Majestas: December 1998

In this issue

In Search of the Holy Family
Prima Vox
News
Majestas
Generation of Hope
Children First
Home is where the bed is
A Good Read for Christmas
The Blessed Virgin Mary
Diary
Who's Who
Publication
- Submissions for the next editions of Majestas

In Search of the Holy Family

Family Group by Henry Moore (reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation)

There is nothing more simply heart-warming than a picture of new parents with their first-born child -- unless it is a picture of the most famous and supposedly archetypal family of all. Prompted by your editor I recently looked for portrayals of the Holy Family in the Fitzwilliam Museum. There were Madonna and Childs aplenty, a good supply of Adorations, but, surprisingly, only three Holy Families that I could find. However, those three are worth a visit and each tells a very different story. [le Brun] The first I came to was a small painting by the French painter, Charles Le Brun. It is a composition apparently adopted, though significantly adapted, from a Holy Family by Poussin. (It hangs just to the right of another painting by Poussin.) The earlier picture had the baby Jesus on Mary's lap with Joseph asleep in the background, but Le Brun has moved the story on several months and raised other questions. The setting is similar, but Jesus has already discovered his youthful charms; he stands, leaning on his mother's knee with all the suave nonchalance of one of Luca della Robbia's cherubs. Freed of the baby, she now raises her hands in prayer. At her elbow a scroll has Isaiah 7:14 in Hebrew, foretelling the miracle of the Virgin birth. But where does this put Joseph? Not only is he in the background, but now he is relegated behind a wall, where he slumps, glumly staring at the major players, his head between shoulders, matching in colour the nearby terracotta pot. In his dull gold cloak he strikes a poignant note, especially now, at the turn of the millennium, when the future redundancy of the male is being mooted in some quarters. Joseph comes into his own in a large picture by Giovanni Battista Salvi, an artist who became known as Sassoferrato, which you find to the left of the great painting by Titian, of Tarquin ravaging Lucretia: no thematic hanging at the Fitzwilliam! Our eyes might fall on the exquisitely gentle figure of Mary, her auburn hair precisely parted, combed smoothly back, and tied with a white bow. But soon we are led, partly by her gaze and by the eyes of Jesus, to the child's hand, raised by the hand of Joseph to the father's lips. From this tender gesture we are then drawn to contemplate the head of Joseph. He is standing, stooping, brow-to-brow with Jesus, staring downwards, and you sense that his gravity has more to do with premonition than with questions of paternity or self-pity. As in the Le Brun, the scene takes place ominously against the last glimmer of the setting sun, and here Joseph's mood is matched by the profound darkness of his shadowed cloak which falls between him and the gleaming naked infant. [Sassoferrato] Sassoferrato's painting is animated by the arms and hands of the family group, touching, supporting, holding. Walk to the top of the stairs which descend to the shop, jump three centuries, and you will find Henry Moore also orchestrating limbs. This is the tiny maquette for a sculpture intended for Impington Village College which, sadly, went unrealised. Looked at one way, it presents the Holy Family with the baby Jesus stretching, book in hand, towards John the Baptist. Looked at another way, it is any and every family. There are no identifying pink and blue clothes or Biblical scrolls, only a family, united by protective adult backs and arms, the reaching hands of children, and a wonderfully rhythmic colonnade of legs. Apparently when Moore was asked to carve his famous Madonna and Child for St Matthew's Church in Northampton, the commissioning vicar, Walter Hussey, asked him whether he could believe in his subject. Moore, not altogether evasively, responded that he tended to work out his theology by making sculpture rather than by going to church. The sacred could be found in the work of every day -- or, on the seventh day, perhaps, at the Fitzwilliam or Kettle's Yard!

