Dear faithful people of Arundel & Brighton
I was passing through Crawley station the other day and caught sight of the front page of the Daily Express. That day’s cause for outrage was the report that this year’s Christmas stamps will have no religious image on them at all. No nativity scene, no angels, no three wise men. Instead, from what I can remember, there will be the other secular Christmas imagery we are used to on the majority of Christmas cards – robins, Christmas trees and people walking along snow-covered lanes as if they are going to Church, but we know that this is unlikely. It is doubly ironic in that, because of global warming, the probability of snow is even less than that of their going to church.
The news was greeted with restrained indignation by a spokesman from the Church of England, and it might have been easy to dismiss the story as just another small example of the loss of any religious awareness around Christmas, and another excuse for the Daily Express to bewail the loss of old England. But I suspect that the Anglican spokesman had a point. He was in a rather awkward position: I’m not sure if the stamps have actually appeared yet, and so he couldn’t be too outraged, nor yet could he seem to be indifferent to this snub to the Christian faith and its place in our culture and history.
It’s not just sad this sort of thing is happening, but I think it really ought to give us cause for concern. There are already many people in this country – nominally Christian – who would simply not know the Christmas story or its significance. And here is yet another sign (if it’s true) of our acquiescence in the face of a disappearing Christian culture.
A few months ago, it was decided that a number of Holy Days of Obligation (all feasts of the Lord) should be moved to Sundays. This caused a certain amount of distress among some people, and I received letters bewailing this loss of an important part of our Catholic tradition. But of course the feasts are not being abolished (as some writers seemed to suggest) but moved to days when more of the Catholic community will celebrate them. I was in Spain on November 1st, and saw how shops were shut for the day. It was a proper Holy Day, and many people took the opportunity to celebrate Mass. Neither of those things is necessarily true here. Feast days are not holidays, and one parish priest told me that he thought that only a third of his Sunday congregation came to Mass on a Holy Day.
Nonetheless, it caused some anxiety, probably because we have seen other Catholic traditions disappear over the last few generations. I remember having to fast from solid food from midnight before going to communion (and fainting during Mass). I remember that Friday was a day that we simply did not eat meat, to the extent of avoiding things fried in animal fat. I remember saying grace before meals. I don’t always do any or all of those things now.
This weekend, or this Sunday, we observe three things. We celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, when the year is summed up, as it were, in this proclamation of the Kingship of Christ over all things, before we begin the Church’s new year with the first Sunday of Advent. We also celebrate National Youth Sunday, and you are being asked to contribute to the Church’s important work with our younger generations. I hope that this year’s diocesan directory will carry a picture on its cover to remind us of the presence of young people in our diocesan community and in our churches.
It is also the launch of a campaign called ‘Live Simply’. You will hear more of this later on, but it does what it says. We are about to enter the frenzy of spending that marks Christmas. The predictions are that this country’s online shoppers (i.e. shoppers on the internet, for those of you who aren’t) will spend a record seven billion pounds this Christmas. What are they going to buy for seven billion pounds? Where are they going to put it when they’ve bought it? What is this doing to us?
I would like to make a suggestion to try and tie these things together. Can we not go back and re-visit a few of those old Catholic traditions? We are about to begin the holy season of Advent. Why not try to get to Mass on a weekday, or just pop in to pray before the Blessed Sacrament? There will probably be a penitential service in the parish: why not go to that, and use the Sacrament of Reconciliation again, even if it’s a long time since you have done that?
How about doing without meat on a day or two over Christmas? And fasting from meat does not mean, as the poet George Herbert says, that “we pile the platter high with fish.” How about even consciously fasting, not simply because we have eaten too much, but because we want to live more simply, aware of the poverty of the majority of this world’s people? And how about praying before meals, and indeed after them, to recognise that all that we have is gift from God, and that we are part of a fortunate minority? And might this not show to ourselves that we are not willing to be seduced by our society’s disregard for the Christ at the heart of Christmas, in favour of the blind pursuit of greed and excess? Instead, let’s remind ourselves that we are Catholics and Christians, and that we have cause to celebrate.
So this doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy Christmas, and I hope very much that you do. But it’s too soon to wish you that now. I hope you have a very happy and rewarding Advent.
With all good wishes and my prayers for the diocese,
Kieran Your bishop.
