Saints Parish Paper 7, MARGARET STREET, LONDON W1W 8JG JUNE 2016 £1.00

All Saints Parish Paper 7, MARGARET STREET, LONDON W1W 8JG www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.co.uk JUNE 2016 £1.00 VICAR’S LETTER This month’s cover photograph shows me in pilgrimage gear, as I prepare for my walk from Seville to Santiago. Physical exercise is understandably on my mind, as I tramp my training routes in London with a rucksack laden with the weight I am going to be carrying in Spain. Such physical exercise, we are told, is good for mind and spirit as well as body and I know this to be true from personal experience. If the physical affects the spiritual, the reverse is also true. Research in the United States on a large sample of nurses has shown that attendance at church during the week extends life expectancy. Worship and prayer seem to be good for body as well as soul. A pilgrimage is a spiritual exercise as well as a physical one. As a kind of retreat on the move, it provides an extended opportunity for prayer and reflection. Some of our people had a more stationary opportunity on the recent Parish Retreat led by Fr Barry Orford at Bishop Woodford House in Ely and others will be having a The Vicar, ready to set off on pilgrimage from Seville to Santiago weekend pilgrimage to Walsingham led by (Photograph: Theresa Moses) Fr Julian Browning in July. worship, into our daily lives by developing While it is good to get away to a quiet a rule of life. This helps us set aside and place, such opportunities are bound to be safeguard times for prayer and reflection. limited. That does not mean there are not ways in which we can build the experience As well as doing this at home, our of silence and reflection, prayer and round of daily services provides a range 1 of opportunities for people to pray with amateurism. I do question the tendency, others. There may be a church near whereevident in many advertisements in the you work or live which also has dailyChurch Times for vacant parishes, to force services or is simply open for prayer. Oneclergy to sell themselves if their leadership of the strands of the Diocese of London’sskills are to be recognized. Humility Capital Vision 2020 programme has been used to be considered a priestly virtue, to persuade parishes to open their buildings even if many of us were not very good at more as places of prayer. Houses of prayer practicing it. need people to pray in them. One area in which priests and lay people Times of silence and prayer need to be can both make a significant difference to guarded. Spiritual fitness, like physical the lives of others is in our prayer life. fitness, needs to be maintained by practice: Worship is not just a job the clergy do, a it erodes very quickly if neglected. Two service we deliver. It is part of a whole life. sayings have encouraged me in my prayer It is not something we fit in between real life. Both were in response to questions work: it is our work. Prayerful preparation about prayer. Archbishop Michael Ramsey for celebrating and preaching is one of was asked how long he spent in prayer the most important gifts we can bring to each day. He replied that sometimes itpeople. It is a vital part of our ministry to was only a minute, but it took him an hour others, especially perhaps to those who to do it. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, still come to church from busy and hectic going strong despite a long battle with lives. They need to find calm and peace cancer, once said that his ministry was soin church, an experience which feeds their busy and demanding that he had to spend soul: not more busyness and noise. This at least two hours a day in prayer. can be an important piece of evangelism, even for those who would normally run a I am sometimes asked how the clergy mile from such language. If people wander of All Saints manage to get anything else into a church, out of curiosity say, and find done with so many services. My response people praying in it or taking part in a is often to say that the framework of service, that says something about Church Morning and Evening Prayer and Massas a living community rather than just gives a structure to the day, which mightan interesting relic of a bygone era when otherwise drift away. The times spent people believed in God. in silent prayer, each morning, and at other times when opportunity allows, are In a church like All Saints, this is a essential in supporting a calm which is ministry for lay people as well as clergy. As often needed in dealing with the demands entries in the Visitors Book demonstrate, and unpredictable nature of ministry here. people appreciate the silence and prayerful atmosphere of All Saints. This quality does There is much emphasis in the Church not happen by accident. Like physical of England these days on the need for fitness, it has to be maintained. We have management and entrepreneurial skills to guard its quiet; not as an emptiness but among the clergy. Not all of this isas bad:a deep silence in which we can hear hyperactivity is not a clerical virtue, Godbut beyond the clamour of the city. With neither are inefficiency and bumblingdemolition going on round the corner 2 in Wells Street at the moment and some action by the Vicar, but no harm was done! of our homeless guests prone to noisy As well as wine provided by the family snoring, this is not always easy! But, if to celebrate Alexander's Christening, our others are to find All Saints a place where thanks go to Kate Hodgetts, who donated “prayer has been valid,” we must pray the cake she won in the raffle at the Society in it. For the next few weeks, I will be of Mary’s Annual Festival at St Silas, doing my praying along the pathways of Kentish Town, the previous day, to add to the Camino de Plata, in Spanish churches the courtyard refreshments. great and small and at wayside shrines. I must leave praying in All Saints to you, Our visiting preacher that morning but I will be with you in spirit and I hope was Canon Carl Turner, the Rector of you will remember me in your prayers. St Thomas Fifth Avenue in New York. Canon Turner was in London to attend the Yours in Christ, memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral for Alan Moses John Scott who had been director of music at both the cathedral and St Thomas’s. SPONSORING THE VICAR Fr Alan had preached at St Thomas last year, so this was the return match. It was a If you would like to sponsor the Vicar — delight to have Fr Carl and his wife Alison fundraising on his pilgrimage in support with us. Fr Turner’s sermon appears in this of the Diocese of London’s projects for issue (see page 5). persecuted Christians and for refugees from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria — thereOn Whitsunday, we welcomed an is a sponsorship form to sign up in church.unexpected group of students from You can also donate directly online through Wheaton College, Illinois. Wheaton is a https://my.give.net/alanspilgrimage. famous evangelical liberal arts college, so a visit to All Saints was something of a PARISH NOTES new experience for them. As Fr Alan said, they were getting the “full immersion”. Alexander Green was baptized at High By happy and unplanned coincidence, our Mass on the Sunday after Ascension. His own John McWhinney is a graduate of mother Louisa, one of our former All Wheaton, and Paul Weston had provided Saints choir sopranos, writes: the courtyard wine that morning. Thank you so much for a beautiful Christening service for Alexander. It was PREACHING lovely to come back and see everyone on Fr Alan travelled to Oxford on Sunday such a perfect occasion. All Saints will 1 May to preach at Pusey House. The always be a very important place for me House and its library are a memorial to Dr and my family. Edward Pusey, one of the leaders of the Alexander behaved impeccably Oxford Movement who laid the foundation throughout, being quite unperturbed by stone of All Saints. The first principal of having copious amounts of water pouredthe House, Charles Gore, the editor of a over his head. A fascination with lightedbook of essays called Lux Mundi, which candles did require some rapid evasivemarked a significant advance in Catholic 3 Anglican theology, one of the founders of or Sandra in the courtyard or ring Sandra the Community of the Resurrection, and on 020 7637 8456 leaving your name and finally Bishop of Oxford, came to live at telephone number. Cost £6 towards the All No 6 Margaret Street when he retired. The Saints Restoration Appeal. Vicar at the time, Fr Mackay, had also been on the staff at Pusey House. More recently, AN “ORGAN CELEBRITY” Fr Barry Orford was on the staff there and Aiden Hargeaves-Smith is one of the This is how our Director of Music, Tim trustees. Byram-Wigfield is described in the publicity for the Bedford Park Festival. Tim Fr Alan met some familiar All Saints will be giving a recital on the new organ at faces; Christopher Waterhouse, who is St Michael’s, Bedford Park, on 10 June at now the Canon’s Verger at Christ Church12.30pm.

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