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Ecclesiantics 2018-23: That would be a liturgical matter - miscellaneous questions

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  • I have never seen the point of Christingles. Seems a very forced and unnatural kind of analogy.
    But I have a colleague who loves them. Last Christmas she decided to do them at the care home Christmas service. She asked me along to “help”. She had forgotten that since these have only fairly recently been seen in Scotland the residents were not reminded of something from the accessible part of their memory, and so were confounded by them. The high point for me was when two of them began to eat the oranges, one lady neglecting to peel hers first.
  • I grew up with Christingles (early 90s, two services on Christmas Eve with standing room only) so have a bit of a soft spot for them. It does help to get the technique right as far as the candles go. Buy wooden toothpicks and tape them sticking out from the bottom of the candle, spikes down, then just stab them into the orange. No mess, and easy to do as a production line. If you're slicing into the top of the orange, trying shove the candle in wrapped in tinfoil (one monstrosity I've seen in the past) no wonder BJ&HBM are crying.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    I've never been to a Christingle service, having never been in uniformed groups as a child and then when I became a churchgoer wasn't part of churches that did them. I too find the analogy a bit forced and they always have the whiff of organised fun about them (rather like uniformed groups themselves), the worst kind of fun. But they're harmless enough in non-plague times I guess.
  • ZappaZappa Shipmate
    Would potatoes work? Onions? Sgelled chestnuts? Kiwifruit? I feel when the early Christians introduced symbols they chose them with a reasonably deep sense of their potential as a vehicle of meaning ... Jesus' own bread and wine, or course, and water ... cheese did a run for a while (land of milk and honey eschatology) but it dropped out as it was a bit abstruse ... eggs ...

    Oranges?
  • For those of us in Christingle-less lands, what is the intended symbolism/analogy?

    (I ask with apologies, as I think I asked the same question some years ago, but I can’t recall the answer.)

  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    According to Wikipedia:
    A Christingle usually consists of:
    • An orange, representing the world
    • A candle pushed into the centre of the orange, then lit, representing Jesus Christ as Light of the World
    • A red ribbon wrapped around the orange or a paper frill around the candle, representing the blood of Christ
    • Dried fruits and/or sweets skewered on cocktail sticks pushed into the orange, representing the fruits of the earth and the four seasons.
  • Thanks BroJames. And maybe next time I can’t remember, I can at least remember to check The Wiki before asking again. :blush:

    The red ribbon (though now more of a wrapping of paper, kind of like a flower) around the beeswax (always) candle is well-known among Moravians here, as per the link in my January 3 post above, but the rest is totally unknown.

  • The best place to be at a Christingle service is in an organ loft, the better to observe the chaos 👿
  • And to avoid being poked in the eye by a wretched stick-waving Child...

    Oranges are used in England, I suppose, because they are usually round, fairly easy to obtain around Christmas-time (though that may change post-Brexshit), and can be eaten (if not trodden into the church floor, or thrown into the organ-loft, first).
  • Nunc DimittisNunc Dimittis Shipmate Posts: 28
    And to avoid being poked in the eye by a wretched stick-waving Child...

    Oranges are used in England, I suppose, because they are usually round, fairly easy to obtain around Christmas-time (though that may change post-Brexshit), and can be eaten (if not trodden into the church floor, or thrown into the organ-loft, first).

    I'm sure I've seen movies/read books where to receive an orange for poor kids in days gone past was a rare and precious gift in the middle of winter... probably in a time before mass movement of goods and the ready accessibility in most First world countries of almost anything you want, any time of year. Something to be savoured and enjoyed slowly.

    Never tried Christingle.

    Epiphany chalk blessing on the other hand... That's on the cards for next year. :wink:
  • I'm sure I've seen movies/read books where to receive an orange for poor kids in days gone past was a rare and precious gift in the middle of winter...

    In my youth, we had a street party to celebrate the marriage of HRH The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer. There was lots of bunting, and I suspect orange squash and sausage-onna-stick, but I do remember that each child present was given a commemorative mug and an orange by the mayor.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited January 2021
    A MUG, as well as an Orange? Luxury!

    Back in the dear, dead days beyond recall, when I woz a lad, an Orange at Christmas was indeed regarded as a special treat.

