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A tale of two Advents

The Advent Ring hanging from the ceiling of St. Clement's Church © Ricky Yates — The Advent Ring hanging from the ceiling of St. Clement’s Church © Ricky Yates

Last Sunday, 30^th November, was Advent Sunday which marks both the beginning of the Church Liturgical Year and of the season of Advent. Contrary to what the manufacturers of Advent calendars all believe, Advent only occasionally begins on 1st December. Instead it begins four Sundays before Christmas Day.

The word ‘advent’ means ‘coming’, from the Latin ‘adventus‘. And particularly at the beginning of the Advent season, we are encouraged to think seriously about the promised second coming of Christ – his second Advent, as in turn we prepare ourselves to once more celebrate his first coming at Christmas.

The tradition of having an Advent ring/wreath/crown, with four candles, an additional one to be lit on successive Sundays during Advent, is very popular here in the Czech Republic. Whilst our host Ceskobratrská církve evangelické / Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren congregation, are not great keepers of the Liturgical Year – for example, they do not mark Ash Wednesday – they do mark and keep the Advent season. As part of doing so, each year they provide this amazing Advent ring which hangs from the Church ceiling, just behind the altar. I took this photograph at the end of our Advent Sunday worship last Sunday morning, just before snuffing out the first lit candle, as part of our duty of leaving the Church building safe and secure!

I thoroughly enjoyed our Advent Sunday worship with the regular congregation being joined by numerous visitors from around the world. Our service began with the singing of, ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’, and ended with a rousing rendition of Charles Wesley’s ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’. But as well as celebrating Christ’s promised ‘second Advent’, I was very conscious that just a couple of days later, I would experience a personal ‘second advent’ – that of my wife, Sybille, returning to Prague from her nearly six-month walking pilgrimage, from Prague to Santiago de Compostela.

Having left from the front door of the Chaplaincy Flat on Monday 9^th June, Sybille successfully walked into Santiago on the morning of Sunday 23^rd November. After her arrival, she spent a few days enjoying the city and also visited a friend in Lugo. With no direct flights available to Prague, she instead flew to Barcelona and spent the Advent Sunday weekend staying with another friend there, before being booked to fly to Prague on Tuesday 2^nd December.

Over the few days before Sybille was due to return to Prague, it was cold but dry. However, soon after dark on the evening of Monday 1^st December, it started to rain. But because the air and the ground were so cold, the rain almost immediately froze, forming ice everywhere. Prague, together with much of the rest of the Czech Republic, experienced what has been described as an ‘ice storm’. Ice forming in large amounts on the overhead wires, caused the whole of the Prague tram network to close down along with much of the Czech railway system.

The 'Carly' on Tuesday 2nd December © Ricky Yates — The ‘Carly’ on Tuesday 2nd December © Ricky Yates

Eventually, the rain did turn to snow and this was how my car looked the following morning, in advance of driving out to the airport to meet Sybille. But underneath what appears to be just a light dusting of snow, was a thick layer of ice covering the windscreen and all the other car windows. It took a major scraping exercise to get the car into a condition to be driven safely with good visibility all round!

Therefore, having been sitting alongside the sea, sipping a glass of wine the previous afternoon, it came as quite a shock for Sybille as she flew from a temperature of +16C in Barcelona, to one of -2C in Prague. She did humorously request that I put her straight on a plane back to Spain, when she saw the snow and felt the icy cold.

Fortunately, the weather and temperature has improved from the atrocious conditions of Monday night and Tuesday. I’ve taken the inside of this week as annual leave and we’ve begun to adjust to once more being together in the same flat, for the first time in nearly six months.

‘Cleanliness is next to godliness’

My clean study bookshelves © Ricky Yates

According to the ‘Oxford Dictionary of Quotations’, this proverb dates from the late eighteenth century. Apparently, an early example of its usage is found in one of the sermons of John Wesley published in 1788. Whether I’m godly I’ll leave others to judge, but after one last, major effort over the past few days, the Chaplaincy Flat is now in a state of cleanliness that it hasn’t known in the more than six years Sybille and I have lived in it.

