on the gospel of the day, which featured (if that is the right word) the giving of the Lord's Prayer to the disciples. I was tremendously impressed. My German is not good enough to follow most of what was said, but it was clearly a very able, and at times quite passionate exposition of the meaning and significance of the Our Father, preached without notes.

The Church was almost full, including, of course, the usual young people, one young couple with their baby, the latter mercifully mute.

Even now, some four days later, a sense of the holiness of the occasion and of the place itself remains quite vividly with me. It doesn't happen often enough.

Introibo

As you may have noted (how could you not?) I have complained somewhat about the goings-on of the clergy at Austrian altars. In my defence, I would have to say that this is partly because in other respects, the way masses are celebrated here is so much better than I am used to elsewhere, and the participation of the people, their singing of the music, and the music itself, it seems to me, deserve better. But this is not because the clergy are in any way careless or off-hand in what they do - quite the contrary. It has to do with the way in which they do it - with their style of celebration, if I can call it that.

Firstly, there is the matter of concelebration. I realise haw splendidly authentic and primitive this practice is, but the way it is now done in the west seems remarkably elitist. In the Byzantine Rite the priests gather about the altar, where for much of the time they are virtually invisible to the congregation. They are clearly concentrating on the altar, and that somehow reinforces the impression that they are thereby concentrating on God.

A few years ago the Coptic Pope, Shenouda III, came to Dunedin to consecrate the altar in the Coptic church which they had acquired from a pentecostal congregation - the church, that is, not the altar. The service was something of an oriental shambles, but it made no difference. The pope and his bishops were clearly away with the Lord and despite the outward awfulness of it all, it was a most inspiring service. God was present because he was the absolute centre of the concelebrants' attention, and thus of the congregation's attention as well. I call this real spiritual leadership.

But in the Stephansdom, the messages are very mixed. The clergy speak and act as though the service were about the people, and that they (the clergy) were there to welcome them to their - the clergy's - house, rather than God's. I'm sure that this is not what they intend, but that is what it looks like. Even the way the principal celebrant conducts himself gives the same impression. The little welcomes, introductions, explanations and the like, make you feel you are the new kid at school. The teachers are very nice, of course, but they are very much the ones up front.

Then there is the body language of the principal celebrant. During the collect, the prayer over the gifts, the High Prayer (as they call the Canon or Great Thanksgiving here) the principal celebrant's arms are spread really wide, embracing us all, it seems. But it's the Everlasting Arms we need, not Herr Pfarrer's. And when he is saying (or singing) the words he often seems to be looking at us as though we were the ones being addressed. The good intentions are without reproach, but in their desire to make us all feel at home, they have in some ways made the new mass more clerical than the old.

I like the old mass very much, and I am very glad the present pope has made it possible again. But I have no doubt that the so-called new mass promulgated by Paul VI is (if you will forgive me) the way to go - at least for the greater part of western Christendom. And that includes celebration 'versus populum', the vernacular, the new calendar and lectionary and so on. But it is still the Most Holy Mystery of our religion, and we always need to remind ourselves of the fact. It's not just a case of doing things well (as the clergy of the Stephansdom most certainly do) it's about our understanding of what exactly it is that we are doing well. If I recall correctly, the 39 Articles tell us that "The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death."

Please note the "but rather."

Ups and a Down

Since my last post I have not just been sitting around. Tim and Pip Snell have a very attractive apartment only some 20-25 minutes by tram from the centre of Vienna. So just about every day I have taken the No.43 from Dornbacherstrasse to the Schottentor which is on the Ring, the main road which circles the inner city and on which many of its main buildings can be found, such as the opera, the parliament, the Votivkirche, the Kunsthistorisches (art history) Museum, and the Burgtheater.

I arrive at the Schottentor (opposite the Votivkirche) at about 11.30am and walk past the Schottenstift (abbey of the Scots, founded in the middle ages by Irish monks - which sounds a bit Irish!), through Am Hof, the courtyard in which the imperial heralds used to proclaim the emperors, and where, in August 1806, to their everlasting shame, they announced the dissolution of the the Holy Roman Empire (otherwise the first Reich).

Then I walk through the Graben, a large square (actually oblong) filled with posh shops and rather expensive restaurants and outdoor cafes, until I reach the Stephansplatz and enter St Stephen's Cathedral (the most beautiful in the world, as Johannes Giesen, pupil of Walter Gieseking, once told me at Otago Boys' High School. He was probably right.) The wonderful Rieger organ is always played even at said masses, and we sing our way through beautiful chorales and mass settings while (I, at least) do my best to ignore the clergy giving us their much amplified best at the altar. You know the sort of thing - warm welcomes and fuzzy sermonettes.

