Anglican Theology expressed through its cathedrals

Many people have asked me, "What is it that Anglicans actually believe? Are they like Catholics, only with more money?" and if you stand outside one of their great cathedrals it is hard to believe that it is not actually Catholic. Indeed, in most cases they were built by Catholics and nationalized in the 16th century. So let us go and see what lies within. A tabernacle? A statue, perhaps of Our Lord or St Mary (or Pachamama?) Not exactly, but these five examples are here to provide spiritual nourishment...

Norwich: How are the mighty fallen! 2 Sam. 1:19

The helter-skelter is an well-known religious artefact, symbolizing man's fallen nature. Kneel in prayer, and watch the Dean whizz past your ears as she (yes, it's that sort of dean) shows how pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall (Prov. 16.18). Oh dear, she seems to have crashed into the wall.

Rochester: But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes. Isa. 4:22.

What can be more sacramental than a game of crazy golf? Like unto the Israelites in the wilderness, you wander to and fro, and it seems that you will never arrive at the land flowing with milk and honey (available at the coffee shop, formerly the Lady Chapel). Many seek to drive but can only putt (all right, I made up that Biblical quotation).

Durham: Abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. Ps 72:7.

Saints Cuthbert and Bede look benevolently on, as the mighty cathedral of Durham celebrates moon-worship. Whether you are a genuine lunatic (in which case an anthem of Howells is provided), or simply astronomically minded, you cannot fail to be spiritually nourished by the sight of the lunar orb.

Norwich again: Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. Gen 1:24.

While the dean was in hospital suffering from a compound fracture (see above), her deputy realised that the best way to celebrate God's creation was with Dippy the Plastic Dinosaur. It is true that the Diplodocus is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, but it was realised that a plastic goat skeleton would not bring in so many tourists save so many souls.

York: Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging. Prov. 20:21.

Well, we charged people an exorbitant fee to enter York Minster, but we really need more money. So a gin and rum festival is certain to bring out one of the true messages of Christianity: after all, did not Jesus turn water into gin and rum at Cana? Oh, by the way, the cathedral is closed to worshippers today, but all boozers, drunkards and alcoholics are welcome!

What was the quality of the service you received?

Thank you for attending divine worship this weekend. Please take the time to fill in the following ecumenical questionnaire, as we are constantly trying to improve the quality of our services.

1. What was the first thing you noticed on arriving at your place of worship?

a) A man high up in the tower shouting "Allahu Akbar!"
b) The jolly ringing of church bells, intermingled with the screams 
of someone who had caught his foot in the bellrope.
c) Hooting and swearing from drivers trying to park their cars.
d) A solemn silence.
e) An axe flying past your head and a cry of "Odin is great!"

"Welcome to our humble service of worship. I'm the vicar."

2. Did you have difficult finding a seat?

a) No, as there were only three people present.
b) Yes, but I kicked out old Granny Bannister, and took her place.
c) We do not sit in our church, but meditate while standing on our 
heads.
d) No, but a bouncer removed me, hissing "Get out of the bishop's 
cathedra!"
e) No, because I was part of the clown procession, and had a reserved 
bath of custard to lie in.

The liturgical significance of custard has been under-estimated.

3. Which (if any) of the following sacred beings were mentioned during the sermon?

a) Pope Francis.
b) Fr James Martin SJ.
c) Lord Oates, the Quaker Maximus.
d) The crocodile god.
e) Rowan Williams.
f) Donald Trump.
g) The Duchess of Cambridge.

"I take as my text the 2000th tweet of St James to the Twitteratians"

4. The sign of peace. What do you do?

a) We don't have it, although we are allowed to smile at our neighbours
if we don't get too excited.
b) As little as possible, but usually one or two people catch me.
c) I embrace as many as I can, and later go round to the houses of 
all the people I missed.
d) I grab my neighbour's hand firmly, and squeeze until he cries 
for mercy.
e) In our church we smoke a pipe of peace.

No, I don't know, either.

5. What music was there?

a) Gregorian chant.
b) Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos ("Throw out the lifeline 
across the dark wave; There is a brother whom someone should save").
c) 100 Hymns for Hippies.
d) Something old, tuneful, and spiritually nourishing.
e) The Kevin Mayhew book of Bad Hymns.

"The organist is sick, but Mr Banerjee has agreed to play 'Shine, Jesus, Shine' on the nose-flute instead."

6. What was on offer after the service?

(a) Coffee and Eccles cakes in the church hall.
(b) Gin, toiler cleaner and hair-restorer, chez Anti Moly.
(c) Cold tap water (we are tops for asceticism).
(d) The priest's own-brand spinach wine.
(e) As much liturgical custard as we could drink.

