All Saints Parish Paper Margaret Street, London W.1
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All Saints Parish Paper MARGARET STREET, LONDON W.1 JULY 2010 £1.00 Vicar’s LETTER is allotted a number of psalms to be recited I am beginning to get used to being daily, so that the whole Psalter is said addressed or referred to as “Prebendary” each day by the College of Canons. Mine and realising that someone is talking to or are Psalms 12 to 16. A quick-witted and about me, rather than some character in biblically-literate member of All Saints was Trollope’s Barchester. In fact, I have already quick to point out that they begin; “Help been addressed affectionately as “Preb”. me, Lord, for there is not one godly man left: for the faithful are minished from It was very good to see such a large among the children of men”. Psalm 16 contingent from All Saints at St Paul’s on ends on a happier note: “Thou shalt shew Sunday May 16th for my installation. At the me the path of life; in thy presence is the beginning of the service, the Bishop was in fullness of joy: and at thy right hand there populist mode and went round the five new is pleasure for evermore.” I can echo too prebendaries and called for a supporting its words “The lot is fallen to me in a fair response from their parishes. The All Saints ground: yea, I have a goodly heritage”; response he described as “diminuendo” but true of St Paul’s but even more of All added “that is your style”. True enough, Saints whose people I think of whenever we are not given to shouting in church and I come to the words “All my delight is on more positively, as Canon Hutt notes in his the saints that are in the earth”. letter, we are good at keeping silence. After the service, we new prebendaries After we had made the declaration of were taken to the Dean’s Vestry to sign assent and sworn our oaths of allegiance the register and be presented with a copy to the Sovereign and canonical obedience of the cathedral Constitution and Statutes to the Bishop, and promised on the holy and a bread bun. The latter is symbolic Gospels to uphold the Constitution and of the prebendal income which supported Statutes of the Cathedral, we received their our distant predecessors in maintaining the Deeds of Collation and were then placed in services of the cathedral. our stalls by the Dean. Canon Lucy Winkett explained in her sermon the historical Now that I am a prebendary of St origins of our office and its present rôle. Paul’s, I am invited to various services. Many clash with services or other duties My stall can be identified by the title of here, but I was at Evensong on June 9th my prebend, “Holbourn”, and the Latin when the 350th anniversary of the Royal text Salvum me fac Domine. These are the Society was being marked by a sermon first words of Psalm 12. Each prebendary from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The 1 service proceeded normally until almost writing them all off as foolish. At the the end of the first lesson when the fire same time, we are called to give profound alarm went off. Clergy, choir and the large attention to the tradition we have received congregation had to evacuate the cathedral as source of knowledge and wisdom. This and assemble outside the west doors until is something which can only be achieved a false alarm had been confirmed and we in combination with a committed search were allowed to return to our places. We for holiness. So some other verses from all, including the Archbishop, did this my psalms seem apt too: “Lord, who shall with a speed and informality rarely seen dwell in thy tabernacle: or who shall rest in St Paul’s. The Canon in Residence took upon thy holy hill? Even he that leadeth up the lesson where he had left off, then an uncorrupt life: and doeth the thing announced that, because of pressure of which is right, and speaketh the truth time, the choir would miss out the rest of from his heart.” (Psalm 15: 1) Evensong and go straight to the Anthem before the Archbishop preached. There was The writer Sara Maitland’s last book much wry speculation about some atheist was about silence. She has chosen to live scientist on the Dawkins school setting alone in a remote cottage in Galloway but off the alarm in protest at the Society emerged from this hermitage to take part celebrating in a cathedral. Of course, many in the National Pilgrimage to Walsingham of the Society’s founders were clerics of and wrote about it in the Guardian. “The the Church of England. Another of my Walsingham pilgrimage refreshes the parts psalms, No. 14 begins “The fool hath said that other Anglican practices do not reach.” in his heart, there is no God”; not the most Her reminiscence of a fellow-pilgrim years diplomatic of comments. A rather higher ago describing it as “like Blackpool, only level of intellectual engagement than more religious” echoed my own “religious name-calling would seem to be required in Butlins”. the continuing dialogue between faith and “Anglicanism is” she says, “a practice science. If we need any reminding that such of great and true beauty and moderation, a conversation is necessary, I was given intelligence and good taste; the National one by a college chaplain in Cambridge Pilgrimage is none of these things. It is a last year. He had spent days interviewing jamboree for people who do not necessarily would-be students of philosophy, most of care much for dignity and good order, but whom had absorbed Professor Dawkins’ do believe, often quite inarticulately, that “The God Delusion” as if it was holy writ. joy is pleasing to the Lord.” In his sermon on Trinity Sunday, Sir This echoed what I said on Corpus Roy Strong spoke of how All Saints has Christi when welcoming our visitors from managed to combine seeming timelessness Notting Hill, saying that they had brought and the ability to move on. The challenge a touch of carnival with them. When we to the Church today, including All Saints, is went out into the streets for the procession, both to face up to the challenges of science we should look as if we were enjoying and other aspects of modern culture and ourselves. Long-faced Christians are no knowledge, probing those which are advertisement for the Gospel. intellectually questionable, while not 2 In fact, just as the psalms reflect the begun on the upper section. Work is also gamut of human thoughts and emotions, proceeding apace on the roof space and so must our worshipping life. Worship at walls in the north aisle. Careful attention is All Saints has always been based on the being paid to matching colours so that the measured order of the Book of Common unity of scheme is respected. Now that the Prayer and now of Common Worship. very dirty reddish tiles on the north and west There is an element of restraint and order, wall have been cleaned, the right shade of of objectivity about it all. We can get on red for the grisaille painting in the arches at and do it however we might be feeling. the foot of the west wall can be established It is solid and reliable. But All Saints has and that work commence. Sufficient funds brought to this bedrock more than a dash had come in within days after the Vicar’s of colour and music and excitement which Sunday morning appeal, for the go-ahead helps us to rejoice in our faith. It is almost to be given for the work on font, pulpit and impossible I find not to smile and tap one’s chancel wall to be included in this phase of feet during a Mozart Mass, even sometimes the work. at the Kyrie! All Saints too has long had We anticipate that the scaffolding in a reputation for powerful congregational the north aisle will be taken down in the singing. Hymns have long supplemented week beginning July 19th. It will then be the liturgy. re-erected in the south aisle. This work will As so often, it is not a matter of either/ take about ten working days, so we regret or but both/and. We need the objective and that the church will have to be closed to the intellectual as well as the emotional and public until the end of the month for safety physical. If they are not held together so that reasons. they inform and enrich each other, the former become arid and remote; the latter descend An Important Visitor into the sentimental and reactionary. The Chairman of the Victorian Society, Dr Yours in Christ, Andrew Cunningham, contacted us to ask Alan Moses if he could bring the new chair of English Heritage, Baroness Andrews, to see PARISH NOTES All Saints as part of a tour of churches in central London. Fr Alan and our architect RESTORATION PROGRAMME Colin Kerr were on hand to show her the The Church of England has a programme restoration work being undertaken here called “Building Faith in the Future”. We are and she was able to speak to some of those doing that here at All Saints in part through carrying it out. Later in the morning she the restoration of the building. At the most went on to the Annunciation. She asked recent site meeting with architects and if we had received any help with the work contractors, the clergy and churchwardens from English Heritage.