15 Since I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a double favour; 16 I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on to Judea. 17 Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to ordinary human standards, ready to say "Yes, yes" and "No, no" at the same time? 18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been "Yes and No." 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not "Yes and No"; but in him it is always "Yes." 20 For in him every one of God's promises is a "Yes." For this reason it is through him that we say the "Amen," to the glory of God. 21 But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, 22 by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first instalment.
When you look at the context of this passage you see a typical work of the God and Father of Jesus who is in the business of making silk purses out of sow’s ears!
The pig’s ear is a church leader accused of vacillation.
The silk purse is a beautiful affirmation of God’s faithfulness.
The accusation of double-mindedness came from people at Corinth seeing Paul had promised to visit them on the way both to and from Macedonia before leaving for Judea and hadn’t done so. It sounds a rather niggling complaint and you get the feeling Paul is more than niggled – he’s thoroughly irritated. No wonder in a way. The Corinthians - most charismatic, most sinful, most divided - are a difficult crew. Not in the same league as Ardingly, Horsted Keynes, Lindfield, Scaynes Hill or West Hoathly – of course they’re not! We’re full of English sweet reasonableness – however much good that does us!
Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Paul writes. Do I make my plans according to ordinary human standards, ready to say "Yes, yes" and "No, no" at the same time? 18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been "Yes and No."
There’s an element of self justification hidden in all of this, but then Paul’s the writer who readily admits there’s sin in him (Romans 7) and Christ in him (Romans 8) so no surprise here – we just have to bear with him. One’s English sentiments are rather shaken though by a man assuming that because he’s God’s man he’s going to be a fully truthful man. Elsewhere Paul says in Romans 3v4 let God be true and all men liars! He goes on though from this sow’s ear situation to give us the great silk purse of a verse that our celebration tonight seems to have been built around.
19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not "Yes and No"; but in him it is always "Yes." 20 For in him every one of God's promises is a "Yes." For this reason it is through him that we say the "Amen," to the glory of God.
Christianity – for Paul or for us – rests not on a truth we build but on a God who is truth, who speaks truth, who acts out truth on Calvary and who promises to lead those who trust him into all truth. God’s Yes has no ambiguity about it, unlike our own affirmations. No "Yes and No"; but in him it is always "Yes." That cry of Barack Obama yes, we can catches us especially as Christians because our religion is a real ‘yes, we can’ religion and our bishops and priests and people are ideally ‘yes, we can’ guys mirroring their ‘yes, we can’ Lord.
But are we? Are we united in that conviction? For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not "Yes and No". The Corinthians had “Yes men of God” Silvanus, Timothy and Paul. Chichester Diocese has Yes men of God John, Mark elect and Wallace. The Cuckfield deanery has John, Alan, Mark, James, John and so on – in the service of the same God who’s presented his truth in the face of Jesus Christ. The God who wants many more gifts released from his people on High Weald than are presently exercised. ‘Yes, we can’.
We can better operate together though, hence the delight we share tonight as we gather as churches in apostolic partnership like Silvanus, Timothy and Paul, a partnership that extends also tonight beyond these shores through Fr. John and his family from our mission partners in Cameroon.
Apathy and unbelief are too powerful foes for a divided church. The renewed partnership we seek in faithfulness to God’s Yes is of course to be wider than Anglican. I was reminded of this when I was invited to say the opening prayer at Ruwach’s recent mission at The Olympos in Haywards Heath. It’s claimed that no less than 25 people became Christians that weekend. It seems the New Churches are looking to the historic churches. We should look to their apostolic vitality. Even if we still have questions about their ecclesiology, as it says in our diocesan vision, what good is apostolic order without apostolic vitality?
Coming back to the scripture, I wondered when Fr. Alan sent me it on Friday (!) why I knew this 2 Corinthians 1 passage so well. I eventually realised it was because the Anglican-Roman Catholic document ‘The Gift of Authority' draws upon it.
Authority is so absolutely vital to mission. This weekend we lament the loss of agreed authority in our church worldwide and the damage it’s doing to mission. Building on this passage from verses 18-22 the agreement states ‘Authority is exercised within the Church for the sake of those outside it, that the Gospel may be proclaimed "in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction"... God gives his "Yes" to humanity in Christ, and again, in Christ, all of humanity is called to make a responsive "Amen" to God in the Church. This 'undivided sharing in Christ's one "Amen" to the glory of God' is the Churches' goal, which will become evident when they share in one "Amen" to one eucharistic prayer.
