The comment of Emma (17) on my last post reminds me of an episode from my time 13 years ago as parochial administrator of St John Fisher, Thamesmead South. I enjoyed my time there - I had a nice little town house on the estate, got permission to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the downstairs chapel and introduced daily Mass there on an eastward-facing altar I built myself. It was a small community in a "Local Ecumenical Project" (I did not opt to celebrate the "simultaneous eucharist".) The collection was about £100 per week so I used the skills learnt from my father and did all the repairs to the house myself (plumbing, electrical, flooring, etc.) Stood me in good stead when looking for builders later.
One year, two girls came and asked me if they could join the Confirmation class. At 16, they were four years older than the others but joined in with good spirit and came regularly to Mass. They were called Nicky and Tracy.
South Thamesmead is widely regarded as a "sink" estate. Its one international claim to fame is that is was the location for the filming of The Clockwork Orange. Its reputation was undeserved - I have worked in much rougher estates and the people were generally hard-working and honest. There were many refugees from all over the place as well as a good number of ex-servicemen. One convert who became a good friend was a sergeant from the Paratroop Regiment and veteran of the Falklands War.
When it came to the final part of the Confirmation preparation, I had a fit of conscience and said to the youngsters, "If there is anything that you would especially like in the way of music for the Confirmation, you can choose. Are there any hymns you would like to have?"
There was a rather dumbfounded pause. Then Tracy spoke up with confidence. "Look, Father, the only hymns we know are "Colours of Day" and "Bind us Together" so why don't you choose something decent for us?"
Never forgot that.
9 comments:
I am sure that one of the main reasons for lapsation of the young, is the infantalisation of the faith in our schools, especially in its outward expression in the liturgy.
There is often a great gulf between adult Church and kiddy Church
LOL.
I can assure you this baby drivel for music never impressed us at school either. We all thought is was really pathetic.
'kiddy church'-how often attempts to alter parts of the Mass to make it more 'relevant' for young people-particularly special youth Masses- fail! Some of the occurrences are just cringe worthy and make you truly embarrassed.
Nothing has been as bad however (although in a different context), as when last Christmas my secular sixth form assembly had a reading from 'the street bible,' and told us all about king herod wanting the three wise men to 'spill the beans' on the location of the baby Jesus.
Laugh, or cry???
I hope I'm not kicking over a rock with a lot of worms and ugly bugs under it, but what, pray tell, is "simultaneous eucharist?"
Simultaneous Eucharists I should have said. This was to get round the prohibition on concelebration with the Anglicans.
So two celebrations, separate chapels, same time.
Then move the altars so they are nearer to each other.
Then open the glass doors that separate the chapels.
Then move the altars next to each other...
Say the prayers together except where conscience requires us to be apart i.e the Anglican prays for the Bp of Canterbury while the RC prays for the Pope. Two separate queues for communion - but some "genuine and honest sharing" is bound to happen.
The next step is to spread one cloth over both altars ...
One priest who was there did a survey of the parishioners as part of an MA dissertation. My favourite comment was from a Goan parishioner who wrote "What are these two altars meant to symbolise? Cain and Abel?"
Wow. I've never heard about that.
If you don't mind me picking at a scab - does this stuff still go on? And worse, how long has it been going on, and whose "Brilliant" idea was that?
Talk about confusion and indifference to the faith. I just hope those folks over at SOVII don't get a hold of this. [BTW, I think SOV2 a parody site - very much in the spirit of "landoverbaptist" I mean, c'mon - NO one has a Cardinal Mahoney fan club, not even dingy liberals! Who would "ban" someone, then link to them?!]
Is this common over there?! Or was it something that was "hip" by a bunch of dope smokers in the late 60s for about 5 weeks before Transcendental Mediation was "cool?"
I worked as a team member of the Thamesmead Christian Community in the early '80s, and, I too, had similar experiences working with young offenders. They respond when they're not patronised.
In another area of the diocese, an Anglo-Catholic priest said to me that "The nice thing about bells and smells is that the people round here are too thick to understand anything else."
Ahem. I beg to differ.
H'm.
I'm glad I have always refused to use the word "Eucharist" as a replacement for the unambiguous Sacrifice of The Mass.
At the Catholic School which my son attended the older children were allowed to choose the hymns for school assembly. My son greatly enjoyed having the whole school sing from the hymn book a hymn which began "I wish I was a fuzzy, fuzzy, bear". He felt that was the only way to send-up such rubbish. His sense of humour has not prevented him from becoming a devout man with five children.
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