What we believe about the Angels (Bishop Jonathan Baker)

Here is a great teaching given by our Bishop for Michaelmas Day. He packs into just ten minutes all the main things we need to know from Scripture and the Church’s teaching about the Holy Angels. This is certainly a video to share!

Is High Mass humanity’s “greatest artistic achievement”?

High Mass at Pusey House, Oxford

(From the Pusey House website)

I love this part of Douglass Shand Tucci's article THE HIGH MASS AS SACRED DANCE in which he quotes at length Anglican spiritual guide, Evelyn Underhill. Her words pretty well sum up the impact on me of the first High Mass I wandered into as an impressionable teenager. I was overwhelmed by the power of the worship to merge the earthly and the heavenly, to reveal the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. I am fortunate in my ministry as a priest to have served parishes in which this form of worship was kept going. In one of them, the motto we used on the pew bulletin was: "Gospel Preaching & Traditional Catholic Worship."  

High Mass was mostly swept away in our time by well-meaning people who thought they were making the Church more "relevant" to our culture. But, while it would be foolish to imagine that everyone has the cultural predisposition to be drawn to the Lord by the kind of worship described here, I can assure readers that many, including "unchurched" young people ARE drawn when this supernatural worship is offered as part of the new evangelisation!

Indeed, the yearning for the dimensions of worship spoken of in the following article lies behind the current movement to restore the transcendent and numinous which much of the Western Church has lost over the last sixty years.

Tucci's entire article, of which this is an extract, can be found HERE. (To assist the reader of this extract, I have renumbered the endnotes.)

The distinguished Anglican scholar, Evelyn Underhill traced what could be called the graph of the Mass: from the liturgy of lessons and Gospel, “God’s uttered word in History,” and the Great Intercession, “the unstinting, self-spending with and for the purposes of God, by intercessory prayer,” of the Offertory, where Christ, she wrote, “enters the Holy Place as the representative of man, offering the humble material of man’s sacrifice, that he may come forth from it as the representative of God, bringing to man the Heavenly Food.” And, finally, to the Great Thanksgiving - when the gifts of bread and wine, set apart from the natural world for the Mystery, yield - “the invisible Holy Presence; Who comes under these lowly signs into the Sanctuary with an escort of incense and lights, and is welcomed by the enraptured Alleluias of the Cherubic Hymn, announcing the Presence of God.”

What better has been written of this tremendous moment of the Sanctus when “all that truly happens,” she wrote, “happens beyond the rampart of the world”? Sursum corda - Lift up your hearts, sings the celebrant. “The early liturgies leave us in no doubt,” she continued, “as to what this movement implied: ‘To the heavenly height, the awful place of glory. . . .’ This cry, and the people’s response, come down to us from the earliest days of the Church.” It marks, she declared, “the crossing of the boundary between natural and supernatural worship”; the knowing search for what she called “that ineffable majesty on which Isaiah looked, which is the theme of the earliest Eucharistic prayers, and which inspires the great Sanctus of the B Minor Mass, with its impersonal cry of pure adoration.” This is the world communicants enter as they approach the altar rail, wrote Underhill, where “the ‘Table of Holy Desires’ with its cross and ritual lights stands on the very frontier of the invisible.” (1)

Has anyone in our time set before architect or musician, so uncompromisingly, the task the liturgy forces upon them? As Underhill put it in another place, “movement and words combine to produce an art form which is the vehicle of [the Church’s] self-offering to God and communion with God.” The liturgy, she knew, is “an action and an experience that transcend the logical levels of the mind and demand an artistic rather than an intellectual form of expression.” (2) The honours of the church on earth significantly describe in her text what they describe, audibly and visually, in the mass. Bach is there as well as the cherubim, on the frontier of the invisible.

She knew well the risks of the medium; she knew the dangers of depending on an imperfect art to make a perfect art-form. But she knew too that to eschew art, worship must be “thin, abstract, notional: a tendency, an attitude, a general aspiration, moving alongside human life, rather than in it.” Worship thus embodied by the arts, she declared, “loses-or seems to lose-something of its purity; but only then can it take up and use man’s various powers and capacities ... thus entering the texture of his natural as well as supernatural life. Certainly, it is here that we encounter the greatest danger, that form will smother spirit.... But the risk is one which man is bound to take. He is not ‘pure’ spirit, and is not capable of ‘pure’ spiritual acts .... (3)

. . . most Anglicans continue to trivialize ceremonial and even to overlook its significance. They typically bury themselves throughout the liturgy in hymnal, prayer book, or service leaflet - on the dubious premise that to read what is being said is to understand it better. This, in turn, has had disastrous effects on church lighting, which frequently overthrows every attempt of the architect to create an evocative liturgical environment . . . Modern art has also sometimes strained the principles of liturgical art severely. That these principles can survive in modern work of great originality is clear. For example, consider Jean Langlais’ Messe Solennelle. Relentlessly liturgical, suggestive often of plainchant, its solemn, quiet and sometimes even lyrical texture is nonetheless so taut that when the tension erupts into Langlais’ massive, fiercely impassioned dissonances, the effect is a stunning and almost numbing grandeur of sound that evokes the mysterium tremendum with an uncanny distinction.

Is the High Mass, as Cram and others have thought, humanity’s “greatest artistic achievement”? Infrequently. Most church people have the erroneous impression that the very simple Low Mass is the most primitive form of Christian worship and that the solemn liturgy is a medieval elaboration. Actually, Low Mass is the medieval innovation . . .

Anglicans as well as Roman Catholics cannot be blamed for forgetting that the ancient High Mass, resplendent with lights, music, incense and full ceremonial, has always remained the theoretical norm of the western church as it is still the actual norm of Eastern Christendom. (4) Forgetful of this fact, we forget another: that “art in worship is not a mere imitation of the creative work of God; nor is it only a homage rendered to Christ; by giving embodiment to invisible realities it continues the Incarnation of the Word.” (5) Indeed, the Church has held that it “brings about objectively and in our very midst, the highest form of reality, the Summum Pulchrum, God Himself.’ “(6) Confronted with this astonishing purpose, and the distinguished art it has yielded, the art historian can only declare that in thus reaching “beyond the rampart of the world” for what Underhill called “that ineffable majesty upon which Isaiah looked,” the art of the High Mass is not only august but unparallelled.

