In excess of 300 years

Today, 8 February 2021, a band of us gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of our Ordination to the priesthood. [8 Feb 1981]

Our ordaining Bishop, then Archbishop of Adelaide, Keith Rayner at the great age of 91 celebrated The Eucharist with us.

[pictured here from L-R: Stephan Clark (me), Keith Brice, (not present...but in contact) Archbishop Keith, Ross Morony, Graham Head, Barry Davis...we are now all retired; not pictured here was  WarwickWinsall-Hall who was ordained a deacon on that day and was present...two Roberts who were also deaconed on that day were not with us for different reasons]

Then we went out to a pleasant lunch! (at the Feathers Hotel)

Together this small group of people represents more than 300 years of pastoral ministry! But I find myself feeling glad that these days this picture would have women as well as men!

And then again there are 4 walking sticks

[pictured here from L-R: Malcolm Thomas  (who was ordained in Melbourne around the same time) Stephan Clark (me), [Keith Brice, ( was not present...but in contact)] Bishop Keith, Ross Morony, Graham Head, Barry Davis...we are standing in more or less the same order but we are all looking 40 years older]

Looking forward

I am glad I began this series of posts with the story of Jason, he didn’t turn up for Mass today. Nor, more importantly did She.  I still hope he might connect that Tuesday or Thursday we are open. I am sad that we can’t do 24/7…we managed it in one the two churches in the last parish . But that was because I lived next door.  

And there was the famous incident of Romeo and Juliet sleeping under the altar…but that’s a story for another day… I was in that parish for eighteen years and after sixteen years  or more a couple of people did begin to articulate “It’s great that we can keep the Church open!”  But I wonder if it’s open now.






 

I didn’t mean to project a false humility about my encounter with the broken J.  But worry that I may have done that.
I think ( after a long time) as a pastor that I still don’t have much of a clue.
This series of posts is about the last two months of my full-time ministry as a parish priest.
It is not that I am going to stop being a priest. I am one of those who think that ordination ontologically changed me and I will be ‘a priest for ever’ [Hebrews 7:17 ” For it is declared: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.””]
This may be a romantic idea , but it works for me in my understanding that the call to priesthood is a universal charge on my whole being.
I am inclined to think that I cannot divorce myself from my priesthood. There is is a lot of psychoanalysis, no doubt, that could transpire. But so what it works for me!
I don’t want to be divorced from my priesthood, and I don’t think my priesthood is rejecting me.
So, this is quite an important reflection for me, because in two months I will celebrate a Eucharist as a parish priest, knowing that this will be the last time I will celebrate as a parish priest…and this after nearly forty years.
It’s taken a little while to work this through, but I am pretty sure that I am not defined by being a parish priest.
I may be defined by being a priest, but as close as I have been to parish life,  I can move away from it.
The curiosity of this is that I will have a bit of a break ( maybe six months) and then I will pickup locus work here and there .
I don’t quite know what locum work will be like. I know a lot of people in the Diocese and have a fairly good feel for how local parishes work, so I can do this.
I think I will do it gladly and with joy. I will pander to my own need to preach…and to be appreciated for being able to do this relatively well.
I think that ‘preaching’ is one of my charismatic gifts. And can act out of that model.

I wonder if you have questions about all this. And would be glad to respond.
Leave them littered around..either on the blog or on Facebook. And I will see what I can do

Making sense of being a priest

My most confronting encounter this week has been with Jason. 

After the Traditional Mass he wandered into the porch , thank God for the open Church.  He just wanted to sit down, or so it seemed, and though I was ready to ‘up and go’ I thought the least I should do was give him some time.
He was clearly in some distress, and his speech was almost unintelligible.The Grandpa in me tells me that you just have to give this some time…try talking to a two year old . It’s not that they are not talking it is that I am not hearing.
Jason sat quietly in front of the glorious image of the risen Jesus with the open wounded hands and tears were flooding.
Oh shit! What am I going to do? This guy has come wanting to receive and can I deliver? Pretty obviously, not!
It is as this point I have to realise thatI am not the one who has to deliver. Why would he want what I have to offer?
“I’ll just sit here, and you just take your time!”  It was the least I could do, and yet I rather begrudged it.
“Do you want me to pray for you?”  I asked. 
Fairly confident that I know how to pray. Not just ritualistically, but with meaning and with the courage to pray for deliverance if necessary.
“Maybe later,” he says. 
So I go and sit down quietly behind him. And for once say nothing!
His tears were flowing, makes me cry now just writing about it. 
His barely intelligible utterances talked of a woman who had been raped and told she would never have children.
That broken woman had met this broken man and they had borne a child…I wrote that they had  fathered a child….and I think that was important for Jason he was a father and felt totally incapable being so. 
In his ramblings he alluded to three others, I am not sure if he was the father. Possibly…even probably.
Then he lapsed into “I don’t want to go to jail, they are just horrible to me in there.”
What had happened I do not want to know, but we can all imagine. 
I do not want to know. But maybe my turning away is part of the problem.
I had waves of fear about him because he seemed erratic, crazed. 
I asked him if he was taking drugs.
He told me he wasn’t. And I believe him. 
But I knew, and he knew that I knew that his mind had been crippled by f&$%in’ meth. 
Don’t use that term lightly.
This was a beautiful man, of gentle spirit  whose humanity has been crippled by the careless greed of the pushers,
I repeat again:
“Oh shit! What am I going to do? This guy has come wanting to receive and can I deliver? Pretty obviously, not!”
We couldn’t sit there for ever, 
I prayed with him.
A gentle prayer, and prayer for deliverance (exorcism)…I am not afeared to pray so [ thank you A J Davies…who though a curious man taught me to trust the prayer …. and deliver us from evil]
As we took a quarter of an hour to leave 
he talked about Her…the mother of the children, 
who was coming in on an interstate bus.
“She will love this place.”
I had to tell him the Church was not open all the time, Tuesdays and Thursdays and of course Sundays.
I really hope we see them ...our prayers   genuine prayers   will be there for them