As I explained as part of my answer to question three in this post from mid-July, whilst Sybille is away on her long distance walking pilgrimage from Prague to Santiago de Compostela, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to completely clean every part of the Chaplaincy Flat. As I also explained, the task was both prompted and aided by Sybille completely sorting out all her papers and belongings which were previously scattered on and under her desk.

After a bit of a lull in cleaning activity during September, as I wrote in the opening lines of my previous post, in October I tackled the kitchen. Whilst our kitchen might be small – realistically it would be better described as a kitchenette 😉 – getting everything contained within it clean, was no small task!

With the kitchen complete, this meant that only my study remained to experience my cleaning blitz. But it was the room that I was least looking forward to tackling, which is why inevitably, I left it until last. My study does tend to be the room where things that don’t have a proper home, get dumped. For example, there is a box of papers which my predecessor was going to take to the Diocesan Record Office in London, but didn’t quite get around to doing so 🙁 There are also two more boxes of papers and photographs which are mine, waiting as they have been for over six years, for me to go through and sort them out!

Eventually I decided that the best way to proceed was to start on one side of the study entrance door, and work my way slowly round the four sides of the room. Therefore, the ‘business end’ came first, where my desk, computer, printer/scanner/photocopier, phone, wifi router, paper shredder and two lamps, are all located. My greatest fear, as I pulled furniture away from the wall to remove the large amount of cobwebs and dust lying behind, was that I would accidentally disconnect some of the various wires, plugs and adaptors that make everything work. Fortunately, I avoided any mishaps and things probably work far better now they are no longer covered in dust 🙂

Then it was the aforementioned boxes, piled on a trunk of my belongings, under the windowsill. The contents still are not sorted but at least they are no longer covered in dust.

The remaining walls of my study are all lined with bookshelves – all of the genuine IKEA variety 🙂 They were put together and erected for my predecessor as Chaplain, when he and his wife moved into the flat after it was purchased by the Chaplaincy in January 2006, almost nine years ago. We are most grateful to have all these bookshelves as, despite massively downsizing before moving to Prague, both Sybille and I have great difficulty in parting with books and are experts at buying or collecting additional ones 🙂

However, apart from giving the bookshelves a quick wipe before stacking our respective libraries on them, I have to confess that they haven’t received much attention with regard to cleaning since, save an occasional cursory wipe with the duster along the most exposed parts at the front. Therefore you can probably imagine the amount of dust that arose as I completely emptied each shelf of its contents.

As part of this exercise, I made two other ‘interesting’ discoveries. The first was that, whilst the bookshelves line the walls of my office, they are not actually attached to the walls. Therefore, having emptied each unit of all the books contained on them, I was able to move each unit away from the wall to reveal dust, cobwebs and dead insects which had been taking up residence over the past nearly nine years! The second, was that the back board of each unit had either detached itself or was coming detached from the unit. So as well as cleaning, I also spent time firmly nailing each back board, back into place.

This whole exercise of cleaning my study, has been tiring and quite time-consuming. But upon completion, I have been left with a real sense of satisfaction. And having had a run around today with the vacuum cleaner and the duster, through most of the other previously, thoroughly cleaned rooms, I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve in advance of Sybille’s return home this coming Tuesday. The only danger is that I’m becoming a little obsessional, promptly wiping any dirty mark I see and picking up every speck of dirt off the floor 🙂

Whilst cleaning the boxes, whose contents await me ‘sorting them out’, I did make a most pleasing discovery – this delightful photograph of Sybille taken on our honeymoon in France just over nine years ago.

A visit to Coventry Cathedral

The foundation stone of Coventry Cathedral © Ricky Yates

My apologies for not publishing anything new here for just over three weeks. There are two main reasons for this.

The first is that I’ve been continuing my promised ‘Summer clean’, now ‘Autumn clean’, of the Chaplaincy Flat – see my answer to question three in this earlier post. The latest place to receive my attention has been the kitchen. Every cupboard has been emptied, shelves and door-fronts cleaned, crockery and glassware which hasn’t been used for a long time, has been put through the dishwasher, and numerous foodstuffs well past their ‘use-by dates’, have been quietly disposed of. And then there was the cooker hood, the oven……

The second reason is that I spent the week from Tuesday 28^th October – Monday 3^rd November, in the UK, visiting my new grandson and his parents, and slightly belatedly celebrating my son Phillip’s thirtieth birthday. Whilst in the UK, I also re-visited the city where I was born and spent the first eighteen years of my life – Coventry, and in particular, Coventry Cathedral.

