APRIL 2021 [email protected] a MESSAGE from CARYS
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Edition 264 “The Church in the Park – Growing in Faith, Hope and Love” APRIL 2021 [email protected] A MESSAGE FROM CARYS One of the stories which has struck me most in the last few days was shared on the BBC website. It was a story of how forensic artists had, using 3D scanners, reconstructed the faces of two people who had been buried in a Scottish graveyard, at any time between the about 1300 and 1650. What’s remarkable about the images (which can be seen at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife- 56523810) was the familiarity of the faces. The middle-aged man, with a slightly jovial lopsided smile, looked like anyone we might meet in the street. The woman, slightly younger perhaps, square jawed and firm featured, also with the look of an ordinary person whom we might meet today, only placed in time by a working woman’ s headdress. Lives lived long ago, and lost long ago, but precious to them and to all who knew them. Time somehow collapses when we are confronted in this way with distant faces, which are nevertheless familiar. And in their fresh presentation of the past, such faces seem to remind us again of the profound significance of human life, made in the image of God. They call us to connect with people who have gone before us, and remind us that theirs were not lives lived in sepia, or in cartoon-like marginalia in ancient manuscripts, but ordinary flesh and blood technicolour, with all the joy and love, rage, loss and pain that lives are still lived today. God’s creatures, like us; beloved like us, and caught up in God’s saving grace, like us. They remind us of the dance between the individual and the universal and give us a glimpse, in the heart of history’s sweep, of pinpricks of humanity. This past year, with its blend of loss and deprivation, of individual stories of being embattled or courageous in the face of international, worldwide devastation, has also been a time when the individual and the universal have tussled for our imagination and sympathy. We have been called to love our neighbour, and ask who our neighbour is; we have seen the ache of individual loss and heard of the overwhelming heartbreak of losses in the thousands and hundreds of thousands. We have known the importance of being vaccinated individually, at the same time recognising the need of entire continents to be made safe, knowing that widespread and individual safety circle around on each other. And we find ourselves now, again, at a moment in the year when we hold together the individual and the universal. We mark and celebrate again the extraordinary story of a single man, to whom we open our lives and by whom we know ourselves to be transformed. And we know too that this individual story is a universal one, and that lives lived here in Kettering are made rich by the same life, lived 2000 years ago, who has enriched individual lives and entire communities ever since - including the lives lived hundreds of years ago in Scotland, brought up in the faith of the Church, who stare out of 3D scanned reconstructions. With Easter, we are called again to this dance between the particular and the universal. We are called to know ourselves beloved, precious and eternally held by God, and to know whole communities, nations and peoples equally precious. We are called to remember Jesus, the one who lived, died and rose again, for those amongst whom he lived, for each of us, and for the millions who have lived since then. We are called to remember Christ who shapes all our lives, whom we meet in each other, and who stares out of the eyes even of faces brought vividly to life from a Scottish graveyard from hundreds of years ago. Carys. The Christian Chronicle Maid of Orléans – Rouen’d Every now and again, a single person or event makes a profound impact on history. I’ve only moved forward to 1431 because there’s been one such person who’s captured the attention of much of Europe. As ever, there’s a back story which needs telling; for context, I’ll start there as the background’s good, but the main tale is truly captivating. Just as there’s been fallings out within the church, there’s also been animosity among the secular powers. Everyone’s after more power. There’s been tension between England and France since William invaded England in 1066. The English relationship with the Scots is no better, and since the Scots won a significant victory over the English at Bannockburn in 1314 the English kings have sought to extend their Kingdom elsewhere. The French and Scots are allies, often uniting against a common enemy. France, 1328, and Charles IV died without a direct male heir. Isabella, his sister, and mother to English King Edward III, tried to claim the throne for Edward, but the French nobility rejected this. England controlled Gascony in southwest France but otherwise had no foothold and the French crown passed to nearest male relative, Philip, Count of Valois. In 1337 Philip tried to regain Gascony and so commenced a war that’s been going on, with just a few short breaks, ever since – it’ll soon be a one-hundred-year war! In short, the English gained some victories, then, mid-14th Century, the ‘The Black Death’ plague hit both countries hard; France suffered most – half their population died! England recovered better from the following economic crisis but changes in leadership on both sides saw fortunes swing both ways; then domestic unrest and limited finances combined to result in a period of relative peace that lasted from 1389 to 1415. In France Charles VI became suddenly mentally unwell in 1392 resulting in bitter conflict between factions competing for the role of Regent. On one hand there was the Duchy of Burgundy, on the other the Duchy of Orléans that was also supported by the influential Armagnac family. The matter descended into something only just short of outright civil war. 1413 saw a numeric change of English King, as Henry V succeeded his father Henry IV. He attempted to take France via political allegiance and marriage to Catherine of Valois (Charles VI’s youngest daughter), but this was rejected, so he set about seeking the goal by force. Henry invaded France and secured a crushing victory at the Battle of Agincourt. Over the next 5 years Henry captured most of northern France and, after meeting Charles VI, secured the Treaty of Troyes. Many suggested Charles was not fit to sign the Treaty and, indeed, it was the Queen (Isabeau) who signed on his behalf. Henry finally got to marry Catherine and it was declared that the throne of France would pass to him on Charles’ death as Charles also disinherited his own son, also Charles. This was his 5th son but given the first 4 had all died by this point, the 17-year-old Charles was left as ‘Dauphin’, the title given to the French heir apparent. Forces remaining loyal to the Dauphin were concentrated on the eastern sector of the country. Whilst they secured victory at the Battle of Baugé, near Anger, in 1421, it was but a minor hiccough in the progression of English dominance. After a significant siege, Henry captured Meaux, a Dauphin stronghold, in 1422, but then Henry died whilst still in France, never gaining the French throne; Charles VI died just 2 months’ later. A change, therefore, on both thrones: the English successor, Henry’s son, also Henry, was less than 1 year old when his father died. Charles’ death, and the Treaty of Troyes, meant he also inherited the French throne. Henry V had arranged for his brothers to be Regents: Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, as Lord Protector of England and John, Duke of Bedford, to be Regent of France. Bedford continued his brother’s military progress, and by the latter part of the decade the Dauphin, was all but defeated. Time to rewind a few years. In 1412 (or there abouts - no-one’s really sure), a girl named Jeanne was born to farmer Jacques D’Arc and his wife Isabelle in the town of Domrémy in north eastern France. Whilst Jacques owned a 50-acre farm and was a local official, he’d no formal standing and Jeanne’s early childhood was unremarkable and without education. In 1425, aged just 13, she reported seeing visions whilst in the garden; saints who told her to drive out the English and take the Dauphin to Reims to be consecrated as King. These particular Saints are quite significant: St Michael (the Angel), leader of God’s armies against Satan in the Book of Revelation; St Catherine (of Alexandria), a Princess Saint martyred as a virgin in the early 4th century who converted many to Christianity; and St Margaret (of Antioch), also martyred in the early 4th century, as a teenage virgin and associated strongly with indulgences (something I’ll deal with at a later date). Both Catherine and Margaret are from the ‘14 Holy Helpers’, a particular group of Saints identified by the Catholic church. At 16 she persuaded a relative to escort her to the garrison at Vaucouleurs where she petitioned the Commander to take her to the Royal Court. Initially the Commander turned her away, but a few months later she was back having persuaded two of the Commander’s soldiers to support her.