19 January 2023

Praying through the Week of
Christian Unity and with USPG:
19 January 2023

Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford … ‘Come and Sing Evensong’ this evening is part of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I have been reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

However, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began yesterday (18 January 2023), and between now and next Wednesday my morning reflections look at this year’s readings and prayers.

Churches Together in Milton Keynes continues to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this evening with ‘Come and Sing Evensong’ at 7:30 in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. I hope to be part of this service this evening as a member of the choir in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church.

Choral Evensong is one of the great English musical traditions, with its rich biblical language and emotive music. Choirs and singers from across Milton Keynes are gathering for a brief rehearsal at 6 pm. The Revd Lisa Kerry, the Baptist Regional Minister, is speaking and the Moderator of the United Reformed Church East Midlands Synod, the Revd Geoffrey Clarke is leading the intercessions.

‘If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and not be heard’ (Proverbs 21: 13) … ‘Christ the Beggar’ … a sculpture by Timothy Schmalz on the steps of Santo Spirito Hospital near the Vatican (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Day 2: When justice is done …

Readings:

Proverbs 21: 13-15:

When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but dismay to evildoers.

Matthew 23: 23-25:

Justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done.

Reflection:

From the beginning, the Book of Proverbs sets out to provide wisdom and instruction in “wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity” (1: 2). Throughout its oracles of wisdom, the call to act justly and to pursue righteousness is a constant refrain, relentlessly shared and affirmed as more acceptable to God than sacrifice. In a one-sentence pearl of wisdom, the speaker testifies that the righteous rejoice when justice is done. But justice upsets the workers of iniquity. Christians, across their separations, should be united in joy when justice is done, and prepared to stand together when this justice brings opposition. When we do what the Lord requires and dare to pursue justice, we may find ourselves in a whirlwind of resistance and opposition to any attempt to make things right for the most vulnerable among us.

Those who benefit from the systems and structures buttressed by White supremacy and other oppressive ideologies such as “casteism” and patriarchy will seek to delay and deny justice, often violently. But to seek justice is to strike at the heart of the powers, making space for God’s just ordering and enduring wisdom in a world all too often unmoved by suffering. And yet, there is joy in doing what is right.

There is joy in affirming that “Black Lives Matter” in the pursuit of justice for God’s oppressed, dominated, and exploited beloved. There is joy in seeking reconciliation with other Christians so that we may better serve the proclamation of the kingdom. Let that joy manifest itself through our shared experiences of God’s presence in community in the known and unknown spaces where God journeys with us toward healing, reconciliation and unity in Christ.

Christian Unity:

The religious leaders Jesus addresses in the Gospel passage have grown accustomed and comfortable with the injustices of the world. They are happy to perform religious duties such as tithing mint, dill and cumin, but neglect the weightier and more disruptive demands of justice, mercy and faithfulness. Similarly Christians have grown accustomed and comfortable with the divisions that exist between us. We are faithful in much of our religious observance, but often we neglect the Lord’s challenging desire that all his disciples be one.

Challenge:

How can local congregations support one another to withstand the opposition that may follow from doing justice?

Prayer:

God, you are the source of our wisdom. We pray for wisdom and courage to do justice, to respond to what is wrong in the world by acting to make it right;

We pray for wisdom and courage to grow in the unity of your Son, Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit, reigns forever and ever. Amen.

‘You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!’ (Matthew 23: 24) … a camel near the Goreme Open Air Museum and the rock-cut churches of Cappadocia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began yesterday (18 January), and the theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is the ‘Week of Prayer For Christian Unity.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for a healing of divisions. May we know the humility and wisdom of Christ in our search for reconciliation.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow

30 seconds of bell ringing at Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford … the venue for Choral Evensong this evening (Patrick Comerford)

A fruitless search for a link
between the Ansons of Lichfield
and the streets of Wolverton

Anson Road, Wolverton … in search of a connection with Lichfield and the family of the Earls of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

On the way between Stony Stratford and Wolverton, on the northern fringes of Milton Keynes, I regularly pass by Anson Road, off Stratford Road, at the west end of Wolverton. The name made me ask whether there was a link between Lichfield and the Earls of Lichfield in the Anson family on one hand and the street names in Wolverton on the other.

