St Matthew's in Winter

We very much enjoyed a three weeks’ visit from Toni Clark of St Patrick’s, Wallington, last autumn. This was part of her training to be a Reader and was a new experience for her and a pleasant one for us. As she comes from an evangelical background, our high church rituals were new and strange to her but she quickly adjusted to our ways and appreciated the integral relationship of spiritual worship and traditional form. We were delighted by her friendliness, her interest in us and in our church, summed up in her final sermon on the importance of friendship and love in Christ. We wish her well in her chosen path and hope that, one day, we will see her back among us.

This Christmas ‘frosty wind’ did indeed ‘moan’ for all of us and it was difficult at times to venture out, but even so St Matthew’s offered a rich and varied programme from Advent to Epiphany for those brave enough to face ice and snow. Music, light and joyful anticipation made up for the cold.

The Service of Lessons and Carols was a joyous occasion. Ice underfoot and intense cold kept many away but those who ventured out enjoyed splendid singing by the choir under Malcolm’s direction.

Christmas Eve for children was well attended and much enjoyed by many families. Activities in the afternoon led up to the Christingle service which included all-age groups. The Nativity play, with all our children involved and dressed for their parts with considerable imagination, was narrated from the pulpit with great poise by Sam Nicholls. Young and old then joined a candlelit circle around the church to sing ‘Away in a Manger’, each holding a Christingle orange, which enthralled the little folk and their parents also. No one was set alight and everyone glowed in anticipation.

The Lent lunches have been well attended and children were happy to play while a cross-section of all ages from the neighbourhood was able to exchange views without the demands of Sunday services. The food was very well organised and the soups in particular were delicious. We are grateful to the cooks and glad that money has been raised for the Bishop’s Lent appeal.

The Lent groups gave people a chance to discuss and study their lives in prayer and offered new insights into their spiritual welfare under the direction of Fr Stuart – based on the spiritual guidance of St Ignatius.

It was good to see thirteen children coming together on Tuesdays to prepare for their First Communion – lively participants in this vital experience.

The performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor by the Ariel Consort of London, directed by Douglas Lee, was splendid – soloists, choir and orchestra all giving splendid performances. We appreciated the excellent acoustics of the church which brought out the powerful impact of the music. We are especially grateful to the director and all who helped to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care and for St Matthew’s Church.

Gwyneth Llewellyn

Norman Coffey R I P 1931-2010)

Norman slipped quietly in to St Matthew’s, quietly made his presence felt for a brief few years and then, in dying, slipped quietly away again. Regulars attending services in the Lady Chapel have said that they still half expect to find him sitting there when they arrive.

He was born in Kensington in 1931; the family moved to Ireland for the war years and after the war returned to London.  He joined the Army as a Regular in 1949, went to Sandhurst, and ended up in 1st Regiment Horse Artillery. Leaving the army in 1961 he went into advertising in London, where he met Deirdre who worked for the same advertising agency. They shared a love of music and crosswords and originally started talking while going home on the same tube train, she alighting at South Kensington, he going on to Putney. They married in 1965 – Deirdre describes it as a marriage of opposite personalities – and children Biddy, Jo and Frank were born. At St Paul’s Church, Wimbledon, Norman edited the Parish Magazine. Deirdre – Norman having suggested, jokingly, that she take up an occupation to prevent her from becoming a cabbage while the children were small – joined the Thames Philharmonic Choir, a move which Norman supported with enthusiasm.

The family grew up, the marriage of opposite personalities became more challenging, and after twenty-nine years Norman and Deirdre decided to split up. Norman moved to the Wiltshire village of Foxham and thrived in the exceptionally friendly community there. To occupy his time he took singing lessons at the age of 68, and reached Grade 7 standard in three years. At the church in Foxham he recognised some flaws in the way things were organised – such as the laying up of the Sacrament – and undertook to organise the necessary changes. To the astonishment of his family and friends he arranged workshops for lay people in the Church who were drug abusers and alcoholics. A kind and generous man, he was always a great support to his family.

