2003 01

THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC
the international journal of the Liberal Catholic Church

Vol 71, No 1 Easter, 2003
The Liberal Catholic
THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC

This magazine is published three times a year under the direction of the Presiding Bishop, the Rt Rev Ian Hooker, on behalf of the General Episcopal Synod of the Liberal Catholic Church. Contributors are free to express their opinions and beliefs for which they remain responsible: this freedom and responsibility also applies to writers of editorial matter. The Church is responsible only for statements or information marked official. Copyright of all material published remains with the original authors. All sincere and legible contributions are welcome. These may be submitted to your local Correspondent or directly to the Executive Editor by airmail (preferably typed double-spaced on one side of the sheet only), by email, or on standard 3-inch disk, preferably using Microsoft Word for Windows. Publication will be subject to suitability and availability of space as determined by the Executive Editor.
Executive Editor
The Rev Brian C Harding, MA PhD 128 Grayson Street, Hackett, ACT 2602, Australia Tel +61 2 6257 6537 Email: tlc_ed@yahoo.com.au
Business Assistant (Temporary)

Mrs Marlene Uren Unit 26, Darley Heights, 8 Darley Street, South Perth, WA 6151, Australia Tel +61 8 9367 5223
The cover picture shows the Church of St Alban, the Hague, the Netherlands, consecrated in 1932. Please submit your photos to the Executive Editor. The deadline for copy for the next issue of the Liberal Catholic is 13 June, 2003. Subscriptions to The Liberal Catholic for 2003 are now due and should be paid to one of the Business Units listed below or via the ALBANUS website. Where applicable, cheques and money orders in Australian dollars should be made payable to The Liberal Catholic.
UK Sterling 10.00 for 1 yr The Rev David Davies, 38 Queens Road, Salisbury, Wilts SP1 3AG, UK US Dollars $US16.00 for 1 yr Mrs K Ryan Clute, 3050 San Miguel Ct, Concord, CA 94518, USA Euros (EEC) 16.00 for 1 yr The central point of contact for countries in the EEC (through your own Provincial representative if applicable) is the Rev Frits Moers, Van Neslaan 10, NL-3742 ML Baarn, The Netherlands South Africa (Australian dollars equivalent) The Rev W B M Siegmund, PO Box 82026, Southdale 2135 New Zealand (Australian dollar equivalent) The Rt Rev Walter Turvey, 3/11 Faulkner Road, Northcote, Auckland 1309 Australia dollars $A22.50 for 1 yr The Executive Editor
Easter. 2003
Editorial
From the Executive Editor
This issue of the Liberal Catholic sees a change in production, from offset to electronic printing methods. We have also dispensed with the hard cover and reverted to black print. These moves have been made to reduce costs. I apologise for any loss of quality, but I am sure readers would rather have this than no magazine at all! The next stage will be to see what can be done about the cost of mailing. I must also make another apology this issue is likely to be very late as I have been fortunate enough to obtain a significant casual teaching load this semester at the University of Canberra. This has meant the preparation, at short notice, of some 36 lectures as well as tutorial assignments and marking. Consequently, the magazine had to be put on hold temporarily. Since our last issue, events have occurred in the Netherlands that have caused great sadness in our Church. These led, as you will know, to an emergency gathering of bishops at Tekels Park, Camberley, England, in December. It is not my place to comment about the happenings themselves the Presiding Bishop has summarised the situation in his own Editorial and elsewhere. However, I would like to say that our small community can ill afford to split into even smaller groups, as has happened on a number of occasions now. Our church has a very special role to play in the world. It behoves us all to endeavour, with all our hearts, all our minds and all our strength, to work together to fulfil our mission. Many disparate views are held within our communion and relationships can often become strained. From personal experience, I believe more can be achieved for Our Lord by working together than by each going our separate way. Let us pray that ways can be found to bring about reconciliation of not only the most recent differences, but also those differences that linger from the past. I made reference in a recent issue to a gathering of Australian clergy in Adelaide, in January. This, again, is not the place to go into details about what was essentially a matter for the Australian Province. One thing that did amaze me though in spite of many differing views about many matters concerning the Church (and not least the role of women in our Church), all Recommendations and Contents Statements that came out of the meeting were reached, The Liberal Catholic not by majority vote, but by concensus. Those who Vol 71 No 1 have read anything of the psychology of spiritual development will recognise this as one of the marks of a Editorials From the Executive Editor 3 truly transpersonal church, a step beyond democracy From the Presiding Bishop 4 (where the will of a majority is imposed on all). If only this could be extended throughout the whole Resurrection and Reincarnation 6 church and beyond then surely peace and goodwill would prevail among all peoples. The Role of Intent in Liberal Catholic In this issue, we have articles from Bishop Joseph Services 8 Tisch of Melbourne, Florida, and from the Rev Iain 13 McLeod of Edinburgh, Scotland. We also publish an The Pilgrim and the Pilgrimage article by our past Editor, the Rev Markus van Alphen 14 of the Netherlands. The Personalities series that The Heartbeat of the Universe came to a halt because of a local lack of research maPersonalities: Bp Frank Waters Pigott 17 terial, appears again with a personal memory, by the Rt Rev Allan Barns of the Grail Community in Eng- Relic of St Alban 22 land, of the Rt Rev Frank Waters Pigott, our third Presiding Bishop. For Your Booklist 22 The Rev Brian Harding Easter, 2003 3