* * * * * * * * * *

(1) The material quoted in this and the preceding paragraph is drawn from Evelyn Underhill's The Mystery of Sacrifice: A Meditation on the Liturgy (New York, 1954), unpaged introduction and pp. 18-40. The Mystery of Sacrifice was first published in 1938.

(2) Evelyn Underhill, Worship (New York, 1936), p. 33. See also p. 29.

(3) Ibid., p. 14.

(4) Ibid., p. 245.

(5) Ibid., P. 71.

(6) Hammenstede, "The Liturgy as Art," pp. 41-42.

Today's readings and reflection

FIRST READING  (Isaiah 42:1-7)

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations.

"He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not fail or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. "

Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: "I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness."

GOSPEL  (John 12:1-11)
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at table with him.

Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said, "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?"

This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it.

Jesus said, "Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

REFLECTION

Extravagant love for Jesus - Servants of the Word 

FURTHERMORE . . .

"Before the triumphal procession moved towards Jerusalem, Jesus stopped at the home of His friend Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. There were two persons at the supper that distinguished themselves by their behaviour: Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and Judas, the disciple of Jesus, whose surname was Iscariot.

"Mary, sensing somehow that the earthly ministry of Jesus was drawing to a close, takes a pound of pure and expensive alabaster and anoints the feet of Christ, wiping them with her hair. The house was soon permeated by the sweet fragrance of the alabaster.

"Judas, however, always acutely conscious of the monetary value of everything, censured the pious act of Mary, charging her with the wanton waste of that which 'might have been sold for much, and given to the poor' (Matthew 26:9). We then see Jesus in His role as Defender of the poor and the oppressed. Chrysostom remarks that the piety of Judas here is certainly hypocritical, as is his condemnation of Mary.

“St. Paul tells us that Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. (II Corinthians 11:14). Judas is unsuccessful at hiding his real motive; he would have liked to have stolen the ointment, and sold it for his own personal profit. Many of us today are guilty of this sin of Judas, particularly those that would rob the church of its liturgical appointments, condemning them as luxuries. Not that they would steal from the church; but whenever a new chalice is needed for Holy Communion they will object that the money is being squandered foolishly, and the same with vestments, icons, and even with Bibles for the Sunday School. Any money spent for religious purposes, and especially for bringing others to the saving faith of Christ, is, according to these people, not necessary. It would be superfluous to comment upon the spiritual condition of these avaricious souls.”

Rev. George Dimopoulos 

". . . anointing with such expensive oil was the traditional practice reserved for the deceased, the dead. But Jesus was not dead yet, he was very much alive. Then why did all this happen now, you may ask? Mary was foretelling the crucifixion of our Lord on the cross, and His burial in the tomb by her simple actions motivated purely by love. Our Lord specifically states that 'she (Mary) has kept this for the day of My burial.' (John 12:7). Here the actions of Mary teach us that Jesus was already dead to this world and to His human temptations. We too who attempt to live a life in Christ must also be dead to this world if we ever want to receive Christ.”

Kosmas Damianides

PRAYER

Alone to sacrifice thou goest, Lord,

giving thyself to Death

whom thou hast slain.

For us thy wretched folk is any word?

Who know that for our sins this is thy pain?

For they are ours, O Lord, our deeds, our deeds.

Why must thou suffer torture for our sin?

Let our hearts suffer in thy Passion, Lord,

that very suffering may thy mercy win.

This is the night of tears, the three days' space,

sorrow abiding of the eventide,

Until the day break with the risen Christ,

and hearts that sorrowed shall be satisfied.

So may our hearts share in thine anguish, Lord,

that they may sharers of thy glory be;

Heavy with weeping may the three days pass,

to win the laughter of thine Easter Day.

- Peter Abelard (1079-1142)

Today's readings and reflection

FIRST READING  (Exodus 17:3-7)

The people thirsted for water, and they murmured against Moses, and said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" 

So Moses cried to the Lord, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me."

And the Lord said to Moses, "Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand the rod with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink." 

And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the faultfinding of the children of Israel, and because they put the Lord to the proof by saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?"

SECOND READING  (Romans 5:1-2, 5-8)

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. Hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man--though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

GOSPEL (John 4:5-42)

Jesus came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. 

So Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 

For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 

The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. 

 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 

The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?" 

Jesus said to her, "Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." 

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." 

The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly." 

The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 

The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things." 

Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he." 

Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, "What do you wish?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" 

So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" They went out of the city and were coming to him. 

Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." So the disciples said to one another, "Has any one brought him food?" 

Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour." 

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world."

REFLECTIONS 
A spring of water welling up to eternal life - Word of Life Community

A look at today's Gospel Reading - Coptic Orthodox reflection

Spiritual thirst and the Holy Spirit - Pastor Rick Warren  

FURTHERMORE . . . (by Msgr. Joseph Prior)

Water is necessary for life. While we know this from our intellect we also sense it experientially when we go without water for a period. In the initial period we may say that we are “thirsty.” Our body tells us that we need water. We can feel the need as we long for water.

Going without for a longer period of time we begin to get dehydrated. When this happens all sorts of things start to occur in the body – we can get faint or lightheaded, lethargy sets in, we might even get disoriented. The urgent need for water will be noticed as the body then begins to shut down – and eventually, without water, we will die.

The Israelites were keenly aware of this as they journeyed in the desert. It’s not that easy to find water in the desert. Such was the case when they were at “Meribah and Massah.” They are thirsty. So they grumble against the Lord: “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?” Wow. That is some pretty serious grumbling. Remember they were slaves while in Egypt; the Egyptians were working them to death, and murdering all their new born males.

In their thirst, they forgot the Lord’s goodness to them and his power to save. The Lord is not happy with this grumbling but provides, once again, for his people. Their thirst, at least their physical thirst, is quenched and they are saved.

