‘Beating the Bounds’
One of our Sunday services in May is basically just going for a walk and then eating cake in the beautiful gardens of Clinton Lodge,. I don’t suppose there will be any complaints about this but, just so that you know, there is a serious and historic purpose lying behind what looks like skiving.
We call this Sunday ‘ Rogation Sunday’ and this year we are marking it on May 4th. This is a little earlier than usual but we are making way for the 80th anniversary of VE Day service. Originating as a custom in France, but spreading across Western Europe over the centuries, agricultural communities would walk the fields and woods asking for a blessing on the earth.
The word ‘Rogation’ comes from a Latin word (rogare) meaning ‘to ask for’ and, in this case, that is about asking a heavenly blessing for a fertile cycle of the seasons on which subsistence communities depend for their survival. We live in a culture where we are largely protected from hunger if a harvest fails, but the tradition still has meaning. Perhaps more than ever before, knowing what we do about the degradation of the planet, we need to focus our awareness and prayers on learning how to live with respect for the natural environment, to pray for the land and those who farm it.
As we walk down through the Lodge gates towards Sheffield Park, we will stop at three key points to offer a brief prayer. The way we do it, children will be given a fun activity on the walk and then get to eat cake and play on Lady Colum’s lawn, but that’s now how it used to be done!
In England Rogation Sunday was a time for ‘beating the bounds’ (or ‘boundaries’) of the parish. At key points in the procession around the boundary a boy from the village would be beaten, or rolled in nettles, or something equally grim. Why?! The reasoning was that in the event of a boundary dispute with another parish there would always be an old boy present who could say, with feeling, “That is the boundary, because that is where I was beaten!”
David Knight
Vicar of Fletching, Piltdown and Sheffiled Park