Editorial
From the Presiding Bishop
Approaching Easter We have often been told that Easter is the supreme festival of the Christian year, that at this time the veil between our world and the inner worlds becomes less opaque the holy angels are more accessible, the presence of the Lord himself is more readily sensed, and the already heightened atmosphere of the Church is intensified. Yet Easter is a festival that threatens even as it beckons. For before the Resurrection comes the Crucifixion, and before that, betrayal and the agony in the Garden. There are not too many of us who readily embrace renunciation and sacrifice. Those who aspire, and who strive to support the Great Work, may well encounter lesser foreshadowings of the climactic events of Easter. Deserted by friends, criticised and discouraged, tempted to give way to despair, the aspirant struggles against encroaching darkness. In the eloquent words of Annie Besant (Spiritual Darkness, The Spiritual Life, TPH, Adyar, 1912, p127): The sin and sorrow of the world, its pathetic ignorance, press upon him, and until he reaches the strong peace which has its sure root in perfect knowledge, he cannot escape, from time to time, the gloom which comes down upon him, as though the whole worlds sorrow crushed his heart, and made it bleed at every pore with helpless pity for the blindness that breeds misery and the ignorance which is sin. Nor dare he strive to shake off this feeling of sorrow, since, by virtue of the more and more realised unity of his life with that of all men, his sorrow is theirs, and he shares by it in their karma and quickens their evolution. Whatever the strain, the aspirant, the disciple, must not give way. Light follows darkness, as darkness follows light. The aspirant or disciple who strives mightily, will precipitate and hasten his own destiny. Life will become more difficult, the periods of struggle more desperate, the periods of emergence and relief more inspirational, more exalting. Disciples are the crucibles of nature, wherein compounds that are mischievous are dissociated, and are recombined into compounds that promote the general good. As the seething compounds break up with explosive force, the sensitive human crucible quivers under the terrible strain (ibid p128). One may manage to a degree to love ones enemies and pray for those who persecute (Mt 5:44), but the impact of sharp hostility can still be devastating. If the individual can stay steady and not give way to resentment and thoughts of retaliation (the sensitive human crucible quivers ), the destructive energy is dissipated, rather than being sent back or displaced on to someone else. Blessed are the peacemakers We find the same advice within the Buddhist tradition: To him that reviles me, I will extend the protection of my most ungrudging love. As each such period of stress and pressure reaches its peak and recedes, the sufferer emerges strengthened and refined, recognised and drawn closer by Our Lord and the Holy Ones, those who live but to do thy will, as perfect channels of thy wondrous power (Liturgy, p215). However searing the way, we know that Our Lord Christ has trodden it ahead of us, ages ago, and is with us at every step, even though we may feel desolate and alone. As he said to his disciples 2000 years ago and is saying to us who follow, In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. So let us welcome the wonderful festival of Easter, in all its depth and power, and trust in the processes of life. The 13th General Episcopal Synod; the Order of Our Lady As most will be aware, the bishops of our worldwide fraternity met for three days last December to consider the implications of the policies and actions of the bishops of the Netherlands Province in relation to the ordination of women. As, again, most will be aware, it has long been a settled policy 4 Easter. 2003
of this Church, through its General Episcopal Synod, that women are not to be ordained to Holy Orders. There are strong and compelling reasons for this, some historical, some traditional and some arising from the enhanced perceptions of our Seer-Founders. Bishops Wedgwood and Leadbeater believed that the very real forces invoked in services of ordination could not safely be called down upon women. They also believed that to ordain women was contrary to the intentions of the Lord Christ. How they ascertained this is not a topic for detailed scrutiny in this column, but those inclined to explore this matter may consult The Science of the Sacraments (C W Leadbeater,1929), The Christian Gnosis (C W Leadbeater, ed S H P von Krusenstierna, 1983) and On the Liberal Catholic Church: Extracts from Letters of C W Leadbeater to Annie Besant, 1916-1923 (ed C Jinarajadasa, 1952). It should be noted that the views on this subject of Bishop Wedgwood, the Rev Geoffrey Hodson and other Seers of our tradition corroborate the view of Bishop Leadbeater. The long felt need for a more fulfilling role for women in the Liberal Catholic Church has been one reason for the formation of the Order of Our Lady (GES 12, 2000). Even more important in motivating this innovation was the recognition that the profound influence of the Blessed Lady Mary needs dedicated agents among the women of our Church. Early experimental work has revealed