The laying of the foundation stone of the new Coventry Cathedral by HM Queen Elizabeth the Second on 23^rd March 1956, is the earliest memory that I have. For as well as laying the foundation stone that day, the Queen, along with the Duke of Edinburgh, also visited the Jaguar Car factory in Browns Lane, the street where I lived until I was ten. Thus, the royal motorcade drove past our house twice – first on its way to the factory and then the later return journey. At the time, I was just four years old and didn’t recognise the Queen on the first occasion she passed by, as I was looking for a lady with a crown on her head 🙂

Czechoslovak carved wooden crucifix © Ricky Yates

Sadly, since I last visited nearly ten years ago, an entrance charge of £6.00, (recently reduced from £8.00), has been introduced for the new Cathedral, unless someone just wishes to pray or attend a service. The friendly lady on the reception desk kindly asked me if I had come to visit or to pray, to which I replied, “Both!” When I further explained, aided by my business card, that I was the Anglican Chaplain in Prague, originally a native of Coventry and that I had contributed six old pence towards one of the nave windows, her response was, “Well I’d better then let you in for free!”

I was very pleased to discover within the new Cathedral, a Czech connection of which I was previously totally unaware – this carved wooden crucifix. The adjacent notice in the photograph below, explains about the artist who created it and gave it to the Cathedral.

Explanation of the Czech Cross © Ricky Yates

Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane © Ricky Yates

Other parts of the Cathedral were just as I remember them. One that I find particularly moving is the small side chapel of Christ in Gethsemane. The mosaic illustrates the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Take this cup of suffering from me”. Yet the chapel is screened by an iron grill in the shape of a crown of thorns, a reminder that Jesus was obedient to his Father’s will.

However, much as I like the new Cathedral, it is the ruins of the original mediaeval Cathedral – what remains following its destruction by Hitler’s incendiary bombs on the night of 14^th November 1940, that speak most powerfully to me.

'Father Forgive' © Ricky Yates — ‘Father Forgive’ © Ricky Yates

As I explained in a post in May 2012 when I appeared on Czech TV to speak about the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration of the new Cathedral, not long after the bombing raid that destroyed so much of the mediaeval Cathedral, the Provost made a cross from two of the charred roof beams and erected it behind the altar and had the words. ‘Father forgive’ carved on the east wall of the old sanctuary.

For me, this is such a powerful symbol of the Christian message of reconciliation. Reconciliation between God and humankind – but also, reconciliation between nations and peoples who have previously been at war with each other. Therefore, I end this post with the words of the Coventry Cathedral Litany of Reconciliation.

‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,

Father Forgive.

The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own,

Father Forgive.

The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,

Father Forgive.

Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,

Father Forgive.

Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee,

Father Forgive.

The lust which dishonours the bodies of men, women and children,

Father Forgive.

The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God,

Father Forgive.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you’.

The ruins of the original mediaeval Coventry Cathedral © Ricky Yates

Another insight into Czech life and culture

The rocks and forests of the Czech countryside © Ricky Yates

Yesterday, I officiated at the burial of ashes of two people, a husband and wife, into the family grave. Whilst this is something I would quite regularly do when Rector of a group of North Oxfordshire villages, this was the first time of doing so in just over six years of ministry here in the Czech Republic. I have also only conducted four funerals during that time, a reflection of the predominantly young age of the English-speaking expatriate population resident here.

However, although I conducted yesterday’s graveside service in English, it was very much a Czech occasion and was an illustration of several aspects of Czech life and culture. And because I want to protect the privacy of the family, I hope readers will forgive me for not referring to people or exact locations by name.

The existing family grave is located in the massive Olšanské Cemetery that lies in the Prague suburb of Žižkov. Whilst the cemetery is well-maintained by the local authority, like so much of Czech officialdom, it is not managed to encourage the practice of religious faith. Two things illustrated this.