    *Easy Peelers* hadn't been invented in those days, so getting to the actual flesh of the Orange was a hard job...
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Welcome back Nunc, don't remember your being on the new Ship.

    Certainly winter oranges in the UK - and indeed northern Europe generally - would have been a real luxury. None grown locally and insufficient transport to bring in oranges grown elsewhere, then distribute them for retail sale.
  • Nunc DimittisNunc Dimittis Shipmate Posts: 28
    Gee D wrote: »
    Welcome back Nunc, don't remember your being on the new Ship.

    Thanks @Gee D . I think I posted once when the Ship changed boards. Life is full and busy.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Stick around if you can please
  • Re oranges, there is an urban myth in Liverpool, that in the days of prot-cath rivalry, with Orange bands on one street corner and processions of our Lady on the other, the young girls of the Catholic parishes, decked out in their first communion finery, walked past a local protestant greengrocer who with a beaming smile handed each child an orange, so that they would carry the symbol of their rivals into the heart of enemy territory.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Certainly winter oranges in the UK - and indeed northern Europe generally - would have been a real luxury. None grown locally and insufficient transport to bring in oranges grown elsewhere, then distribute them for retail sale.

    I would be wary of the 'none', I would say were expensive and therefore rare to grow locally as quite a few stately homes had an Orangery

  • The descriptions I read (not here) when I first heard of Christingle services went like, "Children are given an orange...[description of what's poking out of it and what it symbolizes)." Sounds like a rather short service: "Here's your decorated, symbolic orange! So long now, and Happy Christmas!" The other impression I got was that it's yet another thing named "Chris-something," like "chrismons," the symbolic ornaments. Obviously I need to experience the reality to pick up the missing details. :)
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited January 2021
    Jengie Jon wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    Certainly winter oranges in the UK - and indeed northern Europe generally - would have been a real luxury. None grown locally and insufficient transport to bring in oranges grown elsewhere, then distribute them for retail sale.

    I would be wary of the 'none', I would say were expensive and therefore rare to grow locally as quite a few stately homes had an Orangery

    Of course. There may be some in Tasmania, but I'm not aware of any others here
  • Yes, it can be quite a short service - not a Bad Thing with lots of excited Kidz in church...

    IIRC, ours consisted of 3 well-known carols, the Christingle Song, a short Bible reading, a brief homily, and some responsorial prayers led by some of the Yoof.

    Lighting of the Christingles took place before the singing of the Christingle Song:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnJ2XKPD5FE

    We used to sing this a tad quicker...
  • It should be said that other Christingle songs/hymns are available. At our place we sing God, whose love is everwhere by Timothy Dudley-Smith or Round orange by Elizabeth Consett.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited January 2021
    Indeed. The one I quoted is in our default hymnbook (Mayhew).
  • Wash your mouth out with soap.
  • Sorry about that. It wasn't my choice, Guv, honest...
  • Rufus T FireflyRufus T Firefly Shipmate
    edited January 2021
    The church where I was a curate used to have really big Christingle services - 400+ people. All of Saturday would be spent making the damn things in the church centre. Then the service would be held in a local private school's sports hall. At the end of the service, we all had to stand around the hall in a big circle, lighting the Christingles, before processing round singing a song. Afterwards, a group of us then had to spend a few hours cleaning the floor, as lots of raisins were always well trodden in. And don't even get me started on the amount of time taken to set out chairs etc beforehand and then put them away afterwards.

    Then one year, we nearly had tragedy, when a woman's long hair was set alight by a Christingle being waved around behind her. Fortunately, someone acted quickly and got the fire put out before the woman was injured. After that, we finally got the vicar to see sense and insist that after lighting the Christingles, everyone stayed in their places. He did so, but made it very plain that he wasn't happy about it.

    I can't say that I have happy memories!

    To me, the Christingle service is something that outlived its novelty (& ability to draw crowds) some 20+ years ago. And using electric candles just makes the whole thing even tackier.
  • <snip>

    To me, the Christingle service is something that outlived its novelty (& ability to draw crowds) some 20+ years ago. And using electric candles just makes the whole thing even tackier.

    Yes, but, in all fairness, the Christingle Service we used to hold was very well-attended by the uniformed groups + their families, and was for many of them probably the only overtly religious service they would go to in the whole year!

