28 November 2019

The call of Saint Andrew and
the mission of the Church

Saint Andrew the First-Called … an icon in the chapel in Saint Columba’s House, Woking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

28 November 2019,

7.45 a.m.
, USPG Trustees residential meeting,

Saint Columba’s House, Maybury Hill, Woking, Surrey

Readings: Isaiah 52: 7-10; Psalm 19: 1-6; Romans 10: 12-18; Matthew 4: 18-22.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen

I love the football transfer window: waiting to see who is going to move where. As an Aston Villa fan, I can always live in hope.

Today, we have transferred Saint Andrew the Apostle. We ought to be celebrating him on Saturday [30 November 2019], but we have transferred him to today.

Appropriate he should get that call, for Saint Andrew is known as the first-called of the disciples.

Before he was called, Saint Andrew was a fisherman, an every-day ordinary-day commercial occupation, working on the Lake of Galilee in partnership with his brother Simon Peter. It is said that when Saint John the Baptist began to preach, Saint Andrew became one of his closest disciples.

When he heard Christ’s call by the sea to follow him, Saint Andrew hesitated for a moment, not because he had any doubts about that call, but because he wanted to bring his brother with him. He left his nets behind and went to Peter and, as Saint John’s Gospel recalls, he told him: ‘We have found the Messiah … [and] he brought Simon to Jesus’ (John 1: 41, 42).

1, My first point: The call in today’s Gospel reading – to Peter and Andrew, to James and John, the sons of Zebedee – comes to us as individuals and in groups. It is not a story of an either/or choice between proclaiming the Gospel to individuals or groups, but a both/and choice.

And this is a two-way call, as Saint Paul reminds us in the Epistle reading: God calls us, and we call to God.

2, My second point: Saint Paul’s inclusive language – ‘Lord of all’ … ‘generous to all’ … ‘Everyone who calls’ … ‘all the earth’ – is unambiguous in ruling out all discrimination: ‘For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.’

But that particular form of discrimination is already, inherently rejected in the Gospel reading. There are two brothers, one with a very Jewish name, Simon from the Hebrew שִׁמְעוֹן, meaning ‘listen’ and ‘best’; and one with a very Greek name, Andrew, Ἀνδρέας, meaning ‘manly,’ even ‘brave’ … ‘strong’ … ‘courageous.’

From the very beginning, the call of Christ rejects the most obvious discrimination between Jew and Greek. Standing against discrimination is inherently built into the mission of the Church.

3, My third point: On my way to and from trustee meetings, I try to visit one or two London churches, particularly one of the surviving Christopher Wren churches. One of these churches, Saint Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe on Queen Victoria Street. It is two blocks south of Saint Paul’s Cathedral and close to Blackfriars station, and is the last of Wren’s city churches.

The church was destroyed by German bombs during the Blitz in World War II, but was rebuilt and rededicated in 1961.

As the bitter weather of winter takes hold, I am reminded of this prayer, appropriate for Advent and this winter weather, I found at Saint Andrew’s and which the church offers for people who have no shelter on the streets:

God of compassion,
your love for humanity was revealed in Jesus,
whose earthly life began in the poverty of a stable
and ended in the pain and isolation of the cross:
we hold before you those who are homeless and cold
especially in this bitter weather.
Draw near and comfort them in spirit
and bless those who work to provide them
with shelter, food and friendship.
We ask this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.


Saint Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe is the last of Christopher Wren’s city churches (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Collect:

Almighty God,
who gave such grace to your apostle Saint Andrew
that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ
and brought his brother with him:
call us by your holy Word
and give us grace to follow without delay
and to tell the good news of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Father,
may the gifts we have received at your table
keep us alert for your call
that we may always be ready to answer,
and, following the example of Saint Andrew,
always be ready to bear our witness
to our Saviour Jesus Christ.

The cloister-like colonnade on the north side of the former Saint Andrew’s Church in Suffolk Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 4: 18-22 (NRSVA)

18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake – for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

There are no princesses at
Woking Palace today, and
no princes at Pizza Express

Pizza Express has become the most photographed premises in Woking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Apart from having the most famous – or infamous – Pizza Express in England, Woking can boast it has the church with one of the oldest doors in England, along with the oldest purpose-built mosque in the country, and England’s first working crematorium.