The first was the attitude of the two cemetery staff who were present when we arrived at the grave. Whilst the grave had been opened and the appropriate hole dug, in true Czech bureaucratic style, the only thing that mattered to them was thoroughly checking the paperwork brought by the next of kin, the son of the deceased. Once they were convinced that the paperwork was in order, they just left us to it with a, ‘we’ll be back later to fill in’.

The second was the complete lack of provision for me. There was no chapel or vestry where I could robe & leave my belongings securely. Instead, aided by the eldest grandson of the deceased, who kindly held various things for me, I robed standing alongside a bench adjacent to a path running behind the family grave.

I have previously written about the Czech love of flowers which helps to keep innumerable flower shops and stalls in business. This love was very clearly in evidence with every family member arriving with a bunch of fresh flowers to lay on the grave. And I mean everybody, right down to the six great-grandchildren of the deceased.

However, it was what followed the graveside service which struck me as being so much part of Czech culture. The service was at 11.00 in the morning, so afterwards, everyone who attended was invited back to lunch. But lunch was not at the family flat in Mala Strana where I’d met the next of kin the previous day. Nor was it at a restaurant, not so far from the cemetery. No – we were all transported over thirty kilometres out of Prague into the Bohemian countryside, to a large three storey house – the family chalupa.

The house was built in the early 1930s, in a time that is now always referred to as ‘the First Republic’, when Czechoslovakia was an independent state between 1918-1938. The deceased couple were responsible for having it built.

The history of the house reflects the history of the nation. During the Second World War, when the country was occupied by the Nazis, there was a German military base nearby, so the house was commandeered to house a senior Nazi military officer. Then, following the communist coup of February 1948, the family were confined to the basement whilst the two floors above were occupied by others. Even after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the subsequent restitution of property laws, the family allowed a remaining ‘tenant’ to live in part of the house, until her death in the mid 1990s.

The son of the deceased gave a speech in which he recalled his childhood weekends and summer holidays, spent living in the basement and sleeping in a wooden ‘summer house’ in the garden. They were memorable times, despite the deprivation of the communist era.

And although he and his parents escaped to Switzerland in 1968, when he was in his late teens, and he, along with his wife and three of their four children, now live in England, this house in the Bohemian countryside is still the family home. Here, where his elderly uncle still lives, is where the soul of the family resides and was the only place where the lives of his late parents, who both lived into their nineties, could be properly celebrated.

The story of this family, could be told with some variations, by so many Czech families. The story also reflects the psyche of the wider Czech nation – that deep down Czech people believe that the soul of the nation is found in the forests, rivers and lakes of the Czech countryside. Even whilst we were eating our lunch yesterday, Má vlast, ‘My Country’ or ‘My Fatherland’ by Bedrich Smetana, was being played in the sitting room, music that encapsulates that very concept.

A little change for the better

The photograph on the left, shows the top of the organ in Kostel sv Kliment/St. Clement’s Church, as it was until August 2014, and as it had been for all of the previously nearly six years I’ve been Chaplain to the English-speaking Anglican congregation in Prague. At the centre of the picture is a mirror on a stand, to enable the organist to see beyond the front wall of the balcony, and know what is going on at the front of the Church – in particular, to know when to stop playing once the administration of Communion is complete.

But because the mirror stand is not sufficiently high, it has been propped up on three music and four words editions of our hymn book. Over that time, I have often observed this set up and thought how wasteful it was. We didn’t buy these hymn books to prop up a mirror – we bought them so people could sing from them to the praise and glory of God! And as in early 2012, I transferred three music and fifteen words editions of our hymn book permanently to Brno, for our congregation who worship there, the misuse of these books has become an ever more acute issue.

The problem has always been knowing what would be a suitable replacement for the mirror to sit on. In particular, knowing the correct dimensions – the required height, together with the length and breath of the base of the mirror stand. I always observed the problem just before, or following, Sunday worship. Therefore, my mind was inevitably on other things and I never have a measuring tape with me.

However, just over two months ago, I finally got around to measuring what was required. Then, when on a visit to IKEA, I spotted a little box storage unit, costing CZK 300, (less than £10.00 at current exchange rates), with the correct dimensions. The current value of the hymn books propping up the mirror, is £111.00. I bought the box!

Just as it took me nearly six years to solve this problem, so it has taken me over two months to finally complete this blog post and publish it. But in both cases, I did eventually get there 🙂