Windows on Liturgy II
New Wineskins:
From Contextualization to Revision
Ecclesia sem per reform anda
2016 National W orship Conference
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
Anglican Church of Canada
At the very outset, I must acknowledge with heartfelt gratitude the profound
contribution to my thinking on matters of Contextualization, Inculturation and
Revision of my young colleagues in Secretariat for the Revision of An Anglican
Prayer Book 1989, the current Prayer Book of the Anglican Church of Southern
Africa. In the rigorous research and probing discussions that have characterised our
work together, these young thinkers have investigated matters of faith and prayer,
context and culture, ritual and liturgy.
Much of what follows reflects that research and those discussions.
Andy, Ashley, Brent, Makhosi, and beyond the Secretariat also Kulana, Nthuthuzelo,
Cheryl, Jacque, Mcebesi and André: I celebrate what we have learnt together and give
thanks for the fellowship we have found.
Still following the wise counsel of Archimedes with which I began the first lecture, I turn now to four
contemporary writers on contextualization and liturgical inculturation in seach of that strating place, the
place on which to stand.
James Chukwuma Okoye, CSSP, in The Eucharist in African Perspective, declares in response to the
comment by Adrian Hastings in Church and Mission in Modern Africa, that
“ … in an age of rapid translation, the mass diffusion of new books . . . it would be as bizarre to expect
the growth of a characteristic African liturgy or theology as to expect the growth of English ones.”1
“The bizarre,” continues Okoye, “is actually in progress: elements of an African liturgy and theology
are in process.” – in spite of the hesitation of some doubters who “point to the increasing impact of
globalization and internet culture: a global culture, it is affirmed, is not only setting the pace but is
actually in the process of assimilating all cultures to that of Europe and the United States of America.
Any programs based on a supposed African culture would be labour lost; what is more, it would be
working against the insurmountable currents of civilization. It would be like returning Africa to the
Dark Ages and snuffing out the light brought by colonization.”2
In his doctoral thesis entitled Inculturating the Eucharist in the [Roman] Catholic Diocese of Mutare,
Zimbabwe, Anthony Igbokwe Amadi 3quotes Pope John Paul II,
“A faith which does not become culture is a faith which has not been fully received, not thoroughly
thought through, not fully lived-out.”
and J. M. M. McCabe,
“People continue to worship following inherited practices, but more often than not, the faith
reflected in these acts of worship has not taken root and the worship often appears divorced from
the people’s daily experience.” This divorce of worship from daily experience reflects the need for
inculturation.”4
1
2
3
4
Hastings, Adrian, Church and Mission in Modern Africa, Burns and Oates, London, 1967
Okoye, James Chukwuma, CSSP, The Eucharist in African Perspective, Mission Studies, Vol. XIX, n. 2‑38, 2002
Anthony Igbokwe, Amadi: Doctoral Thesis: Inculturating the Eucharist in the [Roman] Catholic Diocese of Mutare, Zimbabwe,
J. M. M. McCabe, The Challenges of Liturgical Inculturation: Directions. In Spearhead, No. 90. Amecea Colloquium. Eldoret:
Gaba Publications.
And now a word addressed to Lutherans, from the one person who has definitely done most to shape
and inform our thinking on these matters; writing in Liturgical Enculturation, The Future That Awaits Us,
Anscar Chupungco points out that,
“Among Lutherans liturgical inculturation is not a novelty. When Martin Luther translated the Latin
liturgy into German and adopted popular songs for church services, he embarked on liturgical
inculturation. The vernacular, unlike Latin, is a living language and is thus a sure vehicle of culture. It
expresses the people’s thought and behavioral patterns and is an established bearer of their values and
institutions. In short, the use of the vernacular in the liturgy is in itself a sign that inculturation has taken
place.”5
The General Preface of An Anglican Prayer Book 1989, the current Prayer Book of the Anglican Church of
Southern Africa, declared that ‘Liturgy in Africa should be African,’ and expressed the ‘hope that this Prayer
Book will serve as a stimulus to the continuing development of indigenous liturgy.’
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” This trustworthy wisdom from the ancient Chinese
philosopher and poet, Lao Tzu [6th century BCE] is very good counsel as we proceed with the enormous,
exciting and essential task of growing in alterness to our unique and particular contexts, and finding the
patterns of prayer that can be at home in them.
It has always been an axiom of Anglican liturgical theology that we have one Prayer Book, and one Prayer
Book only. The very first Prayer Book [Book of Common Prayer 1549, revised 1552] lives on in each
revision, serving to unite the Anglican Church in one single act of worship in every time and every place.