I was totally struck that he knew how he had been touched by our Shrine.
 
And my heart thrilled, whilst also being sad that he had to blow his nose on his tee shirt because he was so overcome. (  I wanted him to have my used handkerchief, but thought that was a bit disgusting....on reflection it was probably not)
 
Let us not ever begin to think that we live in a country where everyone is equal!!
 
And God forgive me for my failure to be Jesus to this beautiful man.

2011

The weather has been remarkably clement. It is a wonderful time of year. One of my correspondents seemingly mocks me with the title of my blog....the world is passing me by...but it has been a season of fruitfulness as alluded to in previous blogs. Tomatoes slowly ripen. Would that weather were warmer and that they would come on more quickly.

Meantimes my cynical critic suggests my life is passing by without meaning.I have anointed one who has died, and another who is on the brink.

Most people don't enter into this...it is the priest's lot...

With cynicism most think the world is in our grasp. It is not.

All flesh is grass

The cold on your throat is my hand
Lurking in the dark, lurking in the light
I'm here to haunt you I am your fright
The marks on your skin are marks of my seed
And the pain you feel is forever breeding
And all your flesh is grass in my hands
And all the skin rots as autumn grass
The dark you see is the dark I am
I rip your heart out, I am your sandman
And all your flesh is grass in my hands
And all the skin rots as autumn grass

I wouldn't be quite so fierce as these word are...but death is rough for all of us

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

I don't mean to be morbid.

But so many are cocky, thinking the world is their oyster...but it is fleeting

and as fragile as anything

On having your head chopped off.....

I determined two weeks ago to "do better at blogging", and I will leave it up to you, dear Reader, to decide whether or not that goal has been achieved.
But twice in the last week I have had people challenge my right to make blog comment on the basis of the fact that I happen to be a priest.
In my mind I blog as 'Stephen' not as "The Rev'd Fr", though I often like to talk about religious stuff. But I am also interested in politics, film, culture, family, language and poetry, and education and science.
I can't, and don't, distinguish particularly between myself as person and priest....it is not just my job it is my vocation.
So the critique has been that there are some areas that it is not appropriate or nice for me to talk about. That is a matter of opinion. Certainly there are some things that I would never dream of blogging about. I do not, for example, think it's appropriate for me to expose the private life of my family...or anyone for that matter. So if I am blogging in this area, I try to depersonalise it.
Some people of course can connect the dots better than others, and one child in particular has made me remove stuff about her...glad to do it.
BUT you cannot talk into a vacuum, and people who put their heads out there...politicians and business promoters the cases in point this week....want people to notice them. They cannot expect people just to roll over and accept what they say. And why would they want to?
The question in my mind is, then, why am I as priest/person disqualified from commenting on what is in the public arena? The answer is: I am not.
Indeed, (and many non-Christians don't seem to get this), I actually don't divide my life up into religious and non-religious. My Christianity actually compels me to try and dialogue with the reality of life. I have no time for a Christianity that is so heavenly it is of no earthly use.
I am happy to have my head chopped off when I stick it out there...serves me right for sticking it out.
I don't accept that I can't exercise my freedom to speak out, indeed I feel compelled to do so.
And I get a bit worried about those people who have very clear limits about what religious people should and should not talk about. So very often it seems as though it is OK to speak out if it is 'conservative' and 'nice', and not if it is challenging.
It is at that point we are told to get back into our pulpits.
Well I have news for you........

Quacking like a duck

Some will be interested that two priests of the Church of England (in England) went through a blessing of their civil union at one of the great London churches (here) last weekend.
The event is, of course, worth reporting; though I am also interested in the reporting of the event.
The clever Rector who performed the service seemed well on top of the histrionics of various reporters who were trying to get him to say he was confronting the Archbishop of Canterbury, he was doing something naughty, or that this was actually a wedding.
He was very careful to say he was doing none of these things; a little too careful maybe.
Reporters didn't actually seem much interested in the morality of the event, but more in the scandal with which it might be associated. This caused the good Rector (not so good in some people's eyes) to declare..."Why has this all of a sudden become about me?"
Perhaps he thought it was the issue that was important. A bit naive really

Put your left leg in!