"More gin, vicar?"

Thank you for completing our questionnaire, and if you have any further comments please keep them to yourself.

Eccles sees an apparition at Medjugorje

Pope Francis has expressed doubts about the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje, but we on this blog tend to show more love and mercy, so I took a Medjugorje Holiday, advertised as "SEE YOUR OWN PERSONAL APPARITION, AT A TIME CONVENIENT TO YOU, OR YOUR MONEY BACK". Note that the claims of Medjugorje are really spectacular - SIX kids and NINE secrets - making Fatima, in comparison, seem as ordinary as Luton.

Having a lovely apparition. Wish you were here.

What the Holy Father really thinks is that the apparitions are nasty wicked things, probably the fault of Cardinal Burke and his sock-puppets, although he is not yet ready to say this definitively. Anyway, I checked into the Hotel Apparitio (2 star), and requested an apparition for midnight.

I prepared myself with some spiritually nourishing reading, namely Amoris Laetitia, the Da Vinci Code, and Bosnian for Dummies (just in case MY apparition didn't speak English). Also a good bottle of Château Karadžić plonk ("The wine for war criminals").

Father Ted Karadžić, a local priest.

Anyway, at midnight precisely there was a knock on the door, a voice announced "Your apparition, sir!" and in walked an old lady.

Now, I think the Pope has hit the nail on the head here, as this apparition is totally unlike the Blessed Virgin Mary in all respects.

My personalized apparition.

She didn't have much of a message for me, just muttering "Got any gin, Eccles?" before she reeled out again. But... but... she did turn up at midnight, and she did address me directly. Makes you think, doesn't it?

But what can the message mean? Gin... spirit... Holy Spirit... spirit of Vatican II... juniper berries... Jupiter... Barnabas (Acts 14:12)... it's all too deep for me.

I returned home spiritually nourished, but I don't know what it was all about. No wonder the Pope is baffled.

Am I bringing joy into my life?

Having seen Pope Francis's ten tips for bringing joy into one's life, I thought I'd see how well I was doing, and, in cases where there was room for improvement, who I should take as my role model. If anyone wants another ten tips, then look here.

Attempt all of these.

1. Live and let live. I'm not very good at this, frankly. When I read of massacres in Iraq (for example), I do start getting annoyed, even though strictly speaking it's none of my business. Perhaps David Cameron (last seen staring at dead fish in Portugal) is a good role model for this one.

2. Be giving of yourself to others. I'm writing this blog, am I not? This is my mission to the slightly-saved, that they may become more-saved. I think I get a mark here.

3. Proceed calmly in life. Yes, I've read Desiderata too: Go placidly amid the noise and haste, etc. Yup, I'm fairly calm and placid.

Not going to lose my temper, but it was an Eccles cake I ordered.

4. Have a healthy sense of leisure. As the saying goes: sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. Is this healthy? Obviously the Holy Father isn't recommending sloth, is he? It's having a healthy sense of work that I find difficult.

5. Sunday is for families. Ha ha ha, every day is for families, especially when you have an aunt who keeps running out of gin and ekes it out with anti-freeze and toilet-cleaner.

6. Find ways to employ the youth. Anyone who makes approaches to youth, saying "Would you like to earn some money, little girl?" is likely to end up being questioned by the police. For similar reasons, I suppose, boy scouts no longer offer a "Bob-a-Job" where they would clean the car, cut the hedge, walk the dog, tidy the kitchen and cook dinner, all for the sum of 1 shilling (5p). So I fall down dismally here. Who is my role model? The Guardian, which employs Owen Jones (age 8)?

... and the Guardian is looking for a left-wing feature-writer.

7. Respect and care for nature. Yes, on the whole. Respect, rather than reverence, or worship. So I bow to cabbages, but do not genuflect in front of them. I retrieve lost-looking spiders from the bath, and put them in my aunt's bed. Yes, full marks here.

8. Stop being negative. No, I won't! Ah... that was a trap, and I fell into it. All right. From now, I'm just a boy who cain't say "NO", so my role model is Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote these words for Oklahoma!

I cain't say No!

9. Respect other's beliefs. This is a toughie. Where do we draw the line? Atheists? Muslims? Satanists? Mormons? Baptists? Perhaps I get half a mark for ecumania here, as I get on rather well with some (but not all) Catholics, Anglicans and Baptists, for example. Perhaps we need to look to Cardinal Nichols, who offered flowers at a Hindu altar. Cardinals are never wrong.

10. Work for peace. This is one I understand, and appreciate. How sneaky of the Pope to slip in something Christian at the end!

