All Saints Parish Paper 7, MARGARET STREET, LONDON W1W 8JG MARCH 2018 £1.00
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All Saints Parish Paper 7, MARGARET STREET, LONDON W1W 8JG www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.co.uk MARCH 2018 £1.00 VICAR’S LETTER I began my sermon at High Mass on Ash Wednesday (see page 10) by speaking of Bishop Pete Broadbent, the Acting Bishop of London, using a venerable liturgical term, “faffing”, to describe what goes on in high church parishes like this one. The burden of his complaint was that some in our tradition pay more attention to liturgical externals than to teaching the catholic faith. A reporter picked this up and set out to find some thin-skinned Anglo-Catholics ready to take umbrage. She tracked me down, finding that I am pretty thick-skinned and replying that the bishop is given to plain speaking — calling a spade a spade, and that it would do us no harm to pay attention to what he had said. That was the part that was quoted. I also said that at All Saints Passiontide at All Saints the faith is taught and the scriptures (Photo: Andrew Prior) preached and we do our best to avoid liturgical “faffing” — although there Ash Wednesday — prayer, fasting and may be some for whom this is a besetting self-denial, almsgiving, reading and temptation. But that is not the stuff of meditation on scripture — are all meant to which newspaper stories are made. aid in this. The dramatic liturgies of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday The season of Lent which we are and Easter draw us into the mystery of in the midst of and Holy Week which we are approaching present us with a Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. renewed challenge to get serious about The Catholic understanding of worship our faith. The Lenten disciplines which and the spiritual life recognizes the fact the Church calls us to in the Liturgy of that we are not disembodied spirits, 1 but physical as well as spiritual beings. where this is necessary but the truth is that Practices which help form us in the faith many others do little more than meet the as individuals and a community reflect this costs of their existing work, with nothing truth. Cranmer and his fellow-reformers over for the new. We have beautiful abolished them because they thought liturgies with transcendent music and them to have become superstitious works serious sermons (serious in the sense of which got in the way of the newly- substantial — not dull and humourless!) rediscovered power of scripture read every Sunday. in the language of the people. In fact, But we also have a church open every these are not alternatives; we can and day, with the celebration of Mass and the should have them both. Cranmer, while daily offices. How many of our folk ever justly-renowned for his skill in writing come to them? Some do, or worship near memorable prose, could not write verse their work, but the level of attendance is and this explains why there are no both an indicator of our spiritual health hymns in the Prayer Book. Yet we cannot and a witness to the people who just pop imagine worship without congregational into All Saints and find services going on singing. Some of the ancient hymns or people at prayer. which we sing in Lent and during Holy Week and Easter were translated from You may well protest, as I did when I Latin or Greek by those active in the heard of Bishop Pete’s comments: “It’s spiritual revival which produced All not like that here!” Saints. These and devotions like the Way On Ash Wednesday, Fr Michael and of the Cross — and sacramental worship I were struck by the number of young in the widest sense — communicate the people who work locally who came to faith to us at a variety of levels other than our lunchtime Mass. The numbers were the intellectual. up considerably and we ran out of orders However, we have to acknowledge of service. In the evening, I spent some the fact that the popular image of our time after Mass with the young Japanese tradition, even among many of our woman who is running a Bible study fellow-Anglicans — is one of “faffing”. group for some of her fellow-Japanese We are regarded as a hopeless case when residents of London in our parish room. it comes to mission and evangelism. We They come to the evening Mass, equipped are seen as so absorbed in achieving with translations of the liturgy so that the perfect liturgy that we have become they can follow more easily, before their time of study and prayer. Fr Neil and I prisoners of our sanctuaries. This is a have both spent