So to the last verses of our passage which should speak to our hearts: 21 But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, 22 by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first instalment.
God’s great scheme, his Yes to us, is in the establishing and gathering together of all things in Christ. He needs our Yes for that to be accomplished. Yes to the unification of the cosmos. To say No is hell – the Trinity or hell, there is no middle way - that’s Christian Faith.
Mid-Sussex is a richly gifted place with richly gifted people. How do we get more of these gifts consecrated to God’s praise and service? Christianity isn’t just a crutch for the weak – it’s that OK I well know it – it’s a direction of strength to good. So many strengths are put to destructive use, yes, even in mid-Sussex! Nimby-ism is one facet. We’re in God’s backyard actually, look at the fields!
It is God who establishes us with you in Christ or as Paul says two chapters on, our sufficiency is of God. If we accept Jesus we lose ourselves to gain ourselves and contribute to the gaining of God’s universal plan to bring things to himself. In the process we gain confidence, not self confidence but the certainty that rests on the certainty of God we’ve given way to.
With this comes the Spirit’s anointing. It came with that first great Yes from Mary in Nazareth. Behold the servant of the Lord be it unto me according to your will she said and the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. She received the seal upon her and the gift of his Spirit in her heart as a first instalment. There was a second instalment for her at Pentecost and now she is surely at the centre of that establishing and gathering up of all things in her Blessed Son Jesus Christ.
God sought Mary’s Yes and he seeks ours so he can anoint us as he anointed her. He seeks our gifts to be employed for his praise and service. He seeks our devotion. With devotion comes anointing in the Spirit, you rarely see one without the other. With devotion comes anticipation on earth of the joyful goodness of saints made perfect in heaven as a first instalment.
God seeks our Yes before he seeks our success both as individuals and as churches. He seeks our devotion more than our mission strategies, important as these are.
As with the Corinthians and Paul his faithfulness, his great ‘Yes’ will carry us forward into the spiritual battle that is ours and the consummation of it in the unification of the cosmos.
Monday, 20 July 2009
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Trinity 6 8am Eucharist 19th July 2009
Today’s gospel shows us a heart and mind expanding vision of God shown in the glorious transforming ministry of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wherever he went…they laid the sick in the market places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed. Mark 6:56
The main issue for the church today is – how much of a vision of God do we have? How magnificent is God to us, or more exactly to you or I? How big is your God? How real?
You can be sure of this – however magnificent and real he is to you today there’ll be a greater magnificence and reality in store for you!
On a few occasions in my ministry I have been on the scene when the glory of Jesus evidently illuminated someone.
I think of Bernard who came stumbling around to the Clergy House of my Curacy beaming all over his face. Was he drunk? I thought. No. Jesus had come real to him. The Holy Spirit had opened his inner eyes.
I think of an older man to whose troubled deathbed I’d been summoned. As I read the 23rd Psalm deep peace descended upon him. It was as if Jesus appeared and just took him away. He died joyfully as I prayed.
Or some time back when a young man called James described to me how for several months he had helped his wife cope with a spiritual problem, Jesus made himself known. James started a confirmation course. A short meeting opened my eyes with his to God’s wonder and magnificence.
What a difference it makes to someone when they see Jesus! They see glory – glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
To see Jesus is to catch hold of a radiant beauty quite out of this world, a beauty that is compelling and extraordinary in its attractiveness.
Could we wish anything more wonderful for anyone than a personal revelation of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ?
It can be ours this morning at the Eucharist. With St John we are to call out: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty; he was, he is and he is to come.
In this celebration earth is joined to heaven. There steals on the ear the distant triumph song as our words of praise find echo and amplification from angels and archangels, St Giles and all the company of heaven.
God grant us a vision of himself more to his dimension and less to ours as we come before him this morning to thank him for his joyful goodness!
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Baptismal Eucharist 12th July 2009
Why do I need to go to school, mum? Little James asked.
So you can read, James – and that will be really good. Mum replied.
