We process. Glass exhibition cases, old reliquaries. A forearm here; here a nun’s fingertip. In chapel, at a glance, there are the usual faces. But they all stand to attention. Jonathan breaks from the procession to – fire the organ with oomph and dignity:
Ride on! ride on in majesty!
The angel-squadrons of the sky
look down with sad and wondering eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.
When we’ve done the readings, the Arch holds that tree in his hands to deliver the homily. He rocks quietly on his feet, some few seconds, as if balance defeated it.
A way you might affect as the Spirit moves… Copying. Then he says:
‘Our palm fronds may seem to us today rather dry. I mean this not in a literal sense, but by the standards of those who originally lined the roadways in order to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, as they proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, who would be clambering up and ripping their palm branches fresh from off the trees. I think perhaps also our faith is somewhat distant from that of the people there on that highroad into Jerusalem, and something of our sense of the meaning has shifted in vividness from what it was then. And of course the expectation of all those many people is markedly different, but in many important respects the same. There are the same essential qualities to all our faith in God, which springs complete from our humanity, and that is one and the same in value for all of us, and time is consistent on this point. So then, let us renew the fullness of Catholic faith, and let us ask the Lord’s blessing as we embark upon our Holy Week.
‘Our Lord enters into Jerusalem in order to refresh us. He is to die in order that we may have life. There is a living reality here, both spiritual and as entangled in the joy of our daily living. We have Ladies’ Day where I grew up. They still have it, and they close the roads off, and little children parade, dressed-up like spring brides. When I was a boy, there was a May Day festival, and there was a May pole on the field, with the people dancing, like Morris dancers might be one way of visualizing this if you’ve never seen it, with their ribbons tied onto the top of the May pole, and they would weave around each other, dressing the pole, which is what we called it. It was like a dance with red and white and blue ribbons all hung off of the top of the May pole, which stood there all year, only like a telegraph pole, but it was concreted in, and then there was a slide, and swings – one baby-swing and two you could have a go at – terrible health and safety but that’s what it was in those days.
‘There was a round-a-bout – we used to run it round and round to try to get it off its central axis. It were rusty as anything and creaked like mad – on concrete. And climb up where it was all greased up at the top. Ruth, who was big as the next four of us, used to sit there sucking on the lollipops we nicked for her from Raddies, and she’d direct matters. We were trying to destroy it, and get it to dislodge from its central axis, and fly away – roll off into that farmer’s field, which he only ever kept for silage, but we never succeeded. There was a car someone had left there so we spent forever smashing that up, until someone who lived in one of the houses there took exception to our doing that, so he put thick grease under the door handles and gave us a right talking to.
‘It would only be a few stands, hot-dogs and things like that. The man selling the hot dogs would have his records on full blast. There’d be a couple of set-up stalls. Air-rifles – that sort of thing. But we all had them, and we all went shooting, of course, if not with twelve bores then with smaller gauge. Or pay a pound – I have no idea how much it was in actual fact then – it might have only been a few pennies – and we’d get all that time smashing up the crockery the man would put up for us to smash on the dressers. That was my particular favourite thing to do at these festivals, by the way, in case you were wondering. You got a little bucket of so many cricket balls.
‘I dread to think what went into those hot dogs. Probably EE rules would forbid it now. But it was a fair mix in those days. A lot of young people then were C of E. We’ve done a lot to hang onto our young people, which is a tremendous encouragement when you consider how things are, while in recent decades the Church of England hasn’t been so successful. People still want it on feast days and what are essentially now civic celebrations. It’s strange to see, though, how all the little stands there people have are run by the police and people like that along those lines. There’s no May pole. That was a sort of faith that ran and ran beneath all the theoreticals of it in the 1960s and the 1970s and into the 1980s. The May pole isn’t there now in the particular place I’m thinking of. Considering May poles were officially suppressed hundreds of years ago – as a part of the protestant reformation. One or two of you are probably thinking I’m remembering things from that time!
‘I should have liked to say that those processionals were so hardwired into us, that even after the last thirty years, when I became a bishop, they are still with us. They were a part of what it is as we understand Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. They were a part of who we are as human beings, which is to say little less than that Jesus is a part of our biological make-up as human beings.
‘Well, we look at these things increasingly from an historical perspective. In this day and age, we might often feel that all that Jesus gave himself to be, and to be a part of, is barely involved for most. As Catholics, we experience a uniquely spiritual dimension to the greenery on the renewed trees, and the birds, to the hay-fever in my case, which I suffer from quite severely. These are our spring rites, and Easter is our spiritual spring, which turns to summer.
‘I suggest to you that it is no accident Jesus went to die for us in spring. It really isn’t. The Romans would have understood this. I believe that as Catholics we are called to carry this true understanding of all life’s blessings. That God has come to talk to us, and to set up his tent with us, to live with us, and to give up all that he has and is for us, this within the most fundamental rhythms of our lives, and when, especially in the regions of the Holy Land, the natural world is at its loveliest.
‘I expect this week will be a great journey for all of you. It may be an emotional experience. I think I can promise you it will be a profound experience. Certainly, Holy Week is of all weeks a very profound experience. That we shall see something of this tonight, in the streets of this wonderful city, I have no doubt. I expect you will become very involved in the spectacle. I should like you to think of the mysteries we all experience in this time. Even now, as we absorb ourselves within the mysteries of Easter, we are afforded additional insights, which might be highly personal, into what happened when Jesus gave himself to death, to be crucified. So much comes from within. Really, in a sense, and through our blessings as being one with the true Church, it is all in here.
‘I’d like to ask one thing more of you. And it’s only this. Let us make this a special journey, for each one of us. Here we are, on the edge of the mystery, and we have this Holy Week to prepare ourselves for the glorious truth of the fullness of Catholic faith. Through the Cross, as through Good Friday, as through Holy Saturday, and in all the anticipated joy of Easter, our eternal Sunday, let us stand now and renew our commitment and say our prayers.’