Then it's time for a spot of lunch, and heavens do the Viennese like unhealthy food! You never saw so much whipped cream in all your life. However, it would seem that some of the latest research has revealed that green vegetables are only of questionable value in the human diet, coming a good way behind chocolate in that regard.

I had the great pleasure of lunching with Matthew Smith (son of my friends Merv and Barbara) who lives in Vienna when work does not take him elsewhere. I was delighted to see him again, and he took me to a restaurant run by a most charming woman in a lovely little square. However, I must confess that although I admire Matthew's principles with respect to our animal brethren, I don't believe I will ever make a truly trustworthy vegan. Vegetarian would be good, but vegan - I need cow's milk in my coffee and tea, and I'm grateful to say that the most charming woman running the show kindly took pity on me and gave me cafe au lait - and the right sort of lait at that!

After lunch it's off to the sights. So far I have seen the wonderful treasury of the Deutschorden (the Teutonic knights), and the fascinating (and moving) Jewish museum where I bought a large black yarmulka (skullcap) because the Canon Law of the Church of England of 1603 says that priests of the Established Church may wear black skullcaps in church when it is cold. I believe it looks very fetching. Even the mirror thinks so.

I have also 'done' (the right word, I think) the imperial apartments in the Hofburg. These are uniformly depressing, because they have been left as reminders of Kaiser Franz Joseph and his wife, Kaiserin Elisabeth, otherwise known as Sisi. Sisi was the Austro-Hungarian predecessor of Princess Di. Indeed, she was much worse, extraordinarily self-centred and vain, which was not true of Diana, I think, but like Diana she has (even now) a continuing cult whose devotees see her as the Tragic Beauty imprisoned in Castle Gloom. Or something. Who cares - not me I assure you, except when I have to trudge through the son et lumiere of the Sisi Museum in order to get to more interesting things. One of which just has to be the Schatzkammer, the imperial treasury with the wonderful and very ancient Reichskrone of the Holy Empire, (which those wicked Heralds so carelessly tossed aside in 1806) along with the Holy Lance. It also has the beautiful seventeenth century House Crown of the Habsburgs (from 1806 the Austrian Imperial Crown) made for the mildly mad Kaiser Rudolf II in Prague.

The imperial collections, artistic and otherwise, are largely to be found in the so-called imperial precinct which Franz Joseph and his successor, (the Blessed) Kaiser Karl, never quite completed. It includes the two great court museums of art history and natural history, which face one another across the Maria Theresien Platz, along with the so-called New Hofburg beside them. I had not expected to like these enormous buildings at all - late nineteenth century architectural pomposity is not quite my thing - but all three of them are simply magnificent, particularly on the inside, which surprised and delighted me a good deal. So much better than the rather shabby looking baroque apartments elsewhere in the Hofburg - let alone the perfectly abominable chapel in which the Vienna Boys' Choir do their Sunday stuff. Not only is it small and cramped, it has been so 'restored' and 'improved' over the years that Kaikorai Presbyterian Church would be preferable. Likewise the Augustinerkirche (the Court Church) which was a magnificent and very beautiful Gothic Hallenkirche, is now but a shadow of its former self, the interior largely covered in grey paint, if you please.

Speaking of paint, I’m afraid I do not quite come up the highest standards where great canvases are concerned – or rather the originals thereof. For years I have thought Vermeer’s canvas of the artist painting the girl with the wreath on her head (The Artist in His Studio, I think) just wonderful. But to me its reproduction in an elegantly produced book looks a lot better than the real thing behind glass (in the frame itself!) in a rather pokey corner of a museum. Sorry. However, you should see the exhibition of Historical Musical Instruments and the exhibition of Armour and Arms in the Neue Burg - especially the armour. Absolutely wonderful. And I touched a piano which Brahms himself used to play!