The Gospel passage for Sunday’s liturgy is Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well of Jacob. Jesus was thirsty. He had been walking all morning when he arrived at about noon in Sychar, a Samaritan town. It is here that Jesus encounters and interacts with the “woman at the well.”

In the encounter we see a wonderful interplay between thirst and satisfaction, between water and spirit. Jesus is thirsty for water, the Samaritan woman thirsty for spirit. She can provide the water, he can provide the Spirit. As the interchange develops we see clearly that the need for “living water” is much more significant and important than regular water.

Jesus says to the woman: “Everyone who drinks this water [from the well] will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The offer of “living water” can only be made because Jesus has come on a mission from the Father. The mission is that of mercy and healing through sacrifice.

When the disciples returned to find Jesus at the well with the woman, they urge Jesus to eat. Jesus responds to them: “I have food to eat which you do not know…. My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.”

The living water that Jesus promises is poured out from the cross. Recall that after Jesus dies but is still hanging on the cross, the soldiers came and one of them “thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” The water signifies the “living water” that Jesus provides through his passion and death. The resurrection will witness to its power to give eternal life.

Lent helps prepare us for the Triduum and Easter in which we remember the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord and our participation in the life he affords us. Participation in the liturgies of the Triduum draws us into the paschal mystery we celebrate.

A major part of these celebrations happen at the Easter Vigil when adults are fully initiated into the life Christ won for us. They are immersed in the “living waters” of baptism and the gift of the Spirit is poured out upon them. At the Easter liturgies, all the baptized are reminded of their own baptism through the renewal of vows and the sprinkling of water.

The celebration of Easter is the celebration of life, the eternal life that has been made possible for us through Christ Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. These are the “living waters” that provide for our thirst, the thirst for life.

PRAYER  (John van de Laar)

In the dry wildernesses of our lives,

in the days of heat and thirst,

you offer us living water,

Thank you, gracious and generous God.

When we begin to doubt your presence,

and grumble that your love is unreliable,

you offer us living water,

Thank you, gracious and generous God.

When life’s regrets and the bad choices we have made

leave us feeling excluded and unworthy,

you offer us living water,

Thank you, gracious and generous God.

When circumstances, or the inhumanity of others,

have left us alone and wounded,

you offer us living water,

Thank you, gracious and generous God.

We thank you and praise you, O God,

that how ever we may thirst,

what ever we may need to satisfy our souls,

you offer it freely and abundantly in Christ;

So we drink deep of the living water

and, as we draw from your wells,

we seek to pass the cup to others

who, like us, are thirsty for your grace.

Amen.

Cultural "relevance" and evangelisation

CULTURALLY RELEVANT?

A great deal is said these days about the need for the Church to become more relevant to the world in which we live. We are often encouraged to embrace totally the culture around us in order to make ourselves attractive, especially to young people. We are told that more will then accept the Gospel message and become worshippers. At the very least, we are told that we will be spared the ridicule of our culture!

Now, it is obviously important for clergy and laity alike to connect with people around us in real friendship and genuine respect if we are to be of any use at all in loving the world back to God. At the same time, it is not possible to read the New Testament and avoid what the Lord himself said about the world (sometimes) hating his followers just as it hated him. This is surely part of what St Paul meant when he spoke of sharing in the fellowship of the Lord’s sufferings (Philippians 3:10 & Colossians 1:24). (Of course, I know that here’s no excuse for Christians, when in a minority, becoming bitter, twisted and hateful when the same Lord also told us to love our enemies and pray for them - a command conspicuously obeyed by countless generations of Christian martyrs at the very point of their death.)

There are times in history when this or that culture has been heavily influenced by the Gospel and the faith, and sometimes even solidly based on it. Don’t we all long for that to have been true for our time! Commenting on this, Fr Gavin Ashenden has recently been pointing out in the media how very powerful both secular humanism and militant Islam have become. Given the strength of each, Fr Ashenden chided the Anglican establishment for adapting itself to the role of chaplain to a decadent hedonistic culture, rather than taking a stand against the culture when required, in order to be faithful to the Lord and truly loving to those around us.

I think that there will always be some large churches. And what we have known for hundreds of years as a parish church may well continue into the future. But the nucleus of the church in this or that neighbourhood - whether meeting in an old church building or in somebody's house - is likely to be a smallish almost monastic like community of people who love the Lord and each other, who seek to build each other up for the challenge simply of worshipping, living and witnessing in the world, sanctifying their own little bit of it with their prayers. (Some readers will remember that Pope Benedict, when he was a young priest, spoke about that particular development in the West, and how it would make us all depend much more on the grace of God and not artificial "props". He also said that the Church will get through that period, writing in way similar to T.S. Eliot's words quoted in the previous blog post.)

For many years I have been interested in the writings of Robert Louis Wilken. Originally a Lutheran, he became a Roman Catholic in 1994. When he was Professor of History at the University of Virginia, he gave an interview about the lessons we can learn from the way in which the early Church impacted on the culture of the Mediterranean world. Dr Wilken challenges many of the cherished opinions of those who for decades have formulated church policies, including some still trying to adapt the Church to the 1960’s, as well as others who think the Church should conform its moral teaching to that of today’s secular West. 

Specifically, in Roman Redux in Christian History Vol. LVII, No.1, because Wilken views today’s evangelistic challenge as not very different to the one that faced the early Church, he asks whether the example of the early Church has anything to teach us in our witness to Christ in a post-Christian culture.

  

EVANGELISM IN THE EARLY CHURCH

In the interview, Wilken talks about the role of apologetics, martyrdoms, and “everyday evangelism.” He then considers the ecclesial dimension of early Christianity - the tightly knit sense of loving community Christians shared together, and the strong leadership of the bishop as priest and teacher, the one who presided over the life of the community, assisted by his deacons and presbyters, with bishops of different regions working with one another, organising themselves across the Empire. Wilken points out that there are no real parallels to this among any other people in the ancient world.

