Explaining the symbolic

Last weekend we went to our daughter's graduation. It was held in Christopher Wren's Sheldonian theatre in Oxford and lasted for nearly two hours. The whole ceremony was in Latin. I only understood a few words and had to keep looking at the translation on the glossy brochure that we had been given.

All the participants were wearing gowns and mortarboards and had strange names like bedel, proctor, dean and pro-vice-chancellor. The proctors after having announced in Latin the names of the students graduating would immediately walk up and down the hall before calling the students to come forward in groups for the degrees to be conferred. (This walking up and down was symbolic and was supposed to allow the deans to stand and object if they didn't want any students to be awarded degrees!) The students also dressed up – the graduands came in wearing the gowns signifying their status. Daughter arrived in her short “commoner” gown (the lowest of the low) that she had to wear for exams and formal dinners during her time as a student. They then processed out and returned in the new gowns indicating the new status the degree had conferred on them. The students awarded an MA degree knelt in a row in front of the pro-vice chancellor and he tapped each of them in turn on the head with a bible while saying in Latin “in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit.” Though these students had been at the cutting edge of astrophysics and other sciences or working on modern literature they were re-enacting a ceremony in a form that would have been recognisable more than 500 years ago! I was relieved when the vice chancellor said the word “disolvo” to signify the end!

The university staff were used to the ceremonial. They knew the Latin script and when to bow and when to doff their mortarboards. They may well have become used to the strangeness of it all. But I wonder what the three hundred parents, partners and friends of the students made of the whole thing? If you had not read the guide brochure you might have thought you had landed on another planet or on the set of Hogworts for the filming of Harry Potter!

I sometimes wonder what a person who had never been to church in their life would make of some of the things we take for granted. We use words and do things in a symbolic way because we find they mean something to us. We must not expect that everyone will understand why we do all the things we do in the way that we do them. How much time should we spend explaining? Should we aim for a casual worship service with no symbolic acts or ceremonial aspects? More questions to live with.