The Rector's Message for the Week of November 5, 2023

Dear Friends,

I was struck by the opening words of Fr. Gioia’s sermon on the Feast of All Souls last Thursday: “More often than not, our dealings with death are fraught with ambiguities.” I love the month of November which prepares us for the winter ahead. The evening comes earlier, and wraps her cloak around us as we gather in the church for evensong. I have always found evensong on a dark, winter’s evening to be comforting; the psalmody, the readings, the canticles, the flickering candles, while outside all is dark, and the weather sometimes wild. November also gives us flashes of the summer now past as the trees are covered with outrageous iridescent colors, and the birds and squirrels forage and gorge themselves on the berries – nature’s bounty for them. Growing up, it was a time for my dad to tidy the garden and dig up some of his precious plants that he would over-winter in the greenhouse. He would buy horse manure to add to his cold-frame, so that he could beat the spring frost by creating a warmth from its decomposition beneath the soil. I would look at the steam rising from his cold frame with wonder! I also remember the pall of smoke of countless garden bonfires as gardeners cleared their gardens of dead and dying plants, and piles of leaves that had fallen from the trees.

The streets where I grew up in Hull were lined with London Plane Trees. On a windy November day, huge piles of leaves would pile up on the pavement, and we would delight in rushing through them and kicking them into the air. In Britain, we also kept Guy Fawkes Night on November 5, also known as Bonfire Night, when we remembered the great Gunpowder Plot of 1605 when Robert Catesby and other English Catholics loyal to Rome tried to assassinate King James I and many of his lords with the help of explosives expert, Guy Fawkes. The plot, of course, failed, and has been celebrated with the building of bonfires and the firework displays ever since (early editions of the 1662 Prayer Book include a liturgy of thanksgiving for the foiled plot!).

We may not burn effigies of the pope anymore, but when I was a boy in the 1960s, my friends and I would make a ‘Guy’ by stitching together an old sweater, a pair of pants, socks, and gloves, stuffing the ‘body’ and then attaching a head. My friends and I would knock on peoples’ doors with our Guy in dad’s wheelbarrow, and some of my friends had their Guys strategically placed near the sweet shop, and you would hear the cry “Penny for the Guy” as we raised money to buy fireworks. Yes, for me, November is charged with many memories; my mother’s birthday was November 4, and my father’s birthday was November 30. When I joined my church choir aged 8, I also discovered the great feasts of All Saints and All Souls. Then, of course, there was the solemn remembrances on November 11 — Armistice Day — and the Sunday following, with the wearing of poppies, and the ‘Festival of Remembrance’ in the Royal Albert Hall in London. My parents and my aunts and uncles had all been caught up in the Second World War and so there were many, many stories recalled in the month of November. As the poppies fell from the ceiling of the Albert Hall during the two-minute silence, my mother quietly shed tears; she never said why, but we all knew that she was feeling a memory as keenly as she had felt it many years before.

Bishop Mary writes to the clergy most weeks, and I was really struck by her message this week which is about the Book of Lamentations.

Soon, it will be Thanksgiving and, as a nation, we will stop for a few days and give thanks for all that we enjoy. Thanksgiving Day is a chance to take stock and to ensure that we do not take things for granted. So many of you have commented on the anxiety you are feeling with all that is unfolding in the world at the moment. There seems to be so much war and violence, and talk of how war might spread. I have just visited my elderly mother-in-law, who is now quite frail, and she commented how she has the same feelings as she did before the beginning of the Second World War. I continue to pray, like so many of you do, for peace and common sense to prevail and for the leaders of all the nations to seek peace and justice. As we celebrate All Saints’ Sunday this week, and then Remembrance Sunday the following week, let us pause and reflect on the Christian hope that has been given us by our Lord Jesus Christ. The catechism of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer says this:

Q. What is the Christian hope?

A. The Christian hope is to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God’s purpose for the world.

Living with confidence may seem hard when there is so much in our world to trouble us, and even at home when people take sides and say disparaging things about one another. In Britain, at the moment, there has been a push by many leaders of politics, faith, and media, for people to rediscover how to be kind. In one respect, in the light of the events in Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, it may seem somewhat pathetic. However, it is our children who learn from us, and perhaps instilling that simple virtue of being kind might actually be more powerful than we realize. I notice more and more signs in hospitals, in shops, and taxis that say “Please treat our employees with kindness and respect.” And, certainly, when I talk to our own children in Sunday School, or at the 9am mass, or to our choristers, kindness is always seen as something they understand, cherish, and yearn for. Perhaps we can learn from them.

I have received a note from Archbishop Naoum’s office in Jerusalem that I print below this message, together with a button where you can give a donation to the St. John Eye Hospital Group in the Holy Land.

Finally, here is the first section of one of my favorite poems for November from one of the First World War poets, Laurence Binyon. Its melancholy is shot with Christian hope, just as the November trees still contain jewels of color from the summer now gone. May this month be a month of remembrance and thanksgiving for all of us.

Affectionately,

Your Priest and Pastor,

Carl