While it was Henry VIII’s tyrannical intention to impose an unswerving uniformity upon his Church that
gave birth to this commitment, it was the irenic wisdom of Elizabeth I and her advisors to move gently with
the enforcement of uniformity [Book of Common Prayer 1559] which gave rise during the Carolingian
period – the reigns of Charles I [1625-1649] and Charles II [1660-1685] - to The Book of Common Prayer
1662. That Prayer Book has remained a primary source – along with those of 1549 and 1552 - for Anglican
liturgical practice as it has been revised and renewed down the centuries. In this way the tradition of
Anglican liturgical prayer has remained shaped and informed by our early origins, and this remain so today
still.
The Preface to The Book of Common Prayer 1662 begins with an explicit statement of the process of
liturgical revision and reformation, that with regard “to the particular Forms of Divine Worship, and the
Rites and Ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being things in their own nature indifferent, and
alterable, and so acknowledged; it is but reasonable, that upon weighty and important considerations,
according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such Changes and Alterations should be made
therein, as to those that are in place of Authority should from time to time seem either necessary or
expedient.”
In the last century, in response to the many advances in historical research and archaeology, ecumenical
projects leading up to Vatican II [11 October 1962-8 December 1965] and its Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium brought fresh challenges inviting further liturgical renewal. The Liturgical
Movement captured the attention of the whole modern Church, and revision projects were begun in many
Churches in the Anglican Communion, leading to the publication of The Book of Common Prayer 1979 in
The American Episcopal Church, Series III and the Alternative Service Book in the Church of England in
1980, then New Patterns of Prayer and subsequently Common Worship.
The Churches of the Commonwealth were equally engaged in this period of intentional and productive
liturgical renewal. Canadian and Scottish revision were published in the 1980s. Both the Church of Aotearoa,
New Zealand and Polynesia, and the Church of the Province of South Africa [ACSA] published revised
Prayer Books in 1989 – A New Zealand Prayer Book 1989 and An Anglican Prayer Book 1989.
In this venerable tradition that is simultaneously conservative and innovative, traditionaland avant-garde the
development of the Prayer Book continues as we share in the work of discovering together what it could
mean for us to worship in ways that are faithful to our Anglican heritage and yet are authentic expressions of
our experience ‘Under Southern Skies’ articulated in ‘An African Voice.’
5
Anscar Chupungco, Liturgical Enculturation, The Future That Awaits Us; Accessed online:
www.valpo.edu/ils/assets/pdfs/chupungco2.pdf
2
C ELEBRATING A DVENT
AND
C HRISTMAS ‘U NDER S OUTHERN S KIES .’
As we went about seeking that African Voice Under Southern Skies, we identified three challenges:
first – to discover and relate the Season in Under Southern Skies;
next – to find an African Voice in which to express our eagerness to welcome the Christchild and our
hope-filled expectatoin of the second coming of our Saviour;
third - to use the opportunity to bring our liturgical practice in line with current theological developments
across the Communion.
Discovering a Southern Resonance to Advent
The imagery of Advent, that embodies our theology and shapes our liturgy, is unambigiously the imgaery of
the Northen Hemisphere. In the context of the deepening bleak of the midwinter, all the references to light
breaking into the of darkness are strongly resonant for our sisters and brothers in the Northern Hemipshere.
Placing at the heart of our liturgy a Santa Lucia wreath of evergreen foliage with the unfading bright white
lights of the winter night sky speaks to us only in imitative tones. All around us the light is bright, the sun is
shining, the days are long and the nights are short.
The Southern Cross that lights up the night sky
in the Southern Hemisphere has guided
travellers, intrigued astronomers and inspired
poets and musicians for millennia. People of
every time and all across the Southern
Henisphere have found in its five stars
inspiration for bravery, a symbol for
independence and national pride.
Christians have recognised in the Southern
Cross a heartening reflection of the Cross of
Christ.
The five stars that make up the Southern Cross Alpha, Beta [also known as Mimosa], Delta,
Gamma and Epsilon Crucis - are 10 to 20
million years old. The closest is 88 light-years
from Earth, the furthest 364 light-years away.
The Southern Cross is only visible in the Southern Hemisphere, but this was not always so. Ptolemy, the 2nd
century Greek astronomer listed it as part of the constellation Centaurus. By the year 400 AD, the
constellation was no longer visible from most of Europe anymore, and Europeans did not rediscover what is
now known as the Southern Cross until the great naval expeditions that crossed into the Southern
Hemisphere in the late 15th and early 16th century. It is believed that Amerigo Vespucci was the first
European explorer to see the “Four Stars,” as he called them, while on his third voyage in 1501. Yet, Crux
was plainly visible everywhere in the what we no know as the Americas some 5,000 years ago, as well as in
ancient Greece and Babylonia.
