‘Small but Significant’ conversations about mission on the margins

With the Revd Dr Dr Pervaiz Sultan of Saint Thomas’s Theological College, Karachi, at the USPG conference in High Leigh last week

Patrick Comerford

During the USPG conference in the High Leigh Conference Centre in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, last week, I chaired one of the afternoon conference sessions at which the speaker was the Revd Dr Pervaiz Sultan, the Principal of Saint Thomas’s Theological College in Karachi, Pakistan.

It was a surprise, then, to find that in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer on Sunday [8 July 2018] we were praying for the Church of Pakistan and the Most Revd Humphrey Peters, Bishop of Peshawar and Moderator of the Church of Pakistan.

During the USPG conference, Pervaiz Sultan presented me with a new edition of his book, Small but Significant: Pakistan Praxis of Modern Mission. The book was first published in 2010, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference in 1910, which is regarded as a foundational moment in the modern ecumenical and missionary movements. This is the second edition of his book.

At the conference, we had lunch together and a number of conversations. He has been the Principal of Saint Thomas’s Theological College, the national seminary of the Church of Pakistan, since 1995, and Vice-Principal (1993-1995), and since 1989 Lecturer in Doctrine, Applied Theology, Mission and Ministry, and Biblical Studies.

In these roles, he has trained several hundred men and women for ordained ministry in the Church of Pakistan, and he has been engaged in mission praxis at national and international level. He worked for his PhD in theology with Dr Vinay Samuel and Dr Chris Sugden of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, receiving his doctorate in 1997.

The book includes the author’s presentations at national and international forums, and papers published in journals, magazines and newspapers. He writes about reconciliation as mission, mission and development, holistic evangelism and mission, the Bible and social concerns, and the Christian response to human need.

Dr Sultain says one of his two favourite quotes for mission understanding is from Willem A Visser Hooft, the first general secretary of the World Council of Churches: ‘Christians have more reason than anyone else to be advocates of humanity … They are on the side of all humanity because God is on that side and his Son died for it.’

Muslims make up 97 per cent of the population of Pakistan. But, in the theme chapter, ‘Small but Significant’ (pp 20-26), Dr Sultan argues that although Christians are small in number in Pakistan, their historical role in the creation in Pakistan and their ongoing role in nation-building means to continue to have a significant place and presence in the life of Pakistan.

‘Along with its role of nation building, the Church in Pakistan prays for the rulers of the country and for the well-being of its people and security of the geographical boundaries. This gives the Church in Pakistan strong feelings of a national church,’ he writes.

Dr Sultan’s second favourite quote about mission comes from the South African missiologist, David Bosh: ‘We must reject a Gospel that is ultimately spiritualised to such an extent that it does not touch reality, but also the one that has been secularised to the point that there is no call to repentance and no relationship to God above.’

Stay with us, Lord, as daylight dies;Let angels guard us through the night

The High Altar in the Church in Glenstal Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

I am in Glenstal Abbey in Co Limerick on a 24-hour retreat with a priest colleague, taking time to pray, think and reflect.

We arrived shortly after lunch, and joined the community in the abbey church for Vespers this evening and for Compline at the end of the day.

The school term ended a few weeks ago, and while there is a group of students from Argentina here for an English language course, the few pilgrims and people on retreat hardly encroach on each other, and we are enjoying the grounds, the lakes, the woods and the sunny blue skies, as well as the swallows, which I associate with summer in Glenstal.

This is, I think, my third time in Glenstal Abbey, having been here before as the keynote speaker at a Glenstal Ecumenical Conference in the 1990s, and here again last year, when I spoke at a one-day meeting of priests and readers from the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe.

During Compline this evening, the monks in the choir sang:

When darkness everywhere draws near
Creation’s sign to close the day
Teach us to calm our inner fear
That we may watch with you and pray.

Let not anxieties undo
Our trust that you are always there;
Increase our fragile hope in you
Who hold us ever in your care.

As shadows overwhelm the skies
Shine in our hearts eternal light.
Stay with us, Lord, as daylight dies;
Let angels guard us through the night.

To you be glory, God of rest,
To you be glory, God the Son,
To you be glory, Spirit blest,
The One in Three and Three in One. Amen.

And we prayed:

Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
You have redeemed us, O Lord God of truth.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to Holy Spirit.

