THREE CHURCHES

 

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH

I went back to my old parish in Reading the other day, for the induction of the new Vicar; now you never attend the induction of your immediate successor, for obvious reasons, but after that there’s no particular prohibition. It is quite unusual, though.  All Saints, Downshire Square, Reading, is a Victorian daughter-church of Reading Minster, which sits on the crest of the chalk ridge along which the Bath Road runs. It is a handsome, well-kept church, much beautified by my predecessor. I suppose I have kept in touch with All Saints better than is normal, mostly because Helen’s best friend is still there, and of course here in Paddington we are quite conveniently situated for popping over to Reading (fast trains from Paddington, as they say). I carefully tried not to undermine my successor, and I have no intention of criticizing the new Vicar, but when I heard about the Induction I thought it would be good to go along. The new Vicar is a woman, you see. 

When I moved to All Saints, in 1996, it was in the wake of great controversy, and deep hurt, over the ordination of women. My predecessor, Fr Jones, had been a doughty opponent of women’s ordination, and when it came to pass spent a good deal of energy in trying to persuade his people. In the end he resigned in 1995 and became a Roman Catholic (though he subsequently came back to the Church of England). There were bitter arguments in the parish, and one family moved to another church amid much unhappiness. When I was appointed the bishop’s clear desire was that I should keep the parish in the Church of England and try to heal the divisions. I stayed eleven years in Reading, and hope that was what was achieved. We managed to steer a course where I hope everyone felt they were part of the family. I believe my successor carried on much the same. Now, though, a woman has been appointed, and I felt it was important to be seen to offer support, so along I went. It was interesting to see a number of those who had been unconvinced by the wisdom of the ordination of women were there to welcome their new parish priest. Nobody was tactless enough to ask me, “Did you ever think you’d see this?” but I don’t suppose I did. Things have changed. Not impressed by the poor turnout of clergy from Reading Deanery, though; in my day we tried hard to attend these things, for the sake of solidarity.

OPEN OR CLOSED

I had a Sunday off to go down to Exeter, to the parish I served my first curacy in. There they were closing a church, St Andrew’s, on Alphington Road. St Andrew’s is a modern building, which replaced a “tin church” that had been destroyed in the war, and has a very high, steeply-pitched roof. Its fittings are a bit 1960s. Now I had no particular connection with St Andrew’s when I was there, I was mostly at the parish church, St Thomas, but St Andrew’s was Helen’s church. She was the head server there when I arrived, and her father was churchwarden, and her mother became sacristan. Ian, her brother, was in Cambridge then, but when he returned to Exeter when the Met Office moved down there a few years ago he slotted back into St Andrew’s. So the life of St Andrew’s has been part of my family for thirty years. I didn’t particularly want to go, but the idea gradually crept up on me that I should, and I asked a colleague whether he could do the service for me at St Peter’s, having worked out that it was just possible to get down leaving after Mass at St Mary Mags; he sensibly said he could do Mary Mags as well and urged me to have a Sunday off. So I did. I realised that I owed it to Helen. She would have gone, and while she would have told me I shouldn’t leave my responsibilities here, if I’d had any sense I would have insisted on going with her. So I had to go.

It was fantastically difficult. I couldn’t look at the servers (dressed exactly as they used to be) because I just saw Helen. Serious catch in the throat when singing. So many memories from so long. I renewed acquaintance with someone I was very close to before Helen and I got together, and hadn’t spoken to in twenty-eight years. Many people there who remembered me, and who I remembered, even if not their names. I was thinking that one really does feel old in that situation, having started work in a church now closed, but then I thought of my boss there, Fr Alan, who, when he was a student, had been present at the consecration of St Andrew’s back in the early 60s, and was now there with us at its closing. It was very brave of the present congregation to decide to close, and to throw in their lot with St Thomas, especially those who, like Ian, have a lifetime’s memories there. Of course we can worship anywhere, and it is the quality of the human fellowship that is the most important feature, but we do all invest memories in buildings, even modern ones like St Andrew’s.

A FAMOUS SHRINE

I had the honour to be asked to preach at St Mary’s, Bourne Street, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, last week. St Mary’s was built as a servants’ church, a little brick, gothic place behind Sloane Square tube station, but it was transformed by Fr Humphrey Whitby in the early twentieth century, who installed lots of baroque furnishings, many by Martin Travers, and attracted a smart congregation. The congregation remain smart in many ways. There was a surprisingly good turnout for a midweek evening, and it was all very well done. The choir sang a Mozart setting and a Bruckner motet, though there wasn’t enough congregational singing for my taste, just two hymns (one unknown) and the Creed to the Missa de Angelis. The ceremonial is what is described as traditional, and all justified by the most impeccable authorities, but of course as it was a modern service (albeit old language) which inevitably affects the ceremonial, you can’t really claim that this is the traditional rite. Fortunately, as a visiting preacher one has few opportunities to mess up the ceremonial. It all went on very smoothly around me. Everybody was very kind and welcoming, and we chatted merrily over a glass of wine afterwards. It was here that Helen and I came on the Sunday after she had received her diagnosis last May, when we wanted to be somewhere we weren’t known, but no-one remembered me from then. Why would they, since I wasn’t dressed as a priest on that occasion?  The people were very positive about the sermon when we had a glass of wine in the Presbytery afterwards, though I came away starving, as there were only tiny snacks, and it was too late to eat a proper meal.