The Southern Cross carries cultural significance in many countries in the Southern Hemisphere. A stone
image of the constellation has been found in Machu Picchu in Peru. The Inca knew the constellation as
Chakana, which means ‘the stair.’ The Maori called it Te Punga, or ‘the anchor.’
In a remarkable way, the stars that comprise the constellation Crux - better known as the Southern Cross have come to represent the lands that lie below the equator. Indeed, travellers to the Southern Hemisphere
eagerly look for their first glimpse of the Cross, since it is always out of sight in the Northern Hemisphere,
hidden below the southern horizon.
According to the writings of Richard Hinckley Allen [1838-1908], an expert in stellar nomenclature, the
Southern Cross was last seen on the horizon of Jerusalem around the time that Christ was crucified. But as a
result of precession — an oscillating motion of the Earth's axis — the Cross ended was moved out of
northern view well to the south over the ensuing centuries.
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Expressing our experience of Advent in an African Voice
This challenge takes us into the realm of cultural anthropology: how do Southern Africans experience hope
and expectation, what elements of those lie in the myths, legends and stories of Nguni, Koi and Herero
cultures? This reflection brings us into the orbit of the interface between theology and culture, universal faith
and the particularities of locality and vernacular. We found exploring African, andespecially Southern
African literature – novels, poetry and plays, and Affican music provided compelling clues.
A contextualized, indigenous theology and liturgical expression consonant with contemporary Anglican
practice
Our search for an authentic African Advent theology and liturgy demands congruence with the developing
trends in the Anglican Communion. Over the last decades the Churches of the Communion have moved from
celebrating Adent in a Lenten mode. Instead of the Lenten themes of penitence, self-examination and
abstinence to a wakeful stance of hopeful expectation and anticipation, taking the pregnant mother of our
Lord as the icon for the season. For this reason members of the Communion have returned to the Sarum Use
of Blue adopted blue, the colour of Mary, as the liturgical colour for Advent so as to make it distinct from
Lent.
Liturgy of Blessing of the Advent Candles
The Advent Wreath is in the shape of the Southern Cross
In the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere, the four central stars of the Southern Cross shine
permanently above us. From ancient times, these stars offered travellers and ocean navigators
who looked up to them, a sure sense of direction, the way to true south. In this season of
Advent, we remember and anticipate the coming into the world of the light that enlightens
everyone, and leads us to truth.
The Presider blesses the Advent Candles
O God, let your blessing come upon our community gathered here before you. Bless us and
our Advent candles. May the light that shines forth from them illumine our way as we journey
towards Christmas, just as the Southern Cross has guided pilgrims through the ages. We ask
this through Christ who is the Light of the World. Amen.
Let us pray.
Immanent God:
grant us the grace
to perceive the signs of your coming
that we might ever be alert and awake
to receive you anew and afresh;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The assembly sings the Advent verse and chorus to the tune of Personent Hodie.
Take this light, let it shine:
Christ will come, seek the signs;
watching for the divine,
hope for all the nations:
gift of God’s salvation.
Shine, O candle, shine,
Burn with love divine,
to our night,
comes the Light
of the Father’s glory.
Words: The Reverend Doug Chaplin
Music: Personent Hodie, from Piae Cantiones © Stainer and Bell Ltd
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Christmas and Epiphany Under Southern Skies and In an African Voice
Not for us the bleak mid-winter with frosty winds moaning, water like stone and snow on snow. Under bright
mid-summer skies with hibiscus blooms and agapanthus clusters, the night sky festooned with its diamond
cross, we welcome the Christchild in the warmth of summer, cooled by refreshing breezes from our shores.
Hodie Christus natus est! Today the Christ is born!
Christmas is the celebration of the astounding truth that ‘God so loved the world that God gave God’s only
Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’ God became human,
4
one like us, to set us free forever from all that threatens to devastate, diminish or destroy us. This is the
mystery of the Incarnation – that God took human flesh, chose to share our nature, so that only God’s love
could ever be the last word about humanity, nothing else.
We engage this mystery in rituals and celebrations that make what is beyond our imaginations more
accessible, more readily glimpsed even if not fully understood. The events in the life of Jesus Christ provide
the framework for these rituals and celebrations, especially his birth and his death. With the festival of the
birth of Jesus Christ the Church celebrates the coming of the Light of the World, the Light that shatters every
threatening darkness and illuminates every looming shadow.
For our sisters and brothers in the north, the festival of the birth of Jesus coincides with the Winter Solstice,
that moment in the ‘journey of the Sun’ when the longest night begins to be overtaken by day. For them the
piercing of the darkness by an ever brightening light was an obvious metaphor for the Incarnation, the advent
of the Light. But for us who live under southern skies and who must meet God in the incarnate, embodied
reality of our time and place, how do we celebrate the victory of light over darkness, not in midwinter but in
high summer?
