A message from the Dean - 13 November 2020
Dear Friends,
Like you, I felt a whole lot more cheerful when I heard the great news that a vaccine to combat the Covid-19 virus was on the threshold of being delivered to a grateful world. I’m full of admiration for the scientific and medical skill and ingenuity that has brought this to pass. Naturally, the vaccination programme will take some time to roll out and we’ll all have to take our place in the queue according to our need and vulnerability. But there’s no disguising good news; thanksgivings and praise must be offered. Anything else to cheer this week? It’s not for me to comment on the outcome of the US Presidential election but the media consensus welcomes a return to constructive as opposed to disruptive politics and the stabilisation of international relationships. There are glimmers of hope. They feed the soul.
One of the four espoused values of our Cathedral is that people find healing here (along with holiness, hospitality and hope). Why healing? First, Jesus’s first acts in his public ministry were acts of healing. You sense in him an almost visceral pity for humanity in its pain and lostness. Many of the healing stories in the Gospel begin with Jesus “being moved with compassion”. People recognised his authority because he met them in their need and relieved the burdens they carried. You also see in the Gospel Jesus sending his disciples off to go and tell people about God’s love by laying hands on them and healing them. That same ministry has been given to the Church: we ritualise it by anointing people with holy oil and the laying on of hands by a priest. Prior to lockdowns and restrictions, this sacrament has been regularly available here.
To amplify this we have, of course, the example of our founding Bishop, St Chad. The great Northumbrian missionaries, of whom Chad was one, trained by St Aidan on Holy Island (Lindisfarne), announced the good news of Jesus Christ not only by words but by establishing a pattern of along-sidedness and friendship with the people they were sent to. That included ministries of healing, forgiveness and exorcism. When St Chad died his body was placed in a wooden shrine in the churchyard of what was St Mary’s at Lichfield. Bede, the great monastic historian described it as “a wooden monument, made like a little house covered, having a hole in the wall, through which those that go thither for devotion usually put in their hand take out some of the dust, which they put into water and give to sick cattle or men to taste, upon which they are currently eased of their infirmity and restored to health”. (Ecclesiastical History of the English People). Pilgrimage to Lichfield throughout the Middle Ages had healing as a devotional aim and focus. It has even been claimed that the Cathedral was built without different floor levels to allow the sick to get to St Chad’s Shrine on crutches. To move forward into the eighteenth century the Cathedral has a very interesting memorial to a pioneer experimenter with vaccination. Just inside the North West door, next to the door to the North Tower, there’s an elaborately sculpted and beautifully lettered marble tablet: “Sacred to the memory of The Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagne who happily introduced from Turkey into this country The Salutary Art of inoculating the Small Pox. Convinced of its efficacy she tried it with success on her own children. Thus, by her example and advice, we have soften’d the virulence, And escap’d the danger of this malignant disease”. The monument was erected in 1789, the same year as the French Revolution!
Given our history, tradition and faith it seemed only right to offer the Cathedral as a centre for vaccination. When we heard in the summer that the Government wanted to give the flu jab to as many as possible, we wrote to local GP practices offering them the use of the Cathedral with the open invitation to use the Cathedral whenever a Covid-19 vaccine became available. I’m pleased that one GP practice is keen to investigate our facilities and we have made known to all the other practices that our invitation still stands. From what we heard in the media, getting a large swathe of the population vaccinated quickly is a Government priority. Other Cathedrals have followed our initiative and I hope the use of our buildings to promote public health will be seen as an essential outworking of our faith and our neighbourly concern. As a Cathedral we pray every day for our nation and community, especially for the healing of the sick and the protection of the vulnerable. It’s only right we offer the Cathedral as one of the practical means by which those prayers can be answered.
I’m writing in mid-November. We’re gearing up for Advent and Christmas despite everything having to be thought about in a mood of uncertainty. Assuming lockdown finishes on 2 December and life resumes at 50% of the usual December pace, much will still be possible. We know, alas, congregational singing is impossible inside the Cathedral. However, singing outside will be permitted. Hooray! We will therefore be doing, as John Betjeman put it, “carolling in frosty air”. We’ve got a Brass Band to come and lead Shoppers’ Carols on Saturday 19 December. We’ve contracted the use of a high-quality public-address system so we can boom things into the Close for some occasions. Happily, our Christmas Illuminations can take place because they will be focussed entirely on the Cathedral’s exterior. Tickets are timed to permit safe, social distancing. All houses in the Close will be encouraged to make extra effort with window and door decorations.