It came to September and mum delivered James to School.
At the end of his first day James came home with mum and ran upstairs.
He picked up his book excitedly – and burst into tears!
Why did James burst into tears?
Education takes time. Going to school isn’t like going to the shop.
When you go to the shop you leave with a finished product you’ve bought.
When you go to school you are working day by day on finishing something that never really finishes – in this case James’ education.
Education takes time. So does being a Christian.
What we’re doing this morning to
I know someone who just trained to be a policewoman. She did her training and went onto the beat.
Did her training finish when she left college?
No it didn’t. She’s having to grow into the role. It’s the same with being a Christian.
We become what God makes us on the day of our baptism.
In baptism we see our sin drowned out though Christian living is a daily dying to sin.
In baptism we see the Holy Spirit come on us though Christian living is day by day life empowered by the Spirit.
Our first reading this morning from Ephesians 1:3-14 tells the whole tale of what it is to be baptised. It’s the passage actually set for today in the lectionary and it’s the earliest known baptism hymn.
Let’s have a look at it.
It tells us how God sees baptism. This passage is a great tonic for knocked around Christians because it says how God sees us even if we fail to see it and live it ourselves. Christianity is a great aspiration. If ever you doubted it look here!
Let’s read verses 3-6: 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ 4before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of God’s will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
God chose us, he chose Florence, Michael and Oscar not only when they were a sparkle in their earthly father’s eye but when they were a sparkle in their heavenly Father’s eye when he chose them in Christ 4before the foundation of the world….v5 destined them for adoption as his children.
What we are doing this morning is celebrating that choice, owning it and the parents and godparents are starting to work with them on its implications. Let’s read together verses 7-12. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. 11In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of God who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.
This passage sets forth what Jesus is all about. It sets forth the glorious purpose he has for
There are two ultimate destinies for every human being – to be gathered up with all things in Christ or not to be. The future for humankind is either in God’s joyful goodness or outside of it (we call that hell) – there’s no other choice so far as the Christian revelation goes. The whole universe is being gathered into one through Christ – we can enter that movement of unification – or we can reject it.
The choice is ours – and baptism is meant to be that choice. It’s a choice for our self centered, sinful nature to be put to death and to rise again through receiving forgiveness again and again 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us.
In a moment we are going to bless water and pour it over these infants as a sign that they’re in principle dead to sin. Then we will anoint or seal them with holy oil taking up the last section of this early baptismal hymn. Let’s read aloud v13-14: 13In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people to the praise of his glory.
Florence, Michael. Oscar are to be marked men and women.
God, though, has marked you and me as special. He’s marked us. We’re his marked daughters and sons through our baptism. As people mark their bodies so people look twice at them, God does the same. He places the mark of his love upon us. We need to believe it: I’m special, you’re special, ‘cause God’s made us special.
Here is a proof of that
That’s my fingerprint blown up. Is it the same as yours, or yours? No. Each of us is marked by the way we’re made to be specially you and me. The seal we’re given at baptism underlines this.
G.K.Chesterton wrote that Christianity hasn’t been tried and found wanting; it’s been found difficult and not tried. If every Christian lived the joyful reality of Ephesians chapter one the world would be a lot closer to unification. That’s why
It’s a message we need your help to get home – because their owning that message will affect the unification of the cosmos!
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Trinity 4 Looking Forward at St Giles 5th July 2009
The scripture readings always have a spiritual force in the Eucharist. They are just as much a part of Christ’s coming more real to us as the transformed bread and wine!
We should be able to say with those first disciples that our hearts burn when the Lord Jesus opens the scriptures to us in our Sunday worship, and makes himself known to us in the breaking of the bread.
So what might the Lord be saying to us all on this fourth Sunday after Trinity?
It’s our vision and mission day and – lo and behold – the set readings are full of vision and mission.
All a bit powerful, some would say, a bit strong. Bible days seem far from our day – but is that really so?
Take Ezekiel in the first reading: The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. When I saw this, I fell on my face and I heard the voice of someone speaking.
Or take Paul, probably speaking of himself indirectly I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person…was caught up into paradise and heard things that are not to be told.
Then in the gospel, faced with the vision of God in Jesus, we read many who heard him were astounded.
