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DARKNESS TO LIGHT

Canon Edward Probert, Chancellor (Saturday 1st December 2007)

December is the most distinctive month of the year. It is the darkest; and an enormous amount of energy is put into celebration. Notionally the big occasions come at the end of the month, on the 25th and the 31st – 1st, but our society manages to make the celebratory note begin long before then. Staff and departmental parties and lunches get under way early in December, and Christmas decorations and carols are practically passé by the day. It is a month like no other. Much the same can be said so far as the cathedral is concerned. The vast and distinctive services of Advent and Christmas bracket the month, and, although it is a month of two seasons in the Church, neither is remotely like the rest of the year. We mark this upsetting of the normal order with our Boy Bishop ceremony, dethroning the bishop in order to attend to the message of a choirboy. So what we enjoy in December is its contrast with normality. I guess that psychologically much of the energy which is put into the month is to distract from and to mitigate the unwelcome reality of gathering gloom and cold. That motivation is entirely understandable and it can provide a real boost, spiritually and emotionally, to know that the darkness has been beaten back. Many of course would not use the word ‘enjoy’, because they find the tone of celebration artificial, or are lonely, or are too affected by the gloom to shake it off. These will be the people who are marginalised this month, and they are people for whom the Church needs to have special care. Hard work as it is for those who are putting on services, most of us enjoy what might be called the easy hit of worship which fills churches and the bonhomie and well-wishing that fill the month. But these things are essentially human constructs, and can be distractions from reality. What makes the Church’s involvement in this month worth while is beneath the celebrations: it is the focus on God, on his coming, on his unavoidability, on his changing the world and changing us. We can know these things whatever our mood, whatever the weather. I wish you the compliments of the season(s)!

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