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THE P
Snapdragon
RTAL
March 2017 Page 5
Churches Together in Boggington
Snapdragon ’ s experience of Churches Together is helpful ... perhaps
he Immaculate Heart of Mary ” … I had just uttered those words at the
“ Tmeeting of Churches Together in Boggington ( CTIB ) when I was interrupted by the local C of E clergyman . He doesn ’ t seem to like me . Perhaps it ’ s because he wasn ’ t trained at Staggers … you have to be wary of these Cuddesfield or Barchester Ministerial Training Course clergy . “ Nothing in the Bible ”, he roared , “ about the Heart of Mary ”.
I opened my mouth to reply , but , curiously , the Baptist Minister got in first . He ’ s an Evangelical , and I could compose a long list of things about which we don ’ t quite see eye to eye ; but , unlike the generality of Anglican clergy nowadays , he does know his Bible . I had warmed to him when I arrived to take over the Boggington Ordinariate Group . The Vicar had instantly demanded that I should be excluded from CTIB .
“ He ’ s a traitor ”, cried the Vicar . “ He ’ s a Quisling . He left the C of E and persuaded a hundred of his laity to go as well . It ’ s Papal Aggression . You can ’ t expect me to sit round a table with this … this … ” But the Baptist had , with some feeling , explained that the days when the Established Church could dictate to all and sundry who was allowed to sit around a table with whom were now over . So the Vicar had absented himself from CTIB meetings for a good five months … and had then crept sheepishly back .
Now the Vicar turned on the Baptist minister . “ Show me ,” he cried , “ show me where Mary ’ s Heart occurs in the Bible ”. Of course , the Baptist had a Bible with him ; not , sadly , the RSV , but a Bible none the less . With a practised flip ( I think of it as ‘ Baptist Hand ’) he turned up Luke 2:19 and Luke 2:51 , and read them out .
“ Collapse of stout party ”, as Mr Punch used to put it . I went on to explain that , as Catholics , we are celebrating in 2017 the centenary of the Appearances of our Lady St Mary at Fatima in Portugal . I was nicely in my stride when I noticed that Fr Flannery , Catholic pp , appeared to be ‘ doing his emails ’.
He ’ s not a Staggers man , either . Curiously , he dislikes me almost as much as the Vicar does . Strange . I ’ m so immensely likeable . He caught my eye and said , not very apologetically , “ Well , Father , this is all rather unEnglish , isn ’ t it ? And not very Vatican II .”
I knew how to rattle him . It ’ s dead easy . All you need to do is to utter the B-word . “ Exactly what Pope Benedict wrote ”, I said , and sat back to enjoy for a few exquisite moments his painfully galvanised twitchings .
I then gave the quotation : “ devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is surprising for people from the Anglo-Saxon and German cultural world ”, followed by the typically Ratzinger exposition of Matthew 5:8 … “ the immaculate heart is a heart which , with God ’ s grace , has come to perfect interior unity and therefore ‘ sees God ’.
“ To be devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart , which makes ‘ thy will be done ’ the defining centre of one ’ s whole life ”.
I paused while the Methodist Minister left to go home to her wife . Then , doing my best to squint , I fixed the Vicar with one eye and the Man from Maynooth with the other and said , as decisively as I could do it , “ You know , chaps , her Immaculate Heart WILL prevail !”
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