A day to rejoice in our faith

Dec 9 2009 By Maureen Messent

SOME days can’t go wrong. Like yesterday in St Chad’s Cathedral where we gathered for the Mass that celebrated the installation of Bernard Longley, our new Archbishop and the ninth in his line.

Let Rome’s detractors say what they will of us – our Catholic Church knows, as no other, when to parade the pomp, rejoice and remind ourselves our faith gives us a right to be merry.

We saw Bernard kneeling, in stark white, on the threshold of St Chad’s, to pray that he will be a faithful and prayerful servant of us, his flock, and, before that, came a long procession of priests from all over the arch-diocese, identical in Birmingham’s “uniform” of yellow and gold chasubles – and one poor priest got his skirt tangled around a cable so he looked, for a second, as if he were growing a little black tail.

Prelates in white lace with scarlet skirts followed. And after them came others with purple and scarlet vestments, bishops with crimson skullcaps – and a female worthy who wore an ostrich feather hat even more eye-catching than the male get-ups.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols was there in his old haunt, probably recalling his own enthronement in Birmingham and a tall and whippet-lean figure in crimson stood out as Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor – he still walks almost coltishly, albeit a little creakily these days.

You couldn’t move for nuns, kissing the air behind each other’s ears when they met, and who should a couple of frail and elderly sisters be pushing in a wheelchair but the burly Monsignor Tom Fallon, stalwart of St Francis’s parish, Handsworth.

They were persuasive, his handmaidens, using his wheelchair as a sharp reminder that we shove up and make room.

A letter was read to Bernard from Pope Benedict: “It falls to us as a successor of St Peter and Universal Father, to make suitable provision for the vacant Metropolitan See of Birmingham.

“It seems proper to us that you, Bernard, taking account of your evident gift, and their expert and pastoral exercise, are suitable to be appointed as head of this See.

“May the peace of Christ be with you... and this esteemed ecclesiastical community of Birmingham, which is most dear to us.”

Then, in a heart-lifting shout, the choir burst into song: “I exult for joy in the Lord, my soul rejoices in my God.”... (but in Latin, of course).

Bishop David McGough, the Diocesan Chancellor and the Apostolic Nuncio had to agree the letter be read and, we all saw Bernard as he promised “to serve faithfully the Church in this Archdiocese, preach the gospel and celebrate the Eucharist”.

And, a few rows back from the front in the Cathedral, 81-year-old Fred Longley, Bernard’s father, wiped an eye with a tissue, surreptitiously, as if he felt that blubbing might let his boy down.

Earlier in the day I’d been warned by Peter Jennings, the Archbishop’s secretary that Fred is very shy. “Don’t you dare frighten him,” said Peter.

By this time, the prelates on the altar were semaphoring signs of peace to each other: Bernard to the Nuncio and back, to the Provost and back. We had another moving moment. That came when we stood to sing the hymn Praise to the Holiest in the Height, written by Cardinal Newman a couple of miles away at the Oratory, in Hagley Road.

And he never guessed a new Archbishop would be singing his words in 2009, when he himself would be on the point of beatification, sainthood’s first step.

This was a ceremony of great reverence, but a rejoicing too. How can we watch a good man, who has offered his manhood to our Lord in the celibate life, vow to serve us all without a moistness springing to our eyeballs?

The Creed was sung, that summary of Catholic faith. Bernard received his crosier, its hook turned towards us, a sign he had taken office.

His homily was simple, almost humble, reminding us that this day was the feast of the Immaculate Conception when Our Lady’s life changed forever after the angel’s visitation.

“These thoughts have given me a profound sense of hope... for the Archdiocese of Birmingham,” he told us.

The clergy filed out. We had a new Archbishop who seemed likely to become a friend.

A glorious day, thanks be to God.