So what's it like being a Vicar (First Service)

Having set the backdrop to this I think we need st start with the most obvious bit of the role: Services - and as this is what the majority of people seem to think we do, I guess it is as good a place as any to get the ball rolling.

Many people make the 'never heard before' funny about only working one day. It's a joke that never gets old (if you're telling it) and for those hearing it for the umpteenth time there's always a laugh which, like Pagliacci (an opera about a clown of the same name) and behind the smiles and clerical garb, masks something often very different if the conversations I've had are anything to go by!

Let us consider the simple Sunday round of services - which for this example, although we will perhaps have three, we will consider the first (early) service first - and the effort involved with that:

First Service
Now this is usually a simple 'said' service and so you might think that this requires nothing more than to turn up - lay up* - make sure that someone (if present) has put the service books or sheets out - sort out the sound (if present) - light the candles (if you have them) and then you're good to go.

Of course the readings change every week (especially if you're a lectionary** church) so you need to make sure that those reading know what they are reading as well. The calendar changes and so to does the Church's calendar as the various seasons (Advent, Lent, Passiontide, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity) and the feasts and festivals (saints days, epic moments in Jesus' life and all that stuff) also pass by and need to be marked and kept. This means that we change elements of the service, even if we keep the actual service quite static.

We change collects (the pray for the day which gathers all up and leads us forward) on a pretty much daily basis and these can be traditional (Thees and Thous) or contemporary or using an alternative collect (they added a fresh, more christcentric set a few years back) and there's even a special set for the Book of Common Prayer (BCP - which means the 1662 services, still THE prayer book of the Church of England)  is you fancy them!

Add to this the bits we say before the confession and penitential section of the service and the words preceding the reading of the Gospel and then we hit the Peace and after that the words before we do communion, Eucharist or Lord's Supper (take your pick - three labels - one event). There are a variety of different combinations, permutations, options and alternatives - it's not (as a Pentecost friend said recently 'the vain repetitive babbling' - no spree, we leave that to those who have no fixed liturgy and so remain pretty much static in the way that they do their services! 

After communion the words used vary according to the time and season as do the dismissals and blessing too. So if you though Sunday was a doddle - best start thinking again, and that's just the first service sorted! 

But wait a moment - what about the sermon? Does that just come out of a book? Not in my experience for the sermon requires reading and consideration and time taken to see coherence in the three readings and the variations used in the service and the collects and post communion prayers and the intercession and all the elements that conspire to make a service happen.

having mentioned the intercessions, whoever is doing them still needs to be able to lead intelligently regarding the Church - those in authority - world issues - local issues - the sick - the dead and those who remain to mourn - and that, if done properly isn't a moments work!

So that's the first service sorted. Well you still have to clear away the books, sheets, blow out the candles and take stuff back to the vestry. Hopefully you have helpers, but many clergy do much of this on their own (so here's a hint about volunteering) and, unlike the Royal Airforce, the person standing in front of the fighter jet that is Church, doesn't always have a large and able support team. Like many things, the one hour event can take a working day (or more) to make sure the liturgy is right and the Gospel is preached well.

So remember this for the final analysis of what being a Vicar is really like. I hope this has helped give some the beginnings of a clearer picture of the role.

Pax



*Laying up is the term used for setting out the altar or table for communion. It usually means laying out the linen cover, putting the chalice and patten (cup and saucer) on the table, adding whatever linen covers them and then placing the elements (the bread and wine) and the water to wash your hands (the ablutions) to the side ready to do the cooking later in the service.

**The lectionary is one of the strengths of the Church in that it ensures that over a three year cycle we get to read all the Bible and not just the bits we like to read. It brings a good discipline and often means that those who use the lectionary are a more polished and able people of the word. Something many outside of the CofE miss!

It's Santa's Day!

Today we remember Santa, the man himself and in doing so we can celebrate the man for whom the season of Christmas is all about - Jesus - on Christmas day without feeling we've done the Coca Cola clad geezer with the red beard any injustice at all.

Watching the Christmas films where Santa being locked up, threatened with a mental hospital and rendered, sans sled and reindeer brings us to a projected reality where we learn, "Christmas just can't happen without Santa!"

Actually, we celebrate a few feasts at this time of the year:

For the Jewish among us it's Hanukkah,

For the Pagans there's Saturnalia,

The Christians all celebrate Christmas,

And EVERYONE (or so it seems) celebrates Argostide.

Now the Jewish feast is the festival of lights - an story of the dedication of the (second) Jerusalem Temple and the miraculous continuation of light when the oil should have run out. Saturnalia was a Roman festival (even though my pagan mates tell me it was running long before people were writing stuff  - but I don't know where they read that!) and it was about agriculture and giving of gifts and the like. It sort of made sense for the Christians to latch onto it to celebrate the birth of Jesus because the actual date wasn't known so whatever date they chose would have been an arbitrary one - so it's December 25th what gets the prize.

The Saturnalia bit is all too often bills as a feast that pagan romans chose but the more I have read into this the more it turns out that it has the fingerprints of people what are the result of a collision between pantheistist and polytheistic types and their God Saturn (Gk Cronus) the bloke what had the seasons and Agriculture especially in his hands.

So there we are - the Christians didn't actually hijack Saturnalia, they merely decided to celebrate one of their 'special days' on a day when it made sense - after all the public transport stopped, it was about times and seasons, the giving of gifts and that sort of thing - a ready made holiday time waiting to be used.

Now Nick was a bishop and the legend, as I understand it, is that there was a man with three daughters. He was so poor that he could not afford to provided a dowry for his girls and without the money  they would remain unmarried and therefore destitute when he died: This meant they would either become slaves, prostitutes or die from starvation. The story continues that Nicholas, hearing of their plight tossed a bag of gold through the window where the girl were sleeping and this fell into, or onto, the shoes or stockings which were drying before the fire. Now some say once, some say three times, this happened - but the idea of a gift and fireplaces and stockings was set and that's what we have today. Some say the gold was in the shape of three golden globes and that's where Oranges come in as a Christmas stocking filler.

Aside for that Bishop Nicholas was a great leader, a wise bishop and an amazing example to all of us - take some time to look him up, you won't be disappointed!

BUT

Father Christmas - the modern St Nick is never going to be the reason for the season - Christmas, is for Nick what Saturnalia is for Christians - merely a convenient vehicle for the remembrance - and we need to remember who and what Christmas is all about, after all:

Santa never died for you - did he?

So let's let St Nicholas have his day today and then let us progress through Advent towards Christmas and the celebration of Jesus, the Christ, and the greatest gift the world has ever seen (no batteries required).