Prima Vox

Illustration: wood engraving by Eric Gill (1916)

The Revd Dr John Binns

Families or households? We assume that the Christian faith supports the family. We live in 20th-century Britain and our homes are a part of that society. We cannot transform them into the kind of home which was found in first-century Palestine. But we can -- and must -- ask ourselves how we can make our homes into centres of love and of community which can reach out to those outside as well as supporting those inside. Our life in the Church should not be forgotten. We sometimes like to compare the Church to a Family. This can also be used in an exclusive way. We can see ourselves as a comfortable community, with the emphasis given to families meeting together, and the excluded remaining on the edge. But the Family of the Church can be inclusive too. We can recognise the difficulty of loving and can share together in meeting the challenge of becoming an inclusive community. It may be that the clue to our care for the homeless or the asylum-seeker or the despairing or the housebound or any others for whom life is empty and loveless lies in bringing the resources of Family and Church together. Of course the Church should support the Family, but the Family should also support the Church. We need all the help we can get in being people of love, making our homes into places of love and our churches into true resources for loving.

Certainly two of the Ten Commandments refer to family life -- ``Honour your father and your mother'' and ``You shall not commit adultery''. These are both firmly in the Old Testament tradition and form part of Jesus' teaching too. But it is interesting to note that the New Testament contains only one use of the word Family. ``I pray to the Father, from whom every family, whether in earth or heaven, takes its name'' (Ephesians 3: 15). Instead, the New Testament writers prefer the word Household. The Household refers to everyone who lives in the house. This would include members of the family, including parents and grandparents, probably some relatives, certainly servants. While our concept of family is exclusive and is usually restricted to the 'nuclear' family of parents and children, the Biblical concept is inclusive and open to a wider range of people who can be welcomed into it. The Christian teaching always has an uncom-fortable side, and its teaching on the family is no exception. It asks us to look again at our family life, and to see whether it supports not only its own members but also those outside. These might include relatives and friends, neighbours, and also strangers and the poor.

News

Christmas at Great St Mary's

Christmas celebrations at Great St Mary's will begin with the Christmas Candlelight Carol Service on Sunday 20th December at 6.30pm. Please arrive in good time for this service. On Christmas Eve a service of Carols for Children will take place at 4pm. The Midnight Communion will begin at 11.30pm. On Christmas Day there will be a service of Holy Communion (Prayer Book) at 8am, Parish Communion at 9.30am, Mattins at 11.15am and Evening Prayer (said in St Andrew's Chapel) at 6pm. Friends of Great St Mary's Christmas cards are still available from the bookstall (price 3 for 10) or by post (please call 01223 350914), as are Advent calendars and candles, books, jams, honey, biscuits and other Christmas gifts. During December, CICCU, Save the Children, Perse School for Girls and Sawston Village College will be holding Carol Services in GSM.

Carol Service

Great St Mary's was full for last year's candlelit Carol Service. This year's service will be on Sunday 20th December at 6.30pm.

Girton Party

The party for older members of GSM is being held on Sunday 10th January 1999, 3--5pm, at Girton College. Food will be provided, and there will be a variety of entertainments. Lifts to Girton should be available via the Neighbourhood Links. Offers of food will be welcome. For further information please contact Betty Orange (01223) 353385 or the Church. Christmas 1998 will see Great St Mary's going for gold as the Wider Concerns Committee, being nothing if not ambitious, is seeking to raise a target of 2,500 through the Christmas Thankoffering.

Christmas Appeal

Malindi, on the shore of Lake Malawi The project which has caught our eye is a USPG Project which is trying to provide a water filtration system at St Martin's Hospital at Malindi in Southern Malawi. The hospital, which is owned by the Diocese of Southern Malawi, provides essential healthcare for people living in villages along the shores of Lake Malawi. Like the villagers, the hospital is dependent on the lake for its water supply. However, as the lake is also used for sanitation and washing, the water has become contaminated. The installation of the water filtration system would go a long way to helping prevent another outbreak of cholera. The Wider Concerns Committee has undertaken to adopt this project on behalf of Great St Mary's. Will you help us to raise this amount, which will have a very beneficial effect, far beyond the cost of the project. The second strand of our Christmas Appeal is for books. As you get ready for Christmas, please sort out any old books you have. Children's books, adult fiction and dictionaries and encyclopedias are all needed: the list should be no older than ten years old. Bring them into church and put them in the boxes which will be provided. All of your offerings will be passed on to Book Aid International, who work in partnership with people in developing countries to support literacy, education and training. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Thankofferings and other appeals in l998, and a very Happy Christmas to you all.