Ten days ago or so, we went to Mariazell, the main place of pilgrimage in Austria, perhaps in Central Europe itself, since (rather extraordinarily to my mind) Our Lady of Mariazell is probably the principal shrine of the Hungarians as well. It is in a very attractive town in the hills and the Church itself is most interesting and beautiful. The Image of the Virgin and Child, originally mediaeval, is dressed and crowned as is usual in such shrines, and sits above an altar, surrounded by the most incredible silver screen originally given by Maria Theresia and her husband the Holy Roman Emperor Franz Stephan. Lo, and behold, as we entered the Basilica, a mass was just beginning, and the splendid eighteenth century organ accompanied our singing. I was impressed by the fact that both at Mariazell and in the Stephansdom in Vienna, everybody seemed to know whatever mass setting was being used, none of which were the sort of would-be up-to-date trash to which we are usually accustomed in our own dear Anglican Church. These Austrian settings are actually musical.

Then, just a few days ago, on Saturday, we decided to go to Salzburg and stop off at the most picturesque town of Steyr on the way. As usual, it was very hot (about 35 degrees) and we found an outdoor restaurant in the main street for lunch. The restaurant was on a kind of wooden platform from which you descended by a couple of shallow steps to the footpath. But I didn't. I have always been rather unsteady on my feet due to my carelessness in catching polio when I was two years old, and the situation has not improved with the years, especially the last few years. I fell really rather badly, broke my left wrist, damaged my left foot, and sprained and bruised quite enough of the rest of me as well. But I am truly grateful to God in that my back was not affected.

I few years ago now, I fell over in St Peter's while trying to change the aumbry light, and was surprised to find that it was a most unpleasant experience, even on a nice new carpet. I was badly shaken. It was not at all as such falls had been when I was young, and the after-effects were all too like those described by many of the elderly people whom I have visited for years in rest homes.

The fall in Steyr was a good deal worse than the fall in St Peter's. Not only was it painful, but I was also in some kind of shock. Everybody was most kind and helpful, and eventually Tim and Pip decided it might be a good idea if I sat for a while in the church very nearby. Here, however, things seemed to get much worse. I was hyperventilating, I couldn’t move my fingers, and I felt sure I would either throw-up or faint or both.

The ambulance arrived and I was taken to the local hospital. Eventually the state of shock wore off, and I could move my fingers again and I felt a good deal better. Various tests were done and the doctors expressed the opinion that it would probably be better if I stayed in overnight. The ambulance men, the doctors and nurses at Steyr were just wonderful, and in a way, the most memorable part of our experience there. However, we decided to return to Vienna. All seemed OK for a while, but I could hardly walk at all without the risk of another fall, and after Tim had got me to my room, the shock and so on returned and another ambulance was called to take me to what I am told is the university hospital in Vienna, where x-rays showed up the broken wrist and the damaged foot. My left arm was put in plaster and my left foot bandaged up, and after all the tests, an ambulance finally took me home at 1.30am.

But I should like my dear parishioners to know that when the clock in the hospital showed half-past midnight, I joined in prayer with them as they celebrated the Solemn Eucharist at 10.30am on the other side of the world. Naturally, I shall be putting my prices up in consequence.

The upshot of all this is that I have had to stay on in Vienna, and cancel my intended ten days or so in England. I am of course sorry about that, but I am grateful to be here with Tim and Pip at a time when I really could not travel, let alone on my own two feet.

Well, that is clearly more than enough for now. I won't be able to read your comments until I return to Dunedin halfway through August, but there may well be another post just as soon as I have thrown myself down an elevator shaft.

Or not, as the case may be.

Mit Schlagobers

So here I am in Vienna, having arrived in Austria on Saturday morning after a relatively painless flight (actually flights) from Dunedin. There the weather was cold, here it is quite remarkably hot, which is only right at this time of year.

Naturally, I dragged my poor hosts, Tim and Pip Snell, off to mass at the Stephansdom (the cathedral) the day after my arrival. But not until 6pm - I needed to catch up on my sleep! Ever since I first entered this wonderful building a good few years ago now, I have always thought the Stephansdom to be the most beautiful church I have ever seen, and it is always a joy to attend a service there. But not an unalloyed joy, I fear.

Calvin would have been most gratified at the emphasis now placed on edification in the modern Roman mass. In the Stephansdom the celebrant treats us to spontaneous exhortations before the confession, at the offertory, before the Pater Noster, and after the Communion - not to mention the sermon itself. And in my rather limited experience this practice is not at all uncommon. But it leaves me wanting to shout, "Get on with it, Father, for heaven's sake, just get on with it!" And one day I might well do it.

I realise that this is the age of information technology, but unfortunately the Still Small Voice becomes largely inaudible with electronic amplification.

However, Vienna in the summer is wonderful all the same, and I'm most grateful to be here.