The Verdict.

The Pilgrim's Ogress 4 - the guilt of Titus' Grandma

Continued from Part 3

Eccles's Anti Moly takes up the tale.

After my stupid nephew escaped from the Tablet headquarters in Hammersmith, he wanted to go to Blogfen, a woeful traddy parish somewhere near Sidcup. Eccles had heard that there was a meeting there in honour of Titus' Grandma, to which Catholic bloggers were invited. My nephew somehow thought that he would be welcome.

This is Titus, but we never met his Grandma.

It was quite difficult to get to Blogfen, because our donkey, Micky, carrying the emergency gin supplies, wasn't allowed on buses or trains. Also, Eccles wanted to go incognito, as he had heard that a lunatic from Croydon was out for his blood; so he dressed up as a clown and pretended to be his brother Bosco. We missed the religious events, but arrived in time for the party.

Our donkey, also in disguise.

The event was very strange. There was an old man called "Lofty" present, who said he had come along in order to shut down as many blogs as possible. He also had an interesting theory, based on turning over several pages of St Luke's Gospel at once, that Jesus was only on the Earth for one week - Born on a Monday, Baptised on Tuesday, Retreated on Wednesday, Did His ministry on Thursday, Crucified on Friday, Rose on Saturday, Ascended on Sunday. Lofty spent most of the party exchanging scowls with someone they called the "LMS Chairman", and in the end the two of them went outside for a punch-up and never came back.

Eccles asked me to republish this photo of Basil Foltus as a young man.

Eccles says he will always look at Tina Beattie in a new light, as a result of the Blogfen party. As a leading Catholic thinker, she had come to the meeting, and Eccles, who is a little infatuated with her, asked her to dance. It was woeful seeing "luvvly Tina" and my idiot nephew Eccles tango-ing to a Gregorian chant, but this was supposed to be an occasion for getting to know new people.

Hans Küng was there too, and I thought he and I might dance, so I went up to him to ask. Silly me, it was his statue! Apparently Fr Finigan, the host of the party, had been given a copy of the original statue, and had not yet found a good home for it. Well, after a bottle or two of gin, it was an easy mistake for me to make.

Woeful - this man refused to dance with me.

Several more traddy bloggers were also present, many from the Brighton area. I remember talking to a man called Bones; he had come with his friend Blakey from Brighton, who kept saying "I 'ate you, Gardner", although we never discovered who this Gardner man was.

Bones (with an unusual cross) and Blakey.

But the person I remember best, because he talked for three hours without interruption, was someone they called "The Archbishop of Corby". I jotted down a few gems of his conversation, such as, "Make sure you understand the question you're asking, Ma'am, but it seems you prefer a black and white answer to a labyrinth of conditional logic gates you won't even acknowledge, as it's a question of objective disordering circumstances and Noachide/natural moral law, exposing your ignorance of intention/motive and circumstantial factors." This was in response to "Would you like another cup of tea, your Grace?" from a lady in a mantilla.

Sitting on the naughty chair.

Ah well, I slipped under the table shortly after that, and don't remember much more. Such is life, eh? What's more, they played Gregorian chant all afternoon, and not the music I wanted to dance to. Woeful.

This is the sort of music I prefer.

To be continued by another author.

The laws of Christianity

With the news that the Vatican is to have its own cricket team, it is clear that some readers would appreciate a handy cut-out-and-throw-away guide to the game of Christianity.

The laws of cricket, however, are well known.

1. In the game of Christianity, there are two teams, called the saints and the sinners.

2. The team of sinners is much larger than the team of saints, and beginners will usually start there. This is called original sin.

Howzat? An original sinner.

3. The object of the game is for the sinners to become saints. The saints will help this, but other sinners will try and prevent this.

4. Declaring one's innings closed is considered bad form, although not against the laws of the game. Causing someone else's innings to end is more serious, and the party responsible loses the game.

5. At various stages in the game a "tempter" will run up and attempt to get past a player's guard. Points are scored for batting away such attacks.

6. The player who is batting has a variety of scoring shots available, all with technical names such as praying, fasting, alms-giving, etc.

7. A cry of "Alleluia!" or "'Owzat?" will greet the end of an innings.

8. There is a Trinity of umpires. Two of these are out on the field, but one is pavilioned in splendour and girded with praise. Their decision is final.

The pavilion at Lourdes cricket ground.

---

Meanwhile, as the Vatican decides whether to recognise the controversial events at Medjugorje as apparitions of the Virgin Mary, it has been asked to adjudicate on another controversial event.

Probably NOT Mary.

