All Saints Parish Paper Margaret Street, London W.1

All Saints Parish Paper MARGARET STREET, LONDON W.1 AUGUST 2009 £1.00 VICAR’S LETTER begun life with a pilgrimage to Lourdes some years ago by a group of people with There is an eve of holiday atmosphere about. disabilities like Downs Syndrome. The The season of ecclesiastical meetings is experience had been so powerful that the drawing to a close. I’m just back from the pilgrims kept on meeting and so began a General Synod in York, so a great pile of movement which came to be called “Faith paper can be filed in one place or another. and Light”. The worship included an elderly The length of Synod had been cut by a day; gentleman singing a couple of verses of this annoyed some but not me. I do wonder “What a friend we have in Jesus” which about the effectiveness of a meeting which reminded us of the privilege of prayer; one goes on day after day, with business from we take too much for granted sometimes, early morning to late evening. I found, and a number of songs accompanied by however, that I was cheered by unexpected actions. Spectating from the sidelines was encounters and experiences. not on, so everyone in the congregation, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the One pleasure was to hear one of our Vicar of All Saints, joined in. It was not former organ scholars, David Pipe, now the usual repertoire of liturgical gestures I the Assistant Director of Music at York operate with, but the principle is the same. Minster, playing the Widor Mass sung there on Sunday morning and having a chance Canon Jeremy Fletcher, the Precentor of to talk with him afterwards. I mention the Minster, had been telling me earlier in elsewhere in this issue a few of the steady the day about the “Transcendence Mass”, stream of ordinands All Saints has given to an act of “alternative worship” which takes the wider Church over the years. It is good place in the Minster on Sunday evenings. that the organ scholarship programme It draws together people from charismatic which we established a number of years and evangelical backgrounds and ago is already providing musicians capable introduces them to some of the elements of serving the Church in such centres of of catholic worship. It may not do this in a excellence as York Minster. We can take a manual of ceremonial way, but it seems to justifiable pride in this. work. Having someone on screen making the threefold sign of the cross with a In the evening, back at the University simple explanation of this as pointing to where the Synod meets, we had a very Gospel in our minds, on our lips and in our different act of worship. It was led by a hearts, demystified this piece of “catholic” group called “Faith and Light”. This had ceremony for many nervous of it. Like us, 1 they had a Corpus Christi procession. There At the end of High Mass on the previous is, I think, a lesson here about a gracious Sunday, Matthew’s last as sub-deacon, Fr way of commending catholic worship and Alan presented him with an icon and book sacramental life. tokens as a token of the congregation’s thanks for all that he has contributed to the Canon Joseph Cassidy, the Principal of life of All Saints and our best wishes and St Chad’s College in Durham, addressed prayers for his future ministry. a fringe meeting on the subject of radical graciousness as an Anglican quality; a Matthew writes: graciousness which enables us to live and grow in communion with those we “Dear Father Alan, have major disagreements with. We have “I am writing to thank you and everyone to admit that not all Anglicans seem to at All Saints for your most affectionate have received this gift at Baptism and and moving send-off for me on Sunday. Confirmation. General Synod, like many The beautiful image of Our Lady and another ecclesiastical gathering, has its Child is now hanging in my oratory share of the ungracious. As I said in a where I say the daily office when I am recent sermon, whatever its benefits, such not in church, so I shall be reminded of as enabling me to get this letter to the All Saints very frequently in my prayers. printers before it is too late, the internet Thank you also for the prodigious has provided us with a new means of quantity of book tokens: I shall have to ungraciousness. think seriously about a suitably weighty purchase to do justice to this gift and to As so often when I go to such gatherings, support my ministry during the years I meet people for whom All Saints has been ahead. an important place at some stage on their pilgrimage. So I always return home with “I hope in my unscripted remarks a renewed sense of our common calling I managed to convey something of the to maintain and develop this place and sense of how All Saints, as a living the community which worships here, as Christian community, has formed me a living centre of Christian faith and life, over the years, and my sense of profound worship and prayer. gratitude for all that I have learned Yours in Christ, and become through being part of this Fr Alan Moses community. The gifts of faithfulness, attentiveness, patience and love which PARISH NOTES are so much a part of All Saints are rooted in that abiding commitment to The Revd Matthew Duckett prayer and the worship of God which Matthew was one of 35 deacons ordained is the fundamental vocation of the by the Bishop of London in St Paul’s Church.” Cathedral on Saturday June 27th. The event was followed by a party in the hall Another Ordinand, Alun Ford, has at St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate. completed his first year at Westcott House 2 in Cambridge, and submitted his doctoral moment, a temporary font was established thesis to the University of London. He in the chancel. The Mgina family provided returns to Cambridge after the summer cake and coffee in his honour after the for two years of academic theology. In the service. meantime, he is helping Bishop Michael Marshall with a project to visit all the Denzil Freeth 85th Birthday homes and businesses in the parish of The Denzil has been unable to be with us at Annunciation with information about the church for some time while recovering church. He has also been assisting Fr Alan from a bad fall. He is still very much in with the weekly Mass at Hampden Gurney touch with All Saints through his many School. friends who visit and the clergy who take him the Sacrament each week. Denzil Prebendary David Paton: Silver Jubilee celebrated his 85th birthday on Friday David was an ordinand from an earlier era July 10th and received a large card with at All Saints. Last month he celebrated 25 greetings from his many friends at All years as a priest with a Mass at the Royal Saints. Foundation of St Katherine in the East End where he is now the Master. All Saints Fr Chad Gandiya will be the Bishop of was well-represented; not least by those Harare in his native Zimbabwe by the time assisting with music, serving and liturgical you read this. He is to be consecrated on kit. July 26th. Fr Alan celebrated a valedictory Mass for him at the Church of St George Peter Jewkes is a Friend of All Saints and the Martyr next to the headquarters of organist of Christ Church, St Lawrence USPG on Wednesday July 15th. He took in Sydney, as well as an organ builder. with him a gift of incense from All Saints He was passing through London recently to be used with the thurible which had and Fr Alan and Theresa were guests at a been given by the London branch of the supper party for him hosted by Fr Graeme Zimbabwean Mothers’ Union. Napier, a minor canon at Westminster Abbey and former curate of Christ Church, Philip Bennet. Philip was a chorister here St Lawrence. as a boy, then when he returned to live and work in London, a parishioner. After he Rosemary Harris would like to thank retired to Colchester, he remained a regular everyone at All Saints for their prayers, worshipper at All Saints on weekdays and cards and kind messages during her recent occasional Sundays. In spite of undergoing spell in hospital. a course of chemotherapy, Philip was determined to be at All Saints on Easter Baptism: Day and came, with his friend Brian Wenceslous Nicholas Mgina was baptised Johnson, who had often accompanied him at High Mass on Sunday June 21st. He on Sunday visits over the years. Philip behaved impeccably throughout the died on the morning of Sunday June 21st. proceedings. As the font is invisible from He had hoped that his funeral would take all but a small proportion of the nave at the place at All Saints before burial in his 3 home village in Wales. This turned out to Priests are not supposed to celebrate more be too difficult, so his funeral Mass was than once a day, although ours often have to. celebrated in St James’s, Colchester. All Although the Vicar and Fr Beauchamp are Saints was represented by Juliet Windham usually at the morning and evening offices and Fr Alan, who preached. His sermon is each day and celebrate Mass daily, they printed in this issue.

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