Another Blaenwern

The second part of Llandaff Diocesan Clergy School in York as we explore the high places.

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The queue begins to mount outside the Minster. Not just clergy from Llandaff Diocese but others too. Tourists and the like who have brought themselves here.

Leaning against the tree outside is a sign indicating this is also the place for the “Witches Women Warrior Tour”. It’s one of many different tours which take place through the streets of York, by day and night. Ghost tours also abound. You can be taken on a journey of the supernatural, if that’s your thing. Today, I opt for the Minster.

We get fast tracked, we’re already booked in, our place reserved at the table. It’s the second celebration of the Eucharist of the Clergy School.

We gather beneath the high East window which dominates us, a confusion of lines and colour. It’s the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in England. Three hundred glass panels, playing out, in painted glass, the beginning and the end, leading us from the Creation to the Apocalypse, yet to be revealed. At 78 feet tall, it’s about the size of a Tennis Court.

Fifteen-Love.

Today is the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord which has lent itself to the theme of our week away at the Diocesan Clergy School.

We sing a metrical version of the Gloria to the tune of Blaenwern. Again.

It’s the third time we’ve sung a hymn to the tune this week, twice during yesterday’s Mass. Maybe it’s someone’s favourite tune or just an oversight as they busily navigate their way through the liturgical planning and the printing and folding of booklets.

Blaenwern.

Blaen. Welsh for extremity or beginning: prefix of a place at the head of a valley, a high place.

This week, we’ve been looking to high places as we’ve explored the Ascension of the Lord and that mountain-top disappearance, shrouded in clouds and mystery, but where there is a mighty moving on to the right hand of the Father, and which causes us to move on too.

After the Eucharist, Tim Jones, the Director of Ministry, gives us clear directions of how to make our way to the Guild Hall for our next session. We are to evacuate the Minster, down the South aisle, turning left, and exit through the shop.

We exit through the shop.

We do it well. No stopping for souvenirs. No fridge magnets or fudge.

Thirty Love.

We navigate our way to the Guild Hall for our second session with Dr Michael Leyden, entitled, “Navigating the life ahead of us, or how to live between Ascension and Parousia.’

He’s still in lively form. He’s far from boring.

He begins by sharing an antiphon or prayer from St Thomas Aquinas, the Sacrum Convivium. It’s one I’m familiar with although the translation differs slightly from the one I know by heart which jumps to the rhythm of “How holy is this feast in which Christ is our food. His passion is recalled, grace fills our hearts. And we receive a pledge of the glory to come.”

It’s a prayer I learned when I was eleven or twelve years old, gleaned from a book of prayers given by my parish priest on the occasion of my confirmation.

I’ve said it after every single occasion of receiving Holy Communion. Thousands and thousands and thousands of times, over forty years of feasting.

The Eucharist is “an event of the Holy Spirit” says Michael Leyden.

Taking the prayer of St Thomas, we get beautifully wrapped up in the past, the present and the future, the beginning and the end, like that Tennis Court window of York Minster, full of confused colour and lines. Leyden refused to be drawn into how Jesus is present in the Eucharist. Just that he is.

He quotes theologian Alexander Schmemann, and akins the Eucharist to a kind of liturgical ascent, a journey to the high place, to the heads of the valley. We’re back to the Blaen. We’re singing again.

Forty-Love.

Tonight though, after a free afternoon (and an ice cream and a sleep for me) we’re back at the Guild Hall for our final dinner together. A Last Supper.

Bishop Mary delivers thanks to all who have delivered this week as she herself dashes, post-dinner, to Bangor for a meeting of the Bench of Bishops tomorrow. We all move on.

The meal is served. I eat duck for only the second time in my entire life. Both times unwittingly and through not wishing to be impolite to the host.

I don’t usually eat duck. My childhood aversion to meat eating still clings a little. I’m a conservative meat eater and wonder what my eleven or twelve year old self would think of me whilst he was busy learning the Sacrum Convivium.

Thirty-love

On the way home from the evening dinner at the Guild Hall, I pop into Tescos. On the way out, someone tries it on, places his hand across my chest, tries to stop me. “Have you got a fiver?”

I don’t have a fiver. I move on.

A few steps later on the street, as I cross the bridge over the River Ouse, someone else is in my path. “Have you got any change you can give me?”

I don’t have any change. I move on

They move on.

This never changes.

Here and across the country, and back home in Cardiff, there are those who navigate their way through the streets.

There are more beggars and more evidence of homelessness at night time here in York than you seem to find in the day time. Or, perhaps, they are just assuaged and made more invisible by the streams of tourists and sightseers.

Outside the hotel, I stop and chat to an older guy from Cumbria who has beeped and glided his way along on his mobility scooter for a cigarette at the smoking station.

He’s left the Lake District for a few days. Just the two of them, him and his wife. “We eat, we drink, we sleep,” he says. “Then we go home.”

He’s already been to the nearest restaurant to the hotel which happens to be Brazilian. They’ve already eaten. And I know he’s had a drink.

“I told the manager, stop being creative with the food. Just do simple food. Am I right?” he asks, looking for some agreement. It’s best though not to disagree.

He’s gone to a Brazilian restaurant. But wants simple, English food.

What do I know about food? After all, I’ve just eaten duck, for only the second time in my life of five decades. I don’t eat duck.

Tomorrow it’s French for him.

Back to “the feast.”

Through the Eucharist we navigate our way from the Ascension to the Parousia. It’s an ascent to the heights, an encounter with Christ. But there’s always a moving on.

Meanwhile, at times, we seem to be stuck in the streets where people seem to want something simple, so they say. A fiver, some change, familiar food. An exit through the shop.

Although there’s always the need for a tour, a search for the supernatural, a need for something more. Another Blaenwern. The head of a valley. A high place.

We eat, we drink, we sleep, and then we go home.

Deuce.

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