NEWSLETTER THE SECOND FROM AUSTRALIA – Fr. William

Hello again!

My Visa to visit here requires me to be absent from Australia for a time every three months. It seemed a good moment for a Retreat, and with Fr. Jesse’s help and contacts, I was able to find a berth in the Convent of the Sisters of the Church in Honiara, Solomon Islands. I have just returned, and this is the tale….

You leave the main road that serves Honiara, the Solomon Islands’ capital, and jostle over the three-mile gravel road that leads to Tetete ni Kolivute, the ‘Hill of Prayer’, the training Convent of the Sisters of the Church. The last mile of the track towers with coconut palms and is lined with the brush which the sisters hack back with machetes once a year as their Lenten discipline, which is added to their daily work in the Gardens, as the Convent produces all its own food.

To the multi-roomed Retreat house, white in the sun, and on the hill of the Convent’s naming, the Chapel, half walled and pillared, open to the breeze, the Sisters’ benches in rows along the Nave. The Chapel is the true centre of the place; services begin with meditation at 5:15 in the morning, followed by morning prayer and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, a Eucharist. Midday prayer follows and at 5:00 pm and 8:30 pm Evening Prayer and Compline. 

The Convent numbers 7 senior sisters, four of whom have taken lifetime vows, and bear the ring of it on their right hand. Next are the Junior Sisters, whose veils are blue rather than white, then the veil-less Novices, and the Postulants and Aspirants in their T-shirts and local dresses – all of whom are over 18 years old. The books on the benches of the Chapel are too numerous to tell; Melanesian prayer books, Office books, hymns – ‘Let the islands sing’ and older Victorian hymn books. The services are all known by heart except to the hapless visitor, who has to rely on Sr. Anneth in the bench in front to navigate the services.

It's the singing that is heart-moving; in multiple harmony, never missing a beat; strong and nasal for the most part, dropping to reverent quietness at the end of a verse or a particularly holy phrase. Humans are not alone in the God-praising; the Chapel congregation boasts three dogs of various degrees of Crufts-fitness, who join in with their howls whenever there is song - in astonishing harmony.

Sister Veronica, the Senior Provincial, was away while I was there for all but the last two days of my visit, visiting the Order’s sisters in Zimbabwe. She is the first, and so far, only woman priested in the Diocese, possibly in the Archdiocese of Melanesia as well, graduating from Holy Trinity, Bristol some 15 years ago. The University year photos hang in the Guest house where she lives and where I stayed for the two weeks I was there.

The Guesthouse veranda looks over the forests of coconut palms to tree-covered mountains in the blue distance, a veranda where I spent much of my time - when not teaching leading a Quiet Day or in services on the Chapel benches or presiding - quietly reading and soaking up happy silence. On the floor below, the nun-staffed Store provides supplies to the Community and the local village; teabags, washing powder, toothpaste and coffee, and things stranger to this visitor from the opulent West.

The welcome I had there was extraordinary; acapella song and garlands, and was never less the entire time I was there. Cold showers, ravening mosquitoes, and the endless heat and 86° humidity never dented my joy in it.

And in that beautiful enclosure I stayed for the whole two weeks, apart from three journeys outside; and each of them will remain always in my memory. The first was to ‘CCC’ the ‘Christian Care Centre’ - a three-acre space enclosed with chain-link fencing topped with barbed wire. It is the only Woman's Refuge in the entire Islands. Staffed by nuns from the Order and headed up by the highly professional Sr. Rosa, it gives refuge to single women and mothers with their children who have suffered domestic violence. Some stay for years having nowhere else safe to go. The Eucharist I celebrated there was, wonderfully, in Pidjin throughout - apart from my bits - and blessing that number of small children was a joy.

When I mentioned my own social work / child protection past to sister Rosa, her response was ‘You must meet Fr. Reginald’. And so, a few days later we went to the main Anglican centre in Honiara which was his base. Father Reginald is in his mid-forties, a Melanesian Religious; ex policeman, ex prison chaplain. His passion is to change men. ‘It's no good’ he said, ‘sending woman women from CCC back to the same abusive men they fled from in the first place; the men need help as well, to change’. His vision runs from changes in legislation, to Police procedure, education curricula for children, and personal counselling - a lifetime programme. Around him he has gathered a group of men - mostly from Religious orders, to whom he is passing on the three-month intensive DV/ Trauma training he received in Melbourne. They in turn will train others to carry on the work. He asked me to give a talk to his team which I did, wondering, the while, what on earth I could impart to them that he couldn’t! I left, moved, as I had been at and by CCC, undertaking to try and link him with a parallel source of expertise in the UK. So far, that hasn’t been fruitful. Any suggestions?

