Still Looking Up...

In the spirit of Looking Up...

When I was in Brighton today I noticed two buildings in the city centre (ignore the bus):

...that seemed to have messages for the dozens of police controlling the March for England...

That's Brighton for you!

A Tale of Two Cities

A day at the seaside...

For many people Brighton means festivals and events, including the major political parties’ annual conferences (yawn).

Today, ‘celebrating’ its fourth or fifth annual march in Brighton is an organisation called March for England (MFE). Many believe that the MFE is an umbrella organisation of groups and individuals that includes racists, fascists and other folk of that ilk, although no doubt they would prefer to be described as patriots. About 200 of them came to Brighton today.

There was also a counter-demonstration, about 400 to 500 strong, mostly Brighton folk, who assembled to protest against the march. The Green Party was well represented, including MP Caroline Lucas, and there were trade unionists, Labour supporters, at least one councillor, charity workers and what looked like some European anti-fascists.  

outside The Bright Helm pub

As I came out of Waterstone’s Bookshop, the police had corralled the main party of MFE marchers at the entrance to the Bright Helm pub in West Street where I understand they had been ‘preparing’ for their march. Their white and red St George’s flags fluttered above the wall of yellow hi-vis police jackets.

I saw about 50 police officers in West Street – some carrying batons and helmets, as well as several police horses (wearing eye protection and knee pads) and, above, a police helicopter was circling.

reinforcements

As I watched, a dozen reinforcements came running down the street. Police vans parked nearby showed that the police had been drawn in from several forces including London Metropolitan, Hampshire, Surrey and Devon & Dorset.

Clumps of local protesters stood around in West Street occasionally shouting insults. The atmosphere was tense but the police seemed to have it well under control. Several times the weather intervened and sudden heavy downpours helped dampened any enthusiasm for trouble; the police would later report that it 'passed relatively peacefully' with ‘a few minor injuries...27 arrests were made.’

At the same time, there were also grey skies in Rome, some 860 miles south-east of Brighton. There, Pope Francis, in front of a crowd of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, declared and defined Blessed Pope John Paul II and Blessed Pope John XXIII as Saints; in Heaven for evermore, they are available to intercede for us.    

Two events, hundreds of miles apart, one has written a new page in the history of the Church, the other...well, who will remember the MFE march?

 

...apart from the grateful rose-gardeners of Brighton? Thank you, police horses (- and officers)!   

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! ALLELUIA!

Hove's Ecumenical Walk of Wintness on Good Friday

It was a cool and windy day with scudding clouds and sudden bursts of sunlight. We assembled in front of St John’s Anglican Church at Palmeira Square for the start at 11.00 am. There were over 150 people present - yes, I did a count - the majority being middle-aged and older, but with a substantial number of younger marchers, including some children, infants in wheelchairs - and three dogs.

I presume most of the marchers were Anglican as we began from and halted at three Anglican churches, but the Catholic Church and the United Reformed Church were also represented. I imagine the only thing we had in common is that we were all Christians.- with the exception of our four-legged friends. Mind you, it’s impossible to tell a Christian from appearance alone, I guess the behaviour should be a clue: friendly, kind, loving...so, maybe these well-behaved dogs were recent converts?

Anyway, the Rev. Paul Doick of St. John’s switched on his megaphone and, after the first Station of the Cross we set off in a long and straggly procession along Church Road.

If you have ever seen a ‘crocodile’ line of school children going on an outing, marshalled by their teachers, you will have some idea of our procession. However, it is also fair to say that we were not as disciplined at marching in step, or even walking side by side. On the other hand, we did walk in silence, very conscious that the walk itself was a witness to the public, a very small but important way of saying ‘He is risen, He is risen indeed – Alleluia!’

Our first stop was in front of the old and beautiful All Saints Anglican Church in the Drive.

The Rev. Phil Ritchie, our cross bearer, put down his cross and we were led through the second Station. The format was now well-established and included the Kyrie eleison, a reading, a reflection, prayer and a hymn. A robust and tuneful ‘Crown Him with Many Crowns..’ swelled out.

Then it was off again, dodging the traffic until we reached Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Norton Road.

Fr. Kevin Dring led the worship and ended with the ‘Hail Mary’, particularly appropriate since the third Station was ‘Jesus Greets His Mother.’ By now the scorching sun had overcome the freezing sea breeze and hats were the order of the day, even Fr. Kevin had a nifty tropical bush hat.

