priest – Mind Journeys

David Lord, Franciscan priest

David Lord (may he rest in peace and rise in glory) was a Third Order Franciscan. The letters TSSF meant a lot to David. I know he valued Franciscan spirituality and he appreciated being part of our WA Region fellowship.

For various reasons – mainly because David was such a big character, ‘Big David’ as his family nicknamed him – his Franciscan commitment was not mentioned at his funeral.

David was a dear friend, a fellow priest and a fellow Tertiary.

I had the privilege of walking beside David when he was a novice. He told me how his three months at the Franciscan International Study Centre in Canterbury shaped him both spiritually and intellectually as a Franciscan. The inspiring stories of Francis and Clare were unpacked at the FISC in challenging ways. David realised that the question for us Tertiaries is not how to live like Clare and Francis, but how their faith journeys could inspire his.

Like all of us in wealthy Australia, Clare’s utter poverty confronted David. How could Clare’s uncompromising poverty inform our lives? He saw that many decisions that he had made in life were to create and maintain a comfortable life.

He and Lyn went to the Philippines and India for several years in a row, and they saw there that their contribution through ‘Pilgrimage’ was to find ways of alleviating the shocking poverty they encountered there. Yet all the while, as they provided loving and educational experiences for the children they met, like those living on rubbish tips at the edges of the large metropolis, David and Lyn claimed that the children enriched them more.

I suspect that this is real poverty – knowing how others enrich us!

David was disappointed that the Study Centre in Canterbury was closed. He was in the last cohort of students. He was angry that the Centre was moving in a new direction which privileged Roman Catholics above students from other denominations. David felt that this was a betrayal of the spirit of St Francis. David always understood God as love; God as embracing all people and creatures. Putting up territorial boundaries always riled David as it did St Francis.

When we began coming to St Brendan’s when David was Rector, we noted how animals, dogs in particular, were always welcome at church. No fuss was made of them; they were just part of the congregation.

When David was interviewed for the role of Rector at Saint Brendan’s, the nominators asked him whether he would be okay with the parish’s Homelessness Respite ministry. Not only did he approve, he said, but it was also one of the main attractions of the role!

He made Homelessness Respite a priority of his week, visiting every Friday and many Fridays even when he was ill. He chatted and laughed with both guests and volunteers. Watching him, I saw how much he enjoyed it: he was enriched by the guests as he was enriched by the children he met on ‘Pilgrimage’. David was a mirror of the joy of St Francis and the joy of Jesus.

May we reflect the same encompassing inclusiveness that David embraced.

Ted Witham tssf
Post updated 30/9/23.

R.I.P. Colin Holden

Saddened today to hear of the death of old friend Colin Holden. I was at theological college at Trinity College in Melbourne with Colin, and then his colleague as a priest in Western Australia. I met him several times after he returned to Melbourne.

Colin was enormously talented as a linguist, historian and writer. He was a generous but fragile friend. One of the remembrances I still have from Colin is this hymn which he translated as a gift for me in 1974. Reading it again, I am impressed by his skill with metre and assonance, reminding me that he was a musician as well as all the other talents.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory!

A votive offering for Easter for Ted

Dawn fires the east with glowing rays
The heavens rejoice in hymns of praise;
While earth exults, Hell’s furious roar
Proclaims his lord can rule no more,

For Jesus, clad in triumph, leads
The Patriarchs, ransomed from the dead;
Hell’s prey, once chained in bonds of night
Christ frees to rise in life & light.

A stone & seal secured the tomb;
For Christ’s new life it forms a womb;
First-fruits of all that sleep in earth,
He bursts the gates, to vanquish death.

Now mourning’s bitterness shall cease;
Christ’s rising tolls the death of grief;
His angels joyously proclaim
“Death’s end has come; new life now reigns.”

From sin’s dark death, O Jesu, free
Them that again are born of Thee;
Be Thou alone out Spirit’s guest
At this time of our Paschal Feast.

We praise the Father, who is one
With Jesus Christ, His only Son,
And laud as is forever meet,
The Holy Ghost & Paraclete.

(Aurora Caelum purpurat, Office hymn at Lauds from Low Sunday till Ascension – translated by Colin Holden, Easter 1974)

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36 Years a Priest

Deacons_edited — Ordination of deacons 1975 - Diocese of Perth

In the year 1975, November 30 was also Advent Sunday; and that’s not the only reason that Feast of St Andrew was a red-letter day. Along with fellow-deacons Len Firth, Chris Albany and Peter McArthur, I was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Geoffrey Sambell in St George’s Cathedral in Perth.

This year, 2011, 36 years, is not a special anniversary, but like all the other occurrences of November 30, it is significant to me.

Underlying a wide range of ministry activities since that day my identity as priest has flavoured and conditioned everything I do. My prayer was – and is – that my priestly identity gives glory to God and serves God’s people well.

I started my ministry as a locum parish priest, but moved quickly into school chaplaincy. In those early years, I believed that the harder I worked the more effective my ministry. I say now with shame that at Christ Church Grammar School, I worked 90 hours a week and neglected my small children. My picture of ministry was that if I put in the majority effort, God would top it up to achieve God’s aims.

Despite my folly, I recognise that God did work through me. I just over-estimated the value of my contribution!

A key date in my life as a priest is March 11, 1992: the ordination to the priesthood in Australia of the first women. I participated as a priest of the diocese, and remember my eyes welling with tears at the conclusion of the rite of ordination. The applause lasted more than five minutes – you can check the duration on recordings of the event – and while the prime focus was on the nine women and one man ordained, I felt a strong sense that my priestly identity was completed.

Firstly, and most obviously, the number of potential colleagues in priestly ministry doubled on that day. The team, or at least the team positions, had grown by 100%. I gave thanks to God that God’s church was no longer persisting in ignoring the talents of half the human race, and probably 70% of the Anglican race! The presence of women in our collegiality meant that new sorts of collaboration could take place.

Secondly, ordaining women affirmed me. I had learned (first from the holy bishop Brian Macdonald) that Jesus exercised the feminine part of his personality, and was able to do that as a man secure in his masculinity. Ordaining women gave me permission to make available in a conscious way for ministry the feminine side of my personality.

This helped me to see, first in practical terms, the importance of being a human being. There was no sin in taking time for myself, and there certainly was no blame in giving real priority to my wife and family. Being present as a husband and father was good ministry in itself!

Beyond that, the ordination of women has helped me to practise more effectively the priority of being over doing. It has helped me undo some of my social conditioning as a man whose job is to get things done.

As ill health forces me to be less active, especially in specifically priestly ministry, I now found I need to draw more fully on the principle that my priesthood is primarily about being. Being present to my wife and family; being present in my community; being present (as much as I can) in my parish. These are the ways, please God, I will continue to give glory to God and serve God’s people well.