What is a Chaplain?
As the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month of 1918, the First World War officially ended as Germany signed an Armistice agreement with the Allies. Ever since then, particularly in Europe, this day has been kept in remembrance of the nine million soldiers and five million civilians who died in that war, and all others who have died in wars since. In my home country, we wear red paper poppies as a sign of remembrance, and throughout the nation, a two-minute silence is kept at 11 AM.
Among those who served, and in many cases died, in the Armed Forces on both sides of that were the officers called “chaplains:” priests and pastors who look after the spiritual needs of the soldiers. Chaplains serve not only in the armed forces, but in hospitals, prisons, schools and universities, but we take the title of “Chaplain” from an ancient Roman soldier and saint whose feast day is, by strange coincidence, also on the 11th of November: St Martin of Tours.
Martin joined the Roman army as a soldier in the fourth century, but after he was baptised, he left the army, and founded a monastery in what is now western France. Later, he was ordained priest and became Bishop of Tours. In his lifetime, he was regarded as a great example of what a Good Shepherd should be.
But the most famous story about Saint Martin is from his time as a soldier. It is said that his unit was riding into the city of Amiens, a city in what is now France. Outside the gates, he saw a beggar, tired, cold and hungry. Moved by compassion, he took his red Roman army cloak and cut it in two with his sword, giving the beggar half of the cloak to keep warm. In a dream that night, he saw in the face of the beggar none other than Jesus Christ himself.
But what has this got to do with chaplains? Well, the Latin word for cloak is “capella.” After Martin was declared a saint following his death, his famous cloak was revered as a relic. People wanted to pray in the presence of the cloak which symbolised the saint’s kindness. So, the cloak was cut into lots of small pieces for wider distribution. Small churches or rooms inside other larger churches were built to house these pieces of cloak. These were soon named after the cloak as “capellae,” or “chapels.” The priests who looked after these chapels were called “capellani,” which is where we get the word “chaplain” from.
A chaplain is an ordinary priest, who does what every priest does. Like parish priests, we preach the Gospel, we celebrate the Mass, we proclaim the forgiveness of sins, we baptise, marry and so on. But unlike most parish priests, we tend to serve in institutions where most people are not committed Christians. That makes the example of Saint Martin all the more important to us.
Partly, like the first chaplains with their pieces of the popular St Martin's cloak, we have to be open to popular expressions of piety which may not fit neatly into the liturgical practices of the church. A major reason why the Blessed Sacrament became widely reserved in Church of England parishes from the 1920s onwards, despite considerable theological opposition, was because Army chaplains in the First World War found that they needed to be able to give dying soldiers the Sacrament quickly. They did not have time to say an entire service of Holy Communion according to the 1662 rite, which was then the only rite legally available to them. Chaplains in every walk of life find that they have to make liturgical concessions and new forms of prayer according to the contexts where they serve.
But also, chaplains have to be particularly prepared to see the face of Christ, as St. Martin did, In the faces of those who suffer in any way, regardless of whether we know that they are Christians or not. Like Martin, we have to be prepared to share some of our warmth and comfort with them, to put the proverbial cloak around their shoulders.
And fundamentally, I think, we have to prepare the way as best we can for the great Armistice, when there will be no enemies, no insiders and outsiders, no reason to fight, but all things and all people become one in Christ – which is what we pray for as we prepare for Advent.