This is a large town in north-west Surrey, on the south-west fringes of Greater London, about 24 minutes from Waterloo station. Woking town itself has a population of 62,796, but the total population is more than 105,000 in 2011.

Working claims to date back to the eighth century, when there was a monastery at a site known as Wochingas. It appears as Wochinges in the Domesday Book in 1086, when it was associated with Osbern FitzOsbern, Bishop of Exeter.

Woking has many churches, including Saint Mary’s Church in Horsell and Saint Peter’s Church in Old Woking. Saint Peter’s has the oldest door in Surrey, said to be the third oldest door in Britain.

Woking Palace is a former manor house of the Royal Manor of Woking near Old Woking and dates back to 1272. The manor was acquired by royal grant in 1466 by Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, and her third of four husbands, Sir Henry Stafford.

Woking Manor House was converted into a palace by Henry VII in 1503 and was later remodelled by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

James I granted the estate to Sir Edward Zouch in 1620 who may well have allowed its remains to be plundered to build Hoe Bridge Place, his new mansion about a mile away. Zouch was one of the proprietors of the Plymouth Colony in America and the North Virginia Company.

Zouch was the keeper of Woking Park when he acquired Woking Palace in 1620 from a cash-strapped crown for an annual rent of £100 and the duty of serving the first dish to the king at a feast on Saint James’s Day. By the reign of Charles II (1660-1685), the palace appears to have been abandoned and virtually ruined.

Modern Woking grow up in the area to the south of the Basingstoke Canal when it opened in 1794, and it expanded rapidly after the railway lines from London to the south coast and the south-west reached here in 1838. As the town grew and expanded, Woking Crematorium at St John’s was established in 1878 and became Britain’s first crematorium. It was first tested on 17 March 1879, when the body of a horse was cremated.

Britain’s first purpose-built mosque, the Shah Jahan Mosque on Oriental Road, was built in 1889. It was commissioned by Shahjehan, Begum of Bhopal (1868-1901), one of the four female Muslim rulers of Bhopal between 1819 and 1926.

It has been described by the Pevsner Architectural Guides as ‘extraordinarily dignified.’ But perhaps I should say a little more in a posting later today about this mosque and the Irish peer who became one of its most famous members, and a little more about Lady Margaret Beaufort tomorrow.

Woking has elected Conservative MPs since the constituency was formed in 1950, and Jonathan Lord, who has been the MP since 2010, is standing for the Tories in Woking once again in next month’s general election.

Today there are no princes in Woking, Woking Palace lays in ruins, there is no sign at Pizza Express declaring ‘by appoint to HRH …’, and in this Tory heartland of Surrey I could see no signs that Britain is the middle of a deeply divisive election campaign.

There are no commemorative plaques outside Pizza Express on Goldsworth Road in Woking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Staying in a retreat house
with links with a martyr
and nun from Limerick

Saint Columba’s House on Maybury Hill in Woking, where I am staying this week

Patrick Comerford

I am staying at Saint Columba’s House on Maybury Hill in Woking, taking part in this week’s residential meeting of the Trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

Saint Columba’s House is a beautifully refurbished Christian retreat and conference centre a mile from the centre of Woking and just 30 minutes by train from the heart London. It offers facilities for church group meetings, combining a quiet atmosphere and Christian hospitality with facilities for meetings and accommodation.

There are 10 meeting rooms, 26 en-suite bedrooms, two worship spaces. The chapel and oratory are places of Christian worship and rooms are let on the understanding that the Christian ethos of the house is respected. People from any Christian tradition are encouraged to worship in any of the spaces.

Saint Columba’s House is part of the registered charity, Saint Peter’s Home and Sisterhood, and maintains its original Anglican foundation.

The Sisterhood of St Peter was founded as a new Anglican religious community on 25 June 1861 through the active support of Benjamin Lancaster, a London businessman. Susan Oldfield was appointed the first Reverend Mother for the Sisterhood, and the community became actively engaged in health and care provision.