Deirdre and Norman continued to care for each other during periods of illness. Friendship and respect brought them together again; they remarried in 2007 and Norman joined Deirdre at home in Raynes Park. Norman came to St Matthew’s where he quickly made his mark as a sidesman and a communion assistant at the Sunday 8 o’clock Mass. He regularly attended and often said Morning Prayer on Tuesdays, showing a faithful commitment to being in the chapel regardless of whether anyone else turned up or not. A committed Christian, his faith and trust in God shone through.

A charming man with a positive outlook, Norman was not one to sit around in retirement. His cake-making was legendary, and he rallied the congregation to collect jam jars for his jam- and marmalade-making. Every day he completed the Times Crossword which he often entered in the newspaper’s competition. He joined a group of neighbours in becoming a Friend of Richmond Park, where he enjoyed working in the Information Kiosk. His twinkle was infectious, his sense of humour easy to share: his email address was ‘coffeyshop’.

Norman died on a snowy day at the beginning of January 2010. Members of the Thames Philharmonic Choir sang at his funeral which was attended by friends from all stages of his adult life. His beloved granddaughter Kara read ‘Jabberwocky’, a favourite among the many books her Grandpa had read to her as a child.

Norman was a gentle man – and a gentleman.

Our thanks to Deidre Coffey, Revd Cynthia Jackson and others

Fr Stuart's Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent (Luke 13.1-9)

In the face of tragic events I am often asked hard questions about God. This year we have had earthquakes in Chile and Haiti, and we continue to hear about the injuries and death brought about by war and terrorist action. Of course, tragedies can take a far more personal form – the illness and death of a loved one or the disintegration of significant relationships. In the face of these events we often wonder about God’s involvement. Where is God? Why does God allow or even cause these things to happen? When we are going through some crisis, it is very easy to be preoccupied and we can’t think about anything else.

This seems to be the background for Jesus’ teaching in our gospel today. The crowds are filled with questions about tragic events and God’s involvement. Should they see these outer events as blessings or curses? Is God rewarding or punishing? Why do bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people? These are good questions, and Christians down the centuries have tried to answer them. But the problem with these questions – like our preoccupation with our own struggles and worries – is that they crowd out other questions. They prevent paying attention to the most important question about God’s will and that is, where and how can we know God’s will most truly? You see, by wondering about the significance of events we have bypassed that question, or rather we have already answered it. We have decided that if we want to know God we have to look outside of ourselves at what is happening around us. But I want to suggest that as human beings created in the image of God, as living beings filled with life from God’s Spirit, the first place to look for God’s will is within ourselves.

God’s presence and God’s will is first found within ourselves and then – and only then – can we carry it into the world. God’s will is done in us and then through us. That is the thrust of the prayer that Jesus teaches his friends. We are sons and daughters of ‘our Father in heaven’. When we become aware of this intimate relationship with God, then we bring his kingdom and do his will ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. The assumption of that prayer is that God’s will is not done on earth until I do it. Therefore, to look at the events of the earth to find God’s will is to look in the wrong direction. I should not expect to find evidence of God’s will in falling towers, earthquakes or suffering and dying relatives. It is in the space within me that I can touch God and know his will.

But of course, I so often crowd that space with the wrong questions. The real question for me, therefore, is how can I carve out that space in order to come near to God? And there is only one answer to that question. I will make time and put effort into my prayer life. It is in the space created by prayer that I will discover God’s will and then I will be able to carry it out within the struggles I experience in my daily life.

That is what Jesus means when he speaks about bearing fruit – to know God and God’s will and to do it in the world. And the parable about the fig tree in the vineyard tells us something wonderful. Jesus tells us that if we are not making the effort to carve out a space for prayer, coming near and listening to God, then there is a gardener who will get the work going for us. The first gardener wasn’t so good; in the Garden of Paradise, Adam lost the intimacy that had originally existed between God and humans. But the second gardener – Jesus – comes to revitalise our contact with the ground of God. He wins some time for us and gets going with the weeding and the fertilising. He creates the conditions in which we can bear fruit. But why does he do that? Why does he draw our attention away from the tragic events of the world and invite us to look and work within ourselves? For the same reason that the gardener begs time for the fig tree. Jesus is moved by a great sadness brought on by the sight of wasted soil and fruitless trees.

We carry a great gift within us. The gift of intimacy with God, the gift of knowing the will of the one who created us and then doing it. And perhaps we waste that gift when we become preoccupied with finding meaning in the random events of this world.

