..."O Happy Fault." From the Easter Exultet if you know it. One of those lovely moments when the liturgy lets rip.
Were it not - the song goes - for original sin then there would have been no need for Christ to come and redeem us, and as Christ is so wonderful then we must allow original sin to be a Good Thing. Hideous theology, but great fun and entirely excusable in the circumstances of an Easter Vigil service.
On a similar theme I learned yesterday just how good guilt can be for individuals and for society as a whole. A radio programme dedicated to the interesting connection between religious guilt and the desire for symbolic physical cleansing [Lava me ab iniquitate mea - that sort of thing] threw up this gem:
Experiments have shown that when people are feeling bad about themselves they have a propensity to want to wash. So far so predictable.
But more. Those 'feeling guilty' coves who did wash themselves were then far less likely to agree to help someone in distress than similar coves who did not wash! Having, it seems, expiated their sins through a physical act, the impulse to selfless charity was washed away as well.
Always knew that cleanliness was a far removed from Godliness as it is possible to be, and now I know why!
BTW - it would not be civil to recount the berating I received from H regarding 'Yeo-persons' [see previous]. Sufficient to say that she has threatened to invite Miss Dawn French [aka Geraldine Grainger, aka The Vicar of Dibley] to luncheon - me being the lunch on offer!
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