THE CHRISTIAN MONTH AHEAD

Rev’d Penny

Between now and the end of August, the church remembers a range of saints who have much to teach us about the different ways in which faith is lived out This time last year, I noted how many of the founding fathers and mothers of monastic communities – Benedict, Dominic, Clare of Assisi and Ignatious Loyala - are recalled over the summer months. This year, you might like to find out more about three people, honoured for the mark they made in the 18th century.

John Keble, Priest, Tractarian and Poet, d. 1866. Remembered 14th July.

Keble was fellow of Oriel College Oxford, elected Professor of Poetry for the university in 1831 but better known as one of the priestly forerunners of the Oxford movement, which paved the way for the Anglo-Catholic style of worship practised locally in churches like St Mathew’s West Kensington or All Saints’ Margaret Street and epitomised architecturally in the neo-Gothic buildings designed by Pugin and Butterfield – whose chapel at Fulham

Palace was commissioned by Bishop Tait, and consecrated in 1867. Sadly the decorative brickwork of Butterfield’s original design was overpainted in the 1950’s but discussions about how best to restore the chapel to its former glory are well advanced

William Wilberforce, Social Reformer and Abolitionist, 1833. Remembered 30th July.

It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall had Wilberforce ever conversed with Keble, because he was an evangelical, associated with a group called the Clapham Sect, less concerned by the orthodoxy of sacramental worship than social injustices of their time Wilberforce spent forty years of his life campaigning for the abolition of the slave trade, dying just three days after the ban in the UK was extended to all British Territories in 1833 He is interred in the northern transept of Westminster Abbey, unlike his fellow abolitionist Granville Sharpe whose grave at All Saints was restored about 20 years ago.