Family Ceilidh

Fen Blow (formerly The Toll House Band) are once again playing at the Family Ceilidh on Saturday 6th February, 6.30--9.30pm in St Michael's. Tickets, priced 3.50 (adults), 2.50 (children) and 10 (family), including food and a glass of wine or a soft drink, will be available from the Church Office after Christmas. Numbers are strictly limited, so please get tickets in good time.

Junior Majestas

Look out for the Christmas issue of Junior Majestas (for those aged 11 and under), which contains a Christmas story and a colouring competition. Copies are available at the back of the church.

Cambridge Views

Can you discover the location of this object in Cambridge? Bring or send the answer, and your name and address, to Majestas, Great St Mary's, Cambridge CB2 3PQ, by 30th December. The first correct answer drawn out will win a book token for 10. The arch pictured in the November issue can be seen in the churchyard of St Andrew the Great.

Generation of Hope

Sheila Cameron has been finding out about the work of BibleLands, a charity wwhich helps children and families.

The BibleLands logo is a picture of two hands meeting, a finger of each forming an arm of a cross, a symbol of Christian love in action. BibleLands was founded in 1854 as the Bible Lands Society, a British initiative to counter the extreme poverty in the Near East which had been revealed during the war in the Crimea. Since then the society has been supporting poor families living in an area torn all too frequently by religious and political conflict, and today the charity works in partnership with some 30 Christian-led projects in the Holy Land, Lebanon, Egypt and Italy, raising money to support those in greatest need, particularly poor or disabled children, by means of a sponsorship scheme. A special concern for Armenian Christians dates back to the society's foundation, when its first Secretary, the Revd Cuthbert Young, employed Armenian refugees during the Crimean War to bake bread and wash linen, in response to an urgent appeal by Florence Nightingale. (He is said to have made washing machines from empty beer barrels.) Nowadays, the Armenian Evangelical School in Anjar, thirty miles east of Beirut in the Bekaa Valley, is one of several Christian schools in Lebanon teaching children from poor families. About 3,000 people now live in the village of Anjar, where thousands of Armenians sought refuge in 1947, living in tents, without food, work, medical services or education for their children. Fortunately the village has been relatively peaceful during the recent war, and the people work mainly on farms producing grapes, apples, plums, tomatoes and vegetables. Anjar Secondary School now has about 350 boys and girls from kindergarten up to sixth form. Some live locally and are day pupils, while others are boarders from Beirut or as far away as Syria and Jordan. Their parents pay a small contribution towards their school fees, but BibleLands sponsorship is relied on heavily to provide a good education. The children speak Armenian, are taught through the medium of Arabic and learn English from a very early age. The school is well equipped with pictures, plants and toys. The children greatly treasure letters, cards and Christmas gifts from sponsors in Britain. Severely handicapped children are cared for in a unit known as Zvartnos ('Place of Happiness'), which is part of the Centres for Armen-ian Handicapped project in East Beirut. There is a particular need for special education for children with mental disabilities; in 1964 a class for slow learners was begun, which now supports about 50 pupils sponsored by BibleLands. Social conditions in the Middle East are often appalling. The Jeel Al Amal Home in Bethany was founded in 1972 by two Christian Arabs who were concerned about the plight of boys from disturbed backgrounds. After several years in rented accommodation, the home moved in 1984 into a new building funded by international charities under the supervision of BibleLands, which now helps pay for food, electricity, equipment and medical supplies. Many of the boys at Jeel Al Amal (meaning 'Generation of Hope') have tragic family histories, like the three from Jordan tortured by their deranged stepmother, or the boy found on the street at night who had been rejected by both his parents, or the four-year-old Bedouin boy whose father was dead and whose mother was twice divorced. Some parents are drug addicts or serving prison sentences, others are unemployed and destitute. Most of the boys are Muslim, from Jerusalem and the West Bank villages, some from refugee camps, and many come to the home abandoned and starving. Samar Sahhar, daughter of the founders, who now directs the home, tells a story of how, while walking through the playground of the adjoining school, she heard a new boy complaining of a stomach ache. She took him to the kitchen and made him some warm herbal tea to relieve his discomfort, and the boy's eyes nearly popped out of his head at the sight of all the food. She soon discovered that the boy's stomach ache was merely hunger, and she made him a sandwich, which he devoured instantly. He had come from a family which could not afford regular meals. The boys attend a school which is attached to the home, learning Arabic and some English. At weekends they do chores and handicraft, play football and watch television. During the holidays many, but not all, go to stay with relatives and so the home can never close completely. Some pupils go on to secondary education and enter professions, while others go on to a vocational training centre in Jericho and learn a trade or go to work with their families, whom they are now in a position to assist financially.

