A fitting overture to Holy Week

Holy Week, but not everywhere. After reading that the diocese of Birmingham wanted to hire staff to help with deconstructing whiteness, only one conclusion is possible. Large parts of the C of E have become a theological and liturgical wilderness. The Devil is in charge and it is unholy week, 52 weeks a year.

Anglican friends assure me that this is overdoing the pessimism. There are sound clerics – even the occasional sound bishop – and in some areas, traditions survive. Certainly Sherborne Abbey has just put on a superb Palm Sunday, and the procession included a donkey, the sweetest-natured of animals and a perpetual outlet for sentimentality. It is a delight to tell small children that the donkey’s cruciform markings are a reward for faithful service to Our Redeemer, on His fateful journey to Jerusalem, sacrifice, and Eternal triumph.

Apropos donkeys, one has to be careful with slightly older children. I remember once in Italy discussing the ingredients of a proper old-fashioned bollito misto, which should include a large hunk of donkey. I imagine that a young beast would be preferable. Eeyore would be too tough: only suitable for saucisson. Anyway, we were overheard: sunt lacrimae rerum.

That could also apply to the Church of England, despite Sherborne. It is easy to feel that it and similar pockets of light resemble the Irish monasteries on their embattled islands in the Dark Ages, under constant threat from the Norsemen, but determined to keep Christianity alive. Today the threat comes not from the Vikings’ battle axes, but from the battle axes of wokery. They may be harder to defeat.

Semana Santa also makes one think of Seville, where it ends with the first bullfight of the season. Such a fusion of piety and paganism: what a magnificent expression of the Spanish character.

To some of my friends, Holy Week also leads to the end of Lent.