that the several stages of the Order of Our Lady are highly atmospheric. The women already entering the Order are proving highly responsive to the opportunity. Those who have spoken to the bishops about the services of admission have disclosed that they feel they have experienced the near presence and benediction of the Blessed Mother herself. It is hoped that the further development of this work will not only be extremely valuable in itself, but will be a major factor in reducing the temperature of the debate on this very difficult issue of the role of women in the Church. It is hoped that by the time of GES 14, this issue will have been largely resolved. At GES 13, it quickly became apparent that the great majority of the bishops still adhered to the consistent policy of the Church since its inception, that women are not to be ordained to Holy Orders. Bishops, who are all under obligation of canonical obedience to the policies and decisions of the Synod, may not act contrary to those policies and decisions. The consequence was, as noted under Official News, that the Netherlands Regionary, who had declared his intention to ordain women, at least to Minor Orders, and had authorised one such ordination service, was dismissed as a bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church. It should be mentioned that I had made a last minute appeal to the Netherlands bishops not to carry out this ordination, as GES 13 was to meet in England only three weeks later to review this very question. I understand that others also gave the same advice. The Auxiliary Bishop who conducted this ordination service offered his resignation, which was accepted. These tragic events are the cause of lasting sadness for us all. I am shortly to travel to the Netherlands to seek a meeting of minds with the clergy and laity of the Province. The views of the majority there are firmly held and must be taken seriously, not impatiently thrust aside. Nevertheless, the Bishops believe we can fully answer those seeking this radical change. A comprehensive report on GES 13 will have to wait until the minutes are to hand. Unfortunately, the computer on which our International Secretary was compiling the minutes malfunctioned when the task was nearly complete, so the work had to be started again from the beginning. With love and blessing to all, +Ian.
Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also must walk in the newness of life; and as he, rising from the dead, dies now no more, so let us reckon that we are dead to sin, that we may live together with him. (St Paul)
Easter, 2003
Resurrection and Reincarnation

The Rt Rev Joseph L Tisch USA
[The following article is taken from a book of essays by the author written over the last thirty years. These assays have appeared previously in various publications. Copies of the book are available from PO Box 1117, Melbourne, FL 32902, USA] We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. These words of the Nicene Creed establish the basic importance of the doctrine of the resurrection to Christianity. St Paul the Apostle points out that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the pattern for the resurrection of all men, or at least all believers. But what do we mean by Resurrection? Studying the resurrection of Jesus, we find that resurrection at least means that an individual spirit after death is united once again with a body so that the complete person lives either in this world or in another. The Bible tells us that Jesus, for instance, lived in his resurrected body on earth for forty days before ascending into the heavenly realms. But does resurrection mean that the individual will have the same body he had on earth? Certainly not, for the man crippled or blind will not be crippled or blind after resurrection. Besides, the resurrected body will have qualities that the body did not have before it will be able to pass through walls and it will not suffer, or be injured, or die. To understand resurrection, we must realise that there were originally four separate theories about life beyond death. The first denied resurrection totally the grave is the end of everything. The second professed immortality, ie, while the body died, the non-material part of the person lived on forever. The third theory was the resurrection theory one day God would restore the dead to life, a fuller and richer life than that led on earth. The fourth theory was reincarnation some time after death the spirit will be reborn on earth in a new body. Gradually two of these theories merged into one immortality and resurrection. Today, the so-called orthodox Christian position is a combination of the two theories and can be 6 summarised as follows: A human being is made up of body and soul. At death, the soul and body separate. The body returns to earth and the soul lives on in another world. At the end of time, the soul will be united with a spiritual body in the resurrection of the dead. Today we are hearing more and more about the fourth theory reincarnation, belief in which is almost universal in Eastern thought. Is there any chance that this theory also can be merged with the resurrection theory as immortality was? Would this result in a stronger, more coherent, and satisfying explanation of life beyond death? First, we must realise that reincarnation was a well-known teaching at the time of Jesus. The Pharisees, the Essenes, the Karaites, and other Jewish religious groups believed in reincarnation. Moreover, without reincarnation, many passages in the New Testament seem meaningless. We read, for example, that Jesus asked his apostles, Who do men say that I am? And they answered him, Some say you are the prophet Elijah; others say that you are Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. Then Jesus explained that since John the Baptist was Elijah, He could not also be Elijah. He said to them, If you will receive it, Elijah has already come. So it is clear that Jesus and those to whom he spoke knew that it was possible for people to come back again in other bodies. On another occasion, when the crowd brought him a man born blind, Jesus was asked, Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind? How could a man have sinned and been born blind as a punishment for it, unless the sin had been committed in some former life? Easter. 2003
