Who's Corpus Christi?

Bit slow off the mark, I'm afraid, as a visit to Glasgow for a service in the evening involves The Last Ferry and a rather late night. But I've just been reading the authoritative report of last evening's proceedings in St Mary's Cathedral and feel moved to make my own.

I've been to only one other celebration of Corpus Christi in my day - perhaps 15 years ago now, when Dale Grey was the Warden at Cumbrae and laid on a joyous service with a visiting choir (not one I was in) and a procession round the grounds of the Cathedral there. I had some idea of what to expect in the way of ceremony and I knew there would be rose petals, but I had no notion of how I might react. This is how it feels now:

I have a renewed appreciation of the power of ritual. When ritual is beautifully done, with conviction and authority and no attempt to make it ordinary or contemporary, it is capable of sweeping the participants into its self-forgetting rhythm. This is what happened. The sacrament was there in the monstrance (left) and was paraded round the church in a procession of incense (from two thuribles!) preceded by a rain of rose petals from an ever-replenished basin (there are more photos on Kelvin's blog on the link above). And as it passed we turned, like subjects of old, so as to have our eyes always on the monstrance and what it contained. Suddenly it became real, in the sense that we talk, as Kelvin did, about the Real Presence: I knew that in that circle of gold there was a wafer of unleavened bread, but when it passed me I bowed low - not once, but three times, each time it passed. That felt right. I didn't have to think about it.

We encountered here the power of symbolism - and symbolism that was appropriate and in-your-face and glorious. Usually I worship in relatively modern English, sing everything in sight, strain to hear all that is said above the noise of Godly Play, and know everyone around me. Last night's Mass was sung by a choir, in Latin; there was silence (apart from the traffic in Great Western Road) and there was glorious, thundering organ music that came reverberating through the soles of our feet, there was the all-pervading scent of the incense and I knew about three people and the celebrant. It was strange and it was exotic; it was liberating and funny and it was joyful; it was - or seemed to be - completely assured and unselfconscious.

Guess that's the key, really: unselfconsciousness. We can't be self-conscious and embarrassed, we mustn't feel we always have to justify our joyful eccentricities, we can't be apologetic Christians all the time or we've had it. Kevin introduced what was about to happen with a small joke: someone had asked "Who's this Corpus Christi that you're celebrating?" His last words at the end of the service reminded us of this question. Who is this Corpus Christi?

And the answer? It's us. Wow.


Note: There's a whole set of photos here.

Gene Robinson in Glasgow

Sermon
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I skipped the service at Holy Trinity today, along with the organist (aka Mr B) and the only soprano you can hear behind a bus ticket (aka Mrs Heathbank) and took myself off to my native city to receive communion at a Eucharist presided over by Bishop Gene Robinson. Who he? Well, I know there are some of you out there who aren’t Anglicans, but he’s the only bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion who was barred from attending the Lambeth Conference which is just ending – because he’s gay and lives with another man and doesn’t lie about it.

It was great. You can hear his sermon (and see it) here – thanks to the techno-tendencies of the Provost. And you can read me saying that it felt really good to hear a bible-based sermon which openly addressed the whole inclusiveness thing, not in guarded words for those who know the code, but up front and powerfully. And I felt proud to be a member of the Scottish church which provided the altar of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow for +Gene to celebrate the Eucharist – because he wasn’t allowed to do this in England. At the end of the service, the entire congregation (a big one) rose to applaud this little man who has been through so much at the hands of fellow-Christians. Did it make a difference? I’d say it did. It ran a coach and horses through the prevaricating stuff I’ve just heard on the evening news as the last word from Lambeth, because this was real, this was blessing and celebration and being part of the body of Christ in a meaningful way.

And you know what else was great? The people who turned up. Like blogger Mad Priest: I realise I’d got into the habit of thinking of him as a willowy sap in a high clerical collar and a cassock – wrong, wrong! (His blog has just frozen Firefox for the umpteenth time and caused me to rewrite this post, but I shall forgive him and continue to read him on my feed reader). I know now that if people address me as Chris then it’s because they know me through this blog, and that’s exciting too. I’ve kept up with Bishop Gene’s blog during Lambeth, so in a way I feel I know him better too, even though we didn’t meet.

So, a good day. I’ll take one sentence from +Gene’s sermon which inspired me:
“Let’s continue to be God’s people and let God worry about the Church”. But today the Church – or at least the part of it worshipping in the Cathedral – felt as if God didn’t need to worry quite so much. Not today, anyway.