Perhaps a clue to an authentic southern Christmas lies in the fact that Christmas occurs in the fullness of
summer, in the midst the harvest of light and warmth that summer brings. Given this inescapable fact of our
lives, should our Christmas celebrations not be bold proclamations of the power of light at its zenith rather
than rising excitement that at last the light is returning? Should we not find in the ripe fruits of summer the
triumph of abundance that Jesus came to embody and preach? All around us there are verdant, lush and
lavish signs of the fullness of God who in Christ fills all things to their fullness. Should our celebration not
rejoice in this fullness?
John Donne, when he was Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, preached a Christmas sermon in that bleak
midwinter in which he reflected on the fullness and immediacy of God’s grace. Perhaps in the words of this
northern Christian who lived 400 years ago, there are further clues to uncovering the meaning of Christmas
Under Southern Skies:
“We ask for our daily bread,” Donne preached, ‘and God never says you should have come yesterday,
God never says you must again to-morrow, but to-day if you will hear his voice, today God will hear
you. God brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; God can bring your summer out of
winter, though you have no spring. God comes to you now, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in
the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon, to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill
all need and every poverty. All occasions invite God’s mercies, and all times are God’s seasons.”
The life of faith is a real, immediate way of engaging reality. Faith is not mere piety to be chosen and worn
like Sunday clothes. Faith is the gift by which we come to understand life, find its meanings and enjoy its
blessings. Faith is the truth about life and living that shapes us moment by moment and day by day.
Faith lays hold of us, focuses our vision and shapes our understandings. There can be no pretense with faith.
We bring ourselves to the faith we are given – just as we are, precisely who we are. If I am a scientist, then
as a scientist I must come to faith. If I am an unemployed labourer, then as such it is that I must receive the
gift of faith. If I am old and fragile, young and athletic, married and weighed down by responsibilities, gay
and seeking to be honest to myself and before others – it is my unmasked, naked self that must receive the
gift of faith when it is given.
There can be no pretense with faith. We must offer ourselves just as we are for the gift to lay hold of us. So
too we must offer ourselves where we are. We who live under southern skies must claim the gift of faith in
the context of our southern location and experience.
For centuries we have allowed our faith to be defined by the experience of our northern sisters and brothers,
we have assumed their identity and lived into their temperament, as though we were shaped by long, cold
winters, with sparse harvests and a scarcity of resources. Our region too, like all of our planet, is threatened
by the results of our greed exploitation of the good things God has placed all around us. But the southern
earth is good; the southern sunshine good for growth; our harvests are plentiful. We have enough to share.
We must learn to encounter God under our southern skies, where we are, who we are. We must be ready to
greet the Christchild in the midst of summer’s bounty, and with the confidence that summer’s abundance
brings. Christ is born, not to hearts chilled with cold and afraid of not having enough, but in the midst of the
plenty that is God’s enduring blessing.
5
Here is a slightly altered version of a Maori Christmas Carol that tells of the story of the first Christmas
sermon preached in New Zealand. The song was created by the first Maori Christians and then translated into
German before it was sung in English.
Not on a snowy night,
by star or candlelight,
nor by an angel band,
here came to our dear land
the little child of Mary,
the little child of Mary.
The people gathered round,
upon the grassy ground
and heard the preacher say,
I bring to you this day
Glad tidings of great joy,
glad tidings of great joy.
But on a summer day
within a quiet bay
the ancient people heard
the great and glorious word.
Glad tidings of great joy,
glad tidings of great joy.
Now in this blessed land,
united heart and hand,
we praise the glorious birth
and sing to all the earth
Glad tidings of great joy,
glad tidings of great joy.
Here is an adaptation of Jessye’s Carol – This Christmastide
Green and silver, red and gold
and a story born of old.
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Moonlight fair this summer’s night,
streaming from that manger bright,
Truth and love and hope abide
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Holly, ivy, mistletoe
And the gently falling snow.
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
On the vast and spreading plain
now quite drenched with summer rain,
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
From a simple ox’s stall
came the greatest gift of all.
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Here our story first began,
here begins salvation’s span
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Children sing of peace and joy
at the birth of one small boy.
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Thunder clap and lightning bright,
drums that sound across the night:
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Let the bells ring loud and clear,
ring out now for all to hear.
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Trumpets sound and voices raise
in an endless stream of praise.
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Green and silver, red and gold
and a story born of old.
Truth and love and hope abide,
This Christmastide, this Christmastide.