Then, says Wilken, there were the Scriptures, which grounded the Christian gospel not in myth but in history. This was especially true with regard to the community’s central belief in the Resurrection of Jesus. The ancient world had stories of gods coming back to life and miraculous happenings. But to talk about such things as if they happened in real history was unparallelled. This is what set Christ and the Church apart. It was a belief Christians were willing to die for. And it was a belief Christians didn’t soft peddle. Furthermore, we know that those who tried to adapt the Gospel message to movements of thought inimical to Incarnational Christianity got short shrift from the Church as a whole. 

CHANGING WHAT (or WHO) PEOPLE LOVE

Wilken draws some fascinating lessons from the early Church for our consideration today. He points out that “witnessing” to the culture (and even “apologetics”) was basically an explanation of what Christians believed and practised. Justin Martyr, for example, simply gave an account of Christian worship, and talked about baptism. Wilken thinks that modern Christians should do the same: familiarise people with the Christian story, and talk about the things that make Christianity distinctive, on account of many people today being both unaware of the basics of the Christian Faith, and more curious than we give them credit for.

Wilken goes on to talk about the essence of evangelism and conversion:

“Apologetics then and now must speak what is true, but finally the appeal must be made to the heart, not the mind. We’re really leading people to change their love. To love something different. Love is what draws and holds people.”

This leads to the whole question of the tightly knit early Christian community of love:

“How did the early church build their community? It built a way of life. The Church was not something that spoke to its culture; it was itself a culture and created a new Christian culture. There were appointed times when the community came together. There was a distinctive calendar, and each year the community rehearsed key Christian beliefs at certain times. There was church-wide charity to the surrounding community. There was clarity, and church discipline regarding moral issues. All these things made up a wholesome community.”

USER FRIENDLY?

In speaking of the community’s worship Wilken says:

“Did the church strive to be ‘user-friendly’? Not at all - in fact, just the opposite. One thing that made early Christian community especially strong was its stress on ritual. That there was something unique about Christian liturgy, especially the Eucharist. It was different from anything pagans had experienced, architecturally, and in terms of the various ingredients of the worship. Worship was something that baptism gave one the right to enter into. Prayers and hymns were taken out of the Bible, a book foreign to pagans. And then there was a sermon, an unusual feature in itself, with historically grounded talk of a dying and rising God. Pagans entered a wholly different world than they were used to. Furthermore, it was difficult to join the early church. Besides the social and cultural hurdles: the process for becoming a member took two years.”

Now, this runs counter to what many so-called experts tell us today. In fact, Wilken thinks that modern “user friendly” churches have a completely wrong strategy:

“A person who comes into a Christian church for the first time SHOULD feel out of place. He should feel this community engages in practices so important they take time to learn. The best thing we can do for “seekers” is to create an environment where newcomers feel they are missing something vital, that one has to be inculcated into this, and that it’s a discipline. Few people grasp that today. But the early church grasped it very well.”

This is an important point. So many churches expect every aspect of their worship to be intelligible to those showing up for the first time, when we would never expect to understand the cricket the first time we go to a match, or a code of football different to our own. But that doesn't stop the constant flow of new people becoming fans.  

WHAT ABOUT US?

All of that is very interesting. It certainly squares with my experience over nearly 40 years of ordained ministry. Genuine friendship and love in a parish community, together with clergy and laity alike being brave enough to bear personal witness to Christ at home and in the work place, draws people to the Lord. And I know that this happens even in some “traditional” parishes which, from the point of view of many modern “experts”, ought not be attracting newcomers at all! 

Long term readers of this blog know that I refrain from criticising other Christian traditions (except, maybe, on occasion, hopeless liberals!). So, I sincerely say “praise the Lord” for every person who is converted to Christ through “seeker friendly” services, “emergent” churches, “church plants”, evangelistic outreaches, “cafe churches”, Gospel rock music, or any other means. God uses all sorts of things to attract our attention. But the cogency of Dr Wilken’s argument remains. We should not be dumbing down worship and teaching, thinking that by doing so we will make it easier for people to believe (when very often it is those genuinely seeking God who we turn away!) Nor (as Fr Ashenden has pointed out) do we make ourselves or the Gospel more attractive or convincing by embracing the ethics (and bioethics!) or the relativity mindset of a culture that has discarded the Christian revelation. 

I finish today with an extract from a later article of Dr Wilken:

“At this moment in the Church’s history in this country (and in the West more generally) it is less urgent to convince the alternative culture in which we live of the truth of Christ than it is for the Church to tell itself its own story and to nurture its own life, the culture of the city of God, the Christian republic. This is not going to happen without a rebirth of moral and spiritual discipline and a resolute effort on the part of Christians to comprehend and to defend the remnants of Christian culture. The unhappy fact is that the society in which we live is no longer neutral about Christianity. The United States would be a much less hospitable environment for the practice of the faith if all the marks of Christian culture were stripped from our public life and Christian behavior were tolerated only in restricted situations.

“If Christian culture is to be renewed, habits are more vital than revivals, rituals more edifying than spiritual highs, the creed more penetrating than theological insight, and the celebration of saints’ days more uplifting than the observance of Mother’s Day. There is great wisdom in the maligned phrase ex opere operato, the effect is in the doing. Intention is like a reed blowing in the wind. It is the doing that counts, and if we do something for God, in the doing God does something for us.”

The priestliness of Jesus and Christian worship in the words of Margaret Barker

For many years I have had an interest in how the Old Testament forms the backdrop to the New Testament, and in particular how the New Testament authors use Old Testament passages and symbols. My observations led me to embrace a basically typological approach to the OT at a time when friends - both conservative and liberal - were pursuing debates about the OT from a purely historical/critical angle. Among my guidebooks back then were the works of Anglican writers Austin Farrer and Gabriel Herbert. Although typology can give rise to unrestrained and subjective allegorisation, I have always thought that a failure to embrace a balanced typological hermeneutic results at best in a sidelining of the OT except as "historical background", and at worst (as Aidan Nichols pointed out in his book "Lovely Like Jerusalem") in our becoming modern Marcionites. 

The connection of typology with the development of Christian worship seemed obvious to me as a young man formed by both highly liturgical Anglo-catholicism and those parts of the 1960s-70s charismatic renewal emphasising the worship of the community as somehow part of our "offering" to the Father through Jesus our great High Priest.

