1980CHRISTMAS IN MY LONDON DAYS. THE PASCUAL SERMON OF
THE ARCHIBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. HOW I MET HIM WHEN HE WAS A NORMAL PRIEST
ATTENDING A LONDON CONGREGATION AT EMPTY CHURCH.
Antonio Parra
Sadness and drabness empty streets with echo of
cheering bells. I remember one Christmas Eve in Saint Chads Parish South
Kensington. The Anglican priest officiated for a congregation of two people an
old lady with hat the prayer book in her hands and myself. Congregations those
days like now were scarce. Nearby the shop of Harrods was full to the brim.
Él vino
a los suyos y los suyos no le recibieron, says John in the last
evangelio. The priest wore a
cassock of Henry the VIII days but the cannon was intact. Te igitur
clementissime pater but the magnificent Latin translated to archaic English
words and there he was with alba and the maniple and the cincture of chastity.
That evening it was a cold day and a grey light dropping tears of rain went
through the gothic windowpane words and benedictions only for the old lady and
me.
He wore the red ornaments of the martyrs. It was saint
Thomas Becket day. There I found that the church is eternal. Although empty.
The solitude of Christ confirms that part of the great mystery.
The priest let me sing the epistyle from the rostrum and
my voice resounded in the empty aisles with the recite of the Gospel of
Nativity.
In those magic words (prasepium, no room for them in
the inn) were concealed the mysteries of incarnation. In mundo erat et mundum per ipsum factum est et mundus
eum non cognovit. In propia venit et sui eum non receperunt. Quodquod autem
receperumt eum dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri, his qui credunt in Nomine
ejus qui non ex sanguine neque ex voluntate carnis neque ex voluntate viri sed
ex Deo nati sunt (genuflexion)
High theology in a few phrases. I felt the joy and the
sadness of Christianity. It reminded me of my own life and my own sins. Faith
is to believe in something that we never saw or have seen.
I was looking for my daughter Helen and I found her
but my in laws and my ex did not want to receive me. The sons of the spirit are
higher that the sons of the flesh. In propia venit et sui autem non receperunt.
I came to my people and I found the doors of the inn complete closed. No body
answered my calls like the poor family of Nazareth. No place for me poor sinner
in the diversorium. No room no inn. That was also part of the mystery of my
Xmas Days. The rules of the blood are different from the rule of the Holy
Spirit. That was the reason. That was the key. Christmas usually is sad
melancholy day. Because of that. We are sons and daughters of God no sons and
daughters of the blood and flesh.
What I did was to pray for my little one. She was a
tug of war child. And also I pray for my ex. She had undergone an operation to
extirpate a cancer from her throat. She came well and now she lives in Cornwall
a retired old lady like the one who attended Mass with me at that Christmas Eve
many a year ago, 35 years have gone. I am still trying to contact them. But
still all I have is rebuke. No. No. Still I pray God asking to keep them well.
Great sins have I ought committed to deserve such an ill treatment. A father
who is denied access to his daughter. That is no a human right? We live in the
age of paradox.
My daughter is a neonatal nurse. Works as a matron in
a London hospital. My ex an school master lives in retirement. Still there is
the sadness, the joy of the nativity of out Lord and the melancholy of the
evening London light coming through the altar where that priest with an air of
boredom and tiredness consecrated the body and the blood of Christ. That young
parson later on became the actual Archbishop of Canterbury.
Hoc est enim corpus meum.
In a way that Anglican presbyter fascinated me by his
parsimony he has a vivid stare and eyebrows like an owl and I always was very
interested by the Church of Canterbury. Great archbishops men of learning and
prayer occupied the See created by saint Austin an occupied by St. Thomas
Beckett. Canterbury always has had an independent leaning toward the secular
power.
Politically the head of the Church of England is the
Queen by the spiritual power lays on the primate of Canterbury and also in the
See of York. I remember Dr Runcie and Ramsey and also Dr. Fisher. They called
him the Red Archbishop only because he tried to establish a pact of no
aggression with Russia.
Nowadays the actual successor of Saint Austin has
criticized vividly the usury and lack of sensibility of Capitalism towards the
underdog and the ones in need, those who bear the crunch of the big crisis.
Christ is true has spoken through the mouth of His eminence. Dr Cowan is gaunt
big and lean man highbrows that make him look like an owl.
His homilies and sermons need to be taken in
consideration by a materialistic society. And hit the first pages of the
tabloids, He is a great theologian. And also a reflection; while Rome according
to its tradition always alleged with the powerful of this earth other churches
try to preserver the real tenets of the Gospel. Spiritus ubi vult expirat and
Dr Rowan Cowan has spoken in the line of the real ecumenism. God bless him.
Today I have officiated with him as a deacon the great
mass of the nativity in the solitude of my room. He came to his own and he was
not well received by them. Why? Because he proclaimed the
Truth.
Thursday,
25 December 2008
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