Kevin's Sabbatical: Canterbury Tales SUNDAY, JULY 25

I was a little hamstrung this morning by both lack of internet access and the fact that all the local Underground lines were shut down for construction. So I wanted to go to church at All Souls Langham Place (the church that John Stott was rector of for many years, sort of the Park Street Church of London—or First Pres. Berkeley or University Pres. Seattle for you West Coasters) but getting directions around the subway shutdown without internet took too long. Ironically, when I finally figured it out it was fairly simple, as I was not too far away—but I didn't know it until too late. So instead I put on my Chaucer imitation and headed to Canterbury for Evensong. I arrived a little late (with the Underground out it took an hour-and-a-half to get to the train station, and then more than an hour on the train) so I could not sit in the choir, but even in the nave the music was incredible.
I realize I need to explain a bit about Medieval church architecture here. Cathedrals and other large churches were always based on the shape of a cross, with long piece running east-west, and the high altar at the east end (toward Jerusalem, the sunrise, etc). The two side arms, called 'transcepts' were often separate chapels, and there were also other chapels opening off the long axis dedicated to either saints or donors or local ruling families. At some point on the long axis there would be a barrier or screen, usually a highly ornamented and sculptured wall about 10 feet high. This blocked access and sight to the altar and under the Medieval form of Catholicism only priests, deacons, acolytes, and choir were allowed past. The part of the cathedral corresponding to the top part of a cross was usually divided into the 'choir' and the 'sanctuary', the choir was originally the stall or seats for clergy, but since that included singers, the name became associated with them as well. The part of the building where ordinary people could come, usually part or all of the lower piece of the cross, was called the 'nave'.

In many Protestant traditions the screens have been torn down, so there is no barrier between the congregation and altar. Some remove the altar, using only a Communion table, but will put up a railing symbolizing the fact that Communion is not open to everyone, but just to baptized believers. In Anglican cathedrals like Canterbury the screen is still there, but ordinary worshippers are permitted past it—and in these days of low attendance often the whole congregation can fit on the east side of the screen. In the case of this service, though, you could not pass if you were late because you would have to go down the middle of the service.
The thing about cathedrals, though, is they generally have amazing acoustics, and the screen does not block the sound—so although I could not see what was happening, I could listen to the glorious music, from organ, choir, and congregation. After the service I took some video of the cathedral, walking up and through the screen, then set it to a few seconds of the choir and the organ at the beginning of a hymn:

   After the service I wondered around the cathedral and grounds. Especially eye-opening are all the decorated graves and shrines to kings and former archbishops. Regretfully, the most famous of these is long gone, destroyed by Henry VIII when he pulled the Church of England out of the Roman Catholic Church. It was the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, which the pilgrims of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were making their pilgrimage to.

   This is a story I've been fascinated with since reading (it was an assignment) Jean Anouilh's play Becket as a high school student and young Christian. Becket is the man who will do anything for his king (Henry II), whether it is partying with him, chasing women, or helping him defy the demands of the church. In the play Becket tells a sleeping Henry that he can do this because he has no honor, or at least has not found it. The first act concludes with him asking the question "Where is Becket's honor?"
   Then Henry gets a chance to nominate the Archbishop of Canterbury. He thinks it a stroke of genius to choose his friend (even though he is not even a priest), since that should end all his problems with the church. Becket tries to talk him out of it, but Henry persists, only to be confounded when Becket leads the church into even stronger opposition. He asks his old friend why and how this could be:

Becket: It's simply that I felt myself entrusted with something for the first time, in that empty cathedral somewhere in France, where you ordered me to take up this burden. I was a man without honor. And suddenly I had one: the one that I would never have imagined could become mine—the honor of God. An incomprehensible and fragile honor, like a persecuted child king...
Henry: Have you begun to love God?
Becket: (Pauses, then gently) I've begun to love the honor of God.

   It is a fascinating story, and the play was made into a pretty good movie (rent it!) as well. (TS Elliot wrote another play from this called Murder in the Cathedral that looks at the faith issues more closely) But Anoulh raises a big question—whose honor do I care about? Is honor a concept we no longer worry about at all?
   Anyway, Henry II utters his famous line in front of some of his knights: "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and four of them travel to Canterbury and kill Thomas as he is praying on the steps of the altar. As a consequence of this martyrdom the pope makes Becket a saint and Henry II is forced to undergo penance (he is whipped!) at the shrine, which became one of the main destinations for pilgrims all over Europe. Upon pulling the English Church away from Rome Henry VIII took revenge for his ancestor's humiliation and destroyed the shrine and even the bones.