When the Lichfield title was held by the Lee family, George Henry Lee (1718-1772), 3rd Earl of Lichfield and Chancellor of Oxford University, was chair of the Radcliffe Trustees and was instrumental in shaping what became the Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. I saw his portrait while I was staying in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after my stroke last year.

However, this particular Earl of Lichfield was not part of the Anson family, and the title of Earl of Lichfield died out in the Lee family in 1776, a century before the terraced housing and streets of Wolverton were developed on the Radcliffe Estate.

The title of Earl of Lichfield was revived for Thomas Anson at the coronation of William IV in 1831, and I searched in the Anson family stories to see which member of the family had given Anson Road in Wolverton its name.

Anson Road was named after Sir William Reynell Anson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

So, it seems, Anson Road was named after Sir William Reynell Anson (1843-1914), 3rd Baronet, once a trustee of the Radcliffe Estate. Anson was a jurist, Warden of All Saints’ College, Oxford, an MP for Oxford, and the author of two standard works on law.

The title of baronet in the Anson family was first given to his grandfather, Sir William Anson, in 1831. He was a younger brother of both Thomas Anson, 1st Viscount Anson, and General Sir George Anson, and the uncle of Thomas Anson, who became 1st Earl of Lichfield that same year, in 1831.

Sir William Anson was born at Walberton, Sussex, on 14 November 1843, the eldest son of Sir John William Hamilton Anson (1816-1873), 2nd Baronet, and Elizabeth Catherine (née Pack), making him a second cousin of Thomas Francis Anson (1856-1918), 3rd Earl of Lichfield – a very different 3rd Earl of Lichfield to the Radcliffe Estate trustee in Oxford who was instrumental in founding the Radcliffe Hospital.

William Anson was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He took a first class in both Classical Moderations, 1863, and Literae Humaniores (‘Greats’ or philosophy and classics), in 1866. He was elected a Fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford, in the following year.

Anson was called to the Bar in 1869, and went on the home circuit until 1873, when he succeeded to the family title of baronet. In 1874, he became Vinerian reader in English law at Oxford, a post attached to a Fellowship of All Souls’ College, which he held until he became the Warden of All Souls’ College in 1881.

Anson became an alderman of the city of Oxford in 1892, chair of the quarter sessions in Oxfordshire in 1894, was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University (1898-1899), and Chancellor of the Diocese of Oxford in 1899. In that year he was elected, without opposition, as MP for Oxford University as a Liberal Unionist, and so he resigned as vice-chancellor of the university.

In Parliament, Anson had an active interest in education, and was a member of the newly created consultative committee of the Board of Education in 1900. He became the first Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education in 1902, and held the post until 1905. He became a Privy Counsellor in 1911.

Anson took an active part in the foundation of a school of law at Oxford, and taught law to undergraduates at Trinity College, Oxford, from 1886 to 1898. His volumes on The Principles of the English Law of Contract (1884) and on The Law and Custom of the Constitution in two parts, ‘The Parliament’ and ‘The Crown’ (1886-1892), became standard works.

Sir William Anson died on 4 June 1914, aged 70. He never married and the title of baronet passed to his nephew, Sir Denis Anson, who drowned in the Thames in July 1914, aged only 25. The title is now held by Sir Philip Rowland Anson, who became the eighth baronet in 2018.

So, I could find no direction between the Ansons, Earls of Lichfield, and the development of Victorian housing and streets in Wolverton. Instead, the story of William Anson led me to the peculiar decision to name some of those streets after colleges in Oxford.

But more about those street names on another day.

A portrait of George Henry Lee, 3rd Earl of Lichfield, in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)