    Not sure where I'm going with this, but it did at least provide one opportunity to present the Christmas story in a Christian manner...
    *sings*

    No Elves, no Elves, no-o E-e-lves, no-o E-e-lves!

    IYSWIM.
    :wink:

  • Does anybody know where the plainsong music for this might be had?

    I could do it out myself but it's a fairly busy week at work and I already have the office hymns to do for Lent and for the Feast of the Encounter, so I'd rather not do this too unless I have to.

    All I can find is the more commonly sung tune, which I believe is Roman.

    I'd be grateful for any help.
  • @Cyprian Your link just took me to a general page advertising top links by Konrad Ruhland.

    What bit of text are you wanting the music for?
  • @Cyprian Your link just took me to a general page advertising top links by Konrad Ruhland.

    I'm sorry. That's because I'm having a week of being a duffer when it comes to functioning at the moment. :tired_face:
    What bit of text are you wanting the music for?

    It's the Alleluia, Dulce Carmen to this melody that I'm after. All of my searches just found the more common melody but the Konrad Ruhland material seems to use some non-Roman melodies that originate in other rites, and were often used in the British Isles historically.

    My bishop was able to find for me a source for the ancient melody for the Sancti, venite, and it turned out to be almost identical to the version in the Ruhland recording. I was so very pleased after months of searching. :smile:
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Is this it? Without Ruhlands somewhat wilful and controversial ways with rhythms.
    https://societyofstbede.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/alleluiadulcecarmen.pdf
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Alan29 wrote: »
    Is this it? Without Ruhlands somewhat wilful and controversial ways with rhythms.
    https://societyofstbede.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/alleluiadulcecarmen.pdf

    EDIT - yes, thats the one Ruhland has recorded.
  • You want a copy of the Liber Usualis, where you'll find it as a hymn for Septuagesima - I think you can download the LU as a pdf for free.

    In the meantime this gives you the melody if you scroll down.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    You want a copy of the Liber Usualis, where you'll find it as a hymn for Septuagesima - I think you can download the LU as a pdf for free.

    In the meantime this gives you the melody if you scroll down.

    That is a different melody from the one in the Youtube clip.
  • Sorry. I'll keep looking for you.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Sorry. I'll keep looking for you.

    I posted a link this morning to a pdf of the tune in the Youtube clip.
  • Spotted that after my last post.
  • CyprianCyprian Shipmate
    edited January 2021
    God bless you both! Thank you so much for your efforts and for saving me so much time and a job.
    Alan29 wrote: »
    Alan29 wrote: »
    Is this it? Without Ruhlands somewhat wilful and controversial ways with rhythms.
    https://societyofstbede.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/alleluiadulcecarmen.pdf

    EDIT - yes, thats the one Ruhland has recorded.

    Yes, this is indeed the one I'm after, @Alan29 . Thank you for finding it for me.

    The Farewell to the Alleluia in our rite actually takes place at Vespers of Ash Wednesday. So I thought we would use this as the office hymn from Septuagesima until then.

    (Incidentally, I agree about the peculiar rhythms.)
  • AmosAmos Shipmate
    This one has me stumped. I've been asked 'Is there no committal when a person is laid to rest in a vault?' Somebody's been watching the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral and noticed no 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes dust to dust in sure and certain hope of the resurrection,' which has been such a vital (sorry) part of the funeral liturgy of the CofE since at least 1662.
  • There was a commendation:

    Go forth upon thy journey from this world.
    O Christian soul,
    in the name of God the Father Almighty who created thee;
    in the name of Jesus Christ who suffered for thee,
    in the name of the Holy Spirit who strengthened thee;
    May thy portion this day be in peace,
    and thy dwelling in the heavenly Jerusalem
    Amen

    It seems that the ashes to ashes bit is read when the body is committed to the earth and handfuls of earth thrown into the grave, according to the CofE Common Worship Funeral Service. So would not happen when placed in a vault
  • CharlesReadCharlesRead Shipmate Posts: 17
    The Go Forth prayer is a commendation, not committal. You can use the ashes to ashes text at a cremation too. The service was a mangled version of Series 1, which is authorised C of E liturgy and is the funeral service most used when someone wants a service in Tudor language but not your actual BCP, which is a pretty bleak service. I guess that committal to a vault requires a bit of adjustment of the end of the service but I can't see why they tinkered with the rest of it. They could have personalised it and still used the service as set. But the most obvious adjustment would be the necessity to accommodate the fact the the deceased was committed to a vault.
  • I think I heard that the Dean of Windsor goes down to the vault after the service and says the words as the coffin is placed into the space in the vault.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Welcome back Nunc, don't remember your being on the new Ship.

