Remembrance Sunday

 

In the States we honor veterans on November 11 but in Commonwealth countries people mark the date as Remembrance Day, looking back to the terrible slaughter of World War I, which ended with the "passing of the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month." In respect of this, churches keep the following Sunday as Remembrance Sunday and St. John the Evangelist, Calgary, was no exception.

Except perhaps it was, with a full Requiem High Mass, complete with Catafalque, Absolution at the Bier, two minutes silence, both Canadian and English national anthems and a heartfelt homily by Fr. B. I was moved and so was my youngest son. The liturgy began with an Act of Remembrance:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We shall remember them.

And the Mass continued according to the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite for the ordinariates, designed for Anglican converts. Pretty much Anglican Missal or for all you RC trads, the Extraordinary Form but in Cranmerian liturgical English as opposed to the attack language of 1970s worship experts. It was good and you knew you'd been to church.

Here's Flanders Fields, included in the Mass bulletin:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

Lest we forget and God bless you all,

LSP

I Want it. I Want it All.

Archdeacon Barry "I want it all" Foster

It seems that the diminutive ACoC (Anglican Chrurch of Canada) is set to become smaller still, with a Calgary parish, St. John the Evangelist, joining the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Benedict's offer of an 'Ordinariate' for ex-Anglicans.

This would allow Anglican converts, including married clergy, to retain elements of their liturgy and have a guaranteed place within the Roman Church.

It's an attractive proposition for the parishioners of St. John's, who voted by 90% to leave the incredibly shrinking ACoC and they hope to keep their Edwardian building. According to the Rector's Warden, Richard Harding, this might be possible because title deeds to the building are held in the name of the Wardens instead of the Diocese of Calgary.

"The title was placed in the name of the elected lay wardens of the parish... It is parish property. The diocese may not be aware of that," stated Harding to the Calgary Herald.

But Barry 'I want it all' Foster, Archdeacon of Calgary, who styles himself 'Executive Officer' of the diocese when not selling menswear at a downtown mall, has a different opinion.

"It's not the case that … they take the property with them. It's not theirs," stated Foster to CBC News.

Assuming, for the moment, that Calgary's clerical haberdasher has a point, what will the Diocese of Calgary do with yet another empty building?

You know the saying, "Sell! Sell! Sell!"

Watch this space - in the meanwhile ACoC continues its trajectory into just that.

Say a prayer for St. John's.

LSP