FROM THE BOUNDARY

Tuesday, October 4, was a very special day for me. It was the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi and the day my private chapel, the Chapel of St. Francis and the Angels, was blessed. It was blessed by my old boss at the Cathedral, Dean Emeritus William Dixon, at Festal Evensong. Some of my very close friends were present, including the builder, Mr. Boyce, and a young reporter from another newspaper who had previously interviewed me most generously when my ‘Love Songs in a Zipless World’ was published.

The Chapel, which was once an outbuilding, maybe a stable, stands at the side of a piazza – though I’d better come clean and call it what it is, my back yard – where there’s a fountain and statues of St. Francis and Our Lady. Once upon a time, a lime tree grew there which, like a good Christian, produced much fruit. Now, there’s a wild one awaiting baptism. The Chapel has a vaulted ceiling and an Italian slate floor, and there’s seating for perhaps six people. Mind, I’ve taken parish services with only twice that number, and maybe less. There’s a Welsh slate cross, set in a heart, outside over the door, and to the side a slate roof tile with the Chapel’s name painted on it most beautifully by my wife. There’s a music system and already the vapours of incense assert rights of ownership. An old cow bell hangs just inside the door to summon the faithful. There are many candles.

 

The Chapel walls are festooned with artifacts I’ve collected over the years from all parts of the world – photographs, icons, paintings and little statues, banners and house altars to Our Lady and St. Joseph. There’s a framed blessing from Pope Francis to “Fr. Clifford Hall”. The walls remind me a little of those at the Shrine to Our Lady of Altotting in Bavaria, for they are also blessed with numerous ex voto tokens of love for mercies received through Our Lady and her ‘doorkeeper’, St. Conrad. I hope you’ll be able to find it on the internet, perhaps even by searching out the DVD’s and books of the late Bob and Penny Lord whose ‘Journeys of Faith’ ministry gave us, and still give us, so much. Remember? “We love you.” For the Christian, what else is there?

 

Well, there you are. Fr. Clifford has his own little chapel, and an altar, and the best designs of the hierarchy can’t take it from me. See you around, fellas.

 

Incidentally, do you remember, two Columns ago, I mentioned that I’d waited two years and yet heard nothing of my Application for Immigrant Status – and that this had caused me to seek a work permit through the Diocese? Well, the irony is that I found out it had been granted. My name was on the computer system as having it. However – and here’s the odd thing – my file was ‘lost’ (they said), and without it there could be no formal notification, no fee paid and no passport stamped. So it was as if I hadn’t got it. It was suggested to me that it might be “inside”. ‘Well go and have a look then.’ “Oh no, we can’t do that.” Really? Why? The delay caused me all sorts of hassle both at this end and at Gatwick. And so it dragged on for nearly two years more. However, a kind immigration officer at the airport in September last year suggested that circumstances had changed and I should make contact again – and so I did. The file that was ‘lost’ was ‘found’, the letter written, the fee paid and the passport stamped. Yeah! I met some nice people at the Immigration Office on the way. Thank you to them.

 

Why ‘St. Francis and the Angels’? Well, of angels let me just say that I reckon I’ve met one or two – but that’s another story. The closest major Feast to St. Francis’ is on September 29, the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, here the place, the Cathedral, where I served my Title and was happy. So there’s two reasons. But third is that one of St. Francis’ favourite little churches was St. Mary and the Angels, the Portiuncula, and so it seemed natural to use the idea.

 

But why St. Francis? Well, before I came here in 1994 I’d tried to sort out where the longings of my heart might safely rest in my attempts to live out the Gospel of Christ in the church, in the world and in myself. In other words, I searched for a ‘spirituality’. I visited the Benedictines in Gloucestershire and a female closed Order in Oxford to which one could become attached as a ‘friend’. But then I discovered the Anglican Franciscan Sisters at Freeland in Oxfordshire. I started spending afternoons there in the beautiful grounds, treating myself to tea and crumpets in the kitchen, and carrying home little icons made by the Sisters. I met the Guest Sister and she told me about the Franciscan Companions, a fraternity which wasn’t as rigorous as the secular ‘Third Order’. It all seemed just right and the Franciscan ‘call’ was irresistible. I became a Companion, and still am.

 

In a nutshell, Franciscan spirituality is a way of believing, experiencing, living and sharing the wonder of creation and the fullness of the Gospel. It speaks of the love of nature and reverence for all life. It calls the sun ‘my brother’, and death ‘my sister’. Through the beauty of the creatures we come to know their maker (cf Wisdom 13:5), and begin to understand that wherever there’s creativity, there also is God. As Pope Francis expresses it, in his Encyclical, ‘Laudato Si’, St. Francis invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. He calls us to understand that we’re all brothers and sisters to each other too and at one with all living things, no matter how small.

 

St. Francis’ own life gives expression to it all – the young man who turned from soldiering to answer the call to rebuild Christ’s Church and wander the world as a beggar – ‘Il poverello’. He’s the man who, as it’s recounted in the lovely tales of St. Francis, the ‘Fioretti’, the ‘Little Flowers’, preached to birds and tamed a wicked wolf, the wolf of Gubbio, and on Mount La Verna, at the end of his life, received the wounds of Christ, the stigmata. And then, the story I like best, he’s the man who kissed a leper on the mouth. Would we kiss an AIDS sufferer like that? It’s a story which enjoins us all to be prepared to get our finger nails dirty in the name of Christ. Does that spirit move in this land of ours, in this ‘Christian country’?

 

Go safely, then – until the next time.

 

Caveat from the boundary: “There’s no such thing as low-cost Christianity. Following Jesus means swimming against the tide...” (Pope Francis).