Words: Jane McCulloch; Music: Donald Fraser
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K EEPING L ENT U NDER S OUTHERN S KIES
The word ‘Lent’ reminds us that Christianity began in the Northern Hemisphere. It comes from the AngloSaxon word for ‘Spring,’ Lenthen. In the Northern Hemisphere Spring coincides with the forty days of
Lenten preparation for Easter.
For us who live in the Southern Hemisphere, Lent heralds the beginning of Autumn, the season which brings
the fulfilment of the promises of Summer and at the same time presages the death of the year in Winter. With
it comes the rich harvest of grapes and the beginning of the winemaking process. hes its highest point in the
northern sky, for us under southern skies comes not Spring but Autumn, and with it the rich harvest of grapes
and the beginning of the winemaking process. The fruits are at their ripest, it is a season … …
‘… … of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core.’
from To Autumn, John Keats
Autumn is a complex season, with many layers of meaning: it is the fulfilment of the promise of Spring and
the harvest of the Summer sun; but it is also the season that ushers in the death of year, when Winter will
reign. All is pared down; the leaves fall. Yet in the Autumn stillness the seeds that will flourish and blossom
in the Spring begin their slow, steady and unconquerable growth. Nature concentrates her energies to ensure
that life will be renewed when the sun once more brightens our southern skies.
Lent like Autumn is the season of fulfilment and harvest, time of the falling off of things and their death,
time also of the beginning of the process of triumphal rebirth and renewal of life. Lent is a time to observe
nature, and to move our spirits into alignment with it, naming our sins and failures, contrasting the harvest of
God’s blessings with our often dry and barren spirits.
It is useful to bear in mind that Lent was originally an agricultural season, an anticipated and familiar period
of farming activity. The local agricultural rhythm should provide the context and themes in which the
spirituality of Lent is brought to expression. This will differ from region to region.
As in Autumn the beginning of new life phoenix-like is burgeoning in the dying world around us, so in Lent
we claim with confidence the promise of salvation and new life that is already laying hold of us. The
Church’s call to keep a Holy Lent invites us spiritually to enter into the dual reality that Autumn is: on the
one hand we are surrounded by the fulfilment of all the promises of Summer, on the other we are on the edge
of Winter. So too we are called on the one hand to count our bountiful blessings, while on the other we are
required to examine our consciences and confront our sinfulness.
The liturgical pattern of Lent offers us the way into this dual reality. The Weekdays of Lent are a pilgrimage
of self-examination and Bible Study, repentance and acts of loving-kindness. On Sundays this pilgrimage of
self-discipline and abstinence is punctuated by the joyful proclamation of the extravagant promise of
salvation and new life that is ours by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Mothering Sunday - Fourth Sunday in Lent
Before the revision of the Church Year and the Lectionary, The Fourth Sunday in Lent was traditionally
observed as Refreshment Sunday, coming 20 days after Ash Wednesday, exactly half-way through the 40
days of Lent. On Refreshment Sunday the sombre notes of Lent were replaced by songs of joy, the refrain
used on this Sunday being:
Rejoice, O Jerusalem:
and come together all you that love her:
Rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow.
It was from this refrain that Refreshment Sunday came to be called in Latin Rejoice Sunday – Laetare
Sunday, from Laetare the Latin for Rejoice.
This Sunday became something of a festival Sunday in the middle of the penitential season of Lent and soon
acquired a holiday feeling. People from all around the countryside went to their parish church where
beautiful vestments and joyful singing made the service uplifting and beautiful.
7
It became a family time for the ordinary, poor people, since during the late Medieval and early Modern
centuries even young children were forced to work, often away from home, because of the dire poverty of
the people. These young children were given a ‘day off’ from work on Refreshment Sunday, and as they
walked home they picked flowers from the meadows and the wayside, made them into posies to give as
tokens of love to their mothers.
Observing Mothering Sunday in South Africa
Women in South Africa played a prominent role in the struggle for equal rights long before any formal
women’s organizations came into being. As early as 1912, in what was probably the first mass passive
resistance campaign in our country, Indian women encouraged Black and Indian miners in Newcastle to
strike against starvation wages.
In 1913, Black and Coloured women in the Free State protested against having to carry identity passes,
which White women were not required to do. In 1918, Charlotte Maxeke started the first formal women’s
organization, the Bantu Women's League, which was created to resist the pass laws. In the 1930s and 1940s
there were many instances of mass protests, demonstrations and passive resistance campaigns in which
women participated. By 1943, women could join the ANC and by 1948, the ANC Women’s League was
formed with Ida Mtwana as its first president. The women’s struggle became more militant in the 1950s.
Thousands of Black, Coloured and Indian women took part in the Defiance Campaign in 1952, which
involved the deliberate contravention of petty apartheid laws.
