Carol Services

Something that rather surprised me when I found out about it (a small mirandum) was that the Ordinariate's 'Anglican Patrimony' includes, of all things, the Carol Service. Setting aside whether something of such comparatively recent invention can truly be called 'patrimony', my first thought was to ask why on earth anyone would want to burden themselves with the wretched thing. One of the benefits from making one's submission to Rome would surely be that one had at last escaped this annual blight.

Now, we have to distinguish between carol services and carol concerts. I have no objection to carol concerts, because they make no pretence to being an act of worship and if you don't want to go, you just don't buy a ticket. The carol service has all the trappings of a church service, often in spades, but how far it is truly an act of worship is disputable. Throughout a lifetime of school-mastering I have attended several carol services each December and arranged not a few, but the question I am always left asking is, 'What are they for?'

They are not sacramental; they are not part of the Divine Office, nor a substitute for it (though I remember from years ago an elderly priest sitting in choir and quietly getting on with Evensong by himself while a carol service raged around him); they are not in any noticeable way an act of preparation for Christmass, which would presumably be of a penitential character; though there are Bible readings, it scarcely qualifies as lectio divina. What they do seem to be, to my mind, are occasions of sentimental narcissism, frequently with a large dose of ungodly pride, where God barely gets a look-in.

Let's examine some carol services more closely. First off is the primary school carol service, aka Worshipping the Infant King. Unfortunately it is not Jesus who is worshipped but the offspring of filiolatrous parents, who have come to adore little Kaitlyn and Calum being so sweet in 'We Will Rock You'. The programme will be firmly in the hands of the teachers, so any serious catechesis of the children is right off the agenda; in fact, straightforward readings from the Bible probably discriminate against the dyslexic ('Jade cried all evening when she knew she wasn't reading again this year ...') so you are as likely to have a playlet about the Littlest Donkey as you are to get Luke chapter 2. This is church as an extension of Mumsnet.

Eventually the children leave primary school, and you move on to the Rutterfest. This is the usual form in secondary schools with any pretence at having a choir, and in many parish churches as well. The standard of performance will be as good as can be managed, so it is something of a shame that so much effort is expended on material that is, frankly, appalling. The great exponent of this genre, of course, is John Rutter, of whom the composer David Arditti has commented:

Rutter ... is ... hard to take seriously, because of the way in which his sheer technical facility or versatility leads to a superficial, unstable crossover style which is neither quite classical not pop, and which tends towards mawkish sentimentality in his sugarily-harmonised and orchestrated melodies [in New Composers of Tonal Classical Music]. I couldn't put it better myself, except to add that Rutter, who has gone on record as saying that he is 'not particularly religious', frequently writes his own lyrics which are frequently characterised by jejune rhymes, devoid of theological content, and unbearably twee. Rutter is not alone in apparently believing that the message of Christmass is a big warm feeling with no real religious meaning. The very cosy nature of this sort of carol service, which makes no demands and poses no challenges to the listener, is, of course the reason for the popularity of the genre. Many will say, 'At least it gets people into church,' but this simply provokes the question, 'To what end?' The programme of readings, usually with no explanations given, will mean little or nothing to people whose knowledge of the Bible is hazy or non-existent (how many people for whom this is their one visit to church in the year could say what the first reading from Genesis ch. 3 has to do with Christmass?)

The other sort of carol service is, of course, the Elite or Very Superior model.

'consort of viols ...'

Usually found in the chapels of grander institutions of higher education and in suburban parish churches of a certain social homogeneity, the Very Superior Carol Service boasts a professional or semi-professional choir, augmented as likely as not by a consort of viols and the odd crumhorn player, performing 14th century Savoyard villanelles in the original dialect.

'the odd crumhorn player'

The pattern of the service will be strictly according to King's, with its unctuous prose from Eric Milner-White ('.. be it our care and delight this Christmastide … in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem …' and all the rest of it), and is unlikely to come in at under an hour and a half. When it is over, refreshments will be served – no Tesco's ready-mixed mulled wine here, but more likely a recreation of a recipe for possett Jeremy found in Harleian MSS 370 when researching the screenplay for his documentary on Odo the Contagious. The whole accent is on showing off, and the fact that it takes place in a sacred building and might have a sacred purpose tends to pass most participants by.

Well, of course I am guying the whole business – but can you put your hand on your heart and say you have never been to a carol service like one of these? The Ordinariate is welcome to take it with them, but I do not see in the carol service anything approaching a Catholic spirituality – tacking Benediction on to the end simply underlines the barrenness of what is on offer. Meanwhile, no longer being in the scholastic trade, I shall make it my care and delight to keep well away from carols until Midnight Mass itself.

