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All Saints Parish Paper 7, MARGARET STREET, LONDON W1W 8JG www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk APRIL 2019 £1.00 The All Saints’ Choir — who will sing the Allegri Miserere as an anthem at Evensong and Benediction on Passion Sunday Back Row: John Cuthbert, James Sherwood, Richard Smith, Ian Lyon, Matthew Howard, Dan Collins. Front Row: Jordan Wong (Organ Scholar), Amy Blythe, Emily Owen, Jeremiah Stephenson (Acting Director of Music), Felicity Hayward, Jennifer Snapes, Ruth McElvanney. Photo: Andrew Prior, February 2019 VICAR’S LETTER Green, the renowned evangelist who died recently, spoke of his criticism of Sometimes when I have written something Anglo-Catholics for the poor quality of for the Parish Paper or our weekly Email their sermons. I hope he did not think letter, I am tempted to wonder if anyone this way about the preaching of Bishop reads it. The same temptation comes to Michael Marshall with whom he shared the preachers with their sermons. So it is a Archbishops’ Springboard Project during reassurance that we have not been wasting the Decade of Evangelism. I hope, too, that our time when people speak or write about those who worship at All Saints do not have what we have written or preached. I recently the same negative view of our sermons. I received a very gracious letter to this effect know how much effort my colleagues and from our former Vicar and Bishop, Dr David I put into our preparation for preaching. Hope who appointed me all those years ago. Even if we do not engage in the kind of One of the obituaries of Canon Michael active response during sermons practiced 1 by the “Amen Corner” in African-American nothing in comparison with that felt by their churches, there is a virtuous circle in which victims. While scandals are not restricted attentive response to preaching encourages to the Catholic end of the church spectrum; the preacher to work and pray even harder we have to recognize that “Catholic” has about this ministry. become a toxic brand. I suspect Canon Green would have thought At the February meeting of the General that a church like ours spends too much of its Synod, the dominant theme was evangelism, time and energy on getting worship right, at not gender and sexuality; although not for the expense of the ministry of preaching and want of trying on the part of some members. teaching. There may be more than a grain In a debate on evangelism and young people, of truth in this, but it also misses the point one speech by a new lay member has stuck about liturgical worship. It is not simply in my mind. He spoke of his four sons, all the background music or prelude to the brought up in a Christian home and what sermon which is the main event. The liturgy sounded like a lively evangelical church. itself proclaims the Gospel; even when the All four had gone off to university and preacher may fail to do so. then left the Church. This was not because Never is this more true than in the great they had been won over to a fashionable liturgies of Holy Week which both tell again ‘Dawkinsite’ atheism. It was because they “the old, old story” and have the capacity to could no longer accept the Church’s attitude tell it afresh; in ways which draw us deeper to LGBT people. To them it was both cruel into the mystery of divine love which and intolerant. I suspect, alas, that some of they celebrate. I have been responsible for those who go on most about evangelism organizing and celebrating them for over are those least likely to listen to what was forty years, and been taking part in them for being said. If even those brought up in the longer still, but I never feel that they have Church are walking away; what chance do become stale and tired. There is always we have of persuading their unchurched something new to hear or something old contemporaries to come in? which is worth hearing and seeing again. And yet, I get up each morning and go This issue contains a revised version of to church and pray in silence before the a description of Holy Week at All Saints Blessed Sacrament, and say the offices and which I wrote some years ago. I hope that it celebrate Mass and preach homilies and will be a helpful introduction to those new to hear confessions and do all the other things these services and a stimulating refresher for priests do, because in the final analysis our those already familiar with them. faith is in God and Our Lord Jesus Christ. In my Ash Wednesday sermon I was I also carry on doing these things because, starkly realistic about the crisis in which the however bad the news might be, however Church finds itself; principally as a result of gloomy the prospects for the Church, it is the tide of revelations of historic abuse by a privilege of ministry to see how much the clergy. This brings with it a temptation goodness there is to be found among people to despair. There are times, when looking of all sorts and conditions, both in the Church back after over forty years of ministry, I feel and outside it. Most of this goes unnoticed a depressing sense of betrayal by some of and unreported. And, as we did at a recent my fellow-clergy. This, it has to be said, is as Memorial Service, to hear how much the 2 unspectacular day-by-day ministry of All people to meet and to thank them for all that Saints is appreciated by folk unknown to they contribute to the life of All Saints. most of the regular congregation. In that Ash Wednesday sermon, I tried “THE OXFORD MOVEMENT” to end on a positive note, with a reminder Fr Alan, Theresa and Fr Michael travelled to of the call to holiness which the dedication Oxford for the Institution of Fr Christopher of this church stands for. The re-building Woods (a long-term member of the Friends of the Church’s reputation is going to be of all Saints) as Vicar of St Barnabas, a long and slow business requiring much Jericho. perseverance in the disciplines of the Fr Alan and Theresa took the opportunity Christian life to which Lent recalls us year to spend a couple of nights with the All by year. We must explore new means of Saints Sisters and Fr Michael extended his communicating the Gospel to a generation stay at Worcester and Lincoln Colleges in which has barely heard it. But we must also order to preach at St Stephen’s House. examine ourselves to discover and root out those attitudes and actions which prevent the OF POETS AND NUNS Gospel being heard. By the time you read this the Christina After writing about the down-sizing of Rossetti Memorial panel will have returned my library last month, a number of you have to its place in the Parish Room, after its asked, sympathetically, how the task is going. time at the Watts Gallery in Surrey as part One, another bibliophile also coming up to of an exhibition on the Pre-Raphaelite retirement, has even been inspired to begin a artist Burne-Jones. Christina’s sister was a similar exercise. Well, without sounding like member of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor an appeal to “salvation by tidiness,” I can here at Margaret Street. report that 30 boxes of books have already Another member of the community, Sister been transported to Mucknell Abbey by the Millicent, also had a poetic sibling: Gerald kind offices of Richard Everton and Fr Pip Manley Hopkins, who had become a Roman Bevan. Another dozen are ready to go. I am Catholic and a Jesuit. Sister Millicent was unlikely to qualify for a Maria Kondo de- also something of a poet. When Fr Michael cluttering award, but at least my daughter’s was at Lincoln College, Oxford, recently the scepticism about the likelihood of her father Rector showed him Sr Millicent’s bound ever discarding a book has been overcome. copy of Gerald’s poems, which also included With best wishes and prayers for Holy two of her own which are printed overleaf. Week and Easter. Hopkins knew Christina Rossetti and was Alan Moses much influenced by her. She introduced him to Dante (he of the Divine Comedy, not her pre- PARISH NOTES Raphaelite brother named after him). While Hopkins is now recognized as the greatest VOLUNTEERS’ EVENINGS and most original poet of his era, his work The second of our evening parties for was hardly known in his lifetime. It was only volunteers took place in the Vicarage after published after his death by his friend Robert Evensong on Sunday 24 February. There Bridges. So one Anglican influenced the was no agenda; simply an opportunity for writing of a Jesuit poet and another brought it 3 to light: a piece of literary ecumenism. And mark the stumblings in earth’s twilight grey, — Types and Shadows We gather blossoms but to see them fade; by Sr Millicent Hopkins Nay! they are glorious in Christ’s Heavenly 1. glade. Not the full glory of a perfect day Wait! when these eyes shall look upon Just glimpses of a beauty near decay — His Face, The light perceived where branches Stains with our tears shall pass, and all entertwine — be grace. Flower gems that linger from the summer time; FR GERALD REDDINGTON Last roses breathing sweet in greenery fair The Vicar travelled to the Isle of Wight, While cedar boughs wave gently to soft air.

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