Fr Stuart

The Taizé community and its music

I was first introduced to Taizé chants when I was at university. There, the chapel is in the round, and this intimate space lent itself to the loosely structured, meditative Taizé music. The repetitive and simple nature of the chants allowed the congregation to join easily in the singing at communion; the volume gradually rose in the chapel, and then dissipated as the communion finished.

I am now at St Matthew’s and I find to my delight that we are occasionally singing Taizé chants during communion. Recently, on a visit to the Cotswolds over half-term, I discovered a local church magazine had an article giving some background to the music and monastic community at Taizé, and I thought that this might be of interest to our congregation. So I’ve reproduced the article below, with kind permission from the author Richard Stephens, director of music at St James’ Church, Chipping Campden.

It was in the summer of 1940 that the twenty-five year old Roger Schultz, son of a Swiss Reformed pastor, came to Taizé, a small desolate village just north of Cluny, the birthplace of western monasticism. After four years studying theology, he decided that academic life was too far removed from the war around him and he began to seek a different expression of the Christian life. “The defeat of France awoke powerful sympathy. If a house could be found there, of the kind I had dreamed of, it would offer a possible way of assisting some of those most discouraged, those deprived of a livelihood; and it could become a place of silence and work.” For Brother Roger, as he was later known, France was a “land of poverty, a land of wartime suffering, but a land of inner freedom”. Roger’s home became a sanctuary to countless war refugees, including many Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. In November 1942 the Gestapo occupied the house, while Roger was in Switzerland collecting funds to aid in his ministry, and he was not able to return to Taizé until France was liberated in the autumn of 1944. In 1949 he was joined by his first brothers, seven young men who committed themselves for life to celibacy and to material and spiritual sharing. Taizé took its place as part of the great monastic family. The community has grown until there are now over 100 brothers living a life of prayer, work, and hospitality, with three times of worship creating the basic rhythm of the day. The community has always supported itself by its own labour, refusing all donations.

The appeal of Taizé to young people, in an age where religion continues to lose influence, is quite extraordinary. Hundreds of thousands of youngsters have made the pilgrimage to the remote hilltop, and as many as six thousand can be in the tiny village at any one time. Taizé gives them, even temporarily, an opportunity to participate in a community life which, above all, offers a sense of mystery, of peace and of depth, everything that is lacking in the societies where we live. As Andrei Tarkovski, the Russian film director, said: “The challenge for our age is to let humanity remain a question: to avoid thinking that everything is explainable”. What attracts so many young people to Taizé? This question keeps on recurring, and the brothers have no answer. Many are active in churches at home; others find it difficult to find a church where they feel welcomed and listened to. For the community, the question – Why do they come? is less important than – What can we offer them? How can we help them to find ways of continuing their journey of faith, of being creators of reconciliation in the places where they live?

All this is the context in which the music of Taizé has been developed. When the number of visitors began to increase, and more and more young people started arriving, the brothers felt the need to find a way for everyone to join in the prayer and not simply be observers. At the same time they felt it was essential to maintain the meditative quality of the prayer. Finally, it was found that chants made up of a few words repeated over and over again made possible a prayer that was both meditative and yet accessible to all. Jacques Berthier (1923-1994) was the French composer of liturgical music who, in 1955, was first asked to write for the Taizé Community, by then a community of twenty brothers. Over the next twenty years, Berthier set their chosen texts to music that has been used around the world. Later, the tradition was continued with chants composed by Joseph Gelineau, until his death last year.

The best words to describe Taizé worship are “disciplined freedom.” The idea is based on repetitive simplicity: over and over. The repetition, with no firm beginning and no firm end, allows the individual worshipper to at one time be an integral part of the community while at the same time being individually connected to God. Taizé, through its liturgical shape, seeks to establish an ecumenical form of worship that emphasizes the common goals of the Christian community over questions of dogma. Brother Roger died in 2005, but the work carries on, and this small French community continues to have an impact on the worship life and ideals of many Christians, of all denominations, throughout the world.

