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Ship of Fools: St Albans Cathedral, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England

The Mystery WorshipperThe Mystery Worshipper Shipmate
edited June 2024 in The Mystery Worshipper

imageShip of Fools: St Albans Cathedral, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England

Among the pilgrims (plus a 4 metre puppet) at the martyr’s shrine on Alban Day

Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here


Comments

  • Ex_OrganistEx_Organist Shipmate
    When I have visited St Alban's in the past the relic of St Alban was normally locked away in a safe, and only brought out for veneration on those occasions when this was arranged in advance.
  • Box PewBox Pew Shipmate
    When it comes to saints' relics I am a tiny bit of a sceptic. Do you know, Organist, where this one came from—and whether it has what in the antiques trade is called 'good provenance' ?
  • Ex_OrganistEx_Organist Shipmate
    Box Pew wrote: »
    When it comes to saints' relics I am a tiny bit of a sceptic. Do you know, Organist, where this one came from—and whether it has what in the antiques trade is called 'good provenance' ?

    Probably as good as you are likely to get. It had been in the same church in Cologne since some time in the tenth century.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited July 2024
    Well, it at least has *the patina of age*, I expect.
    :wink:
  • TrackerTracker Shipmate Posts: 8
    Regarding the Howells Mag and Nunc, "This is music that takes its time." How true--I had a good laugh at this one.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Long ago (like 40y ish) I regularly attended an Easter pilgrimage to St Albans, a short 6-7 mile walk, with a service in the abbey church (no chairs, standing room only crammed full - until after the 1985 Bradford fire forced them to limit numbers and most people were forced outside). One of the hymns always sung for that service was "Come sing the praise of Jesus" to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic - I'm wondering if that's the same hymn referenced in the report (depending on whether the reporter considers something written more than 50y ago as "modern")
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Shipmate
    Alan Cresswell wrote: »
    One of the hymns always sung for that service was "Come sing the praise of Jesus" to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic

    Which tune, in turn, is actually the Civil War marching song "John Brown's Body." The story of how it became "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is an interesting one.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited July 2024
    /slight but related tangent/

    There's an Easter hymn (by Michael Forster) to the same tune, which we've sung at Our Place - From the very depths of darkness - but there doesn't seem to be a link on YouTube (possibly due to copyright?).

    A rousing tune, however, guaranteed to leave a congregation breathless...
    :naughty:
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    So .... asking this as a Papist who has no truck with this sort of thing ....
    Is venerating and incensing supposed relics a feature in many post-Reformation churches?
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    I doubt if it's common practice, but it's certainly done in a number of Anglo-Catholic parishes in England, at least.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Bishops Finger wrote: »
    I doubt if it's common practice, but it's certainly done in a number of Anglo-Catholic parishes in England, at least.
    Indeed, and I would suspect that, in the universe of post-Reformation churches, the practice is limited to that number of Anglo-Catholic parishes in England, and perhaps elsewhere.


  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    I spent 10 years singing in the choir of an AC shrine church in Sinny & never saw censing of relics ( not that there’d be much left of St Laurence). They certainly censed everything else ( choir included😂)
  • Box PewBox Pew Shipmate
    edited July 2024
    I guess they put the reliquary on the altar so they could say—in one of those deft anglo-catholic workarounds—that it was the altar that was being censed, not the relic. ;-))
  • Box PewBox Pew Shipmate
    Now St Albans is the latest English cathedral whose music tradition has taken a lurch towards uncertainty. It has lost all three of its organists in one month.
    https://slippedisc.com/2024/07/an-english-cathedral-runs-out-of-organists/
  • SpikeSpike Ecclesiantics & MW Host, Admin Emeritus
    Please keep this thread for discussion about the report. We discourage discussion about internal politics in individual churches, and that includes cathedrals

    Spike
    MW Host
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    The service MWed is (of course :wink: ) available on YouTube:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI_5EFi3irA

    Wonderful...if, perhaps, slightly bizarre...
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