All Saints Parish Paper Margaret Street, London W.1
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All Saints Parish Paper MARGARET STREET, LONDON W.1 APRIL 2013 £1.00 VICAR’S LETTER One of the most striking features of the emancipated from by some knowledge or Gospel accounts of the resurrection of technique which will free us to rise to some Jesus, is how physical they are. The risen superior spiritual plane. Christ eats with disciples at Emmaus, in the Upper Room, beside the Sea of Galilee. To believe in Creation, Incarnation and Jesus’ risen body still carries the wounds of Resurrection is not just an intellectual crucifixion and he shows them as a mark matter. It means taking our whole life, flesh of his identity. He even invites doubt-filled and blood, work and possessions, food and Thomas to touch those wounds. drink, relationships and sexuality, seriously as a gift from God and ones which we are To some all this might just seem at responsible to God for the use of. Faith best picturesque, at worst primitive; best does not detach us from these but works to consigned to children’s books or abandoned transform and sanctify them. in favour of more rational faith suited to a scientific age, or seen as reflecting the soiled This belief also says something vital to us material which the more refined spirit can about the Church. The Church as the Body rise above. of Christ is a real, tangible and visible body of people all equally dependent on the grace But just as Creation — God seeing of God; something we will be reminded of everything that he had made and declaring again by the baptism of an infant on Easter that it was good — is at the beginning of Day. The Church is not an invisible spiritual Scripture, and the Incarnation — God taking elite. That makes the Church a challenge human flesh — at the beginning of the because it is full of people who are both like Gospel, so the resurrection and glorification us and unlike us. It is in relationship with of that real flesh created and assumed is at one another that we encounter the risen the end. Christ. All this says something central and We see this centrality of creation, essential to the Christian faith and what we incarnation and resurrection too in the believe about the world in which we are set sacramental life of the Church. In this the and of which we are part. That world is not, risen Christ makes use of material things and whatever current atheists might say, merely actions, water, bread, wine, oil, hands, rings, the product of accident. Nor is it something as the vehicles of his risen presence with intrinsically bad, a state we need to be his people. These material things signify a 1 creation and a humanity to be glorified in care that goes into the liturgy at All Saints. the risen Christ. “I wanted to come before you left and But a note of warning: in the Gospel of it came as no surprise to me that the Easter Day (John 20: 1 - 18), Jesus tells choir sounded very fine indeed. Charles Mary Magdalene not to cling to him but to Andrews’ organ recital was the icing on the go and tell the disciples that he is risen. The cake — what a superb player he is, and it risen life is transformed by the resurrection, was good to hear so much more of a very not simply prolonged. Encounter with the fine organ.” risen Christ for Mary Magdalene issues in mission. She is the first to carry the good We can look forward to hearing more news of the resurrection. We rightly value good things in the second of the series the riches of the Church’s liturgical and on Trinity Sunday when the organ will sacramental heritage because in them we be played by our new Director of Music, encounter the risen Christ who through the Tim Byram-Wigfield, who joins us at the Spirit draws us into the mystery of God, his beginning of May. relationship with the Father, “My Father As well as looking forward to our new and your Father”. But that relationship is musical regime, we welcome back veterans something we are sent to share with others from the past. not clutch to ourselves. With blessings for Easter. FORMER CHORISTERS EVENSONG Yours in Christ, Saturday April 13th at 4.00 p.m. Alan Moses Each year, former choristers from the days MUSICAL NOTES of the Choir School gather for a reunion and to sing Evensong in All Saints under “THE KING OF INSTRUMENTS” the direction of Louis Halsey, one of their number. This year they will be singing a The first of our series of Sunday evening setting of the evening canticles specially organ recitals, the brainchild of our composed for the occasion by Dr Harry Associate Director of Music Charles Bramma who will also be playing the Andrews, took place on the evening of organ for the service. March 10th and got the series off to a very good start. Charlie played a well- We hope that a good number of our judged and varied 30 minute programme present-day parishioners will turn out to which demonstrated the qualities of both support this group of people who played instrument and organist. a major rôle in the life of All Saints when they were young. John Barnard, Director of Music at John Keble Church, Mill Hill, wrote: FAREWELL TO PAUL BROUGH “Dear Paul, Paul’s last Sunday with us will be April “It’s not my level of churchmanship, but 28th. There will be a presentation after one has to be impressed with the enormous High Mass. 2 ALL SAINTS CHOIR CABARET NIGHT Keep the date free: Sunday 21st April 7.30pm The Choir will be staging another cabaret night in aid of the All Saints Restoration Fund. It will be at the Phoenix Pub in Cavendish Square, within easy walking distance of the church. Please speak to Chris Self or Dee Candloin-Prior if you might be interested in sponsoring any aspect of this avent. Tickets (£15 each plus optional further donation which will all you to Gift Aid your purchase) are on sale online and in the courtyard after High Mass. NEW ORGAN SCHOLAR about those far-off days when he recruited Nicholas Mannoukas has been awarded Dennis to be the Parish Administrator, he our organ scholarship for the coming told me about the perilous financial state academic year. of the parish at the time. There were those who thought a Parish Administrator an He will join us in September and will unnecessary expense; one or two were still also be studying at the Royal Academy of muttering about profligate expenditure on Music. At the moment he is organ scholar paper clips when I arrived. at St Lawrence, Catford, after being a chorister at Southwark Cathedral. He is ‘The then Fr Hope did worry, he told studying harmony and counterpoint with me, about how this young man from the Dr Harry Bramma. advertising world would cope with the extraordinary collection of characters here. FAREWELL TO I suppose the experience of the world of “Mad Men” and living at St Alban’s, DENNIS DAVIS Holborn, probably helped. At the presentation to Dennis at the end of ‘Some of you have heard me say more High Mass on Sunday February 24th, the than once that if I was given a choice Vicar said: between having a curate and a parish ‘Thirty years is a long time, but especially administrator, I would opt for the latter. in the constantly changing world of a city In a church with more services than centre. When Dennis came here, it was the many cathedrals, a variety of overlapping age of the manual type-writer and the hand- congregations, a constant flow of people written financial ledger. Now we are in the (some weird, some wonderful, some age of computers and emails, with all that both), many never seen by the Sunday means in terms both of increased efficiency congregation, a complex of listed buildings and speed but also of greater pressure. to maintain and restore, the whole thing to be financed, it would be quite impossible ‘When I was speaking to Lord Hope to run the parish without someone to take 3 some of the administrative load. been easy for Dennis. A minor stroke some years ago led to the discovery of diabetes ‘There have been times when Dennis and a new regime of diet and exercise; a has been away and I have been on my liturgical calendar of medical appointments own, answering telephones, doorbells, with characters christened “the Ogre” and sometimes simultaneously, emails and “the Vampire”. Then he and his sister Joan more. I seemed to get little else done. had to deal with their mother’s declining ‘While doing all these things, and many years and eventual death. more, Dennis has been part of the fabric ‘That all seemed to be under control, but and family here. Wisely, he has worshipped then Dennis returned from holiday suffering somewhere else on Sundays, but he has from painful angina. The installation of a become a friend to many. He has been the stent eliminated the pain, but the physical welcoming face and voice of All Saints for and mental toll of a full-time job remained. many people — indeed most people seem In the end, Dennis concluded that it was unable to distinguish between him and me time to call it a day. when we answer the phone — strange as he’s a Wiltshire boy and I’m from Teesdale.