Save us, O Lord, while we are awake; guard us, O Lord, while we sleep. That we may keep watch with Christ, and rest with him in peace.

After the Canticle of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis), our prayers concluded:

Guard us, O Lord, as the apple of your eye.
Hide us in the shadow of your wings.

We leave after lunch tomorrow, which means we are going to miss the celebrations of the Feast of Saint Benedict on Wednesday [11 July 2018] and the blessing of four new bells in the abbey church.

Why is a statue of lame Vulcan by a roadside in rural west Limerick?

The carved limestone figure of Vulcan at Stoneville, known locally as the ‘Stony Man’ … said to be the work of Martin Scanlon of Blossomhill, Rathkeale (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

In Roman mythology, Vulcan (Volcānus) was the god of fire, including the fire of volcanoes, metalworking, and the forge. He is often depicted with a blacksmith’s hammer. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus, the god of fire and smithery. In time, Vulcan came to be considered the manufacturer of art, arms, iron and jewellery.

Roman tradition said the name of Vulcan was related to Latin words connected to lightning, which in turn was thought of as related to flames.

Some scholars have believed his name was related to Velchanos, a Cretan god of nature and the nether world. This was refuted by Wolfgang Meid, but more recently Gérard Capdeville has argued for a continuity between the Cretan Minoan god Velchanos and the Etruscan Velchans. The Minoan god’s identity was that of a young deity, master of fire and companion of the great goddess.

The stories of Vulcan may reflect the Greek myths of Theseus and the Minotaur and those about the childhood of Zeus on Mount Ida. Velchanos was depicted as a young man sitting upon a fork of a tree on coins from Phaistos dating from 322 to 300 BC, showing him as a god of vegetation and springtime. Later, Velchanos was depicted as a bull in the myths of Pasiphae and Europa.

The cult of Vulcan enjoyed a period of popularity in the Roman Empire during the second and third centuries and he god had a temple in Rome on the Aventine Hill. The festival of Vulcan, the Vulcanalia, was celebrated each year on 23 August, when the summer heat placed crops and granaries most at risk of burning.

There is a statue of Vulcan on the town hall in Sheffield, and the statue of Vulcan in Birmingham, Alabama, is said to be the world’s largest cast iron state. But imagine my surprise in the summer heat, and just two weeks after returning from Crete, to find a statue of Vulcan on the wall of an old smithy in the middle of rural west Limerick.

The statue of Vulcan in West Limerick can be seen in Stoneville, on a back road between Rathkeale and Askeaton, and although it had been pointed out to me many months before I had forgotten its location until I came across accidentally on my way back from Newcastle West on Friday evening [6 July 2018], and again on my way from Rathkeale to Askeaton on Sunday afternoon [8 July 2018].

The carved limestone figure of Vulcan in the gable at Stoneville is marked in old maps as the ‘Vulcan’ on old maps and is known locally as the ‘Stony Man.’

He stands in a round-headed niche in the front or south wall of this detached two-bay, single-storey former forge. This former smithy is said to have been built around 1870, although some local historians suggest it is at least 100 years older, dating from the mid or late 18th century.

The statue is said to have been carved by Martin Scanlon, a craftsman born at Blossomhill, Rathkeale, in the 1740s. Even in the late 1700s, this figure would have been an expensive piece of work. It is a cut figure of a lame man working at an anvil, and in the past children regarded the Vulcan as a scary figure.

The Stoneville silver mines were just across the road, and some local historians suggest the building may have been the silversmiths’ workshop.

The old forge has a pitched slate roof and a rendered chimneystack. The dressed limestone curtain wall at the front or south elevation has cut limestone coping and the round-headed niche that holds the statue of Vulcan.

Below the statue and the niche is a pair of pointed arch door openings at the front, with cut limestone voussoirs, but these are now blocked up.

There are rough-cast, render-over-rubble, limestone walls on the other three sides. There is a square-headed opening on the east side with a two-over-two pane timber sliding sash window and a limestone sill, and a square-headed window opening on the west side.

This former smithy is said to be one of the most remarkable examples of its type in Ireland. Although it is no longer use, this smithy, with its prominent site, is an important part of Co Limerick’s architectural heritage.

In this summer heat, crops and granaries may still be at risk. We are still six weeks away today from 23 August, the traditional day of the Vulcanalia.

The former smithy at Stoneville with the carved limestone figure of Vulcan and two blocked-up pointed arch door openings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)