Martin Kohler

Book Review:
'Good Goats – Healing Our Image of God'
by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn & Matthew Linn

This book is organised into two parts. The first introduces a number of concepts regarding our perception of God from our upbringings and examines how the view of a judgemental and vengeful God damages our ability to be close to Him and to be fulfilled in our lives with love and healing. It explores possibilities of viewing God as a Being that loves us “as least as much as those who love us most”.

The second part is a questions and answer section compiled by the authors, who have extensive experience of leading religious retreats and providing counsel to others.

Part I – Healing Our Image of God – explores changing our perception of God as interpreted from our childhood, from an excessively didactic and judgemental God to a loving God who stands by your side as you judge your most fallible loved ones.  The book uses modern day examples to personalise the concepts and to assist the reader to visualise God as someone who shows immense love.

It describes how bible stories and parables were written using hyperbole/exaggerated language to describe vengeful punishment and suggests we should not take these teachings literally. Loving parents/guardians often use vengeful language to guide and coach their children but this should never be taken out of context.

‘Good Goats’ alludes to God loving and healing us whilst we are unrepentant, as opposed to our having to repent before we can experience the breadth and depth of God’s love. He judges us with unconditional love as a defence lawyer would, rather than a prosecuting and accusatory judge.

Heaven and Hell are described as states of mind that we choose, rather than geographical locations that God sentences us to exist in. This choice closes our hearts to God. However He refuses to accept this self-destruction and joins us in Hell to intervene (as a concerned family member would for a suicidal relative).

To change this inbred view of God, ‘Good Goats’ invites us to put aside our literal analysis of the Bible and to connect with our feelings by embracing a maternal God, who loves us unconditionally as we are, and therefore heals our image so that we become like the motherly loving God we adore. This opens us up to being as loving as our God and not judgemental of others.

The authors discuss addictions (alcohol, drugs etc) as being a temporary but futile refuge where we seek to feel we belong in the world from which we feel disconnected. However they discuss how altering one’s image of God as a loving and healing Being creates a fulfilling life belonging to God. This is particularly possible given that we carry out more acts of love for those we love, rather than those we fear.

Part II – Questions & Answers – provides a useful exploration of the themes and concepts introduced in Part I in an attempt to challenge them. It provides a useful mix of biblical references and ancient and modern theological debate to discuss these topics from possible but not necessarily binary points of view. The authors invite the reader to consider them by humanising these concepts, although at times these can be presented as quite detailed theological tenets.

They present alternative points of view to well known parables such as the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s gospel.  People interpret the prodigal son’s return to his father as a sign of repentance for his past sins; however ‘Good Goats’ says that actually this parable is an example of showing how God is loving and healing the unrepentant son, who returned not to atone for his sins but so that he could be well fed and ensure he would receive his father’s inheritance. What God is showing here is that regardless of the individual, God is willing never to let the ‘lost one’ go, therefore securing us all in his love.

This book provides a useful angle of interpretation and positioning of an unconditionally loving and forgiving God, and shows how our own self-doubt is what actually cuts us off from being close to that love and puts us into a state of Hell (isolation, loneliness and without love) when we know we have committed a sin.

Our life’s experiences are what damage our image of God and distort His messages of love. ‘Good Goats’ shows that by altering this we can be healed and experience great love, happiness and peace.

Emily Turner

Book Review:
'This Sunrise of Wonder' by Michael Mayne

Wonder. That overwhelming gut-wrenching breath-catching feeling of joy when we come face to face with something which moves us. Each of us has personal triggers; for Michael Mayne it can be a particular piece of music, a poem, a painting, a landscape, something in the natural world. Even more wonder-full is ‘not simply love, but the astonishment of loving’. For him wonder leads to and comes from the absolute knowledge of a loving God.

I remember Michael Mayne as a dignified Dean of Westminster Abbey; he had previously been a parish priest and Head of BBC Religious Affairs. I am pleased to have discovered another side to him: warm, generous, humble and a man whose family in itself is a source of wonder.

