Dear Vergers
I join you as your Chaplain at a most significant time of the Christian year. The outward signs of Lent within our Church buildings are obvious, purple on the Altar and purple vestments for those celebrating Holy Communion: a colour signifying penitence and sorrow for the actions, words and thoughts that divide us one from another, and also from our relationship with God. It is also a royal colour in this country, so can be seen as the colour of Christ the King, whose kingship became evident on Easter Day, the day towards which we are moving and which is central to our Christian faith. There are no flowers for Sunday services, and the contrast between the glory and fragrance of the Churches on Easter Sunday decorated with the glories of nature and the empty Lenten Church buildings, is particularly powerful.
Of course, these are outward signs. Some people have their own personal disciplines during Lent; abstinence from alcohol, chocolate or some other pleasure. Perhaps you just make space for stillness in your busy life, or sacrifice some of your time for the care of those less fortunate than yourself.
Yet whatever these outward disciplines might be, there is also the call for our own internal time of reflection. The global economic crisis has touched all of us. For too long, we have lived off the fat of the land, with frightening over borrowing. Lent is an ideal time to reflect on getting our priorities right. The call of the prophets in the Old Testament was for the people to turn away from the social evils that beset the culture of their day, and to turn instead to the source and inspiration of their lives, God himself. Jesus made similar calls on the Jewish population of his own day.
Such a calling is timely for our own culture. There are many who are suffering badly and will no doubt will continue to suffer for sometime. We have corporate responsibility for the current situation, however much we might like to find someone or some organisation to blame. The world has got out of balance, and we all have a responsibility for that imbalance. We need to try and put it right both for our personal lives and for the lives of those in poverty around the wider community.
In so many parishes today, people seem merely concerned with survival. But the Lord of the Church shows through the glory of Easter that he isn’t interested in mere survival. Easter doesn’t speak to us about survival or existence. It speaks of New Life. Starting from now we need to rediscover that the risen Christ is our mainspring; only then can we hope to share in the permanent life of Easter. As twenty first century followers of the Risen Lord we believe that the world was changed when God raised his Son Jesus from the tomb. The only possible explanation for the transformation which occurred in the lives of the first disciples, turning them into a world changing power, was the reality of the resurrection. Sadly, so often in the West there has often been more fear than faith in our Christianity, more gloom than joy! No wonder that so many turn their back on us and look desperately elsewhere for life, for meaning in life, and for the living joy that only a living faith can give.
Yet, when I read the New Testament I am struck by the fact that those books were written by men who passionately believed in a Living Lord. They didn’t worry or argue how Christ had come alive. What they knew, beyond doubt, is that Christ was alive. Many of them suffered and died but that didn’t deter others. St. Paul, for one, was certain that nothing, not even death itself, could separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
Lord grant those who are called to work as Vergers in the House of God, the faith and grace to hear those words again, to have the courage and humility to accept them as the truth. May we live at all times in the joy that comes from accepting and rejoicing in the life that comes from knowing Jesus as Risen Lord.
With every blessing for a Holy Lent and a Happy Easter
Andrew
About Fr Andrew Ferrar
I spent my formative years at St Peter’s School, York and soon found a spiritual home assisting the Chaplain. It was then on to Emmanuel College, Cambridge to read Natural Sciences. This led to research for a doctorate with the team in Industrial Chemistry at Liverpool University specialising in polymerisation. A career in manufacturing industry followed spanning forty years and working on printing, packaging and industrial textiles.
Board level appointments were held in international chemical groups with emphasis on new business development. This meant moving around so the family have lived in Somerset, London, Lancashire, Angus and latterly Hertfordshire. My wife Ann and I have three children, all now married with families of their own so we are proud grandparents to seven of the next generation.
A lifelong Christian, I have served as Lay Representative to the congregation of St Mary’s Broughty Ferry where I was a member of the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Here in Hertfordshire at St Mary’s Church Redbourn, I was part of the first Lay Ministry Team in our Diocese. I trained for the sacramental ministry and was ordained Deacon at St Albans Abbey at Michaelmas 2006 and priested a year later. Since then I have served as a SSM at St Saviour’s Church, St Albans.