According to a part-time mystic, Brother Eccles, he was on holiday in the village of Muddlejorge, when he awoke from a doze to see an old lady in the room with him, smelling of gin. She screamed "WOEFUL!" at him, hit him over the head with a bottle, and then herself fell to the floor and started snoring. Eccles blacked out for a while, and when he regained consciousness, the lady had vanished.

A Vatican spokesman said: "As in the case of Medjugorje, this is totally unlike the apparitions of the Virgin Mary that we have so far accepted - Lourdes, Fatima, Walsingham, etc. - in both the appearance and the message of the alleged apparition. However, 'Woeful!' is probably a good rendering of Mary's views of the current state of the world, so perhaps it was a genuine apparition after all. Who knows?"

Eccles's Auntie Moly was unavailable for comment.

---

Finally, the Vatican has withdrawn a papal medal where the name "JESUS" was misspelt as "LESUS".

I blame the Lesuits.

In fact, this is not the first time that J and L have been confused in religious circles. In the first century, in an attempt to appease the Romans, St John wrote "God is Jove". However, this was transcribed as "God is Love", and we have had to live with the consequences ever since.

Eccles befriends two bloggers

I done two good deeds today. De fust one was when I got a call from my freind Sister Fortis, wot lives in Blogfen wiv 23 cats and a few hungry mantillas.

De cat Bergoglio.

Sister Fortis is takin part in de forty hours of adoratoin at Blogfen, where you aint allowed to eat or drink, although you is allowed to write bloggs. She asked me if I could look after her cats while she was adorin.

Sister Fortis, sans mantillas, but wiv some of de cats.

De cats is all named after famuos Cathlics. She got Monsinger Newton, wot used to be an Anteater, but converted to bein a Cat. Dere is also Nichols, a very naughty cat wot never does what he is told. Among de lady cats dere is Pepinster, wot hisses a lot, and scratches de uvver cats - dey gives her tablets to keep her calm. One of de most interestin cats is Zuhlsdorf, wot is known for "kitty kill" - he brings in dead voles and sparrows, also de milkman and a passin liberal priest.

Kitty kill.

Well, I is gonna have a hard time lookin after de cats, but luckily my Anti Moly (who has gone back to Austriala) left some gin behind, and dey seems to be much quieter after I mixed it wiv dere CATFOD meat.

Update: de neighbors is complainin about yowlin noises all de night keepin em awake. I fink it is de cat Inwood, wot aint got any idea of mellody and just wont shut up.

---

De uvver good deed I has been doin in to cheer up my freidn Damain Thopmson, wot has been gettin a bit depressed lately. He has put a washin machine in de music room of Thopmson Towers, so dat he can play Bach while watchin his undies goin round and round (we knows he is a holly man, as he says he sees mystic visions - dis must be wot dey calls a Deus ex machina).

To cheer up my friend Damain I went on de web and ordered a bespoke set of boxer shorts dat he can wear when he goes to Mass.

Put dese is de machine, and you will see visions of holly men.

In fact Damain weren't at all amused, and so I tried out Plan B - invitin round to tea de well-known Stephen Fry wot suffers from uncontrollable bonhomie. Dis means dat he becomes very borin and makes pathetic jokes about Cathlic priests and child abuse. Damain aint reely very fond of Mr Fry, especially when de bonhomie is out of control, and so de party was not a success.

The five moods of J. Stephen Fry.

The Nightmare Song

With further apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan. But there's always room for one more pastiche, isn't there?

When you're sitting in church, and you're trying to search for a meaningful theme in the service,
You may find that it seems you've been having bad dreams, and they're certainly not for the nervous.

Warning - Damian Lundy ahead.

For it's Walk in the the Light, with its words very trite, that they've got as the hymn for procession:
At its music banal you are starting to snarl - finding it hard to control your aggression! Then things get even gorier - Kyrie and Gloria, sung to a setting by Inwood -
Which destroys all the sense. What could make you less tense? Well, you feel that perhaps a large gin would!

An antidote to Inwood.

The priest's got no biretta, he thought it was better to dress in a cape and deer-stalker,
While the deacon's emphatic, he'll wear no dalmatic; he's dressed like a long-distance walker.

Father Holmes prepares for Mass.

The Epistles of Paul, we don't have them at all, though he wrote of some truths sempiternal.
What we get in their place makes you green in the face - it's a page of Dan Brown's book (Infernal!)
Well, you hope that the preacher will be a good teacher, but instead they've wheeled in Tina Beattie,
Who's at war with the Pope, and there isn't much hope that they're going to sign a peace treaty.

Lest we forget...

