A message from the Dean - 9 April 2020
Dear Friends,
I'm writing this first thing on the morning of Maundy Thursday. The house is quiet. I’m the first one up, the dog has had a trot round the garden, breakfasted, and now has curled up in an arm chair beside my desk. It’s a beautiful spring morning and the contrast with what we’re hearing and seeing on the media couldn’t be more stark: doctors and nurses exhausted by the battle to preserve life, the strain on the faces of the Government ministers and officials, the illness of the Prime Minister, the critical challenges faced by Care Homes trying to keep frail, elderly people safe and alive, the real hardship a non-functioning economy is causing businesses, industries and charities. There is much to pray about. Yes, first our thanks for the gift of life itself; for beautiful starts to the day like this morning; real prayers of concern for the well-being of everyone and every place. Our lives are a great web of inter-connectedness and mutual dependency. We are learning that lesson in starkly fresh ways every day of this crisis.
This brings me to the way we keep these holy three days (the Triduum), Maundy Thursday to Easter Day. Normally we celebrate and ritualise these days with the very best of our imagination, skill and time. Maundy Thursday takes us into the drama of the passion. Jesus shares his last meal with his disciples at Passover time in Jerusalem. The air is thick with fear and suspicion; a plot has been hatched to kill and silence Jesus. The city is tense, full of the observant wanting to start Passover. The Roman Governor has taken up residence to quell any trouble. The meal that Jesus shares takes place in this fevered atmosphere. Seeing his disciples’ fear, listening to their nervous talk about who would be greatest in Jesus’s coming Kingdom, Jesus clothes himself as a servant and does for them what they should have been doing for one another: he washes their feet. This is the outward and visible sign of his love command: ‘love one another as I have loved you.’ This sign of loving service, having someone kneel down and deal with the dirt and smell of feet, is still, even in our time, an act of beautiful, tender and necessary care. It reminds us that however great we think we are, however lofty our ambitions, we can only love through the acts that express it. It is also a great visible statement about the authenticity of our faith and the Church: we can only claim to be followers of Christ by the love we have for one another. ‘By this love shall all people know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.’ That is Jesus’s mandate to us, (incidentally, ‘mandate’ comes from the Latin ‘mandatum’ from which we get ‘maundy’). On Thursday in Holy Week we get our orders, our mandate, to serve.
During ‘lock down’ we will have the unique opportunity to pray big-hearted prayers for our world and nation. We also have the hour-by-hour challenge of loving and serving those we live with, perhaps with fresh ingenuity and proven patience. If you want a quick revision course on Christian loving read 1 Corinthians Chapter 13. It’s a bracing inspiration.
For Good Friday and Easter, I ask you to join Cathedral worship on-line. The team has worked with creative energy and dedication to provide liturgy that is thoughtful, beautiful and appropriate. Being in isolation this Holy Week has been incredibly painful. Thank you for all the efforts that’s been made to stay connected and please pray for one another. Our thoughts will turn inevitably to how life will recover after this epidemic. We can all pray that good lessons learned won’t be forgotten, and the kindness and humanity shown by so many can be the touchstone for a better society and world.
With my love, prayers and blessings,
Adrian Dorber
Dean of Lichfield