Introduction

CEREMONIAL

OF THE INTERNATIONAL UNION

OF EUROPEAN GUIDES AND SCOUTS

FEDERATION OF EUROPEAN SCOUTING

(Approved in 2001)

Note

The ceremonial of UIGSE-FSE is attached to the Federal Rules and it refers to it as to the Federal Statutes, especially for Core Texts, uniforms and badges.

The ceremonial of UIGSE-FSE finds its roots in Father Sevin’s ceremonial and reproduces it faithfully in its basic lines.

The ceremonial of UIGSE-FSE gathers the words, gestures, attitudes chosen to express the important moments of the life of our great brotherhood within the International Union. It is the basis for the ceremonial of each association belonging to our International Union.

Each association may bring some adaptations to the ceremonies, in order to take into account its specific situation and its own national traditions, but without modifying the spirit of this ceremonial as well as its words and basic gestures.

INTRODUCTION

This edition of the ceremonial of Guides and Scouts of Europe is the fifth one. The beginning of our movement could not have happened without the four previous issues. These very simple issues were duplicated in 5000 or 6000 copies, with very basic means. We are grateful for the “external image” given to express the doctrinal and spiritual unity of our groups. Each congregation has its rules. Each people has its rites. It is time to let our rules be better known if we do not want the FSE to lose in deepness what it constantly acquires in extension.

The ceremonial was first conceived for young people whose mental structures are not quite established. For this reason, they should find around them the references and the solid points enabling them to keep the direction of their life and to move forward without getting “out of their depth” in a floating world.

But it would be a mistake to look here only for fix points, for lines to maintain, for frames to respect. When we educate a hesitating being, it means teaching him how to walk, again and again. The stability of a young person, with a short memory, requires repetition. The certitude of entering into the providential movement of the world and the joy of finding there the order of things, should be translated into a rhythm bringing back the same figures and the same symbols: singing is the best expression of it, with verses representing steps forward and the refrains being the moments of rest.

The ceremonial is not only a structure, it is a rhythm. Not only because it gives a lot of space to the verses sung altogether and because it is often conceived itself as a song (for instance, the successive stops of the sixes in the rite of welcoming wolf cubs and wolvets). But above all because, at regular periods, it comes back to the rites of transition; they mark the whole scout life (promise of wolf cubs, step to the troop, allegiance, promise for Scouts and Guides, investiture, commitment, departure). To accomplish these transitions means to step forward! Scouting has a link with the civilization of steps. Its method remains faithful to the spirit of a time when everything was still at the measure of human beings, before the arrival of machines that started to deafen men and prevent them from hearing themselves. It is narrowly linked with the beatings of heart, with the rhythm of breathing, with this alternance of days and seasons accompanying and modulating each growth. It aims at recovering the progression of life, which unites, without break, the sower’s gesture to the beauty of germinations.

So the ceremonial usually takes place in nature. Its environment is the open air. The beauty of famous sites gives its shape to the beauty of the soul. It drags the heart from the loam of swamps. It is the springboard of great dreams and high resolutions. It obliges the scout to self-control, self-respect, to a quiet and proud gesture. This care for attitude fits with the place that scouting gives to the body in the type of man or woman that it wants to achieve. The importance of the environment and of accompaniment underlines a strong will of incarnation. The fire of the spirit animates itself under the mysterious wind of the night and goes round the flame of the torches.

The ceremonial should normally contribute to restore in young people the sense of sacredness. Nowadays this sense is still more threatened than the taste for discipline. Of course this profane ritual, which is simplified here, does not pretend at all to become a liturgy. It is only a whole context of attitudes and suitably chosen words in order to express a spiritual community. But this spirit is essentially religious. For us, as for our Christian ancestors, the details of life, even the most humble, find their place in the History of Salvation. All events of existence, work, meals, waking or sleeping, may have a sacred meaning if they are lived in a spirit of prayer. The way of dressing, of gathering, or recognising each other, of honouring the emblems and, all the more, the way of committing oneself in the main periods of life, should not be separated from the expression of faith.

All the following texts invite to an effort for developing human virtues, so that God’s grace may act freely. The ceremonial has to be commented by the priest or the Leader. It must be accompanied by an education to the meaning of signs, if we want to avoid falling into naturism and darkening the language given by the Lord in His creation. Obviously, texts and gestures, as well as symbols, might become artificial if routine or social snobbery separate them from their original meaning to give them a value in themselves. If it is true that the way of giving is more valuable than what is given, it is also true to think that the scout style only keeps its meaning and its proper value if it is still animated by a religious intention, such as the brush of the artist or the fingers of the musician are inspired by the artist’s soul. Saint Louis expressed this truth very clearly: the sultan of Tunis said to him “Make a knight of me”. And the king answered: “Become a Christian”. The thought of the European Guides and Scouts is inscribed in this line: the impact of the scout gesture depends on the impulse that it finds in the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity.

Understood in this way, a ceremonial that is strictly respected is not, as some people pretend, a simple predilection for luxury or decoration. It is not only the expression of our legitimate joy to feel ourselves better when we discover, in our discretion and in our uniform, the result of many centuries of observance. It is availability to the sanctifying grace. It is a call to surpassing oneself for a youth who is looking for examples from above, not examples from down. At a time when we risk being overcome by the most impressive wave of non-interference and vulgarity in all our history, keeping a demanding ceremonial corresponds to one of the most urgent needs. France is even more interested than any other country.

For wolvets and wolf cubs, for Guides and Scouts, the ceremonial is the chosen environment which opens to them and which puts its conditions from the very beginning. Everyone inserts himself in it, at his rank, like a runner who takes place on the track.

For us, leaders, it is the measure of the task offered to us, clearly marked according to the scout order. It is up to us to communicate to this rule of the game the flame of our enthusiasm and to make of it the best guarantee of the success of our mission.

Perig GERAUD-KERAOD

(Ceremonial of European Guides and Scouts – edition 1974)