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in these themes among Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Wesleyan scholars. One of the most significant contributors is Margaret Barker, a Cambridge theologian and Methodist whose work has been acknowledged across the Christian traditions. A number of her essays are online. Visit her home page HERE. In July 2008 Margaret Barker was awarded a DD by the Archbishop of Canterbury "in recognition of her work on the Jerusalem Temple and the origins of Christian Liturgy, which has made a significantly new contribution to our understanding of the New Testament and opened up important fields for research."

While not being totally convinced on absolutely every point she makes, I think that her book, The Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy is nothing less than magnificent. In my opinion it should be required reading for all thoughtful Christians!

I mention this on Ascension Day, because I want to share with you a key passage from Margaret Barker's book which shows how central the Ascension was to the early Christians. (It also vindicates all those teachers, theologians and hymn-writers in the Anglo-Catholic tradition who have emphasized the Ascension as primarily a celebration of the Lord's high-priestly ministry.)

So, from pages 221 - 222 of The Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy:


Only the high priest was permitted to pass through the veil and to stand before the throne or, in the desert tradition, before the ark, and he was only permitted to do this once a year on the Day of Atonement. The words of Leviticus 16:2 could imply that at an earlier period, the high priest had entered more frequently: “Tell your brother Aaron not to come at all times into the holy place within the veil, before the mercy seat which is upon the ark, lest he die.” Entering the holy of holies was a terrifying experience, because the LORD appeared to the high priest “in the cloud upon the kapporet”. Before making the blood offering, the high priest took incense into the holy of holies, and this seems to have been a protection for him. “Put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of incense may cover the kapporet which is upon the testimony, lest he die” (Lev. 16:13). In later texts, the high priest carries a “fire pan” in to the holy of holies and places it before the ark. Then he puts the incense on to the charcoal, and fills the holy of hollies with smoke (m. Yoma 5:1). Other texts, however, imply that there was a golden altar, within the veil of the temple. The Letter to the Hebrews is clear; in the holy of holies stood the ark and the golden altar of incense (Heb. 9:3-4). The Hebrew text of 1 Kings 6:20 - 22, however, is not so clear, but could have described a golden altar within the veil. Unfortunately, the line, “He covered with gold the altar that belonged to the holy of holies” (1 Kgs. 6:22) does not appear in the LXX, and the text of v. 20 is disordered. The Vulgate, which is quite clear that there was an altar within the veil, was translated at the end of the fourth century CE by Jerome, who would have known the Letter to the Hebrews and thus would have read the ambiguities of 1 Kings 6:20 in the light of the later Christian text. However the incense was actually offered, the tradition is clear that the high priest needed the incense as protection when he entered the holy of holies, and that the incense used in the holy of holies was a special blend. It was deemed “most holy”, and anyone who used that blend outside the holy of holies was “cut off from his people” (Exod. 30:34-38).

Entering the holy of holies with a cloud of incense is the temple reality that underlies the visions of the human figure entering heaven with clouds or of the LORD appearing in clouds upon the throne. Thus did Isaiah describe his call to prophesy: he saw the LORD enthroned in the temple, between the six-winged seraphim, and the house was filled with smoke (Isa. 6:1 - 4). Daniel saw a human figure “one like a son of man” coming with clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:13). When Luke described the Ascension he said that Jesus was “lifted up, and a cloud took him” (Acts 1:9). Jesus was passing beyond the veil, beyond the constraints of time and place. The men in white said that he would return in the same way. John introduced the Book of Revelation with the assurance, “He is coming with the clouds” (Rev. 1:7), and John was granted his own vision of the LORD’s return, which he recorded as the Mighty Angel coming from heaven wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head (Rev.10:1). Entering the holy of holies was entering heaven. And so these visions of a human figure going or coming with clouds must be understood in the temple setting of the high priest entering the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement.

Peter’s sermon in Solomon’s Portico shows that this was indeed how the early Church understood the departure of Jesus. He had gone to heaven as the great high priest, and would emerge again at the appointed time, that is, to bring renewal from the presence of the LORD. This is exactly what happened on the Day of Atonement, sin was judged and the earth was then cleansed and healed for the New Year. Hence Peter’s warning: “Repent, that your sins may he blotted out” (Acts 3:19 - 21). What had been ritualized annually in the Day of Atonement was happening in their own times through the self sacrifice of the great high priest Jesus. Jesus had passed through the veil into eternity; he was outside time and matter and so had passed into the eternal present, no longer limited by the particular time and place of first-century Palestine. This is the context, too, of the words in the “high-priestly prayer” in John 17. Jesus knew that he was about to pass through the veil, that he was returning to Day One, i.e. beyond and “before” the creation. Thus: “Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory I had with thee before the world was made” (John 17:5).

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

. . . All of which is why we should be singing these hymns today:

Alleluya, sing to Jesus,

His the sceptre, his the throne;

Alleluya, his the triumph,

His the victory alone:

Hark the songs of peaceful Sion

Thunder like a mighty flood;

Jesus, out of every nation,

Hath redeemed us by his Blood.

Alleluya, not as orphans

Are we left in sorrow now;

Alleluya, he is near us,

Faith believes, nor questions how;

Though the cloud from sight received him

When the forty days were o’er,

Shall our hearts forget his promise,

‘I am with you evermore’?

Alleluya, Bread of angels,

Thou on earth our Food, our Stay;

Alleluya, here the sinful

Flee to thee from day to day;

Intercessor, Friend of sinners,

Earth’s Redeemer, plead for me,

Where the songs of all the sinless

Sweep across the crystal sea.

Alleluya, King eternal,

Thee the Lord of lords we own;

Alleluya, born of Mary,

Earth thy footstool, Heaven thy throne:

Thou within the veil hast entered,

Robed in flesh, our great High Priest;

Thou on earth both Priest and Victim

In the Eucharistic Feast.

William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Once, only once, and once for all,

his precious life he gave;

before the cross in faith we fall,

and own it strong to save.

“One offering, single and complete,”

with lips and hearts we say;

but what he never can repeat

he shows forth day by day.