In 1954, the Federation of South African Women was established; it brought together into one umbrella
organisation women from the ANC, the South African Indian Congress [SAIC], trade unions and self-help
groups for the first time. A Women’s Charter was drawn up which pledged to bring an end to discriminatory
laws.
The Black Sash, a non-violent white women’s resistance organization was founded in 1955 by Jean Sinclair.
The Black Sash initially campaigned against the removal of Coloured or mixed race citizens from the voters’
roll in the Cape Province by the National Party government. As the apartheid system began to reach into
every aspect of South African life, members of The Black Sash regularly and courageously demonstrated
against the Pass Laws and the introduction of other apartheid legislation. Its members used the relative safety
of their privileged racial classification to speak out against the erosion of human rights in the country.
On 9 August 1956, the united women’s organizations in South Africa organized some 20 000 women to
march to the seat of government, the Union Buildings in Pretoria, to present a petition against the carrying of
passes by women to the Prime Minister, J G Strijdom. This was the famous Women’s March which is now
celebrated as Women’s Day on 9 August each year.
The women’s Anti-pass Campaign, the Women’s Charter and their famous March to Pretoria became
benchmarks in the struggle and continued to inspire decades of women until democracy was finally realized
in 1994.
On Mothering Sunday we celebrate and give thanks for all the heroic women who ‘mothered’ our country
into the freedom we now enjoy. We pray earnestly that the great hopes they cherished for our freedom will
not be undermined by the corruption and vice that is so prevalent among us today.
The posies we receive are intended for our mothers – either to give to them if they are still alive, or to place
on their graves if they have died. If our mothers live far away from us and if we cannot get to their graves,
we place the posies in our homes as symbols of our gratitude for our mothers and for mothers everywhere.
Prayers for Mothering Sunday
Lord Jesus Christ, you came to live among us: like every one of us, you too are the child of a mother.
Bless mothers everywhere, and especially our mothers here in Southern Africa: sustain them in their
love for their children, give them courage when the difficulties of life threaten to overwhelm them and
keep alive in them the joy of parenthood.
Give thanks to the Lord our God :
God’s mercy endures for ever.
A young child places a posy of flowers on the font, the place of our re-birthin Christ
in recognition of our mothers
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Lord Jesus Christ, as we pray for mothers everywhere, we remember before you your mother Mary,
the mother of the Church. As her spirit proclaimed your greatness, so make us heralds of your love.
Guide and direct us, O Lord :
and keep us in the pilgrim’s way.
A young child places a posy in front of the altar, in honour of Mary, the mother of our Lord
Lord Jesus Christ, bless this Parish N. and make of it a mother to us in our life of faith and fellowship.
May all people find among us a caring community, an open door, and the love of Christ freely shared.
Guide and direct us, O Lord :
and keep us in the pilgrim’s way.
A young child places a posy by the Aumbry, where the Blessed Sacrament is kept in reserve,
in celebration of our identity as the Body of Christ
The Presider blesses the gifts of flowers
Lord Jesus Christ, bless these gifts of flowers, that they may be symbols of your love, bringing joy to
those who give them and those who receive them. May children and parents everywhere, united in
you, always follow your example in word and deed, to your honour and glory, now and for ever.
Lord Jesus Christ,
we bless you for the gift of our mothers
and for mothers everywhere;
we give you thanks for the example of Mary
the mother of our Lord;
and we bless you for the Church
our Holy Mother –
the body of Christ among us.
We give you thanks that through the sacraments of your Church, we are born and fed, healed and
strengthened.
Holy God, give us the grace
always to love, honour and serve your Church;
for Jesus Christ’s sake.
Amen.
K EEPING E ASTER U NDER S OUTHERN S KIES
The Date of Easter
Easter Day is the centre of the Church’s Year, as the death and resurrection of our Saviour was the unique
cause of our salvation.
Easter Day is always the first Sunday following the full moon falling on or next after 21 March, for us Under
Southern Skies, the Autumnal Equinox.
The movement of the earth around the sun
and that of the moon around the earth
define our experience of the seasons and of
day and night.
From the earliest civilizations, these
movements have informed people’s
experience of time, set seedtime and
harvest and also shaped the practice of
religion.
Christianity inherited this profound
connection with temporality. It is most
clear in our celebrations of Christmas and
Easter.
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The date of Christmas is fixed because it is a date in the Solar Calendar. The date of Easter is movable
because it depends on both the Solar and the Lunar calendars. Easter Sunday falls on the first Sunday after
the full moon that follows the Autumnal Equinox on 21 March [from the Latin aequinoctium meaning equal
night]. At the Equinox the Sun its nearest to the celestial equator.