Among those astounded were the twelve apostles - who get a mission.
He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
All a bit powerful, I said. A vision that sets people off house to house!
Well we do do house to house in Horsted Keynes – we deliver P&P and we collect for Christian Aid week!
Our vision day will hopefully kindle some sorts of apostolic work, mission work – apostle means one sent – though the pattern suggested in today’s scripture needs reinterpretation. In a small community like our own we maybe don’t need to do house to house to teach people about Jesus. We need to get more lit up by Jesus so people see God’s light more through us.
This brings me to the ABC. It’s not for nothing that the A comes first – attending to God.
Ezekiel saw the heavens opened and we have 48 chapters of the Old Testament to prove it. Paul got caught up into
What evidence would be put up in my defence or your defence if we were accused of being Christian visionaries? What difference does our own attending to God make?
Or - at St Giles – this is our question today – how transformative is our worship Sunday by Sunday? Or the private prayer that ascends day by day from our church and its members?
Might it be that we need help to enrich and deepen our Sunday worship and personal prayer? If so how can we best get help?
Our Sunday collection, envelopes and standing orders are evidence for our attending to God. What sort of evidence? Does our money go with our mouth so far as worship goes? If not where can we find suitable teaching and inspiration?
A-B-C – building Christian community is part of our diocesan vision. It flows from our attendance upon God in corporate worship and personal devotion. You can see something of where we stand on this in the Looking forward booklet. There’s a lot of lay involvement in our Christian community. There could be more though. There’s scope for building a more inclusive Christian community so far as children and young people go and also so far as the elderly and housebound go. No doubt we’ll hear and discuss more on this later in the day.
A-B- C – commending God’s love for the world. According to the booklet we do well on social engagement which expresses God’s love but less well on voicing our faith, evangelism, which helps Christian faith to be spread.
Our Lord didn’t beat about the bush with the apostles. He sent them out! Would he send us? If so how would he send us? Or how could he better use us to spread the Faith?
In the last weeks I’ve met a number of folk who’ve been refreshingly up front with me about where they stand or don’t stand with Christianity. They need you and me (and probably you more than me because sheep make sheep, shepherds don’t!)
I can think of one man, an irregular worshipper, who said he felt he had a bit missing from his Christian faith. He had pieces of the jig saw but needed them to get fitted together again. Who’ll be there to guide that man? He’s very open to guidance.
Another lady told me straight. She wanted to work for Horsted Keynes as a community but didn’t believe in God. I felt she needed someone non-clerical to listen to and hear out her objections. Who’s going to be there for her?
There’s another person I met who’d drifted away from St Giles and seemed to me to need a helping hand to get her life back on course. Could you be that angel?
Or a gentleman who’s recently read Dawkins The God Delusion and believed it. He still seemed open to reason on God. I wonder. Who will he find from among us or the other Christian denominations represented in Horsted Keynes to reason with?
These are people I’ve met already who could well rejoice in the meaning and purpose we share through attending to God as a community of Christians. How can we get better equipped to commend that meaning and purpose that are ours through knowing God’s love? Do we need to know God’s love better ourselves?
The scriptures this morning remind us that our God as Christians is a God who isn’t just up above the clouds. He’s also sufficiently down to earth to speak to a temple priest like Ezekiel, a tent maker like Paul or to the fishermen apostles Peter, James, John, Andrew and the crew.
Does he speak to us? Yes he does! He’s speaking now and he’ll speak at the altar in Holy Communion. He’ll speak through our special gathering later on in the Martindale. God would speak to us day by day through our seeking him in prayer, the bible and the sacraments - if we seek him from the heart.
I believe the Lord wants to speak more to each one of us as well as to us all together here at St Giles. He’ll not speak, though, quite like he spoke to Ezekiel, Paul or those first disciples but in a way that’s special to us as 21st century
I know in my heart that Our Lord has mission work for us at St Giles. It may not be visiting two by two but it’s certainly something we’ll be getting involved in together. God gave marriage so folk would work in twos and Christian mission isn’t just for lone rangers or Rectors. This is one universal truth behind the two by two sending in today’s gospel, however uncomfortably it reads to us in 21st century
You’ve got a ‘you can do it’ Rector, I hope, because he believes we’ve got a ‘you can do it’ God! That might be scary to some but I need not apologise. The great thing about any work God gives us is that it brings with it the promise of his sure provision.
