Dear Friends,
Thank you to all who helped make our celebration of Michaelmas on Tuesday night such a great success. Thank you for the wonderful preaching, music, flowers, liturgy, and all the hours of work that so many of you put in beforehand. Thank you too for the opportunity to continue our hospitality with the dinner in the hall afterwards, and all the planning and work involved in that. It was good to be able to welcome visitors, and to welcome home some of our own from other parts of the country, on this wonderful occasion.
Today we continue our festival by celebrating the dedication of S. Michael’s Church, this building which has served this community for 137 of our 158 years. While this can be an opportunity to look back, it will be much more exciting if we can use it as an opportunity to look forward.
Joining us today is the choir of S. Mark’s Church, Remuera, with their Director, Nicholas Sutcliffe, and their Vicar, the Revd Mark Sullivan. They are singing together with our choir at both 10:00 am and 7:00 pm. We are delighted that they decided to make an excursion to Christchurch, and that they are generously adding their music-making and presence to our festival.
I have spoken before of Richard Giles, an English priest who is now Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Philadelphia. He has written a couple of very stimulating books on church buildings and their importance in evangelism and congregational growth. For us of the Catholic tradition, the church building is not just a decorated meeting hall for church activities. The building is the House of the Church, that assembly of people who are the People of God and the Body of Christ. The building, whether simple or elaborate, should speak of the great story of the People of God as we know it in the Bible, and within that, the particular story and journey of its own community. It is the place where that story is told and celebrated again and again, motivating God’s people to share the good news that they enjoy.
Giles says: The building can tell the story of the particular community who meet regularly within its walls to encounter the living Lord and to grow in goodness and holiness. It can leave the visitor with something to chew on, something to make them think that perhaps there is something in this Christianity lark after all, if this particular group of people can tell and celebrate their story with such pride and vigour and delight. The place where the people of God meet needs to show what is essential and godly about being human.
We are very fortunate at S. Michael’s to have a holy place which takes people’s breath away when they first enter. We do not want it to become another closed religious monument, as churches can so easily be, but rather to continue to be the always-available, warm and prayer-filled holy place that we know it to be. So it is good that tomorrow Mary Hart will begin her duties as verger here for six months. She will be keeping the church open and welcoming visitors, as well as doing some other tasks at quieter times. Please make yourselves known to her and help her to settle in.
May we strive to articulate better the faith story that our community needs to tell, so that all may feel and be excited by the sacred events of the past as they spill over into the real adventure of the present moment.
Warmest Michaelmas blessings to you all.
Fr Peter Williams
