ragon
THE
P RTAL
April 2019
Page 5
Being old-fashioned
U
nsurisingly, ‘Snapdragon’ has often been accused of being old-
fashioned. Perhaps this has got something to do with the fact that I’ve always believed I
was born over four hundred years too late.
One symptom of this is my almost
hysterical reaction when being
lectured by the ‘Health Fascists’ of the
early Twenty-first Century about the
supposed benefits to me and wider
society of embracing ‘Dry January’
or some other Godless period of
alcoholic abstinence.
‘Snapdragon’ admits at the outset that his favoured
alcoholic ‘poison’ is wine (though he did recently
ask an Ordinariate priest if he could borrow his gin
hip-flask) and the origins of humans drinking the
fermented grape go back over 9,000 years and have a
rich pedigree in Biblical times and the Ancient World.
Indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ’s first recorded miracle
(recounted in St John’s Gospel) was at the Wedding at
Cana, where He made water into wine. Obviously, all of
us are acutely aware of the Last Supper - and His words
are repeated at the heart of every Mass celebrated over
2,000 years later. However, even ‘Snapdragon’ does
stop drinking wine during Lenten fasting - although
obviously Sundays as Holy Days are exempt.
sense of humour.
Of course, historically novelists and church-parties
antagonistic to traditional Anglo-Catholicism have
conveniently and, in my view, very unfairly labelled
the jocularity which people from our background
have indulged in as ‘waspish’ and too often vitriolic
and even poisonous.
However, it is certainly ‘Snapdragon’s experience that
individuals who readily use humour in conversation
certainly don’t mean to imply they hold their sincere
convictions shallowly. On the contrary, they can easily
use humour to demonstrate how fondly and naturally
they hold certain beliefs. As ‘Snapdragon’ is wont to
say, ‘I hold my convictions seriously, but I never take
myself too seriously.’
My contention reminds me of a little piece of advice
I used to trot out to junior (child) servers at my former
Anglo-Catholic parish church. Invariably demanding
the highest standards from our altar-servers, I would
naturally insist they turned out for Mass wearing
the correct vesture of black cassock and white cotta.
“Remember, anyone wearing other than black socks
will make the Mass invalid!”
Recently ‘Snapdragon’ popped into his local Catholic
parish church to worship on Sunday and, in his
uncommon haste, mistakenly picked up the pew-slip
I do not believe for a moment I was being correct
for the Family Mass, which immediately precedes his theologically (probably). However, my light-hearted
customary Solemn Mass liturgy.
remark made a serious point that (as we used to say),
‘Only the best is good enough for God.’
Returning the erroneously-seized church paperwork,
Finally, this brings me to one of my favourite,
I apologised for the mistake to the sidesman and
jocularly explained the mishap away by venturing the though gentle, ecclesiastical anecdotes: The famous
fact that “I don’t normally attend the Low Mass with 20 th century Anglo-Catholic priest Fr Cyril Tomlinson
was once collared by a somewhat ‘Spikey’ young
ghastly tuneless ditties!”
layman. “Do you have a Latin Mass here, Father?”
The Cradle Catholic layman’s shocked and appalled he was asked. Father Tomlinson replied, “My dear
expression said it all and he really didn’t need to provide boy, the rule here is architecture by Comper, music
an embarrassed defence of post-Vatican II modern by Mozart, choreography by Fortescue but libretto by
liturgy. Needless-to-say, I immediately resolved that I Cranmer.”
wouldn’t try on him my former Anglo-Catholic mock-
How fitting that the Ordinariate has now turned
Lenten greeting of, “Have a miserable Lent.”
church history full circle in less than three-quarters of
The incident and clash of ecclesiastical cultures made a century (less than a blink in God’s timescale). Our
me reflect - as, of course, one ought to in Lent - that Ordinariate ‘Divine Worship’ liturgy now celebrates
perhaps one part of the Anglican Patrimony we have the Almighty using the sublime cadences based on
brought into the Catholic Church is a typically wry Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer.