Tag Archives: Oxford

Tracts for the Times: “Remember your calling!”

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The series Tracts for the Times urged the English clergy to remember that they were priests of God rather than minor functionaries of the British government.

I have always been a firm believer in the power of tracts to educate people and that such education can produce results in changed lives. In my parish, I wrote several tracts that were available in the back of the church; many of these proved to be extremely popular and were reprinted several times. Another series of church tracts, the Tracts for the Times, were even more popular and led to significant changes in the Church of England.

The first of the Tracts for the Times, a series of 90 pamphlets to educate English Christians about Church history as well as classic Christian belief and practice, appeared on September 9, 1833. The tracts were widely available and very inexpensive; the popularity of the tracts, produced by the leaders of the Oxford Movement who wanted the Church of England to reclaim her status as a Church and not simply the “Religious Department” of the British government, resulted in many people using the name “Tractarian” to refer to this movement to restore pre-Reformation thought and practice.

The first 20 tracts appeared in 1833, with 30 more in 1834; the series concluded with Tract 90 in 1841. After that the pace slowed, but the later contributions were more substantive on doctrinal matters. Initially these publications were anonymous, pseudonymous, or reprints from theologians of previous centuries. The authorship details of the tracts were recovered by later scholars of the Oxford Movement. The tracts also provoked a secondary literature from opponents. Significant replies came from evangelicals, including that of William Goode in “Tract 90 Historically Refuted” (in 1845) and others.

Tract 1, by John Henry Newman, was primarily addressed to English clergy and urged them to remember that they were priests of God and not simply functionaries of the British government. The tract mourned that too many clergy were more concerned about social status and privilege than with preaching the Gospel, teaching their people, and celebrating the services of the Church. The tract urged the clergy to remember that they were ordained in the Apostolic Succession and that this gift was not to be taken lightly.

“Therefore, my dear Brethren, act up to your professions. Let it not be said that you have neglected a gift; for if you have the Spirit of the Apostles on you, surely this is a great gift: “Stir up the gift of God which is in you.” Make much of it. Show your value of it. Keep it before your minds as an honorable badge, far higher than that secular respectability, or cultivation, or polish, or learning, or rank, which gives you a hearing with the many. Tell them of your gift…. Speak out now, before you are forced, both as glorying in your privilege, and to ensure your rightful honor from your people. A notion has gone abroad, that they [British politicians] can take away your power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a notion that present palpable usefulness, [measurable] results, acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such like are the tests of your Divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our Holy Fathers the Bishops, as the Representatives of the Apostles, and the Angels of the Churches; and magnify your office, as being ordained by them to take part in their Ministry.”

The tract warned that there was a coming conflict. The conflict would be between those who considered the Church of England to be the Body or Bride of Christ and those who thought the church was simply a convenient institution to be amended however they saw fit. These two radically opposed viewpoints would force clergy to take a stand and the tract warned clergy that they would face the consequences of their choice align with one side or the other on Judgement Day.

“May Day 2018!”

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Queen Guinevere, as the May Queen, leads the May Day celebrations in Camelot.

Queen Guinevere, as the May Queen, leads the May Day celebrations in Camelot.

Considered the first day of the summer season in traditional European societies, the first day of May has been celebrated in many ways over many centuries. May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls half a year from November 1 (Samhain, Hallowe’en, and All Saints’ Day) and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane. Many pagan celebrations were abandoned or Christianized during the process of conversion in Europe. A more secular version of May Day continues to be observed in Europe and America. In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the maypole dance and crowning of the Queen of the May. Fading in popularity since the late 20th century is the giving of “May baskets”, small baskets of sweets and/or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbors’ doorsteps. (I remember making May Baskets in school and field day Maypoles on the playground.)

The day was a traditional summer holiday in many pre-Christian European pagan cultures. While February 1 was the first day of Spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice on June 25 (now June 21) was Midsummer.

In Oxford, it is traditional for May Morning revellers to gather below the Great Tower of Magdalen College at 6:00 a.m. to listen to the college choir sing traditional madrigals as a conclusion to the previous night’s celebrations.

On May Day, the Romanians celebrate the arminden (or armindeni), the beginning of summer, symbolically tied with the protection of crops and farm animals. The name comes from Slavonic Jeremiinŭ dĭnĭ, meaning the prophet Jeremiah’s feast day, but the celebration rites and habits of this day are apotropaic and pagan, possibly originating in the cult of the god Pan.

The day is also called ziua pelinului (mugwort day) or ziua bețivilor (drunkards’ day) and it is celebrated to insure good wine in autumn and, for people and farm animals alike, good health and protection from the elements of nature (storms, hail, illness, pests). People would have parties outdoors with fiddlers and it was customary to eat roast lamb, as well as new mutton cheese and drink mugwort-flavoured wine to refresh the blood and get protection from diseases. On the way back from the parties, the men wear lilac or mugwort flowers on their hats.

Other May Day practices in many places include people washing their faces with the morning dew (for good health) and adorning the gates for good luck and abundance with green branches or with birch saplings (for the houses with maiden girls). The entries to the animals’ shelters are also adorned with green branches. All branches are left in place until the wheat harvest when they are used in the fire which will bake the first bread from the new wheat.

Happy birthday to Wolfgang and Charles!

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I got these Christmas tree decorations–the Red Queen, the Cheshire cat, and the White Rabbit–at the Alice in Wonderland shop in Oxford.

Happy birthday! Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27,1756 and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (later known as “Lewis Carroll”) was born in Cheshire, England on January 27, 1832. Both created famous female characters steeped in mystery and magic.

Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute features the Queen of the Night. She is first introduced as the desperate mother whose beloved daughter was kidnapped. But it ultimately appears that she is the villain of the story, who wants to steal the powerful Circle of the Sun. In many ways the Queen of the Night can be regarded as an early symbol of a free woman, given that she claims something which she regards as her legitimate heirloom, but whose property she was denied because she is a woman. She strongly resents this, and is willing to defy the patriarchal order who denies her all authority by any mean she can. She can also be regarded as a symbol of ignorance, either one who covets the Enlightenment she was denied or one who wants to destroy said Enlightenment out of intolerance.

When Dodgson was a professor at Oxford, he created the Alice in Wonderland character. She is also a free woman who sets out on her own to explore the strange alternate universe known as “Wonderland.” Both Alice and the Queen of the Night seem to depend on magic–Alice needed the bottle marked “Drink me” as well as the cookie marked “Eat me” and the Queen’s power and position is threatened by the sorcerer Sarastro–but neither seem to be completely in control of the magic they depend on.

When I’ve been to Oxford, I have seen many of the places that also appear in the Alice stories, such as the tree that the Cheshire cat sat in and the small door known as the “rabbit hole” in the dining hall. There is a small store there that features nothing but Alice-related items.

You can see great spoofs of the famous Queen of the Night aria here and here. Enjoy!