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All Saints Parish Paper MARGARET STREET, LONDON W.1 FEBRUARY 2007 £1.00 VICAR’S LETTER can come to Church, but it is to recognise that worship is both art and work and that In a piece about All Saints which you can we need to learn its disciplines and skills. As read below, P.D. James writes of “the our culture becomes increasingly dominated dignity and beauty of its services”. In by the instant results and satisfactions of this issue you will also find the sermon the media and consumerism, we need to be I preached recently on the subject of trained for the long haul. Evensong. It may seem strange to some to preach about worship. Don’t the people There is a widespread misconception who go to Evensong know what it is about? that the great rift in the Church is between Well, that is something we can no longer those who love old forms of worship and assume, even if we ever could. As more those who opt for modern liturgy: Common than one person said to me after hearing the Prayer versus Common Worship. This is too sermon: “It is good to be reminded what we simplistic to be helpful. The real and more are doing and why.” As I discovered while significant rift is, I believe, between those preparing the sermon, even someone who who recognise the importance and value of has been doing it every day for years can liturgical worship and those who reject it in learn something new or be reminded of favour of enthusiasm and spontaneity. something forgotten, and be refreshed and reinvigorated. Enthusiasm and spontaneity are not wrong in themselves. Our forebears in The Church of England’s Liturgical the 19th Century were certainly devoted Commission, having completed the to liturgical order, but they recognised production of the Common Worship series that colour and drama, music and singing, of services which, along with the Book could all enliven what might become dry of Common Prayer, are the authorised and lifeless routine. They were people of services of our Church, is now turning profound devotion, whose hearts were its attention to what it calls “liturgical moved by Christ, yet they recognised the gift formation”. It recognises that it is not of a liturgy which carries us through those enough to provide a set of services, then times when we do not feel enthusiastic and simply leave people to get on with it. spontaneous; which celebrates a broader Priests need to be helped to celebrate them and deeper understanding and vision of the appropriately and effectively. People need Christian faith, than any of us can manage to know what is going on so that they can on our own. Our founders lived in an age pray with understanding. This is not to say when the dominant ethos was one of rather that we need a GCSE in liturgy before we emotional piety which assumed that true 1 religion could only be found outside the have in trust for others. It is for those who walls of a church, in a prayer meeting or do not yet believe and worship. There is a in a “quiet time” rather than in Common lovely prayer in the House Prayers of the Prayer. They recognised the dangers of All Saints Choir School, which I use at this: sentimentalism, spiritual exhaustion, Morning Prayer on Sundays sometimes, narrowness of experience and vision. which expresses this well: This continues to be a real issue. I expect “Lord, who dost ask of thy people love it will be until the kingdom comes. We for love, and worship in return for life: live at a time when many in the Church Assist is to keep holy, week by week, the are openly and noisily contemptuous of day of thy Son’s mighty rising from the our way of worship — whether it be at dead, and bless us in the breaking of the its most splendid or its most simple. The bread and the prayers; that others of thy former is attacked for being too formal and children who behold our joy may seek stuffy; the latter for being too plain and thy loving kindness in the midst of thy austere. And yet people keep coming to it temple…” who have been wearied by constant efforts at enthusiasm and spontaneity and find Here at All Saints we have our “School something which feeds and supports them. of Worship”, but there is a sense in which our worship is our school, where we are Some argue that only a particular kind constantly learning the ways of God. of personality is attracted to our kind of worship — the introverted, the “up-tight”. With my prayers that the Lent which This is not the whole truth but there is just begins this month may draw us closer enough in it to make us aware of the danger to Christ — not least through a careful of simply providing a refuge for those who celebration of its liturgy. want to be reinforced in the way they are, Yours in Christ. rather than transformed into what God Alan Moses would have us be. Most of us have been to one of those churches which considers itself the acme of liturgical correctness THE RESTORATION — but not a soul speaks to you. APPEAL Here at All Saints, we enjoy one of the Time is marching on and the day draws richest liturgical programmes in the Church closer when we will have to fire the starting of England. Maintaining it is an important gun for the works we intend to carry out. part of our common calling and mission. Our architect Colin Kerr tells us that it will This is not just for our own benefit — that have to be done by the end of the summer if would be to reduce our religion to a variety we are to complete the work in time for the of consumerism. It is for others as well as 150th anniversary of the consecration. ourselves. It is for others in the Church like the parish priest who wrote to me recently We are now entering on a very important to say how much support he found for his phase of our fund-raising efforts in making ministry in coming to Sunday Evensong. It applications to grant-giving bodies both is not a possession of ours, but a gift we large and small. We are grateful to Dr 2 Harry Bramma for spearheading this P.D. JAMES writes: work, bringing his experience in fund- “All Saints, Margaret Street, is architect- raising for the Royal school of Church urally one of the most remarkable Victorian Music and then for our own organ churches in the capital. The architect was restoration. He is being assisted by Jacob William Butterfield, who managed on Philips — who is taking time out from his the small and difficult site to produce a theology studies and his work as a pastoral soaring and magnificent house of God to assistant at St John the Divine, Kennington, serve the traditions of High Anglicanism. to lend his word-processing skills. It is celebrated for its fine music and the This does not mean that we can relax in dignity and beauty of its services, but fund-raising within the congregation. So, above all it is a church of prayer and we continue to encourage our own people silence. Even when the church is empty, to think about how they can help. to enter its incense-scented interior is to feel the cares and preoccupations of daily Do you have ideas for fund-raising? The living fall away in the contemplation of the Appeal Events Committee would like to beauty of holiness. It was partly because hear from you. Please contact Chris Self. of this unique atmosphere which the Pledge forms from members of the church holds for me, and my great joy in congregation continue to come in. If you describing it, that I used the church for a have not yet considered this, it is not too significant meeting place in my novel The late. As I write this, Dennis Davis tells me Murder Room.” that a donation of £1,000 Gift Aided has (It was a pity that the makers of the arrived in the morning post. television adaptation did not think it necessary to use the real thing and We are planning to invite representatives substituted an anonymous church. AM) of local businesses to an evening event in the early summer at which there will The Appeal has raised: £561,000. be a presentation about our plans. If you We need to raise a total of £2.1million. would like to help with this, please contact AM Frances O’Neil. Sunday February 18th There is a new display about the Restoration Programme in the Baptistery. EASY LIKE SUNDAY EVENING Our thanks to Nick Mayhew-Smith for producing this. An evening of light musical entertainment with the Choir of All Saints Martin Cullingford has been recruiting 7.30 p.m. at the Phoenix Pub a number of well-known figures with All (west end of Margaret Street) Saints connections to write short pieces for the Website. For those who do not have Tickets £10 in advance from access to the Internet, we will reproduce the Parish Office and Sunday Shop them in the Parish Paper. Here is the first of the series. All proceeds to the Restoration Appeal 3 meant that both Mary and Con have had PEOPLE to move into nursing homes.

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