Left: Group of boys at Jeel; Right: Mealtime at Jeel

BibleLands requires many more sponsors. If you would like to assist by sponsoring a child or the training of an adult, please write to the contact address: PO Box 50, High Wycombe, Bucks HPl5 7QU. Leaflets and sponsor forms are also available at the back of the church. Material for this article was taken from The Star in the East and other BibleLands publications, and the photographs were supplied by Mo Burnley, Head of Overseas Programmes.

Children First

Gill Ambrose, the Diocese of Ely's Children's Work Advisor, reflects on a recent Green Paper.

The publication of the Government's Green Paper Supporting Families has ensured that families have been the subject of renewed attention in the press recently. The document declares that the Government's family policy is based on three simple principles: Children must come first. Children need stability. Families raise children. It goes on to outline five areas in which it is considered that Government initiatives could strengthen family life and so, presumably, contribute to an improvement in the general condition of our society. Curiously, these three principles are not too dissimilar from the kind of declarations I sometimes find myself making as I work with groups of people in churches around the diocese. As a church, we have developed an over-dependence on institutional approaches to nurturing childhood faith, and all too often this seems to give rise to the assumption in diverse quarters that ``it's someone else's job''! As we talk about provision for children in the church, someone often suggests that, having worked hard all week (at home or somewhere else), they are entitled to an hour of peace and quiet on a Sunday morning to meet with God while someone else looks after the children. And so I find myself saying something like ``Children must come first.'' There is no doubt that having children is a major disruption to our adult lives. Their presence changes the way we sleep, eat, go out, everything. We have to modify our lifestyle so as to include them. We realise that it is by being included in meals and outings and family activities that children grow and flourish. And so it must be with our worship and prayer: children need to be included from their earliest days in our celebrations and intimate moments with God, for it is through us that they first come to know him. There are times when this may seem oppressive, but it bears fruit as children begin to share delightful insights of faith when they are really quite small. Then there are rotas. As I listen to the complications of making sure that Sunday Club teaching material is handed on from one team to the next and that one lot of people know where the other lot of people have got to, I want to say ``But children need stability.'' In sharing faith with young children, the medium really is the message: a community where they are welcomed and known and valued and treasured provides a place where they will meet with God. Finally, ``families raise children''. Perhaps, as our communities become perplexingly fragmented, with multiple-choice pastimes and recurrent job changes, we should look for more opportunities to let families be families in the church. Perhaps the time has come to part company with men's groups and women's societies and children's fellowships and all that sort of thing. They were created to meet a real need when they began, but maybe now we should seek a different approach and we should concentrate on what we can do to hold us together. With Christmas approaching, I'll finish with a personal story which may illustrate the kind of thing I'm saying. It happened in the early eighties when my own children, now grown up, were about five and seven. A few days before Christmas, they asked if they could go to Midnight Mass. My initial reaction was no: they were too young to miss out on sleep, especially in winter, when the long nights seem to mean that we need more of it. The idea of having to manage two small children through a church service in the middle of the night, and their resulting tiredness throughout a busy Christmas day, was distinctly unappealing. Fortunately, however, before I responded, I looked at their faces, alight with anticipation. So we made an agreement. If they went to bed and straight to sleep immediately after the crib service, I would wake them and take them to church for the Midnight Mass. It worked. They kept their promise and went to bed without any fuss, and I kept mine, waking them to go to church. It was an exciting experience for them: I shall never forget the wonder in their faces as we made the short walk home under the stars. And they talked about it to people for weeks afterwards -- which is real evangelism. Their experience of God in it all was something they wanted to share. It also increased our willingness to trust one another: they had to trust that I would honour my promise, if they kept theirs. We all realised that co-operation works. Children need stability. The other consequence, of course, was that Christmas was actually very peaceful: having been up for two hours in the middle of the night, the children slept until quite late on Christmas morning, benefiting everyone. Children must come first. The idea of complying with my children's request was pretty challenging to begin with -- I had no guarantee that it would work out well -- but it confirmed profoundly for me that faith is powerfully shared in family experiences.