For as the priest of Aaron’s line

within the holiest stood,

and sprinkled all the mercy shrine

with sacrificial blood;

So he, who once atonement wrought,

our Priest of endless power,

presents himself for those he bought

in that dark noontide hour.

His manhood pleads where now it lives

on heaven’s eternal throne,

and where in mystic rite he gives

its presence to his own.

And so we show thy death, O Lord,

till thou again appear,

and feel, when we approach thy board,

we have an altar here.

William Bright (1824-1901)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now upon the golden altar,

In the midst before the throne,

Incense of his intercession

He is offering for his own.

And on earth at all his altars

His true presence we adore,

And his sacrifice is pleaded,

Yea, till time shall be no more.

Alleluia, Alleluia

To th’incarnate Son of God,

Who, abiding Priest forever,

Still imparts his flesh and blood.

Then, adored in highest Heaven,

We shall see the virgin’s Son,

All creation bowed before him,

Man upon th’eternal throne:

Where, like sound of many waters

In one ever rising flood,

Myriad voices hymn his triumph,

Victim, Priest, incarnate God.

Worthy he all praise and blessing

Who, by dying, death o’ercame;

Glory be to God forever!

Alleluia to the Lamb!

Ernest Edward Dugmore  (1843-1925)

Father Mackonochie of St Alban's Holborn

(Above) the Church of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, and its first Vicar, Father Alexander Heriot Mackonochie. The church was built by William Butterfield in 1863. Sadly, on the night of 16th April 1941, it was largely destroyed by firebombs. When the war ended, Adrian Gilbert Scott was asked to produce a new, more economical design and he incorporated several features of the old building that had survived the fire, including the massive saddleback tower, the east wall and the chapel built in 1891 to honour Father Mackonochie.

* * * * * * * * * *

In September 2009 I was at a conference of Forward in Faith Scotland at St Mary’s Monastery, Kinnoull, Perth, followed by a period of ministry, meetings, preachments and Masses, based in the highlands at St Michael and All Angels, Inverness, whose Vicar, Father Len Black, now a priest of the Ordinariate, was Chairman of FiF Scotland. 

In those days, a notable aspect of Father Len’s varied ministry was his regular hour-long programme “Crossfire” on Moray Firth and Nevis Radio. He and I drove to Loch Leven in the west of Scotland for a couple of days, to make an episode in situ on the life and death of Alexander Heriot Mackonochie, an Anglo-Catholic hero of ours who died at the age of 62 on 15th December, 1887. We recorded segments of conversation and poetry in the places that were familiar to Father Mackonochie, including what had been the house of his friend, the Rt Rev'd Alexander Chinnery-Haldane, Bishop of Argyle, at Ballachulish, near Glencoe, the walking route through the Moor of Rannoch, the Forest of Mamore at the head of Loch Leven, the desolate region where Father Mackonochie died, and then to the large cenotaph cross of local slate that stands just outside the west end of St Bride's Church in Mackonochie's memory.

Father Len and I had both been priests of the Society of the Holy Cross (“SSC”) for many years. As Father Mackonoche was among its earliest members (serving three terms as Master, from 1863 to 1875, from 1879 to 1881 and in 1885), this pilgrimage to the place of his death was - for me - deeply moving. 

Father Mackonochie holds a special place among the second generation of priests of the Catholic revival on account of his austerity and holiness of life. His heart was on fire with love for God. He proclaimed and lived the Gospel. He taught the Catholic faith. He especially devoted himself to the poor, and provided for them a church in which Catholic worship was offered in its fulness, and the Gospel message preached with passion. Replying to those who deprecate the influence of such priests, Kenneth McNab has written that “the romantic picture of the SSC slum-priest living, working and dying amongst the poorest of society may owe something to Anglo-Catholic hagiography, but neither is it a work of fiction.” [McNab, Kenneth, 2006 “Mackonochie and the Controversies over Confession and Ritual.” In ed. William Davage, In this Sign Conquer: A History of the Society of the Holy Cross, 1855-2005. London: Continuum: 78-119.] In Mackonochie’s case, for his trouble he was hounded and persecuted by the Church authorities of his day, and even in his own time came to be considered something of a martyr. But through his ministry and that of his co-labourers, the Catholic revival took root in the Church of England, and all who in that Church have since learned the fulness of Catholic faith and worship owe them a huge debt of gratitude. 

The following account is my conflation of contemporary sources and other studies, including: Alexander Heriot Mackonochie: A Memoir, by E.A. Towle; Alexander Heriot Mackonochie - An Appreciation;  Father Mackonochie, by I.G. Brooks (Forward Plus Summer 2013; Reverend Rebels by Bernard Palmer; Martyr of Ritualism by Michael Reynolds.

EARLY YEARS

Alexander Heriot Mackonochie was born at Fareham, Hampshire, in 1825. His father, Colonel Mackonochie, who had served with the East India Company, died two years later. His two boys, James and Alexander, were brought up by their mother, who, like her husband, was of Scottish descent. 

Very early in childhood Alexander felt he heard God calling him to the priesthood. In fact, his friends sometimes called him “the boy bishop.” As his health was never good, his mother moved first to Bath and later to Exeter where he attended private schools. At Exeter, he was confirmed and made his first Communion. Later, again, they moved to Edinburgh, and for a short period he studied at Edinburgh University.

OXFORD AND PRIESTLY VOCATION

In 1845 Mackonochie went to Wadham College, Oxford, where he came under the influence of Dr Pusey, and still more of Charles Marriott, both leaders of the “Oxford movement.” 

He graduated in 1848 and was made deacon in the following year by Bishop Denison at Salisbury. Then he went to his first curacy at Westbury. Here he “fasted too much and worked too hard.” He became known as a faithful visitor, even as he struggled to overcome a certain shyness and awkwardness with those he visited. But he always won their affections. In those early days he found preaching a real trial, costing him hours of labour. But motivated by his devotion to souls, he determined to overcome every difficulty standing in his way. He showed an unwearied zeal in ministering to the poorest In addition he would rise daily around four or five in the morning for prayer and meditation.

