Whitsun and Jubilee: Pentecostal joys

It was, of course, entirely predictable: some Anglican clerics on Twitter sniffily declaring that Sunday is Whitsun and that this must take precedence over the celebration of Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee.  Now while we might be forgiven for thinking that such clerics would not have been celebrating the Jubilee irrespective of its date, let us assume that their point is sincere.  Whitsun, after all, is one of the three great festivals.  For some centuries, Anglican custom was that Holy Communion should be received at Christmas, Easter Day, and Whitsunday. And despite the rather odd provision in contemporary liturgical calendars which fails to recognise the feast by observing the festive nature of the days following, it is meet and right that this high festival is duly celebrated.

None of this, however, requires that the Platinum Jubilee cannot also be celebrated in the Church's liturgy.  An Anglicanism which cannot weave together Whitsun and the Jubilee is an Anglicanism determined to retreat into the irrelevance of a sectarian enclave, incapable of discerning and articulating the relationship between national life and the Christian faith. What is more, there are a number of obvious themes which allow the Jubilee to be celebrated in the light of Whitsun. Let us consider three of these themes.

Firstly, vocation and the gifts of the Spirit. The collect of Whitsun petitions, "Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things". It echoes the Rite of Confirmation:

Strengthen them, we beseech thee, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost the Comforter, and daily increase in them thy manifold gifts of grace.

The gifts of the Spirit are bestowed for, and amidst, the vocations and duties of daily life.  The monarch is a sign of this, with the anointing in the Coronation Rite exemplifying how the gifts of the Spirit sustain the Queen in her vocation.  The anointing is preceded by the singing of Veni, Creator Spiritus: "Thou the anointing Spirit art, Who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart". The prayer over the oil of anointing reflects both the Whitsun collect and the prayer at Confirmation:

Strengthen her, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost the Comforter; Confirm and stablish her with thy free and princely Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and government, the Spirit of counsel and ghostly strength, the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness, and fill her, O Lord, with the Spirit of thy holy fear, now and for ever.

It also reminds us that the promise of Whitsun is rooted in the Scriptures of the Old Testament: "who by anointing with Oil didst of old make and consecrate kings, priests, and prophets".

What is celebrated at the Platinum Jubilee, therefore, is an expression of Whitsun, of the gift and gifts of the Holy Spirit bestowed that we might "have a right judgement in all things": that, as we see in Her Majesty the Queen, we might be sustained and guided in our vocations and duties in our common life.

Secondly, unity.  The Accession Day prayers - eminently suitable for use at the Platinum Jubilee - ask that "unhappy divisions ... hatred and prejudice" would be diminished in national life, that communal life may reflect the Church's calling:

that, as there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all; so we may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity.

The Church's unity, as the prayer states, flows from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit celebrated at Whitsun. As the Apostle says of the Church, we "have been all made to drink into one Spirit". Recognising that "The Lord and giver of life" present and active in the Church's life is also necessarily present and active in the world, it is right to pray for communal and national harmony, part of what it means for human society to "live, and move, and have our being" in God. 

The Whitsun call to ecclesial unity, then, also has a reflection in the good and wholesome desire for the harmony of the realm.

Thirdly, the gathering in of the nations. The Epistle reading for Whitsun - the Acts account of Pentecost - concludes with the words of the crowd in Jerusalem:

Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

This undoing of Babel is a great Whitsun theme.  The historic vocation of the monarchy of the United Kingdom stands as a sign of this.  Benedict XVI, on the occasion of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, declared that her reign was "in keeping with a noble vision of the role of a Christian monarch".  Elizabeth II's devotion to her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith, and the regular references to Christian faith in her public statements, are a significant witness to the unfolding of the Whitsun promise, that "we do hear ... in our tongues the wonderful works of God". In the words of the Coronation Rite, at the giving of the Orb:

Receive this Orb set under the Cross, and remember that the whole world is subject to the Power and Empire of Christ our Redeemer.

Whitsunday is minimised not by including a celebration of Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee from the Church's liturgy.  No, the feast is minimised when the decision is taken to ignore and omit the Jubilee celebrations from the liturgy.  It is this latter decision which presents a desiccated, impoverished understanding of Whitsun: cutting off national life from a participation in the divine life, restricting the presence and gifts of the Spirit to a sectarian enclave, and declaring that the Church stands apart and aloof from a moment of national joy and gratitude. 

So let those of us who are Anglicans in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth rejoice this Whitsunday in the happy coincidence of the great feast with the Platinum Jubilee, joyfully giving thanks that in the person Her Majesty the Queen and in the celebration of her seventy year reign, we see the rich pentecostal themes of gift and vocation, the call to unity, and the gathering in of the nations. 

Who hast at this time consecrated thy servant ELIZABETH to be our Queen, that by the anointing of thy grace she may be the Defender of thy Faith and the Protector of thy Church and People (the proper preface at the Communion during the Coronation Rite).