    Certainly winter oranges in the UK - and indeed northern Europe generally - would have been a real luxury. None grown locally and insufficient transport to bring in oranges grown elsewhere, then distribute them for retail sale.

    As a child in the 50s and 60s I was puzzled that an orange would appear in our Xmas stockings, as a real treat. Surely chocolate would have been better? Years later I asked my grandmother, by then in her 80s, why this was so. She told me that in the Ottawa Valley in the 20s and 30s, oranges were rarely available, and generally only at Xmastime. From the 1940s shops would bring them in all year round but they were deemed to be an expensive luxury item and useless for cooking. Rationing and wartime transport limitations meant that they were really only freely available in grocery stores from after WWII. She confessed that she was so accustomed to eating oranges from tins that she found the taste of fresh oranges far too harsh.

    I haven't run into Christingles in Canada, but perhaps that's because group youth and child activities have become generic holiday celebrations.
  • Dickens mentioned oranges, along with almost every other fruit and vegetable ever heard of by an early Victorian greengrocer, in A Christmas Carol published in the 1840s. So the availability of oranges at Christmas, probably for only a very short period, and a connection with the festival was known about 200 years ago.

    The second point is the impact of the world wars on food in the UK, with rationing and the need to use shipping for essential (or export) goods, meant that tropical fruits disappeared from British diets for decades. This fits with the creation of the Christingle in the 1950s/1960s as oranges became more common again. At least until the 1970s, in my corner of south Wales, tangerines and the other more easily-eaten types of orange were only ever available at or around Christmas.

    At least we should be grateful that people didn't decide to use bananas as a symbol of Christ's love for the world...
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    I have some of my mum’s diaries from the 1940s in which she occasionally records having had an orange. I’ll check the dates and frequency, but I don’t think all dates were around Christmas.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Augustine the Aleut - I'd not have thought of that as being as isolated as you recount - off the beaten track a bit, but only a bit. My childhood recollection is of oranges being available all year round. Then again, not even a Tasmanian winter is anywhere near as severe as you experience.

    I don't recall oranges in cans - at one stage, canned mandarins were around but used for cooking.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    I volunteer as a docent at a SoCal historical museum and one thing our community provided from the 1880s on was the navel orange that ripened just in time for the Christmas holidays. There was the perfect convergence of a niche product that shipped well on the relatively newly available cross-continental trains. Fresh fruit for Christmas! Them thar oranges were made of gold! Who-da thunk!

    And one of the two original navel orange trees planted in 1873 is alive and tenderly cared for.
  • AmosAmos Shipmate
    I think I heard that the Dean of Windsor goes down to the vault after the service and says the words as the coffin is placed into the space in the vault.

    That's what I suspected, and suggested to the person who asked the question. I've since heard it suggested (by someone from a Notable Cathedral Over Here) that he's only staying in the vault until he can be buried with HM in the George VI chapel.



  • Gee D wrote: »
    Augustine the Aleut - I'd not have thought of that as being as isolated as you recount - off the beaten track a bit, but only a bit. My childhood recollection is of oranges being available all year round. Then again, not even a Tasmanian winter is anywhere near as severe as you experience.

    I don't recall oranges in cans - at one stage, canned mandarins were around but used for cooking.

    Likewise. Valencias especially grow all year round. Mandarins ( tangerines everywhere else) are more an autumn/ winter fruit. If seen in shops in Oz summer they are imports from the USA

  • Amos wrote: »
    I've since heard it suggested (by someone from a Notable Cathedral Over Here) that he's only staying in the vault until he can be buried with HM in the George VI chapel.
    Yes, I’ve seen that reported in numerous new stories, and it was also mentioned in the televised coverage I watched (CNN, American).

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