Home is where the bed is

Norman Ekins-Bell talked to David Hollier about his home.

``When I was 15 I got kicked out of home because I was a little brat, annoying my mum, fighting with my brother and causing trouble.'' Norman missed school because he was in trouble, lived with family members and was then homeless in Cambridge. He experimented with drugs, had early sex and resorted to petty theft to provide money for food. Norman joined the regular army when he was 16 but soon had to come out for health reasons and was then on the streets of Cambridge and Brighton: ``We were sleeping on the beach under the boats. It was freezing and raining and horrible. In the daytime we used to go to a day centre to get fed and we were allowed showers there, soap and clean towels, and they'd give you clean clothes if you wanted.'' He had a constant feeling of loneliness: ``You're just stuck out there all day, all night, literally nothing to do but stand around. You can't get a job because you're homeless and you can't get a place to live because you're jobless and so really it's a vicious circle.'' [Ymca_bed] He has lived at Cambridge YMCA since February this year, first in a study-bedroom and now in a bedsit, with shared kitchen facilities. The acting Head of Housing, Jon Martin, explained: ``They come into the hostel very dependent on our input, so we cook their meals, clean their rooms and the support staff work with them. Once they are capable of holding a budget and doing their own cooking, they move to the bedsits and establish themselves, buying and cooking their own food. We clean but only once a week, so we only have minimal input.'' They can then move to the flatlets, which have cooking facilities. The maximum length of stay is three years, although most are helped to independent living in about a year. There are 150 beds in study-bedrooms, 18 bedsits and 11 flatlets. Earlier this year 66 of the residents were female, but at present 60 are male. Jon went on: ``A lot of the residents who come here have come from an environment that has no parameters. Here they have choices, but those choices are within parameters, as they would be in a normal family.'' An example is the no-drugs policy, which is positive and well known to residents. [YMCA] Norman is full of praise for the support staff: ``The YMCA support staff build up your confidence and manage to help you sort everything out for you; they give you an aim in life and find out what you really want. They're like counsellors in one way, like parents in another way, because they're looking after you at the same time.'' Diane Long, senior support worker, said that many social housing residents bring problems with them. Diane went on: ``All the social housing residents have an individual action plan. A key worker will sit down with a resident, who is given a dream sheet; they can put on that whatever they want in their lives, whatever they'd like to achieve. The support staff break it down into practical chunks.'' The residents have regular meetings with a member of the support staff to discuss progress, their feelings and how they are relating to the YMCA community. Norman says that the YMCA is home: ``You wouldn't think that a hostel would become home, but without this place I think I'd be disappointed. It becomes home because you're used to being here and your friends are here and become like family.'' Although it was difficult living at home, he said: ``I'm very close to my family, believe it or not. Me and my mum have the best relationship I've ever had now. Even when I was in trouble she stuck by me.'' Norman's natural father was killed in the army, but he is in touch with the stepfather who brought him up and who lives in Newcastle. Norman describes himself as ``a very outgoing, caring sort of person. I like doing things, so I keep myself occupied.'' He likes swimming, rugby, motor sports and climbing ``My biggest hobby at the moment.'' He is still a member of St John Ambulance. At the YMCA he has completed a demanding three-month Prince's Trust course which builds up character and confidence, and Norman said: ``It's the best thing I've ever done.'' It is recognised by City and Guilds and he has gained three NVQs from the course. He hopes to have the opportunity to do some GCSEs: ``I've got no GCSEs because I rebelled against it. It was the biggest mistake of my life.'' Norman is keen to be a paid part-time member of the Territorial Army, following a family tradition in the services: ``It's my biggest dream.'' He works doing plastering and building: ``I really don't like it, but it's good money to pay my rent here and to keep myself in food and stuff.'' Normski is 17 and is well-mannered, straightforward and friendly. He is a real romantic, too, and proposed to his girlfriend (Angie) on one knee in a magical setting on a beach. He now has aims and a future to look forward to -- keep going, Normski!