The times when the Sun is furthest from the celestial equator are called the Summer and Winter Solstices
[from the Latin solstitium meaning sun stands still]. These occur in mid-Summer and mid-Winter.
Easter Under Southern Skies
For those of us living in the Southern Hemisphere, Easter comes as the ripe fulness of the Summer is
gathered into the Harvest that will sustain us throughout the Winter. There are no bunnies running around,
chickens hatching, or daffodils pushing up through the softening earth. For our northern sisters and brothers
in the faith, these instances of new life bursting forth in the Spring have become the images that convey the
power of Christ’s resurrection.
But for us, we see and taste and smell grapes being harvested and the new vintage pressed; plums, apricots
and peaches reaching their full, plump ripeness; grain and wheat being tended carefully in preparation for
harvest in a few weeks’ time.
As for those in the north, so also for us in the south, the weather is changing; and for some of us it comes
with the hope that the long dry summer months will give way to the long-expected winter rains; for some of
us, it signals the end of the dramatic thunder-storms of summer and the arrival of hot days that begin and end
in a brisk and bracing coldness.
For years and years we have sung,
‘Tis the Spring of souls today … …
all the winter of our sins,
long and dark is flying.’
Of course, we have not been blind and deaf to the spiritual meaning of the Resurrection when with new life
for all Christ burst forth from the tomb. We have transferred our familiarity with bunnies, chickens and
daffodils from the Spring to inform our Southern Hemisphere celebration of Easter.
And yet, in an Autumnal Easter there is a special revelation to us Southerners: the Harvest of life that Christ
carries through the piercing agony of suffering and the dark tomb of death, is ours, given to us by Christ and
in Christ. The rich gains that Christ has hauled through death to new life, all of it, rich and full, are ours in
Christ’s victory. That subtle change in symbolism reminds us that all that Christ has won – the Harvest of
Christ’s saving work – is ours: rich, ripe and full. By Christ’s glorious resurrection, we are ‘filled with all the
fullness of God.’ Ephesians 3:19
The winter holds no abiding threat for us, neither does darkness or death: through Christ and by Christ, and
in Christ and with Christ, we are blessed with all the rich fullness of the glorious salvation which is ours in
Christ. This harvest of salvation we carry with us into the winter.
Our cup is full, pressed down, brimful and running over. ‘Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ.’ 1 Corinthians 15:57
In Christ
we have also obtained an inheritance,
having been destined according to the purpose of him
who accomplishes all things
according to his counsel and will,
so that we,
who were the first to set our hope on Christ,
might live for the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:11-12
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Interpreting Easter in an African Voice - I am the Vine - You are the Branches
Jesus said, ‘Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit
by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
‘I am the vine, you are the branches.
Those who abide in me and I in them
bear much fruit, because apart from me
you can do nothing.
‘I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.’ John 15:4-5, 16
In this well-known passage from John’s Gospel, we find an important clue to contemplating the glorious
mystery of the Resurrection - Under Southern Skies.
We live in Southern Africa, some of us surrounded by rolling hills of lush, fruitful vineyards, some of us
along the coast with the harvest of the sea, others on the Highveld where the waving wheat awaits the sickle
and the scythe. For all of us, those on the coast and those in the hills, the image of Christ the Vine and his
followers the branches is powerfully resonant. Jesus presents himself as the root, stem and reach of the vine,
its origin and stability, its life force and sustaining power. Those baptised into Christ’s life are the branches,
growing out of Christ, inextricably joined to Christ, one with Christ. This unshakeable connection with
Christ and with one another provides the root metaphor in which we find our African voice as we express
our Easter Faith.
We must not be distracted by the pictures of bunnies dashing across fields bursting with daffodils, or pretty
little chickens breaking through their eggshells. Our Paschal festival is no Springtime celebration; it is a
celebration of our vindicated confidence in the salvation that Jesus achieves: we face the winter with all the
assurance of his victory.
Our Lord’s image of the Church: a living, growing, fruit-bearing organism, of which Christ is the heart and
soul, in whom all the members abide, is the clue to the language, images and rhythms of our Paschal
celebrations. All the themes of Ubuntu and its connectedness, the security that the offer of salvation brings,
the communion between the Risen Lord and the people won by his loving self-sacrifice – these find
expression in our praise and prayers, lamentation and song.
We can find our way into the meaning of the resurrected life in the I am the Vine – You are the branches
passage in John 15: in the words abide and bearing fruit. To live the resurrection now is to remain,
intentionally and with commitment, in the life-giving power of Christ’s love. To live the resurrection is to
bear the fruits of that indwelling love, here and now. To live the resurrected life now is to be and to do: to
dwell in Christ and to bear the fruits of Christ.