In a curious acricle in the UK Daily Telegraph (here) a leaked report tells us that English Bishops think many, maybe most. clergy are not up to the job.
Well, I could have told them that! Most Bishops, in particular, aren't either!
One Bishop repotedly says of clergy “Truthfully, it is deeply depressing. Egotism rules. Contemporary worship is feeble, 'sweet’, and leads no one to the Majesty of God.”
Now I don't deny an elephant of truth, but that Bishop also needs a mirror.
Clergy are to be encouraged by the release of a book (God help us!) about preaching "with humnanity". Seems like a good idea, some of the advice:

In giving advice on learning to use the diaphragm consciously, it advises: "Go down on your hands and knees and pant, rapidly with short breaths."

It's partly right, you do need to get down on your knees to preach well, but panting is not the main thing you need to be focussing on!
Clergy are indeed not up to the 'job', the sooner Bishops (and others) stop thinking about it as 'a job' the better in my opinion....grrr!

Title fight

I am having a bit of a stoush on another site (here) about the use of appropriate titles.
this is largely because certain nasty people insist on referring to the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church as Mrs Schori.
Let us not pretend they do not know what they are doing.
By not even according her the minimalist title The Reverend Katherine Jefferts-Schori they are saying she is not even an ordained priest.
She is properly styled the Most Rev'd Katherine...etc, which puts her on the same sort of level as our own Primate, The Most Rev'd Philip Aspinall, and the Archbishop of Canterbury The Most Rev'd Rowan Williams.
Now on one level it doesn't matter, because many people will happily call her Katherine, just as I get called Stephen by young and old alike. On a formal level I like to be called Father Stephen. On an official level I am styled The Rev'd Fr Stephen Clark. And it all doesn't bother me very much.
I rather think, as a matter of courtesy, people should be styled (within reason) as they want to be...thus I prefer as a Catholic Anglican to be called Father Stephen rather than Mr Clark.
If and when I get a doctorate I will still prefer to be called Father rather than Dr (unless I need to bulk-bill).
But of course, there seems so much vitriol in all this name calling of women by men who simply wouldn't make it in the episcopal race. And so they name call.
No wonder people desert the church in droves!

A quite excellent but difficult funeral

It was a very long funeral for Andrew (here). I have become more tolerant of longish eulogies and it was long. But he was a most excellent man, and there was much to say.
Apart from seeing his eldest son James take on the mantle of the eldest male, I was struck for the first time by how much he looked like Andrew. More than that, there was a very deft touch and insight which was like the ghostly mantle being passed on.
There was a tribute from a priest friend, who, I suppose, was the one of us who was sacrificed to the humiliation of crying and snorting his grief in front of the few hundred people therein gathered. I have been caught before by sudden overwhelming, unexpected grief; so it was not surprising to see numbers of us so afflicted.
Dear friend! We shall miss you. What a gift you have been to everyone who knew you! What a challenge to those of us who struggle to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek but find it too hard! If I could just be as good a priest, or half as good..or a quarter..as Andrew then I would ahve done well.
But I am nowhere close.

But not forgotten

Enough is enough, no more people I know are allowed to die for at least 6 weeks (or until I come back from my holidays on 27th January!)
Having bemoaned that I sat around waiting for the third person to die, the 4th, 5th and then 6th died before Chrismas.
This latter my first priestly boss (or "Rector" as we used to call him!) was a curious mix of the person who longed to be different but couldn't bring himself to be free of his conservative shackles. He was enormously gifted and perceptive, when he preached well he was remarkably good and helpful. But he was also deeply threatened, not I think by other people's competence, but by any sense of loss of power. He thus threw away countless opportunities to soar because he was frightened that if he flew tooo high he would not be able to crap on people below.
Perhaps a little harsh! But as one who was his subordinate I (and others) could have done without it.
I found myself asking my wife a couple of weeks ago what I would have been like if instead of being discouraged I had been enouraged by him. Then a few days later he died.
I have only myself to blame for allowing him to affect me the way he did, and there were other issues going on at the time.
As death unremittingly reminds us of what we ought to do and what we ought not to have done, I tried when I was a training Rector to treat my curates better than I had been treated.
With one I was too liberal, but he was moderately competent any way. The next was good, because he would have been good where ever he was, but I think I helped him a little. The next just totally exploited my desire to not be like my first Rector and did what he liked....he is now in a position of prominence and doing that to lots of others too....and by the time I had the last one I became bored with the whole exercise and he just did nothing other than play golf, and I just couldn't raise the energy to smack him over the ear.
So? My reflection? Don't go criticising the now defunct AJD, I did no better myself. I hope that he has the rest and stability in eternity that he could not bear to have on earth, and yet so desperately longed for