Jesus instruction Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect has long seemed almost a mockery. Perfection is an ideal so far above the possibilities of the average man that it never enters his head to try to attain it. Reincarnation, however, brings the ideal of perfection within reach, for reincarnation means gradual evolution and growth toward final perfection. There are numerous other passages in Scripture that do not prove but rather presuppose reincarnation. Many of the early Church Fathers affirmed reincarnation. To cite only two: Origen (186253 AD) thought that only in the light of reincarnation could certain scriptural passages be explained. St. Jerome (340-420 AD) said that reincarnation in a special sense was taught among the early Christians and was given an esoteric interpretation that was communicated only to a select few. If reincarnation was accepted so widely among the early Christians, why is it not accepted today by orthodox Christianity? The obvious answer is that in 533 AD, the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople convened by the Roman Emperor Justinian approved the following decree: If anyone assert the fabulous pre-existence of souls and shall submit to the monstrous doctrine that follows from it, let him be anathema. Many explanations have been given for the adoption of Justinians decree. Two things are certain. First, the theory of reincarnation was tainted with guilt by association. Too many fanatical neo-pagan cults had made reincarnation their chief plank. Second, the best-known explanation of reincarnation at that time was the work of the early Church Father, Origen, and this was stated poorly and open to widespread misinterpretation. It confused the notions of soul and spirit or Self. For example, while St. Paul divided man into body, soul, and spirit, Origen had reduced the division to the two-fold body and soul. This forced him to maintain the pre-existence of souls. It is important to note that only one theory or explanation of reincarnation was condemned by the Council that of Origen. Reincarnation has never again been considered at length, let alone condemned, by an Ecumenical Easter, 2003
Council. In fact, despite the supposed condemnation of reincarnation, many scholars nonetheless believe that they can find traces of the teaching in the writings of St Augustine, St Gregory, and even St Francis of Assisi. Today, reincarnation is once again being critically studied by Christian scholars. One of the greatest Christian philosophers of modem times was the priest-scientist of evolution, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who died in 1955. He taught that evolution is the ascent of humanity toward Omega a super-personal state of union with God. But what about those individuals who died in the early stages of Mans evolutionary struggle forward, those who died in the mid-stage, and still others who are dying today? Are such people fixed forever at whatever stage of evolution they had attained at the time of their death? If so, how can they enter
If reincarnation was accepted so widely among the early Christians, why is it not accepted today by orthodox Christianity?
into the highly evolved Ultra-Humanity of the last days? The dead individual cannot keep up with the rest of the evolutionary universe on the outside; he must re-enter the temporal world periodically and so continue in the total stream of development. Remembering the usual accompanying doctrine that the conditions of the succeeding life are determined by the actions of the preceding lives, Teilbards teaching God makes us make ourselves finds an echo in the Hindu saying, Every man is born in the world fashioned by himself. The purpose here is not to try to bring forth evidence or proof for the theory of reincarnation; that has already been done very successfully by others far more competent than I. To study the evidence, I refer you to Irving Coopers little book, Reincarnation, or to Geoffrey Hodsons Reincarnation ... Fact or Fallacy? I would like to fashion a tentative Christian explanation of life beyond death that would combine the three theories of resurrection, immortality, and reincarnation; much as the theories of resurrection and immortality have been merged. 7
A human being is composed of body, soul, and spirit. Death is the separation of these elements. At death, the body returns to the earth from which it came. The spirit and soul go to another world where the spirit extracts the essential life experiences of the soul. After the experiences of the past lifetime are purified and assimilated, the spirit reincarnates into a new body in accordance with the strengths and weaknesses acquired during the previous lifetimes. Since the human soul is the form (life force) of this particular body, it cannot preexist the body. Once the spirit reaches the human stage of its evolution, it never returns to a lower animal form. Human beings can be reborn only as men and women. We reincarnate as many or as few times as are necessary for us to learn the fundamental lessons that human life is meant to teach.