She has often been banned, and you do understand that her words must be treated with caution:
All traditions are wrong, let us sing a new song: women priests, same-sex marriage, abortion!
Then it's on to the creed, and it makes your heart bleed, when you see all of the bits they've omitted:
For the priest isn't sure he believes any more, so it's best not to get too committed!

An uncontroversial edition of the creed.

Well it's time for some prayer. Yet again you despair - for we pray for Hans Küng, not Pope Francis.
A collection they'll take, but first - not a mistake - we'll be getting liturgical dances!
A guitar twangs away, to our increased dismay, with some rubbish the player has brought in.
Six girls leap to their feet, do the Liverpool beat, which is mainly suggestive cavorting.

A liturgical can-can.

They come round with the plate, you're obliged to donate, though you really had thought of refusin'...
For the case they support is to buy vintage port for a transgendered bishop called Susan.
Well the rest of the Mass is just equally crass, like the bit where you cuddle your neighbour,
When you know very well she would see you in Hell, for two pins, with the aid of a sabre!

The kiss of peace.

When it's time to receive, you just cannot believe that the priest simply said "Come and get it!"
So you stay in your pew, feeling more and more blue, for you certainly think "Just forget it!"
Now it's Shine, Jesus, Shine! - oh, that hymn's really fine - as the song that we sing when it's finished:
Shine on me, shine on me, dum-de-dum, dum-de-dee... At the end you feel strangely diminished.

The worst is yet to come...

So you head for the door - Father'll be there for sure, with a greeting (he's likely to gabble it);
BUT right down the aisle, there's a huge unsold pile of a scurrilous rag called the TABLET!

From this sight you retreat, running into the street, for it's evil in print, you reflect as you sprint, heading into the town, to the pub where you drown... all your sorrows in beer, for the Tablet brings fear, of a hideous curse, yes, an evil, far worse, than you previously met, and you're really upset, by the demons within, which may lead you to sin, and destruction which can't be amended...

Read my new column in the Tablet!

But the service is past, and it's freedom at last, and next week you begin again, with a new priest (called Finigan?) so thank goodness this nightmare song's ended!

Near-death experiences

In view of a near-death experience claimed by Dr Eben Alexander, which is the basis of his new book Proof of Heaven, we asked some of the regular characters appearing on this blog to describe their own near-death experiences.

---

Bosco, worshipper at the Calvary Chapel, and saved person.

Hello, could I speak to Jesus, please?

Eccles, you poor sick monkey, I had a rotten experience when I tried to save a convent of nuns, and I was badly beaten up by them. As I lay in hospital, near to death, I found that I was standing outside the Gates of Heaven, explaining to St Peter that all Catholics were idolaters, and should be sent to the Lake of Fire. "I am saved, even more than you are," I told him. "I've come for my throne and my golden crown."

St Peter is shocked by Bosco's blog.

"Ah, Bosco," said St Peter. "I've been reading your blog, and we've got a totally different fate for you..."

---

Damian Thompson, formerly a religious journalist.

Damian is the one alone at the front, whom nobody else will talk to.

The first thing that struck me about St Peter, when I saw him, was that he was putting on weight. In fact, the whole tone of Heaven was very disappointing, and I was totally unimpressed with the angels, who were definitely smirking at me. The music was not Gladys Mills plays Beethoven, as I had been led to expect, nor even something by my friend James MacMillan, but a dirge that sounded like an eternal repetition of "Alleluia Ch-ch."

Angels - what dreadful hair styles they have.

---

Moly, aunt of Eccles and Bosco.

A recent photo of Moly.

Well I don't believe in God or Heaven, but I did have a very strange dream last night when I finally dropped off. I was in Paradise, wearing my new Moly Number 5 cigarette- and gin-scented perfume. But I was surrounded by possums, all jumping up and down, and there wasn't a bottle of gin to be had anywhere. "It's endless torment for you," said a loud voice to me, probably one of those bullying traddy Catholics. Woeful.

Vicious possums. They're out to get me. I know it.

---

Father Arthur, of the Church of St Daryl the Apostate.

I'm a priest in good standing, you know.

Well, I wasn't going to stand any calumny from the man waiting for me at the Gates of Heaven, so I got my attack in first. "May I remind you, 'Saint' Peter, that as recorded in the 26th chapter of the book of St Matthew, and elsewhere, you denied Christ on no less than three occasions? Does that give you the right to comment on the behaviour of other people? I am a priest in good standing, with no time for your traditionalist ways. Haven't you people heard of Vatican II? Now clear off, and let me do your job properly for you."

The Last Judgement. But Fr Arthur will willingly give you a preliminary verdict.