Mackonochie was ordained priest in 1850, and remained at Westbury for just over two more years. But he longed for more frequent Masses, together with worship along more Catholic lines. He was drawn to The Rev’d William Butler, Vicar of Wantage, in whose parish there was a daily Mass, a church open all day long, well-ordered services, and a well managed pastoral ministry. Years later, in 1889, Butler, then Dean of Lincoln, wrote of him: “Even at this long interval of time his name is remembered, and there are some still who love to tell of his assiduous visiting, the earnestness of his preaching, the wonderful influence which he gained over some of the most hardened and hopeless.”

In 1856 Mackonochie wanted to give himself to mission work in Newfoundland. But it became evident to him that this was not God’s will. 

LONDON

Two years later he felt the call to mission work in East London. This brought him to Father Charles Lowder and Wellclose Square. Here he entered on his life’s work, for which his gifts and training had prepared him. “By his indefatigable labours, eloquent preaching, and unceasing care for souls,” wrote Father Lowder, “he set us an example of what mission work really was.”

Here Father Mackonochie began to experience the conflict in which he was to spend the rest of his ministry until he retired, a broken man. When riots occurred in St George’s Church, incited by a Mr Allen bringing with him a mob of over a thousand strong from Whitechapel, he entered on a spirited defence of his rector, the Rev’d Bryan King, but to no avail, for there was no natural justice in those days for loyal Catholics in the Church of England as Mackonochie was to experience again and again in the course of his ministry. 

In 1859, when things at St George’s were at their worst, Mackonochie was offered the Vicarage of St Saviour’s, Leeds. But he would not leave the Mission, where he felt he was just getting established. Nor would he desert Lowder, who relied on his support. So he laboured on indefatigably until, in 1861, his health gave way. He was laid up with rheumatic fever, and was for some time subject to relapses.

HOLBORN

In 1862 a Mr Hubbard, who had built the church and clergy house of St Alban’s, on the site in Holborn, given by the generosity of Lord Leigh, where a thieves’ kitchen had stood, surrounded by slums and poverty, nominated Mackonochie as its first vicar. Here was a call to pioneer work in slum-land. He was excited and took up the challenge. So, in a cellar in Greville Street, services were held while the church was being completed. It was consecrated in 1863. And here Father Mackonochie began the twenty years’ ministry which was to make St Alban’s, Holborn, a praise and a glory throughout England. 

As a priest of the Society of the Holy Cross Mackonochie was ready to put his experience and his convictions into practice in the newly-created parish. His spiritual focus centred on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; his pastoral work centred on serving Jesus in the poor. Like his fellow-priests in SSC he regarded the physical welfare of his parishioners as one of his normal responsibilities.

In the appalling overcrowded slums which surrounded St Alban’s his care for the people soon became known. Never apparently in a hurry, Father Mackonochie laboured from morning to night, at the service of all who needed his help. He gathered round him a faithful band of workers, clergy and lay, and inspired them with his own devotion. He divided the parish into districts each under the care of a curate and a team of visitors. He established guilds for men, women, boys, girls, a parish school and nursery, night schools, a choir school, a soup kitchen, a blanket loan club, clothing fund, coal charity, a private burial ground, and numerous other agencies of welfare and relief. 

Father Mackonochie managed to find time also for his great work as Master of the Society of the Holy Cross, which for many years had an office at Greville Street, close to the church and clergy house.

PERSECUTION

Tait, Bishop of London and a fellow-Scot, heartily approved Mackonochie’s ministry to the poor, and the impact St Alban’s had on its neighbourhood. But Tait just as strongly disliked Mackonochie’s passion for what was often derided as “ritualism” - his desire to give due honour to the Lord Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament, to clothe the worship of the Church of England in beauty and glory, to bring light and peace into the darkness of hard and troubled lives. It was persecution from the authorities of the Church he loved that in the end drained the strength of this great priest and hastened his death.

There were initial disagreements with the patron and benefactor who had paid for the building of St Alban’s. But these were relatively minor. The new church began to grow. In 1864, the year in which coloured vestments were introduced, there were 291 Easter communicants. In the next year there were 453. Incense was first used in 1866. By 1867 the annual communicant figure had risen from 3,000 to 18,000.

In February of that year the persecution began. The Church Association, formed in 1865 to fight "Ritualism" through the Courts, persuaded a solicitor who lived in Bloomsbury, but was secretary of a Holborn school, to initiate the complaint. Father Mackonochie was accused, under the Church Discipline Act of 1840, of disobedience to the Prayer Book rubrics by elevating the paten and chalice, kneeling “excessively” during the Prayer of Consecration, using lighted candles on the altar, using incense, mixing water with wine in the chalice.

The proceedings dragged on until January 1868 and judgment was given in March, ruling against everything except altar lights and kneeling. Not satisfied, the Church Association continued to hound Mackonochie year after year. Dozens of priests were prosecuted, but Mackonochie became their main target and was elevated into a figure of national interest A period of peace from 1871-4 ended with the passing of the Public Worship Regulation Act. Without going into minute details regarding the litigation, suffice to say that over the fifteen years from 1867 Father Mackonochie suffered suspension for a period of three months, had his stipend withheld by the Bishop of London for three years, and was eventually, in 1882, faced with being deprived of his position as vicar of St Alban’s. Throughout this time he had continued diligently, tirelessly and faithfully to care for his parish and his people and had won their affection. Now he would be forced to leave. 

It has been said that at St Alban’s, Mackonochie’s gifts ripened to their maturity, that he made St Alban’s, and, in a very real sense, St Alban’s made him. It made him and it broke him. A vessel fitted for his Master’s service, he asked nothing better than to be broken in it.

Lord Halifax spoke, soon after Father Mackonochie’s death, of his long “battle to vindicate for the Church of England in regard to her ritual, her doctrine, and her jurisdiction, not only the historical and constitutional rights recognized and secured to her by prescription and statutes, but also her inherent and indefensible rights as a portion of the one Holy Catholic Church.”