time with them. Our critique which Pope Francis has levelled similar response to the need for support at some of his own clergy and people; so we are not alone. One reason which has from the Annunciation and St Cyprian’s has played a part in the new life now been identified as a contributing factor to our enfeebled state is a lack of serious and flourishing there. sacrificial giving. Too many parishes in If we are honest, we have to recognize our tradition have relied on subsidy from the truth in some of this critique and if we central Church funds. There are cases cannot be honest in Lent, then when can 2 we be? But let me end with Bishop Pete. Chapel and All Saints from photographs He came unannounced to the 8am Mass in the vestry. Two were of Bishop Charles at All Saints; and so was able to see and Gore, founder of the Community of the hear what worship is like when conducted Resurrection and one of the great bishops against the background of a group of and theologians of the Church of England rough sleepers stretched out at the back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. of church. When I saw him the next day Bishop Gore lived at No 6 Margaret Street at the Two Cities Area staff meeting, he while he was exercising a post-retirement expressed his admiration. ministry at the Chapel. He looked very Yours in Christ, severe. One slightly less stern was Fr Alan Moses John Gaskell, who went to the Chapel after serving as Fr Ross’s assistant here. It was during his time at the Chapel that PARISH NOTES John Betjeman described him as “one CANDLEMAS was a lovely of the finest preachers in the Church celebration. Our guest preacher was of England”. So, as Fr Alan said to the Canon Dennis Stamps, the Rector of congregation: “No pressure there then!” Fr Richard Fermer Harpenden. His sermon is on page 7. , the present Priest- In his introduction, the Vicar spoke of in-Charge of the Chapel, lived at All Saints House when he was studying for the link between the two parishes in the person of our late friend Myrtle Hughes. his doctorate at King’s. Katy Cooper, who is a regular in the Sunday evening choir Fr Alan’s sermon at St Nicholas’, Harpenden, on their feast of title and here, sings at the Chapel in the morning. Fr Alan, who was preaching at home in Cannon Stamps here for Candlemas the evening, promised her she would not formed a “Myrtle Hughes Memorial” have to listen to the same sermon twice. series. The St Marylebone Deanery Chapter “End of Christmas” party took place in the Vicarage afterwards. A number of supporters from All Saints were present at the Banqueting GROSVENOR CHAPEL House on 30 January to hear Fr Julian Browning, suitably arrayed as a Caroline The Vicar preached at the Grosvenor divine, preach at the Society of King Chapel in Mayfair on the Sunday before Charles the Martyr’s annual Eucharist in Lent, as part of a series on the Liturgy commemoration of the execution of King of the Eucharist. His assignment was Charles I. the Liturgy of the Word and the Sermon. Visiting preachers have to be prepared for most things, but being greeted by Welcome Home to Yvonne Craig, who someone claiming to be the Christ of has been convalescing in the sunshine of the second coming is more unusual than her daughter’s home in Florida after her most! However, he went quietly after the fall last year. With typical determination, police arrived. In the meantime, Fr Alan and an example to us all, Yvonne was able to recall past links between the reappeared at the 8 o’clock Mass on Ash Wednesday having walked to Church! 3 CAROLINE FARRER RIP on catechesis, organized by Anglican The news of Caroline’s death in St John’s Catholic Future, took place here at Home in Oxford reached us a few days All Saints. To find out more, visit before the deadline for this issue of the theschooloftheology.org or email Parish Paper. Until recently, Caroline, [email protected]. who had lived at All Saints Convent since the death of her parents, was a regular HOLY WEEK PREACHER visitor to All Saints; often here for Holy Our Holy Week preacher this year, Canon Week and for the Festival. She would Hugh Wybrew was Vicar of St Mary always beam appreciatively when we read Magdalene’s until his retirement. After a an extract from one of her father, Austin curacy in Dulwich and a spell teaching at Farrer’s sermons at Evening Prayer on All St Stephen’s House, he served as Chaplain Souls’ Day. Caroline’s funeral will take of the Church of the Resurrection place at St Mary Magdalene’s, Oxford, at in Bucharest, (which also involved 2pm on Wednesday 28 February.