Humility was the order of the day on my third visit outside as well. In Honiara, Sr. Rosa showed me the Craft Market, full of wooden carvings. On that occasion I had not a single Solomon dollar on me, so asked Srs. Kristi and Anneth if I might accompany them on a visit to town when they next went there, to buy presents for home. I did, and had the chance to see pieces being carved, and talk to the carvers. The standard of the carving – of bowls, statues friezes, animals - is mind-bogglingly high, making my own efforts in that area seem even more primitive than they are. Inlaying the finished work with shells, as they so often do, approaches Renaissance Italian craftsmanship at its finest, - witness the Cross, Reredos and Candles adorning the Convent Chapel.

And so my two weeks Retreat drew to a close, leaving me with so many memories; of coconut palms, flower-laden bushes, blue hills, angelic singing, and shining faces – oh, and the howling of the Chapel dogs, as devout as they were scruffy. 

Thank you, Sisters of the Church and the Hill of Prayer, for an amazing time.

Fr. William

FROM FR. WILLIAM IN AUSTRALIA

Monday 8th July 2024

Greetings from Australia! And greetings too, from Fr. Jesse and the congregation of All Saints, Kempsey, New South Wales, who have given me such a warm welcome here. I’m now in the preaching rota on the first and third Sundays of the month, and will be regularly celebrating at the weekday Wednesday Mass, as well as taking part in a number of Parish activities.

I wanted particularly to share with you all the extraordinary day I had yesterday. With Fr. Jesse and several of our congregation, I travelled the two and a half hour journey to Christ Church Cathedral Grafton for the installation of Revd. Aunty Lenore Parker, the first woman First-People priest to be admitted as an honorary Canon of the Cathedral. Aunty Lenore – ‘Aunty’ and ‘Uncle’ are the titles for First People Elders – is a much-loved Elder of the Yaegle people of the Northern Rivers in New South Wales. She is a lifetime member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anglican Council, and is seen as having made a significant contribution to the Anglican Church of Australia. Her appointment as Canon yesterday recognised her service, wisdom and spiritual leadership.

The service began at the West door with a ‘Welcome to Country’ from local First People leaders, and we then entered the Cathedral to the sound of the Clapsticks. I found the service that followed very moving. One of its main themes was ‘Reconciliation’ which is a main theme in Grafton Diocese, and indeed Australia-wide in the Anglican Church. What made this real for me was that punches were not being pulled, and I detected an awareness that the concept of ‘reconciliation’ itself, between two parties – White Australia and First Peoples – so unequal in power, was in itself problematic. But the attempt was visibly being made; the process determinedly entered into.

I took the Order of Service home with me and want to share with you the elements of it that I felt particularly resonated with both that difficulty and that determination. They are below. The prayer ‘God of Holy Dreaming’ and indeed the order of the Eucharist in which it is contained, is of Aunty Lenore’s own composition, and has an honoured place in the Anglican Prayer Book of Australia.

The Gathering

We come to gather and celebrate

We come to mourn the slowness of inclusion.

We come to admit to our complicity

We come to be united to each other after a long journey

Do we come now to reclaim our place within the ancient story of goodness? Yes?

Yes.

The Confession

O Christ, in whose body was named all the violence of the world, and in whose memory is contained our profoundest grief, we lay open to you; the violence done to us in time before and within our memory; the wounds that have misshaped our lives; the injuries we cannot forget and have not forgiven. The remembrance of them is painful to us; 

the burden of them is intolerable.

We lay open to you: the violence done in our name in time before and within our memory; the wounds we have inflicted; the stolen families; the listening we failed to do; the injuries we cannot forget, and for which we have not been forgiven. The remembrance of them is grievous to us;

the burden of them is intolerable.

We lay open to you: those who have pursued a violent knowledge the world cannot forget; those caught up in violence they have refused to name; those who have enacted violence which they have not repented. The remembrance of them is grievous to us;

the burden of them is intolerable.

We lay open to you: the victims of violence whose only memorial is anger; those whose suffering was sustained on our behalf; those whose continued oppression provides the ground we stand on. The remembrance of them is grievous to us;

the burden of them is intolerable

The Collect

Eternal God, you blessed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with wisdom to live in this land and care for it; bless Australia’s First Peoples again today with pride in their languages, stories and songs; and give grace to all of us to share culture, faith and hope together through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

The Eucharist – concelebrated by Bishop Murray and Revd. Aunty Lenore

God of Holy Dreaming, Great Creator Spirit, from the dawn of creation you have given your children the good things of Mother Earth. You spoke and the gum tree grew. In the vast desert and dense forest, and in cities at the water’s edge, creation sings your praise. Your presence endures as the rock at the heart of our land. When Jesus hung on the tree you heard the cries of all your people and became one with your wounded ones; the convicts, the hunted, the dispossessed. The sunrise of your Son coloured the earth anew and bathed it in glorious hope. In Jesus we have been reconciled to you, to each other, and to your whole creation. Therefore…

Below are photos of Aunty Lenore herself, and of the Kempsey mob on the steps of the Cathedral. Please keep me in your prayers, as I keep you in mine.

Yours,

Fr. William