In the battle he fought doggedly. And it would be hard to over-estimate his contribution to the victories of the Catholic cause. In 1882, at the dying request of Archbishop Tait, who urged the public interests of the Church, in view of the unremitting prosecution and persecution of St Alban’s, Holborn, Mackonochie resigned his benefice. He was nominated to that of St Peter’s, London Docks, Father Suckling, Lowder’s successor at St Peter’s, being transferred to St Alban’s. Of this arrangement he wrote, with characteristic brevity: ‘Of course, it is a wrench to sign oneself out of St Alban’s, but it will be a counterbalancing satisfaction to take up Lowder’s work.’

A BROKEN MAN

He took up his duties at St Peter’s early in 1883. But in July of that year another prosecution had culminated in a sentence of deprivation. For himself, Mackonochie was prepared to undergo sacrifices, and to go doggedly on, as he had done in the past But to do so meant the loss of the endowment of £300 a year, which this poor parish could hardly spare: and there was a danger of the patronage lapsing into unfriendly hands. Acting on the advice of friends, he resigned St Peter’s at the beginning of 1884, and went to take up his residence - as a volunteer member of the staff - at his old parish, St Alban’s, Holborn.

The long strain had told upon him, but he went on working. He was constant in his visits to St Saviour’s Priory, he preached the Three Hours at Ballachulish, he gave a retreat at Cumbrae. Bodily he was well. But he was, to a noticeable extent, confused in mind, easily losing the thread of his thoughts. He had gone on trying to work during 1884 and 1885, when he needed rest. In 1886 he wrote:

“I am still not able to do much writing or anything else. This is very much due to my folly in trying (from about November, 1884, to about this time last year) to do some work. Since then, I have been unable to do any intellectual work.”

In 1887 Father Mackonochie reported himself “out of tone and unfit yet for work.” During these last years, he spent much time at Ballachulish, a welcome and honoured guest of his friend, Alexander Chinnery-Haldane, the Bishop of Argyll. He also paid occasional short visits to the Continent, and long ones to his brother’s house at Wantage.

But his ministry was ending. He seldom preached, and could rarely trust himself to celebrate, a sacrifice which must have cost him much. Since he found his inactivity a sore burden, he prayed “that he might not cumber the earth.” Returning to Wantage after a day trip to London, in 1887, he had got out of the train by mistake at Didcot, and wandered about the roads between Didcot and Wantage for a great part of the night.

Not that he was distressed. “He was only forgetful of names, and words, and incapable sometimes of expressing himself clearly. He was holy and happy in his tone of mind to the laSt” Such is the testimony of the Bishop of Argyll.

THE END

Yet he had a prevision of the end. Parting with his relatives at Wantage, they spoke of a future “when you are better.” “I shall never be better,” he replied, turning away for a few moments; then turning round again, tranquil and composed, he said a kindly farewell to each in turn. This was on October 19. On December 10 he arrived at Ballachulish to stay at the episcopal residence. Father Mackonochie was a keen walker who, in earlier years, thought nothing of a thirty mile trek over rough ground. He set out on the Thursday morning, December 15, with a packed lunch and a walking stick, to reach the head of the Loch, accompanied by the bishop’s two dogs, a little terrier and a deerhound. “You will be back before dark?” they said to him before he went. “I hope so, I hope so,” he replied; the last words which any of his friends heard from his lips. 

By nightfall he had not returned and the anxious bishop sent two men with lanterns to search the road to Loch Leven.

As a terrible storm rose, the bishop himself set out with a carriage and pair and searched unsuccessfully until 4am. All Friday an enlarged search party scoured the glens and forests in snow and hail, but not until Saturday did they find him, guarded by the two dogs who would allow no-one near their friend until the bishop approached. “His body seemed almost frozen, and his head was half-buried in the snow-wreath which had formed his last pillow”, wrote the bishop. “In his face was a pleasant and holy look of peace and joy.” Although his expression showed no sign of suffering it was evident that he had had a distressing struggle among the rocks in pitch darkness and raging storm.

The position of his body showed that he had died kneeling in prayer. His dear friend and fellow-priest Father Stanton pictured the scene: “The mystery of his stern, hard, self-devoted life completed itself in the weird circumstances of his death. He seems to have walked round and round the hollow in which he had taken refuge from the mountain storm, trying to keep life in him as long as he could; then, as if he knew his hour had come, deliberately to have uncovered his head to say his last prayers, and then to have laid his head upon his hand and died, sheltered ‘in the hollow of the hand’ of God, Whom he had served so faithfully; and at His bidding the wild wind from off the moor wreathed his head with snow.”

He had evidently lost his way and mistaken his direction within two or three hours of nightfall. Thinking he was returning towards Ballachulish he was, in reality, heading away into the trackless wastes of the deer forest of Mamore. 

Bishop Chinnery-Haldane helped to carry Father Mackonochie back to the episcopal chapel, then washed his hands, feet and face and clothed him in his mass vestments.

Mackonochie’s close friend, Father Russell, travelled from London to escort the body home by boat and train, and on Thursday morning he lay in the chapel at St Alban’s as Father Stanton offered the Mass. St Alban’s was full that evening for Solemn Vespers of the Dead, and the following morning for the Funeral Mass, with hundreds more outside.

Thousands witnessed the procession to Waterloo Station, with the servers, choir, fifty robed clergy, and hundreds of mourners walking four abreast, followed by thirty carriages. At Brookwood, in the cemetery which he had secured for St Alban’s, he was laid to rest among his beloved people. 

The struggle in which he had engaged had finally broken him, but the battle was won. His holy and dedicated life still inspires today. The Scots granite of the cross that marks his grave is a fitting symbol of the determination and the endurance of this remarkable priest.

The “old” St Alban’s Holborn during Eastertide (does anyone know what year this was drawn, or where it was first published?) Click on the image to enlarge it.

Image opyright: © liszt collection / Alamy Stock Photo 

Father Mackonochie with the clergy he had gathered around him at St Alban’s, Holborn, pictured in 1874, the same year in which Parliament passed the notorious Public Worship Regulation Act. Front row (from left): H. A. Walker, Alexander Mackonocie, Arthur Stanton, H. E. Willington. Back row: H. G. Maxwell, E. F. Russell, G. R. Hogg.