The Madness of Grief by Richard Coles

Author:Richard Coles [Richard Coles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474619646
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2021-03-31T23:00:00+00:00

O Key of David

I woke the next day and tried to say Morning Prayer. The run-up to Christmas is heralded by the Great O Antiphons, a set of short introductory prayers for every day in the week preceding. The Great Os, as they are known, date from at least the fifth century, and were sung in the Benedictine monasteries of France when the abbot would give a present to each of the monks as the series progressed. Eventually their use spread throughout the Church, although in England, being England, we did them a little differently from everyone else. Some say the seven titles form an acrostic, EROCRAS, the Latin for ‘tomorrow I will be’. They acclaim the coming of Jesus Christ on the seven days using seven titles derived from the Jewish prophecies of the Old Testament.

The Great O Antiphon for that morning is ‘Clavis David’, Key of David. I flinched to say the name. Isaiah in the Old Testament prophesied that the Messiah will bear ‘on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open’ and that he will ‘bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house’. This image is recalled in the Icon of the Resurrection, when we see Jesus trampling down the gates of hell and rescuing from its pit Adam and Eve, of the old covenant, who shake off their locks and chains as they enter the new. I could not handle the words, but I could look at the icon. I have a copy of the version in the church at my old theological college, and I thought again of the ominous pointing Paddington outside David’s hospital room. Why did that come into my mind? I think in moments of intense disturbance our attention is held not by words but by figures, not fleshed-out characters, but symbols perhaps, the better able to serve as signposts in the unfamiliar and frightening world of bereavement.

Christ trampling the gates of hell I could contemplate, Paddington, his paw raised like Death’s arm in The Seventh Seal, I could contemplate. Christmas coming, heralded by the Key of David and Santa Claus, I could not, and I felt that falling sensation again at the thought. What would I do?

Before Christmas I went to stay with Lorna, my former manager, and friend of forty years. She had also invited a friend of equal duration, Kevin, whom I had first met in the early eighties when we were both living in London around what sociologists now call the Alternative Gay Scene. Kevin was now retired, living half in the Borough, half in São Paolo, and in the middle of arranging his marriage to his Brazilian partner. I could not think of two people I would rather see in a place I would sooner visit than them, at Lorna’s house. It would be my first excursion from home

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