Ship of Fools: Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire, England
The Mystery Worshipper
Shipmate
Ship of Fools: Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire, England
Too tense to follow – are we on the moon?
Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here
Comments
Ah-ha! So it was - the nave was the surface of the moon...a bit different from my own local Cathedral, with its golf-course, or Norwich, with its helter-skelter...
Well done, @Urganda - keep the reports coming!
But cathedral worship attendences are rising (even as parish worship declines). I can't believe it needs tawdry fairground attractions to assist in its rise in popularity.
The August holiday golf-course thingy has, apparently, been quite successful in doubling the number of visitors to the cathedral, and they also report a rise in the numbers attending Evensong (mostly the Saturday service, I should think - the weekday Evensongs in August are usually said, as the choir is on holiday).
I wasn't aware that I needed to make my feelings known to the Dean. I happen to think (YMMV) that using the nave for secular purposes is not, in itself, a Bad Thing. This is discussed on the thread to which I refer above.
The attendance was well in excess of 200 with around 50 unable to fit into the quire by my counting.
The Cathedrals theme this summer was a celebration based on the moon landing and the creation of the universe and has attracted well over 10000 visitors through the doors. Perhaps without knowing the back ground the sermon might have seemed out of place but it was part of a series of inter connected sermons running through the holiday period to integrate with the festival theme.
Perhaps revisit on a ‘normal’ Sunday for the full LICHFIELD cathedral experience- ?? As pointed out the Eucharist is normally in the nave which is also on occasion used for major exhibitions as on the day you visited
IMHO, as long as the daily worship continues, and space is available for private prayer, this is not a Bad Thing.
Presumably the trees were only in situ for a short time (said he, hopefully).
Some parish churches offer at least daily Morning and/or Evening Prayer, as well as one or weekday Eucharists, even though numbers attending may be very small. Daily Mass at Our Place gets to double figures once a month, at the Walsingham Cell Mass - otherwise, it's the usual 2-4 Faithful Few.
Some churches do have 'Carols by Candlelight', or whatever, at Christmas, and it's not uncommon for Taize Prayer services to be illuminated mostly by candlelight.
But, in late mediaeval times at least, there would probably have been a fair few candles burning at side altars, and shrines, during Mass.
What about later on, though, post-Reformation, with the services in English? I guess people eventually got to know the bits of the BCP they were supposed to join in with - there's not as much 'seasonal variation' as one finds these days - and Evensong (or 'Afternoon Service') might be held at around 3pm even in summer (as in Thomas Hardy's poem 'Afternoon Service at Mellstock').
Mediaeval Low Masses were celebrated with two candles, though most the Franco-Norman books - Cistercian, Dominican, Sarum, etc. - require only one light to illuminate the book. On the other hand, they can be quite lavish with the lamps and light around the altar. Some monastic orders were distinctly mean with the lighting - the Cistercians and Carthusians had pretty strict rules that lamps were to be lit only to illuminate the liturgical books from which Matins and Lauds were sung.
I have had the invariable parts of BCP MP and EP memorized for the last 30+ years which is why I am reluctant to switch over to anything else for the Offices. My grandfather also knew the BCP services more or less by heart, though he was an occasional church goer at best. FWIW I am nowhere near so secure on the communion service; with going back and forth over the years between 1662, Rite B, Series 1, and US 1928, the book is always used so I do not loose my way.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the reading desk and pulpit were usually placed somewhere where there was a decent amount of daylight, and stained glass was comparatively rare in those days. In parish church back home in Lincolnshire there is very little stained glass and in consequence you really do not need artificial light unless the skies are particularly gunmetal in colour, or it is early morning or late evening/night.
And how many of the congregation could have read a Massbook in any event?
There was a Bishop of Durham in the early C17 who was berated for using over 300 candles in the sanctuary of the Cathedral. His answer was to give enough light to read My recollection is that neither the Puritans nor the Commons thought much of that as an excuse.
The Dean of Durham involved was John Cosin, and his accuser was Peter Smart. Those two really did not get along. I suspect the occasional of sin was Candlemas which was on occasion when a northern churches still illuminated the body of the church in celebration of the feast. Ripon Minster was still doing so in the early 18th century.
True, but towards the end of the 15thC, as printing of books became possible, a fair number of prayer/devotional books were published.
I guess only the better-educated, and more affluent, types could read, or afford, them, but they seem to have become popular as sources of devotion both during, and outside, Mass.
As a rule there are a minimum of three services at Lichfield on weekdays - morning prayer, a Eucharist and Evensong, on Sunday a minimum of four. These are supplemented by the enormous number of services held for church festivals, Saints days and of course Easter / Christmas - I certainly don't think that the Chapter could be accused of neglecting the daily cycle of Anglican worship (which continued in Lichfield even during the Commonwealth period - albeit in the Chapter House). Tourists are usually invited to join in (with varying degrees of success) but for certain the services take place regardless of anything else that may be going on within the Cathedral.
But weren't we arguing about electricity?
Re. Bishop Cosin, I regret the loss of his woodwork in Brancepeth church more than any other loss it can think of, perhaps because I never saw it.