Getting Rebranded

Well, the parousia having come and gone (or not, as the case may be - you will have to consult Mr Harold Camping who is something of an expert in these matters) I had better do as promised in my last posting and try to make something of my recent church-going experience following my retirement towards the end of January.

I have to say that I didn't find it possible to commit myself to another parish as soon as I had left the one of which I had been a part for a quarter of a century. It is, of course, quite right that once you have left the vicarage you cannot occupy a pew in the same church as though nothing had happened. You have to remove yourself altogether unless special circumstances apply, which I'm afraid generally means the funerals of those who were your parishioners. But as for the usual Sunday services, they are out of bounds, certainly for a year or more, and perhaps for good. My successor would not want to hear my mournful sighs from the back pews, nor see the sad shaking of my head when (yet again) he failed to conduct public worship with the propriety and perfection which so notably characterised the preaching and liturgical practice of his immediate predecessor.

For some time before my holiday in Mitteleuropa last year I had felt what I can only call a need to stop and draw breath. There were a number of reasons for this. One was the state of my health which was becoming increasingly complicated, another was the simple fact that twenty-five years in one parish is a rather long time. After preaching to the same community on the same topics yet again as the ecclesiastical year rolls by for the twenty-fifth time, you begin to wonder what more you can say about Christmas, Palm Sunday and Easter Day, not to mention the further reaches of Corpus Christi and the Assumption. I was occasionally driven to remark before a sermon that it would probably be like the old Community Sing at which you followed the bouncing ball on the screen through lyrics which you knew by heart already, having heard them so often before.

To start with I avoided the problems of commitment by attending mass at St Patrick's Basilica. I liked the comparative anonymity, and the fact that nobody was likely to suggest that I concelebrate. To my considerable surprise (as I had discovered in Austria) I just didn't want to be in the pulpit or even (very surprisingly indeed) at the altar. So not going to an Anglican Church helped.

But there were other factors as well; for as you will have detected if you have read earlier postings, I'm not at all sure about Anglicanism in these islands. I am (I think) what used to be called a Prayer Book Catholic - more or less. I realise Benedicition of the Blessed Sacrament is not to be found in the BCP, but then perhaps Archbishop Cranmer just failed to get around to it before the flames got around to him. Be that as it may, given what one clergywoman described to me as 'our rich diversity' - she was commenting on the fact that some of our fellow clergy didn't believe in such theological niceties as the Trinity, life after death, etc. - I felt a little pause for thought was not a bad idea.

However, even if Anglicanism hereabouts sports atheistical bishops such as Richard Randerson, and even if it chooses his writings as the basis for the Lenten studies of New Zealand Anglicans, I still don't find the grass in other fields all that much greener, let alone truly edible. So here I am, a self-appointed Athanasius, and I want to receive the Sacrament when I go to church on Sundays - something I can't do in St Patrick's Basilica in South Dunedin. However, I have discovered a very nice grassy paddock in north Dunedin, the Anglican (of course) Church of All Saints.

But it's still all rather strange. I have greatly appreciated the services I have been to there, and the very warm welcome given me by the vicar and others, but All Saints was the church I went to as a teenager when I discovered that the catholic faith was not confined to the Roman communion. I have often claimed (once indeed in a sermon from the pulpit of All Saints Margaret Street in London) that Fr Charles Harrison, in my youth the vicar of the Dunedin All Saints, was the greatest single influence (humanly speaking) on my religious convictions and my sense of vocation. So now, finding myself back in the same pews I occupied half a century ago is (in some ways) a rather weird experience. My beginning seems to have become my end, and for the moment, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.

Here we are again

Yes, yes, I know. I have been a very bad blogger indeed. And I'm afraid I'm not all that likely to make a particularly rapid - or permanent - recovery either. Sloth is an incurable condition, I'm afraid. But I hope the same is not true of a certain degree of bewilderment which has also contributed to my reluctance to commit my thoughts (such as they are) to the ether.

Retirement for a parish priest can be really quite bewildering, certainly to start with. Along with the relief at never having to find another sidesman (or woman) for the Solemn Eucharist ever again, and the pure pleasure of living in a delightful house in which dawn never comes before 10am, there is the little problem of what to do on Sundays. In my case, I grateful to say, Tuesdays are OK. On Tuesday mornings I celebrate the Holy Eucharist (and preach, what's more) in the beautiful chapel of an Anglican retirement home not far from where I live. Futhermore, as well as the excellent sermon there is also the excellent liturgy (1928 - more or less!) and I even get to face the east wall during the Prayer of Consecration. What more could you ask?

But there is still the little problem of Sundays. On the first Sunday after my retirement I decided to snoop around a bit. In the church notices in the Saturday edition of the Otago Daily Times I looked for a service which didn't start too early the following morning, and lo and behold! there was a mass at St Patrick's Basilica in South Dunedin which was due to commence at 11am. Perfect! So along I went, rather apprehensively, I must admit. What if they had all been reading this blog, and come across my somewhat less than charitable effusions about the office of the Roman Pontiff? Would they understand that I am really Mr Valiant-for-Truth, or would they publicly rebuke me as an incorrigible heretic?

Surprisingly, however, they did neither. The parish priest (Gerard Ainsley) whom I have known and liked for years (we were police chaplains together) greeted me warmly as I entered, and when I found a place in the back pews I discovered an old family friend sitting next to me, who also welcomed me most kindly, and even seemed pleased to see me.

St Patrick's is most certainly not a small church, but it was fairly full in what was liturgically speaking a fairly unremarkable Sunday. And the congregation included not just young people but what seemed to be a fair number of young families as well, something of an endangered species in many Anglican parishes.

The mass itself closely resembled an Anglican celebration of the Eucharist, as I had found was also the case even in St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna when I was on holiday in Austria last year. And the sermon, delivered without notes by Fr Gerard was simply excellent, so much so indeed, that I was moved to tell him afterwards that he was very likely the second-best preacher in Otago and Southland - high praise indeed, as I'm sure you will agree.

In my next posting (should there be another one before the parousia) I will have something to say about the thoughts and ideas which my attendance at St Patrick's stimulated and provoked.