Abiding is an important word for John and one that is frequently used in the Fourth Gospel. For John the love
of God means mutual indwelling: God dwelling in us and we in God. A noun form of the verb to abide
occurs in one of the most famous verses in John’s Gospel: In my Father’s house there are many dwellingplaces. The ‘many mansions’ of earlier translations are literally abiding places. The vine image is another
way of talking about abiding places, those places where one is deeply at home. For the Gospel of John, both
the vine and the abiding places are always and in every instance ways of talking about love.
The resurrected life is a life of abiding in the Love-that-Holds-the-Universe-Together – a mutuality of
abiding in which there is a double intimacy: God with us, and we with God.
To abide is one of the two imperatives of the passage. The branches have to abide in the vine because
without the vine, they are fruitless; they can do nothing. Separated from the vine they wither and die.
If the branches do abide and Jesus’ words remain alive in them, then comes the second imperative: those
who abide in me bear much fruit, fruit that will last.
This vocation to fruitfulness is the overwhelming thrust of this passage. The words bear fruit appear six
times in these eight verses, John 15:1-8. Fruit-bearing is not something that the branches can do by mere
force of will. The fruit happens organically because the vine is true and the gardener is good. The vitality
that is the life of the vine and supports the flourishing of the branches is bestowed on them - but the branches
must choose to abide. Abiding is their vocation and fruit-bearing is their responsibility.
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The verb to abide and the phrase bear fruit appear over and over again - eight times in just four verses - and
they will be repeated in the rest of the chapter.
Jesus speaks also about fruitlessness, the result of not abiding, of being closed off to the life-giving energy of
dwelling-in-the-vine. If the branch wants to bear fruit, there is only one way to achieve that productivity, by
abiding, by dwelling-in-the-vine. It is important to keep in mind that branches don’t live off their own fruit.
Their fruit is for others, it is something that is first borne and then given away.
We bear fruit not by squeezing it out of ourselves but because we are extensions of the vine, pruned by the
gardener - God who wants us to be fruitful and to be drawn into the unity of the Father and Son. God’s love,
presence, and pruning are gifts. But the choice of where to make the abiding place of our souls is ours. If we
want to bear Christ’s fruit, then we must choose to abide in Christ, which means to abide in Christ’s love.
That is what it means to live the resurrection now.
Expressing these saving truths In an African Voice will require interpretation in the local contexts in which
we find ourselves. A general all-purpose interpretation will fail, as indeed the presentation of the mystery of
Easter exclusively in Spring-time images does. For each of us it is the context of where we live, the rhythms
of the agricultural seasons of our location, the significance of our local economy, the words and phrases that
express our connection to one another and to the faith that will inform the African Voice and Southern
Identity in which we celebrate the Paschal Mystery.
A C ANTICLE AND A P RAYER
Benedicite Africana : The Song of Creation
The Cosmic Order
O give thanks to our God who is good :
O Love that endures forever.
Rising sun of earth’s days and nights:
in your movement of the seasons
O give thanks to our God who is good :
O Love that endures forever.
All faces of the evening moon, starlit and vacant:
playful through seas and forests,
and the tidal seasons of the month:
O praise and exalt our God who is good :
O Love that endures forever.
The earth and all its creatures,
tabled and peaked mountains,
channelling rivers to the sea:
mysterious in cloud, in mist, in snow:
Give thanks to our God who is good :
O Love that endures forever.
Tall yellowwoods and mighty baobabs,
erica, protea, daisy, and winter lily fields;
wildebeest and buffalo, soaring might of eagle:
meerkat at your watch, hills of termites:
Give thanks to our God who is good :
O Love that endures forever.
Heartbeat of lion, ear of elephant,
whisper of bat and hiss of cobra,
sonar song of whale and rhythm of dolphin,
fin slap of seal and dash of shark
wineland and maizeland,
pear tree and date palm
O praise and exalt our God who is good :
O Love that endures forever.
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The People of God
All faces that people the day and night,
in city, town and countryside
You in the seaside villages,
you in the townships of want and promise
You in the clockwork suburbs
O pilgrims on all the paths of life
O give thanks to our God who is good:
O Love that endures forever.
All saints and martyrs of Africa
O praise and exalt our God who is good:
O Love that endures forever.
William Commin
Priest in the Diocese of Cape Town
A Payer for Africa
O God of mountain peak and rolling veld
whose voice is the lion’s roar
and whose reach is the heron’s swoop:
look with favour on our ancient land,
humanity’s cradle
and yet the long captivity of human dignity;
pour out your blessing on Africa,
that her history may inspire our children,
her bountiful resources feed the nations,
and her spirit of powerful grace
become the dance of reconciliation
from which no one is excluded or forgotten;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and forever.
Amen.
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