Yet Advent is a time that enables us to look for signs of hope even in the midst of great darkness. Sunday by Sunday, day by day the church’s calendar and liturgy takes us back to all the people of hope in the Bible, how they came to terms with setbacks and catastrophe. We remember the desperation of God’s people exiled from home “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”. (Isaiah 46:1). Advent is meant to rouse in us a longing for that time when God appears as judge, sifting and sorting our history, declaring an end to the malign forces that have distorted and exiled us from our true selves and true home. That’s why so many of our prayers and hymns are about staying awake and being ready “for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” (St Matthew 24:44). Advent celebrates what Christians have sometimes called the three comings of Christ: in the flesh in Bethlehem, in our hearts daily, and in glory at the end of time. Common distinctions are collapsed, past-present-future are made one and experienced as a single whole.
This year we will still be in lockdown on the first Sunday in Advent. Therefore, the beautiful Advent liturgy will be pre-recorded and made available on YouTube and the Cathedral website. 2020 has brought a great train of troubles to us and we want to note these in our prayers and actions. Lockdown has produced a horrible increase in domestic violence; unemployment means more people are facing poverty, debt and homelessness; isolation has had bad effects on mental health and restrictions have turned many funerals into perfunctory affairs. The national charity working with the bereaved has said our nation faces a “Tsunami of unresolved grief”. Internationally we’ve received a cry for help from the people of Bethlehem experiencing lockdown and the complete collapse of their economy. As the birthplace of Jesus, those cries cannot be ignored by the churches.
Here is how we hope to address some of these needs. We will continue to support the Lichfield Food Bank and the Pathway Project that provides facilities for vulnerable women and their children. Donations in kind to the Food Bank can be left any day between 14:00-16:00 in the Cathedral. Gifts of unwrapped toys for children of all ages can be brought to a “Share the Gift” Service on Sunday 20 December at 15:00. There will be a special vigil for the people of Bethlehem “Out of Bethlehem – A Cry” on the 8 December from 19:30-21:30, beginning with a short gathering liturgy and ending with Compline at 21:15. There will be prayer stations, visual displays, some short video clips, photographs, Palestinian music and a chance to make your mark by signing the Cry for Hope letter, making a cairn and making an evergreen circle of prayer around the Advent lights. You can also light candles made from Bethlehem beeswax.
On Sunday 13 December we will hold another vigil from 19:00-21:00, again with a short opening liturgy and ending with Compline at 20:45. It’s a recognition that for anyone dealing with bereavement, relationship breakdown, separation or any of life’s sadnesses, Christmas can be a punishingly difficult time. This is an occasion to bring hurts and memories to God. Again, there will be prayer stations, candle-lighting, a chance to place someone’s name or a description of your concern on the manger and to write the name of a loved one on a bauble that will be put on the Christmas tree.
In the same way, the Cathedral wants to pray for past worshippers or members of our families and circle of friends who have died. We’d like to symbolise this by doing two related things:
1. By lighting up to 200 lamps around the Cathedral with the person’s name in front of it on a special card;
2. By giving people who want a loved one prayed for and a named lamp lit in the Cathedral, an electronic tea-light. We want to partner each other in prayer so as the Cathedral lamps are lit each evening from the 13-20 December, lights can be lit at home and we name the people we have lost and loved before God. More details will appear on the Cathedral website. (We will ask for a specific donation to defray costs).
I apologise if this message has sounded like an extended set of notices, but I thought you would like to know what (in part) is being planned and how you might wish to respond.
Here’s a lovely little medieval verse to help get us ready for Advent:
“You shall know him when he comes
Not by any din of drums,
Not by the vantage of his airs;
Not by his gown,
Not by his crown,
But his coming known shall be
By the holy harmony
That his presence makes in thee.”
With my love, prayers and blessing.
Adrian