Fear not – be open to the word of God, trust his promises and welcome the enfolding of his love that is demonstrated in the Eucharist.
This is my body – bread that is Christ, given to us so we can be Christ to others.
This is my blood – wine that is Christ poured for us so we can be poured out in service and witness.
For Christ has no body now but yours
no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks with
compassion on the world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands. Yours are the feet.
Yours are the eyes. You are his body
- seeking to effect God’s will and God’s kingdom in Horsted Keynes and its surrounds!
Amen – so be it!
Friday, 3 July 2009
Fr. Tony Way RIP 30th June 2009 St Margaret, Ditchling
I only got to know Tony seven years ago when he phoned me to see if I would hear his confession. A good indicator! If he had his flaws Fr. Tony was matter of fact about them. As a sinner he knew that sinners sin.
Don’t worry, the seal of the confessional won’t be broken! I wanted to signal to begin with how seriously he took his Christianity, something that, as adopted confessor, I came to see over the years I knew him. I learned a lot about faith from his mature Christianity, that there’s no ‘storm-free’ faith and that doubt is always shadowing us, even if, to quote Chesterton, a thousand difficulties do not make a doubt.
Today we of Christian faith celebrate with Tony because, to paraphrase the second reading, The Son of God became the Son of Man so that children of men could become children of God.
Tony saw the light shining in the darkness that darkness can’t overcome. As he welcomed that light day by day in the divine office, in scripture, the teaching of the Fathers, in art, in creation, in human society and, most important to him, in the Blessed Sacrament, he was lit up – and he lit up others. Chris, Robin and I were privileged to celebrate some Eucharists together with him over these last months at which his Christian devotion was most evident.
Just before his death Chris, who was privileged to be with him, caught three smiles. Tony’s smiles lit us all up – no wonder so many of us have come here to celebrate his passing to his Lord and to mourn his death.
You need from me an awful lot more if we are to do justice to the varied career of
No comment on that rather superior sounding middle name!
Born
He retired with Margaret - Betty - to Lindfield in 1991 where I caught up with him 10 years into retirement. Their happy marriage stretched back to Tony’s eventful time in
Here’s an extract from his journal:
1944, March,
1944, July: Brought out of the jungle to Imphal to a tented field hospital with jungle sores. Two weeks later ready to return to my battalion when it was discovered I had typhus fever. In a coma for 10 days and ran a temperature between 100 and 104 degrees.
1944, August: Flown out on a stretcher to Comilla. Recovered sufficiently to be able to walk to the loos at the other end of the ward where I discovered I had dysentery. Ready to go on sick leave to
1944, September 25th: Down-graded medically to ‘C’ and sent back to Deolali, the big transit camp inland from
1944, November 14th: Regraded ‘B’ and posted to
Today we gather with the fruit of that marriage: Chris, married to Robin with Michael and Elizabeth; grandchildren: Andrew married to Liz, Rupert married to Olga; and Ton’s one great-grandchild baby Ella.
As we can sense from his Indian journal Tony liked his travels. His daughter Elizabeth told me through Chris of their 2003 visit to
The family recalls how Tony would tease his son, Michael. When they were camping in
Fr. Tony served on many diocesan boards linked to church architecture, schools, diocesan building and liturgy. With others he helped oversee the building of 14 new churches in the 1960s and a number of church schools.
When I came month by month with the Sacrament the picture of Tony with Princess Diana would catch my eye. As a founder member of the Sussex Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus he helped set up a ‘halfway house’ in Worthing to train young men and women with Spina bifida to be independent. The picture showed Tony at its opening by Princess Diana in 1986.
Tony was a holy, thoughtful and compassionate priest. He’d an eye, like his Lord, for those on the margins of our society as he looked for the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. He saw this completion of God’s church being prepared and worked at here on earth.
As a priest his vision of God has influenced tens of thousands through his long, faithful ministry. This year marks his 50 years as a deacon. Next year would have been his priestly golden jubilee.
