VI
CHAPEL AND CHOIR
Sacristan: Z Lloyd. Wardens: B Price, W Reis, A Lord, F Riche, D Dold, A Sturkgh, K Macfarlane, M Nussbaumer, D Evans, R Philips, R Blyth, D Matthews, R Downie, A Bickersteth, A Hibbert, S Ponte, and K Phillips. At the end of his first year as Chaplain, Nick Widdows recalls his first visit to the Chapel: ‘I walked through the gloomy area that passes for an ante-chapel and entered the main body where I was immediately struck by the simplicity, almost austerity of the building. Yet even more so by the quietly impressive beauty. Vivid windows framed in plain white walls; elegant lines of candle-punctuated, polished wood; a towering organ, overshadowing the pews like a guardian angel. This, I thought, is how a chapel is meant to be. Small and simple enough to feel intimate, homely even, maintaining a sense of the collegiate, yet managing also to retain the sense that here is a place to approach one who is transcendent and holy. This also felt like (and I subsequently learned, is) a place which carries the history of the College within its walls.This is part of Magdalene’s ancient heart, one that continues to resource new generations of students and scholars. For Members of Magdalene, even if they don’t believe every word they hear in a service, this is their Chapel and their Choir, an opportunity to feel part of the rich traditions of this place and to experience a beautiful and historic part of College life, a space to contemplate for a moment the idea of something much bigger than themselves and to find food for the soul. It has been a privilege to become part of this community, and therefore a particular delight to be able in June to baptize in Chapel my son Kit’. The Master preached at the first and last Sunday Evensongs of the academical year; Professor Duffy on All Saints’, Professor Boyle on Remembrance Sunday, and Dr Atkins on Trinity Sunday. The visiting preachers included the Archdeacon of Cambridge and the Revd Helen Orr (1990, daughter of Bishop Simon) from St Andrew’s Chesterton; her sermon included a sung quotation. There were two preachers from the Divinity Faculty, Professor Janet Soskice and Dr Katherine Dell. From further afield, we welcomed the Bishops of Lincoln, Blackburn, Chichester, and St Germans; the Dean of Truro Cathedral, the Archdeacon of Leicester, the Pastor of Woodstock Baptist Church, Oxford; together with Professor J G McConville of the University of Gloucestershire. Among the memorable occasions this year were the annual Service of Remembrance, at which for the first time the names of all the College’s 194 war dead were listed in the Order of Service, with individual memorialisation focused on Leonard Stern (1913), the Jewish Londoner who was killed in Flanders two years after graduating. Evensong before the Pepys Dinner was attended by HRH Sultan Dr Nazrin Shah, the Ruler of Perak, Malaysia, and his guests, after his admission in Chapel as an Honorary Fellow; the Master sang with the Choir on this occasion
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