Though this book is made up of letters to his grandchildren, it is in no way a book for children. The legacy which Michael Mayne leaves for Adam and Anna is what lies at the heart of his faith, what motivates him and what for him have been moments of wonder. If, said Meister Eckhart, a German mystic of the Middle Ages, I can find God in myself, I am then enabled to find him everywhere. It is his personal ‘everywhere’ that Michael Mayne seeks to pass on to his grandchildren. Fundamentally an artist – ‘an arts man to my fingertips’ – he explores the profound effect on him of nature, of art and music, of drama and poetry.  Above all he urges to look: to ‘come and see’; to ‘open your eyes’; to ‘listen to your life’; to ‘look’; to ‘notice things and wonder at them’. His concern is beyond what we can comprehend with the five senses.

In order to provide a balance he examines the extent of wonder in science and mathematics and concludes that we need, on the one hand, things we can believe in because they work and, on the other, things we can believe in because we can experience them without understanding. He examines the genetic and gynaecological facts of his birth – and still is filled with awe at the wonder of his existence. He marvels – as I have often done – that the whole of literature and human conversation is carried out within a framework of a twenty-six letter alphabet.

Wonder is at the heart of his religious belief, and at the heart of his religious wonder is the Eucharist – ‘offering, thanking, breaking and sharing’. From obituaries written at the time of his death in 1996 I learn that he made the Eucharist the main Sunday service at Westminster Abbey. Away from priestly and official duties he read widely and the letters are rich with quotations from writers who have recognised and have put into words the wonders that he wants us to share.

The book is not difficult to read. If, like me, you have tried to understand what lies beyond your personal moments of wonder, I suggest you take this journey with Michael Mayne and, with him, learn to give attention in order to see.

Jean Porter

The Kneelers in the Lady Chapel

This article is the latest in our series of archive investigations for REVIEW.

If you attend services in the Lady Chapel you will already know about the kneelers we use there. If the services you attend are in the main part of the church, it's worth going into the Lady Chapel to take a look at this very practical part of St Matthew's history.

Making the kneelers was a project of the late 1980s shortly after the reordering [updating] of the church interior. Once the glass screens and doors were fitted, kneelers seemed a good way to celebrate the Lady Chapel's new role as a separate area for quiet worship.

At first ready designed kneeler kits were considered, but none seemed suitable. Help came from two members of St Mary's congregation who had masterminded a similar project there. One lady gave help with such practicalities as how much wool to buy and where to obtain the canvas, as well as how to construct the kneeler. The other nobly took on the arduous task of turning our congregation’s designs into charts for the tapestry embroiderers to work from. A Wednesday server at St Matthew's - an artist whose drawings often featured in the then Parish REVIEW - undertook the actual designs.

The remaining three sides were different. The opposite short end had the date, and the initials of the embroiderer and the donor, because in many cases the work was done on behalf of the person who commissioned it, often in memory of someone. The long sides had individual patterns chosen by these people. Embroiderers who had no theme in mind could choose from flower designs already available.

…… while Doreen Gleed commemorated her friend Edith. One kneeler remembers Fr McKeown, priest-in-charge at St Matthew's in 1916; his son was the embroiderer's brother-in-law.

……another kneeler was sponsored by a cat-lover, in memory of her father. One, bearing musical notes and the inscription 'Glory to God', was sponsored by a Reader in memory of his wife who sang in the choir for many years.

The project brought in people who didn't attend St Matthew's but who were interested and wanted to support us. Expertise varied; skilled needleworkers and novices were equally welcome. Some embroiderers worked very quickly, others found the work challenging and probably wished they had never begun. Someone described the work as 'finger-sore-ing'. A few of the kneelers were made by men. Many evenings were spent sewing in various houses and a lot of coffee was drunk. From records kept at the time it appears that the cost of making or sponsoring a kneeler was £11. Tim Kendall took on the noble task of finishing off the work, fitting the completed canvas to the pad and lacing up the sides after it had been stretched. This took great strength - Mollie Suggett has commented upon Tim's strong hands. He stitched on the hessian base with a strong linen thread which again was a hard job. Mollie Suggett and Warden Heather Morrey were two of the driving forces behind the project.

The Lady Chapel is full of memories. A legacy financed the glass doors and screen to enclose the space previously open to the main church, another legacy paid for the chairs. Each kneeler has its own history, and the next archive project involves a record of each kneeler with its details.

If you haven't already done so, do take a look in the Lady Chapel and enjoy the stories that the kneelers tell.

With thanks to Heather Morrey, Mollie Suggett and others