Holocaust Memorial Day: a day for the Commination service
Feb. 4th 1780 This being a Day a for general Fast to be observed thro’ the Kingdom, to
beg of Almighty God his Assistance in our present
troubles being at open rupture with America, France
and Spain, and a Blessing on our Fleets and Armies;
I therefore went to Weston Church about ii o’clock
and read the proper Prayers on the Occasion ... there was a very respectable congregation that attended at it.
April 19th 1793 This being a Day appointed to be observed as a publick Fast in these seditious times and France (the avowed disturbers of all Peace in Europe) having declared War against us, unprovoked, I walked to Church about 11. o'clock and read Prayers provided on the occasion ... a large Congregation attended Divine Service ...
From the diary of Parson Woodforde.
Public fasts on matters of national and international importance appear throughout Parson Woodforde's diary. The practice continued into the 19th century, with one study referring to them as "significant episodes". It may seem like an archaic matter but the practice embodied a robust theology, recognising that the affairs of this world are not 'secular', that the common good, the ordering of this world, was a concern not remote from God's providence, mercy, and grace.
If we wanted to suggest a sign of an impending secular age, preceded and prepared for by a public theology which provided the cultural architecture of secularism, we might consider the ending of such public fasts by both Church and State. Here was an attempt to banish God from the public realm, relegating Him to merely private concerns and matters.
I mention this on this Holocaust Memorial Day. Established by the New Labour government in 2001, it has established itself as significant civic commemoration. While churches have sought to provide liturgical material for commemorations, these have fail to capture the imagination. This is so partly because they appear to lack a distinctive purpose, never mind a clear theology. And very quickly such liturgical commemorations can become rather general, well-meaning exhortations about diversity and inclusion.
Surely something quite different and more robust is called for. We are, after all, commemorating the vilest evil that human civilization has ever witnessed. It was an evil to which Christianity in part contributed through a shameful tradition of anti-Semitism: an anti-Semitism also evident in the ideologies which shaped Europe, in the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, in the politics of the Left and the Right.
It should be a day which the Churches therefore mark with penitence and fasting, repenting of the anti-Semitism which has marred Christian witness over centuries, and which has disfigured the philosophies and ideologies which have also shaped Europe. Rather than the banalities associated with tame liturgies of diversity and inclusion, hard-edged repentance is called for.
The 1662 Commination service - which can be used on other days apart from Ash Wednesday "as the ordinary shall appoint" - provides such hard-edged repentance.
Cursed is that curseth his father or mother. Amen.
Anti-semitism is to curse Abraham our father. It is to curse the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Jewish Maiden from Nazareth. It is to curse Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.
Cursed is he that removeth his neighour's landmark. Amen.
The homes and synagogues of European Jews were desecrated, destroyed, stolen.
Cursed is he that perverteth the judgement of the stranger, the fatherless, and widow. Amen.
Across Europe, Jewish communities were deprived of their rights and liberties, unjustly condemned.
Cursed is that smiteth his neighbour secretly. Amen.
In ditches and ghettos, in camps and gas chambers, Jewish children, women, and men were murdered in their millions.
That such evil happened in Europe within living memory requires ongoing repentance. The judgement of God can hardly be regarded as not having touched a Europe in which this great evil occurred: a judgement seen in half of Europe condemned for decades to a godless tyranny; a judgement seen in a Europe now experiencing the inevitable discontents associated with attempting to order common life according to a godless vision of capital and abstract rights; a judgement seen in older, foul ghosts now again haunting Europe's life.
Nice, tame liturgies, invoking the bureaucratic, empty language of diversity and inclusion, are a derisory, cheap grace response to a great evil. A deeper repentance is called for, a deeper repentance which has the potential to set before the polities of Europe a renewed Christian vision of a common life, ordered towards love of God and neighbour.
Other Christian traditions in Europe - Reformed, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Orthodox - will have their means for expressing such deep repentance. For the Anglican tradition, nothing in our liturgical patrimony draws close to the Commination service as an expression of "earnest and true repentance" in the face of "God's anger and judgements".
It is the Commination service which should mark Anglican observance of Holocaust Memorial Day.
April 19th 1793 This being a Day appointed to be observed as a publick Fast in these seditious times and France (the avowed disturbers of all Peace in Europe) having declared War against us, unprovoked, I walked to Church about 11. o'clock and read Prayers provided on the occasion ... a large Congregation attended Divine Service ...
From the diary of Parson Woodforde.
Public fasts on matters of national and international importance appear throughout Parson Woodforde's diary. The practice continued into the 19th century, with one study referring to them as "significant episodes". It may seem like an archaic matter but the practice embodied a robust theology, recognising that the affairs of this world are not 'secular', that the common good, the ordering of this world, was a concern not remote from God's providence, mercy, and grace.
If we wanted to suggest a sign of an impending secular age, preceded and prepared for by a public theology which provided the cultural architecture of secularism, we might consider the ending of such public fasts by both Church and State. Here was an attempt to banish God from the public realm, relegating Him to merely private concerns and matters.
I mention this on this Holocaust Memorial Day. Established by the New Labour government in 2001, it has established itself as significant civic commemoration. While churches have sought to provide liturgical material for commemorations, these have fail to capture the imagination. This is so partly because they appear to lack a distinctive purpose, never mind a clear theology. And very quickly such liturgical commemorations can become rather general, well-meaning exhortations about diversity and inclusion.
Surely something quite different and more robust is called for. We are, after all, commemorating the vilest evil that human civilization has ever witnessed. It was an evil to which Christianity in part contributed through a shameful tradition of anti-Semitism: an anti-Semitism also evident in the ideologies which shaped Europe, in the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, in the politics of the Left and the Right.
It should be a day which the Churches therefore mark with penitence and fasting, repenting of the anti-Semitism which has marred Christian witness over centuries, and which has disfigured the philosophies and ideologies which have also shaped Europe. Rather than the banalities associated with tame liturgies of diversity and inclusion, hard-edged repentance is called for.
The 1662 Commination service - which can be used on other days apart from Ash Wednesday "as the ordinary shall appoint" - provides such hard-edged repentance.
Cursed is that curseth his father or mother. Amen.
Anti-semitism is to curse Abraham our father. It is to curse the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Jewish Maiden from Nazareth. It is to curse Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.
Cursed is he that removeth his neighour's landmark. Amen.
The homes and synagogues of European Jews were desecrated, destroyed, stolen.
Cursed is he that perverteth the judgement of the stranger, the fatherless, and widow. Amen.
Across Europe, Jewish communities were deprived of their rights and liberties, unjustly condemned.
Cursed is that smiteth his neighbour secretly. Amen.
In ditches and ghettos, in camps and gas chambers, Jewish children, women, and men were murdered in their millions.
That such evil happened in Europe within living memory requires ongoing repentance. The judgement of God can hardly be regarded as not having touched a Europe in which this great evil occurred: a judgement seen in half of Europe condemned for decades to a godless tyranny; a judgement seen in a Europe now experiencing the inevitable discontents associated with attempting to order common life according to a godless vision of capital and abstract rights; a judgement seen in older, foul ghosts now again haunting Europe's life.
Other Christian traditions in Europe - Reformed, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Orthodox - will have their means for expressing such deep repentance. For the Anglican tradition, nothing in our liturgical patrimony draws close to the Commination service as an expression of "earnest and true repentance" in the face of "God's anger and judgements".
It is the Commination service which should mark Anglican observance of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Comments
Post a Comment