Installation as Lenten Supplication and Commitment

Lent might not seem the ideal liturgical season for such a celebratory occasion as an installation, yet in another sense it is very fitting. Jests aside, upon such matters as whether the reception that followed last Friday’s service could appropriately feature much beyond sardine sandwiches, there is a significant theological continuity. 

At its heart, the ceremonial of installation, led in this instance by Bishop Whitworth, is about far more than a new ministry, or merely marking another chapter in a career. There are indeed elements in the Installation Rite of approbation, presentation, recognition and mutual commitment, but the deepest layers speak to vocation and dedication before God. The commitment I then made in prayer, kneeling in the midst of congregation, is one that I shall seek to hold ever before me as Rector:

“To thee and to thy service I devote myself, body, soul, and spirit, and with all their powers and faculties. Fill my memory with the words of thy Law; enlighten my understanding with the illumination of the Holy Ghost; and may all the wishes and desires of my will centre in what thou hast commanded. And, to make me instrumental in promoting the salvation of thy people….”

Yet there was powerfully expressed in the service a mutual commitment of all involved to follow the way of Christ, with a promise of mutual support and submission to what doing that authentically requires of us in working together as a congregation and parish. 

This is entirely in accord with what we should all be attempting to meditate upon and embrace through the course of Lent: ever greater alignment with what God wills for each of us is something we should each seek ever more fully to realise. Fr Ian McCormack’s Lenten presentations will also aid us along this path (each Sunday in the Entr’acte at 10.15 am and on Wednesday evenings at 6.30 pm (next week and the following Wednesday)).

Our recent Colloquium upon the theme of pilgrimage was highly appropriate preparation also – and one of the towering figures of Western literature figured prominently in the presentations, namely Dante. In a book written before the Divine Comedy called the Convivio, Dante described with remarkable concisionion the journey in faith that we are each called to make in the course of our lives:

…I say, that not only in gaining of knowledge and wealth, but in any acquisition whatsoever, human desire extends itself, in one way and another. And the reason is this: the deepest desire of each thing, arising from its very nature, is to return to its principle. And because God is the principle of our soul, and has made it like himself (as it is written, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness’), the soul mightily desires to turn to him.

….in human life there are divers roads, of which one is the most true, another most false, and others more or less true or false. And just as we see that the straightest road goes to the city, fulfils our longing, and gives rest from toil, and that the road which goes the opposite way never achieves that end; so it is in our life, that the good wayfarer (lo bono camminatore) reaches the goal and has rest, while he who goes astray never reaches it, but with great agony of soul ever gazes onward with greedy eyes.

Dante Convivio, IV, 12 tr. R.D. Crouse

The Rev. Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff
Rector