At this time of the year when St. Michael and All Angels Day falls I remember that day fifty-five years ago when on September 29, 1967 I was ordained to the Gospel ministry in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. The historic Christopher Wren cathedral was filled with families and friends. My parents flew from New Zealand to be present. The Bishop of London exhorted all 35 of us being ordained that day, in the words of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, this solemn charge which has fashioned my ministry.
We exhort you in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you have in remembrance, into how high a Dignity, and to how weighty an Office and Charge ye are called: that is to say, to be Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards of the Lord; to teach, and to premonish [forewarn], to feed and provide for the Lord’s family; to seek for Christ’s sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for his children who are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ forever.
Have always printed in your remembrance, how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve, is his Spouse, and his Body. And if it shall happen that same Church, or any Member thereof, to take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue. Whereof consider with yourselves the end of your Ministry towards the children of God, towards the Spouse and Body of Christ; and see that you never cease your labour, your care and diligence, until you have done all that lieth in you, according to your bounden duty, to bring all such are or shall be committed to your charge, unto that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you, either for error in religion, or for viciousness of life.
Forasmuch then as your Office is both of so great excellency, and of so great difficulty, ye see with how great care and study ye ought to apply yourselves, as well that ye may show yourselves dutiful and thankful unto that Lord, who hath placed you in so high a Dignity; as also to beware, that neither you yourselves offend, nor be occasion that others offend. Howbeit, ye cannot have a mind and will thereto of yourselves; for that will and ability is given of God alone: therefore ye ought, and have need, to pray earnestly for his Holy Spirit. And seeing that you cannot by any other means compass the doing of so weighty a work, pertaining to the salvation of man but with doctrine and exhortation taken out of the holy Scriptures, and with a life agreeable to the same; consider how studious ye ought to be in reading and learning the Scriptures, and in framing the manners both of yourselves, and of them that specially pertain unto you, according to the rule of the same Scriptures: and for this self-same cause, how ye ought to forsake and set aside (as much as you may) all worldly cares and studies.
…..and that you will continually pray to God our Father, by the Mediation of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost; that by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures, ye may wax riper and stronger in your Ministry.
The following Sunday I assented to the Articles of Religion of the Church of England in All Souls Church, Langham Place, London, which was located next to the BBC near Oxford Circus. I began my ordained ministry as an Assistant Curate to John Stott who mentored me for four years.
The parish of All Souls spanned Fitzrovia on the west with its working class district of north Soho, and rag trade neighborhoods through Portland Place with its embassies, and the Polytechnic of Central London (now the University of Westminster) to the heart of the medical establishment in Harley and Wimpole Streets, and the prestigious King Edward’s Hospital for Officers (used by the royal family), the Middlesex Hospital and the London Clinic. All Souls was known as the Doctors’ Church because it served the three Royal Colleges of Surgeons, Physicians and Nursing. Also nearby were the Royal College of Music and the British Institute of Architects. My duties included running a club for the elderly working class, and a club for young professional and business people, supervising volunteer visitors to the poor elderly housebound and being chaplain to university students.
I lived in the Rectory, a Queen Anne town house at 12 Weymouth Street, W.1, with John Stott and several others and a housekeeper. It was on the next block to the Chinese Embassy on Portland Place which was the object of demonstrations when the British Embassy in Beijing was burned down during the cultural revolution in China. Maoism was the ideology of choice for many of my students with their little red books of Mao’s sayings. In 1968 during the Prague Spring we gave hospitality to many Czechoslovakia students who were allowed to leave their country for the first time before the Soviets crushed dissent. I had an office in Great Portland Street and another one in Marylebone Road opposite the famous Madame Tussauds Waxwork Museum. I was twenty-six years old and had much to learn. Fifty-five years later I am still learning and am thankful for all of God’s blessings and the opportunities he has given me to fulfill my vocation. Above all, I am thankful that at All Souls Church I met my wife, Antoinette, who became my lifelong companion and inspiration.
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