And a merry ding-ding-a-bloody-dong to you all.

El Puente

When I worked in Spain in the seventies, a long-cherished tradition was that of el puente ('the bridge'), the habit of taking Monday or Friday off as an extra holiday if the Tuesday or Thursday that week was a fiesta or public holiday. I gather that this is now rather frowned on by the joyless multinationals and discouraged in the name of productivity. In December 1977, my students from the University of Valladolid informed me that, as St Nicholas's day, the University's own peculiar fiesta, fell on the Tuesday and the Immaculate Conception, a national fiesta, followed on the Thursday, they had two two fiestas and three puentes in a row, so they were all going home for the week and would see me the following Monday. 

University of Valladolid - note Papal tiara.

I had other students to teach, so I did not get San Nicolás as a day off, nor two of the three puentes, but I did get the Thursday and Friday as holidays and a very light teaching load all round. And of course, I had the opportunity to go to the Cathedral to observe the Archbishop enjoying the Spanish Privilege, which is to wear Mary-blue vestments on the feast of the Inmaculada.

The 'Spanish Privilege' in action.

I was very struck when I first went to work in Spain at how pervasive the Catholic culture was. Not all my students were Mass-goers by any means, but virtually all of them had religious names: Maria del Carmen, Maria de las Nieves, José Maria, Francisco Javier, and even, as only occurs in Spanish, Jesús. They knew the Catholic faith and many of them had been educated by religious. All the public holidays were religious feasts except for el Día de Hispanidad (I notice that Valladolid University's St Nicholas has now been overtaken by el Día de Constitución, something of a recent invention), and religion was essentially a public thing, from the small shrines on the walls of buildings to the great processions for Corpus Christi and Semana Santa. I could not help contrast this with my own country, where much of the public and popular side of religion had been done away with at the Reformation and general inertia had seen off the rest.

One could scarcely have envisaged the degree of secularisation that has taken place in Spain in less than a lifetime. The men who drew up the 1978 Constitution were well aware of the painful and tragic effects of hostile constitutional reform in the area of religion in 1931, and kept their provisions to a minimum:

Spaniards are equal before the law and may not in any way be discriminated against on account of [...] religion, opinion or any other personal or social condition or circumstance [Sect 14].

and

 Freedom of ideology, religion and worship of individuals and communities is guaranteed, with no other restriction on their expression than may be necessary to maintain public order as protected by law [Sect. 16].

This, modest as it sounds, is all very different from what went before:

The Apostolic Roman Catholic Church will continue to be the sole religion of the Spanish State and will enjoy the rights and prerogatives due to it under Divine and Canon Law [1953 Concordat with the Holy See].

Though the seeds were, perhaps unwittingly, sown in the 1978 Constitution, it took the socialist Zapatero government to drive through a thoroughgoing secularist programme which had the more or less explicit aim of weakening the remaining hold the Catholic Church has in public life, education and society. From being a very conservative society (though not a backward one – economic life flourished through the work of the Opus Dei technocrats Franco came to rely on), Spain has embraced the hedonist liberal dream with a vengeance. I enjoyed living in Spain when I did, and my admiration for King Juan Carlos and the way he managed the transition to a constitutional monarchy is second to none; but I would not want to live there again.

And, of course, with the 6th on Friday and the 8th on Sunday, there's no puente this year.

Salvete!

Salvete!

"Miranda Prorsus" is not the name of a person, but of a papal document, and means something like 'quite amazing [things]'. This encyclical by Pope Pius XII dealt with advances in media technology -  Motion Pictures, Radio and Television - and can be found on www.vatican.va/.../hf_p-xii_enc_08091957_miranda-prorsus_en.htm . The Popes of the early twentieth century were very receptive to the positive aspects of the new technology (unlike some Church of England clergy, who opposed broadcasting church services on the wireless in case men listened to them in pubs with their hats on, or so the story goes). 

Shameful scene of men in pub listening to 'The Daily Service' with their hats on.

I think Pius XII would welcome the invention of the blog as a new apostolate, but I am afraid that my Miranda Prorsus will have no such elevated aim. Rather, I shall try to put into words my impressions of what I find are  miranda prorsus - the amazing (or, more likely, the entertaining) things I see day by day. Some of these will be about religion, because that is something important to me, but other things, inevitably, will find a place. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.