In recent years he was forced to take a back seat as a Christian minister. This he did with grace, grateful for his involvement in
Now for him there is the vision of God. No less, no more - for what could be less or more than feasting with the saints on the vision of the one who is true light, the fulfilment of all desires, the joy that knows no ending, gladness unalloyed and perfect bliss. May Tony, God’s priest, assist now in heavenly worship and may his life inspire us to set our sights that bit higher.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.
Fr. Tony Way RIP 30th June 2009 St Margaret, Ditchling
I only got to know Tony seven years ago when he phoned me to see if I would hear his confession. A good indicator! If he had his flaws Fr. Tony was matter of fact about them. As a sinner he knew that sinners sin.
Don’t worry, the seal of the confessional won’t be broken! I wanted to signal to begin with how seriously he took his Christianity, something that, as adopted confessor, I came to see over the years I knew him. I learned a lot about faith from his mature Christianity, that there’s no ‘storm-free’ faith and that doubt is always shadowing us, even if, to quote Chesterton, a thousand difficulties do not make a doubt.
Today we of Christian faith celebrate with Tony because, to paraphrase the second reading, The Son of God became the Son of Man so that children of men could become children of God.
Tony saw the light shining in the darkness that darkness can’t overcome. As he welcomed that light day by day in the divine office, in scripture, the teaching of the Fathers, in art, in creation, in human society and, most important to him, in the Blessed Sacrament, he was lit up – and he lit up others. Chris, Robin and I were privileged to celebrate some Eucharists together with him over these last months at which his Christian devotion was most evident.
Just before his death Chris, who was privileged to be with him, caught three smiles. Tony’s smiles lit us all up – no wonder so many of us have come here to celebrate his passing to his Lord and to mourn his death.
You need from me an awful lot more if we are to do justice to the varied career of
No comment on that rather superior sounding middle name!
Born
He retired with Margaret - Betty - to Lindfield in 1991 where I caught up with him 10 years into retirement. Their happy marriage stretched back to Tony’s eventful time in
Here’s an extract from his journal:
1944, March,
1944, July: Brought out of the jungle to Imphal to a tented field hospital with jungle sores. Two weeks later ready to return to my battalion when it was discovered I had typhus fever. In a coma for 10 days and ran a temperature between 100 and 104 degrees.
1944, August: Flown out on a stretcher to Comilla. Recovered sufficiently to be able to walk to the loos at the other end of the ward where I discovered I had dysentery. Ready to go on sick leave to
1944, September 25th: Down-graded medically to ‘C’ and sent back to Deolali, the big transit camp inland from
1944, November 14th: Regraded ‘B’ and posted to
Today we gather with the fruit of that marriage: Chris, married to Robin with Michael and Elizabeth; grandchildren: Andrew married to Liz, Rupert married to Olga; and Ton’s one great-grandchild baby Ella.
As we can sense from his Indian journal Tony liked his travels. His daughter Elizabeth told me through Chris of their 2003 visit to
The family recalls how Tony would tease his son, Michael. When they were camping in
Fr. Tony served on many diocesan boards linked to church architecture, schools, diocesan building and liturgy. With others he helped oversee the building of 14 new churches in the 1960s and a number of church schools.
When I came month by month with the Sacrament the picture of Tony with Princess Diana would catch my eye. As a founder member of the Sussex Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus he helped set up a ‘halfway house’ in Worthing to train young men and women with Spina bifida to be independent. The picture showed Tony at its opening by Princess Diana in 1986.
Tony was a holy, thoughtful and compassionate priest. He’d an eye, like his Lord, for those on the margins of our society as he looked for the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. He saw this completion of God’s church being prepared and worked at here on earth.
As a priest his vision of God has influenced tens of thousands through his long, faithful ministry. This year marks his 50 years as a deacon. Next year would have been his priestly golden jubilee.
In recent years he was forced to take a back seat as a Christian minister. This he did with grace, grateful for his involvement in
Now for him there is the vision of God. No less, no more - for what could be less or more than feasting with the saints on the vision of the one who is true light, the fulfilment of all desires, the joy that knows no ending, gladness unalloyed and perfect bliss. May Tony, God’s priest, assist now in heavenly worship and may his life inspire us to set our sights that bit higher.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of god rsst in peace. Amen
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