A Good Read for Christmas

Christina Lang (right), Manager of SPCK Bookshop, gives some ideas for Christmas gifts.

The first book I would suggest as a great gift for Christmas is The Splendour of Creation -- The Icons of Dionisij (14.99). It is a most wonderful icon calendar which leaves you with a book when the year has ended because the calendar part is removable. There are full-colour plates for each month and background details on every icon. It is absolutely beautiful, and particularly special as it lasts for more than just a year. To change to the light end of reading, I would suggest Fred Secombe's The Changing Scenes of Life (Fount, 5.99). It is the seventh book in the series of his life as a clergyman in South Wales during the 1950s. A charming, funny and very human book. Also well worth considering is By Chance?, by John MacMurray (Multnomah Publishers, 13.99). It contains stunning colour plates which look at creation, with quotes from a mixture of scripture and Christian writers exploring various aspects of the natural world. The photography is unsurpassed. Pam Rhodes' second novel The Trespassers (Hodder and Stoughton, hardback, 16.99) is set to be very popular. I am about to buy a copy for my mother's birthday! I guess nothing more needs to be said about Pam Rhodes. Fiction that goes into greater depths. A Panorama of the Holy Land by John Arnold and Stephen Sizer (Eagle Publishing, on special offer at 15) is a beautiful gift, whether as a reminder if you have been there or as taste to encourage you to go if you haven't. Again the photography is quite outstanding. This is only a minute selection of what we have in at the bookshop: we have 12 to 14,000 titles in stock, including local interest books and books by local authors. We have just launched John Bowker's Complete Bible Handbook (Dorling Kindersley, 25), which is a more up-to-date and detailed volume than the much-respected Lion Handbook of the Bible. One of the exciting things about it is that a Jewish Rabbi, Jonathan Magonet, contributed articles on the New Testament. All titles are available now from the SPCK Bookshop, which is open until mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve.

The Blessed Virgin Mary

The statue, by Loughnan Pendred, that greets visitors to Great St Mary's by the south door

by Dr Lynne Broughton

As is appropriate for a church dedicated in her name, the Virgin Mary appears or is referred to in imagery both within and outside the building. In its original, late-medieval, state the church will have possessed various statues, stained glass and probably also paintings of her, all of them swept away in the sixteenth century by iconoclasts. Across the chancel arch was the rood (crucifix) screen, so called because it was surmounted by the carved figure of Christ on the cross. On either side were Mary and John the Evangelist, as portrayed in the crucifixion narrative of St John's Gospel ([John 19:25-27]). The modern wooden processional cross portrays this scene. In the sixteenth century the windows of the church were glazed by the same artists who worked on King's College chapel. Since GSM is dedicated to the Virgin, some of the windows would have contained scenes from the Bible, and probably also some of the apocryphal stories of Mary's life and miracles. The well-preserved glass in the contemporary church at Fairford, Gloucestershire, also dedicated to the Virgin gives some idea of what such glass will have looked like in a parish church. In the roof two bosses are all that remain of the medieval imagery. Each shows a demi-angel holding a shield with the crowned monogram MR for Maria Regina -- Mary, Queen (of Heaven). The Coronation of the Virgin was frequently portrayed. It represented the joys of the Church Triumphant and of all the blessed at last. Mary was taken to be the forerunner and representative of all faithful Christians; as to her so to us the crown of life is offered in heaven (Rev. 2: 10). The monogram has been aptly incorporated into the railings around the churchyard. Also on the railings is a stylised lily. The purity of the white lily represents the Virginity of Mary and, by extension, the Incarnation of Christ through her acceptance of the will of God. A lily was usually included in portrayals of the Annunciation. Inside the entrance to the church is a small wooden statue of the Virgin and Child. It was given to the church in 1962, carved by Loughnan Pendred, who also carved the processional crucifix and candlesticks. Beneath her feet is a serpent -- ``that old serpent, called the Devil'' ([Revelation 12:9]). Mary was also identified as the Woman who brought forth the ``man child, who was to rule all nations'' ([Revelation 12:5]) and who was menaced by the dragon/Devil. In the final cosmic battle the Devil will be overcome, evil will be trodden beneath the feet of the righteous. ``And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ...''

This article forms part of a series describing our Church building.

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