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Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster
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Some of the students seemed to think that this was going to be about my misdemeanours throughout my life and especially when I was a student here, and though it is true that there were events, Climbing Queen Victoria to put flowers in her hand and jumping into parked cars on Church Street and joy-riding them down, and putting my hand through my girl-friend's window, such things have not happened since I came here. But from the 70s I must pay tribute to Brian Noble, Chaplain at the time, who had a great influence on me, and was the person to whom 13 years later I wrote when I was thinking of becoming a priest.
My first confession is that I will undoubtedly miss things out which other chaplains would like to include, but I hope they will forgive me for that. So I am speaking for myself and not for the Chaplaincy as a whole. I will also use rather Catholic language coming form that angle, and I am sure it might not be clear when I use the word 'Church' to what I am referring exactly each time, but please forgive this in a short talk.
A good preparation for Confession is how one stands with God, with others and with oneself. As for the last I will include that throughout the talk, and as for God, I will come back to God, I hope that does not sound too casual.
So Chaplaincy and others: and this I am going to divide up into relationships inside the Chaplaincy and those with the University as a whole.
To start with those within Chaplaincy: I arrived at Chaplaincy with moderate or little experience of 'ecumenical' ventures, not unusual for a Catholic and perhaps for many Christians. I was a student here so I knew something of the ecumenical nature of the Chaplaincy, built as Marian said specifically for this. And I knew that over the years the Christian bodies housed within the Chaplaincy had tried to express their desire for unity in a variety of ways, most obviously liturgically, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. (I remember early days of joint communion services when people deliberately and defiantly went to the other minister for communion rather than their own as an act of rebellion. We thought they were very exciting days. We are not so rebellious today. Possibly a bit wiser and maybe sadder.)But we also express our ecumenism more widely simply how we live together. And here I think we succeed very well. The chaplains work together well as a group and that is a great blessing. Just as it is an important sign to the wider community, I believe.
Our problem is that in many ways we are a counter-voice to many in our own churches today, and sometimes the younger members, who can be more conservative and more happy with division than before: e.g. Tridentate Catholics and some more evangelical members of other churches. Therefore how we celebrate here can both attract and deter students who are already practising.
I would not wish to be too negative about this as I have seen people who would never have considered worshipping with other Christians find a new world being opened to them.
A Protestant woman from N. Ireland finding herself in the Catholic flat singing "She's coming round the mountain" with a nun (Sr. Ella of course) for the first time in her life. And who went on from there to have catholic friends. And how others have come to worship in a wider way in being part of the community.
At the same time I am also aware that I am the catholic chaplain and therefore here both for all students and staff, but also as a specific reference for Catholics should they want one. That is what the Bishop would see as my first role.
Therefore it is part of my role to present the Catholic Church's position, to make it available, to anyone who may ask as well as to provide the liturgical life required- along with Jim and Ella.
This is a point of tension and growth:
What is appropriate in common and shared life and worship?
What needs to be asserted as Catholic? and for many what needs to be seen to be Catholic? When you have a congregation that may not understand all the theological distinctions for all sorts of reasons, perhaps it is their first encounter with a Christian that is not Catholic.
How much of the separateness needs to be underlined? The distinctiveness of the tradition?
Steve or Kev may ask, can we concelebrate together? How do you resolve this? Where is the line? Is there a line?
These are questions I reflect upon all the time. We were built as a ground-breaking ecumenical centre as Marian said last week. In what way can we continue to be true to that tradition? I met an Anglo-Catholic bishop in the summer and spoke to him about this and the liturgy. He felt that liturgically it was less important and that ecumenism was 'done' by the people in the way in which they worked together. This is true to some extent, but for a Catholic the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith and therefore the Mass the sacraments are central to any endeavour. This needs to be prayed and thought through.
Realistically we are not fully united (I make no reference to the recent news from the Vatican and certain Anglicans)
Yet we can all grow I think from the debate both as Chaplains and students and staff.
All this applies too to the general life of the Chaplaincy.