At first, the community was based in Brompton Square in London. The sisters moved to Kilburn in North London a few years later in 1869. Saint Peter’s Home, Woking, was built in 1883. It became the Mother house of the Community during World War II when the Kilburn Convent was destroyed by bombing.

Over the decades the Woking complex had a convent, a hospital, a home for the elderly, a guest house, a home for adults with learning difficulties and a retreat house. At its height there were a number of additional houses around the country and a new community was established as a mission order in Seoul in Korea in 1925 by an Irish-born nun who spent much of her childhood in Limerick.

Mother Mary Clare (1883-1950) was born Clare Emma Whtity at her mother’s family home in Fenloe, near Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co Clare, on 30 May 1883, during one of the many family holidays in the Hickman family home. Her father, Dr Richard Whitty (1844-1897), a medical doctor and a land agent, was born in Rathvilly, Co Carlow, into a prominent Church of Ireland clerical family.

Her maternal grandmother was a daughter of Bishop Edward Stopford of Meath. Through her mother, she was a second cousin of Catherine Amelia O’Brien or Kitty O’Brien (1881-1963), the stained glass artist of An Túr Gloine studios; the Irish nationalist and historian Alice Stopford-Green (1847-1929); and the controversial Irish Anglican priest and hymnwriter, Stopford Brooke (1832-1916), who translated Still the Night, a version of Silent Night that has lost popularity.

Clare Emma Whitty spent much of her childhood at No 11 The Crescent, Limerick, on the corner of Barrington Street and almost opposite the Jesuit church. Later, received training in art in Paris, where she became fluent in French, and then worked as a church worker at Saint Alban’s in Birmingham, whose vicar, the Revd Alfred (Cecil) Cooper, later became the fourth Bishop of Korea..

She joined the Anglican Community of Saint Peter, then based in Kilburn, in 1912 and took her vows as a sister in 1915, taking the name Mary Clare. Before the outbreak of World War I, the Revd Mark Trollope (1862-1930), who had been vicar of Saint Augustine’s in Kilburn, became the third Anglican Bishop of Korea. He asked Sister Mary Clare to help set up a society of Korean sisters in Seoul. But World War I disrupted those plans; she eventually reached Korea in 1923, and began Korean language studies.

With the help of Bishop Trollope, she founded the Society of the Holy Cross in Seoul in 1925 and was appointed novice mistress. She was back in England for a time in 1928-1929, when she lived at the mother house of the Community of Saint Peter in Kilburn. She then returned to Seoul to take up her role as the first Mother Superior of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. During World War II, Mother Mary Clare was repatriated to England in 1941.

She left England in 1946, and returned through Kure in Japan to Korea, arriving back in January 1947. On the ship’s passenger list, she described herself as a teacher.

On the outbreak of the Korean War, she turned down an offer from the British embassy to evacuate from Seoul, deciding to stay with her congregation. When the North Korean army besieged Seoul in June 1950, she took refuge with other foreign civilians in the British Embassy. But they were interned by the North Korean forces as they consolidated their occupation of the Korean capital.

On the retreat of the North Korean forces from Seoul following the success of the United Nations forces landing at Inchon, Mother Mary Clare and other foreign civilian prisoners, among them many Christian missionaries, were moved forcibly to the northern part of North Korea.

The last part of their ‘Death March,’ began on 30 October and involved a forced march of over 100 miles in early winter with little food or warm clothing. Mother Mary Clare died on 6 November 1950 near Chunggangjinon. She was buried in a shallow grave near the Chosin Reservoir in the north-west part of North Korea by five French-speaking Roman Catholic sisters. They used an improvised bier to bring her to the top of a neighbouring hill, close to the camp, where they dug her grave.

Ten months after the end of the Korean War, the Church Times published a short obituary notice in April 1954 that described her as a ‘devoted and courageous English Sister.’

Today the Community of the Holy Cross in Seoul continues to thrive as an independent order with close links to the Sisterhood of Saint Peter.

But the numbers of Sisters in England had dwindled by the late 1980s. The old convent was sold, and a new modern nursing home and convent building was opened in 1988. Sadly, in 2002 it too had to close.

Inside one of the chapels at Saint Columba’s House in Woking