Rhythm

Fr Hunwicke has some thoughts on the renaming of today's Feast from the Purification of the BVM to the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple.

From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment

No, I don't have any problem about renaming the "Purification of the BVM" the "Presentation of the Lord"; because that is what it is. But I do feel a little uneasy ... without having any cut-and-dried solutions to offer ... about some of the cultural trends behind the change in name.

To talk of "Purification", whether of our Lady or of Women after Childbed ("Churching"), would, undeniably, carry with it in our culture a sense that either the person or the process was Dirty. And most certainly neither is. So there is no doubt that the old language would impose upon us the burden of difficult explanations to a world instinctively disinclined to listen to explanations about anything from Christians. So perhaps we are best without such language. But ...

I take it that what lies behind such traditional language, and also behind the provisions of the Torah about menstrual women, is, deep down, a wholesome human instinct for rhythm, for one time not being identical with another time, which has existed in most human cultures. The woman "purifying" herself from her period, or from childbirth, is not submitting to cultic rituals implying that she is sinful or dirty or unfit for decent society. She is ritually emerging from a period of seclusion. I have heard Orthodox Jewish women referring to menstrual seclusion as safeguarding and enhancing the respect in which they are held as women.

In our society you are likely to switch on your television and see an advert for a product which, if you are a woman, will enable you to go into the circus and do acrobatics on the high trapeze any and every day of the month. Well ... I know that we have all made fun of feminist dafties who are said to devise quaint and messy rituals to honour menstrual blood. But is it really wrong to institutionalise in a society any respect for the mysteries of life and for the role which Woman, the Sacerdos Vitae, enacts within those mysteries? There is an enormous logical disjunction when our culture strips woman, as far as it can, of the the physical distinctions resulting from her procreative role ... and men still want to sleep with her.

Only Religions retain a sense of rhythm; of Fast and Feast; of recurrent cycles. And even Latin and Protestant Christianity have more or less dumped all that by giving up the notion of fasting. I think many clergy (who do to some degree live the liturgical calendar by saying the Office) would be fairly staggered if they found out how little their laypeople - even the more regular members of their congregations - were aware of the passing of the Church's seasons. If we imagine they really say to themselves "Aha! White vestments! Goodie!! I wonder what festival we are so joyfully keeping today?", we are living in a fools' paradise. And, Fathers, what are your memories of negotiating with a couple who want to book their wedding for Holy Saturday?

In the world, you can eat out-of-season food any day of the year ... I know because, I shamefully admit, the other day I had some rather good Moroccan raspberries. That culture has invaded the Church. So, of course, there can be no such thing as an out-of-season woman. Raspberries ... sex ... modern Western Man (and Woman) cries: "I want it now!".