1) We meet every week to discuss and plan
2) We also have our own denominational planning too, and this can be confusing (perhaps more than it needs to be.)
3) Societies such as Speak, Christian Fellowship, Cath Soc, are open to all meet at similar times or the same time even, offering different things.
4) There is a richness as well as possible areas for collision and misunderstanding in all of this.
Though we often fail to value what we have already achieved.
Coming back to myself for a moment.
I think the Chaplain has to be the person that they are. Seems obvious but it is no good me attempting to be a Latin Mass Society priest, or the radical liberal who saw distinctions as meaningless, it would not work for me. And I may sometimes see Chaplains and think, I wish I was like that guy, but again it does not work.
As someone brought up a Catholic then drifting away for a time (when I was working as a lawyer, any link?), then working as a social worker for the Church of England and going to their 1662 service in St. Martin-in-the-Fields sometimes, and then at 35 ending up in Rome at seminary and rediscovering parts of the Church, benediction, rosary, angels, etc, that I thought had died out years ago and yet coming to appreciate them, and then finding myself here.
I would say that my life here is part of my journey, exploring how I am called to live my faith, and so I have to approach the questions raised here as someone who is on a journey of exploration rather than someone who feels firmly fixed/set in one particular religious mode of being (except for the fact, and this is very important to me, that for all its faults I have a great love for my Church and so far find it best helps me discover Jesus and what he wants of me.)
Being on a journey is a weakness in some ways when people are looking to a Chaplain for certainty. For a black and white answer to questions, and I often find that I am unable to give them, but hope that realising that we are in the grey fog of life together will help us find what God wants of us at that time.
Let me turn to the Chaplaincy in the wider University. (This deserves more than the space I can give here.)
I was at a meeting a while ago when a senior academic objected to the door of the University being turned to face the Chaplaincy. As a secular University he felt this was inappropriate and that it gave the wrong impression.
Marian spoke of the Chaplaincy as originally facing the only two colleges. Now we find ourselves on the north-west edge of the University, perhaps 20 minutes walk from Cartmel, on the edge of University life. And to that extent we are.
So how are we part of it?
1) From our part, prayer both on worship and regular prayer
2) Outreach: supporting students, events in the square, tea and toast at 3.00 am in the morning, and those who come to see us.
3) Being members of colleges and university committees, which is a very positive experience. Though there is a danger here of becoming too involved, sucked into, less positive aspects of office life, the gossip etc. One wonders at times whether one is really bringing something else to the college.
4) Most challenging is probably with staff. How to be part of staff life and what to offer. This I think needs a lot of work.
There are relationships with other faiths. I have spoken about ecumenism, but less of the inter-faith aspect. We do work hard at this but perhaps periodically. I am not sure it is part of our daily life yet, and we seem to get thwarted in various ways, but generally it is positive.
Then there are challenges closer to home. Those relationships with other Christians who are generally beyond the Chaplaincy. If they do not believe you are a Christian, or attack members of your college because of their sexuality, then it is harder to find points of contact or even raise the will to do so.
I have decided I think that discretion and prayer are best at the moment. (Perhaps it should be the other way round.)
I said I would come back to God.
A speaker told us last weekend that God is not a Catholic. I shared this with the congregation on Sunday and some laughed and some did not. Deep down I think Catholics believe he, or she, is, and is in heaven saying the Rosary.
Apparently a Sufi Imam was asked how God would distinguish people when they arrived at heaven if he had no preferences here on earth. By their laughter was the Sufi"s reply, as everyone laughs differently. So the key to heaven is to keep laughing. I hope that a Chaplain should be able to help people keep laughing.
To see that in a world of growing stress and problems that give us less and less time to ourselves and families, that there is another way of seeing the world, as God sees it.
A life of grace, of God"s love, that runs through us all and all creation, and yet is so often masked by the mess.
My confession would be for the times I fail to help people sense and touch that joyful life of grace.
Confessions of a Chaplain
Fr Hugh Pollock