The next stop was the Central United Reformed Church at Ventnor Villas.

This was the first time I managed to get a photo of the entire group. Truth to tell, I felt a little awkward, lurking on the edges of the procession, taking many pictures (with a tiny compact camera). I also felt awkward counting the numbers of people present as they passed, I suspect that my flickering gaze and silent mouthing of the numbers must have made me appear like an eccentric, praying hard.

Here, in our fourth Station, we contemplated Simon of Cyrene who helped carry Jesus' cross and thought about the many times we had failed to notice, far less help, those in need.

In George Street, shoppers stopped and stared as we assembled, first in the middle of George Street, then at the bottom, outside a branch of Barclays Bank.

Buskers paused, open-mouthed, struck silent; mothers with pushchairs asked each other what was happening; small children pointed. As we prayed the fifth (Jesus is Stripped) and sixth (Jesus is Nailed to the Cross) Stations, a silence descended on the street. Then we sang that old spiritual ‘Were You There When they Crucified my Lord?’ a simple but powerful reflection that was a favourite of Mahatma Ghandi.

Afterwards, the Revs. Paul and Phil led us past the Tesco superstore to our last stop, St. Andrew's Anglican Church.  

 St. Andrew’s is a fine old Victorian structure surrounded by an ancient churchyard (including the remains of Sir George Everest, once Surveyor-General of India, whose name was given to the world’s highest mountain). We stood outside the church, next to the old tombstones and prayed the final Station, ‘Jesus Dies on the Cross.’

Then, the concluding song ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross...’, which is probably Isaac Watts’ best hymn. There is a haunting melancholy to the words, a solemn and aching wonder at the extent of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. The lyrics are over 300 years old but they still have the power to move the spirit.

The procession and prayer over, we walked slowly to the church hall where refreshments and hot cross buns awaited, contemplating the final words of the hymn....  

...Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

It's Confession Time Again

Lent has flown past and now we’re in Holy Week. If there ever was a time for confessions...it’s now.

First, let me confess that, since returning from Hong Kong, life has been unbelievably hectic and for more than three weeks I have been forced to abandon the blog in order to get 1,001 things done and to meet deadlines. (I did not even think to celebrate one whole year of the Blog - yes, the first entry was posted on 31st March 2013, on the subject of the Easter Vigil).

Now, I’m back.

 

As I mentioned before, Confessions have gone out of fashion over the last 50 years. A large US poll in 2008 found that almost half of all Catholics never went to Confession at all and only about a quarter went once a year or more frequently. Maybe we’ve misplaced our sense of sin, what with automatic contraception, freely-available terminations, a nanny-state to care for bothersome social issues, binging as a rite of passage, the dark corners of the ubiquitous internet available to all...it’s easy to become a Jeremiah, an angry prophet.

But, maybe the tide is turning, there are some green shoots to point to. In fact, ever since Pope Benedict XVI said that the New Evangelisation begins in the confessional, there have been the stirrings of a renaissance.

There are now excellent websites devoted to encouraging good Confessions, like www.GoodConfession.com that explains five benefits of making a good Confession: helping us to ‘know ourselves’; to overcome vice; bring peace; strengthen our will – and make us more saintly, more like Jesus. There are even a number of smartphone apps that make the process of preparation much easier.

Bishop Kieron Conry, who is responsible for Outreach in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, says that more young people are coming to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This seems to have been encouraged by a more informal approach to reconciliation, together with an increased focus on the essence of behaviour - my relationship with God and my neighbour - rather than a mechanical recitation of sins. The effect of Pope Benedict’s visit to the UK and the impact of Pope Francis have also been mentioned as contributing to the resurgence. For example, a survey in August 2013 of clergy in cathedrals across England & Wales found that two-thirds had noticed an increase in Confessions that they attributed to ‘Papal bounce.’ And, of course, Pope Benedict himself knelt – very publically – in Confession with a regular priest at St. Peter’s, just three weeks ago.  

My own contribution to the statistics is even more impressionistic. When I was in Westminster Cathedral this week, there was a queue of 40 to 50 people in front of the four confessionals - which seems to be more than usual!

So, whatever the reason, let’s celebrate if more people are coming home to God.