Once human perfection is achieved, the spirit is united forever with God the state known as Heaven. This is not a state of passive inactivity, but the beginning of an unlimited life of activity, service, and further growth. Some believe that certain just men made perfect, who no longer have to be reborn, do so voluntarily and unselfishly in order to assist the efforts of the human race in its evolution toward perfection. On the last or judgement day, the end of this universe, each spirit will receive an immortal spiritual body and soul reflecting its own unique expression of the divine perfection. The Resurrection of Christ is thus the source of joy and hope for each one of us, for it shows us the goal toward which we are striving and the fact that it is attainable.
The Role of Intent in Liberal Catholic Services

The Rev Iain McLeod Scotland
This article was originally written as a talk and was not intended to be a scholarly paper. It has, therefore, been subject to some minor editing. The author suggests that it may be of interest to people working in the community, with a congregation, who are anxious to involve them not merely as spectators but as fellow workers in the service of Our Lord. I would like to start this address by describing two experiences I encountered in Churches at two extremes of the Christian spectrum. Although I joined the Liberal Catholic Church in my early teens, over half a century ago, I have never lost the urge to find out what other Churches have to offer. It was in this spirit that, about twenty years ago, a friend asked me to accompany him to a Christian gathering at a nearby country hotel in Linlithgow, Scotland. At the outset, the well-attended meeting might have been a business gathering, except that the person conducting it was wearing a clerical collar. Among others, I could also see a Roman Catholic priest. There was nothing in the location or in the behaviour of the people present to anticipate the extraordinary event that was to follow. We 8 were asked to sing a hymn, unaccompanied by any musical instrument and with the minister striking up the first note. However, as the hymn took wings, the congregation present, rather less than a hundred, all standing, seemed to become a congregation of thousands. The atmosphere of the otherwise ordinary function room was charged with an effervescent force, as if the angelic host had joined in singing the praises of God. Never before had I experienced the sheer output, either in decibels or in emotional terms, that the comparatively small congregation of devout Christians produced on that occasion. I was thoroughly moved by the experience, and I was not at all surprised to find a few members of the congregation speaking in tongues an event that I witnessed then for the first time. In that atmosphere and in Easter. 2003
that congregation it seemed perfectly natural, and when the minister invited people to come forward to testify their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, I distinctly heard a voice behind me calling my name. Immediately, I turned round, but saw nobody who could have known my name. My friend stood further ahead of me. To this day, I cannot believe this incident could have been a hoax. I had a similar experience a few years later, on an Easter Sunday in Canada, during and after a Roman Catholic High Mass in Kingston, Ontario. There again, I had the impression of a vast congregation singing, the volume disproportionate to the number of earthly worshippers present. The beautiful, granite church
I can see one feature that clearly marks out these two [events] as unique; the manifest intent of the worshippers, clergy and laity, to do Gods work.
was indeed full, but it was made fuller still by the manifest glory of God, as if the angelic choristers had crowded into the spaces among the Neo-Gothic arches. It was a most memorable Eucharistic Service. Again, members of that congregation were total strangers to me if I may call people strangers with whom I shared that experience. But as we filed out of the church after the Service, they greeted me and embraced me, as they greeted and embraced each other, jubilantly, with radiant eyes, saying: The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen! When I consider these remarkable events, a born-again Christian meeting and a Roman Catholic Mass, so different and yet so similar in their spirituality, and compare them with the untold number of Christian services I have attended throughout my sixty-odd years in different countries, churches and denominations, I can see one feature that clearly marks out these two as unique: the manifest intent of the worshippers, clergy and laity, to do Gods work. To describe the two events in theatrical terms, they presented a profoundly convincing performance. Words, timing, rhythm, intonation and body language all blended perfectly. And that level of performance as any theatriEaster, 2003
cally trained person can testify is possible only through concentrated intent. Far be it for me to denigrate any religious event by this parallel. I am not thinking of a cheap program of entertainment whose banal theatricality masks the professionalism that has gone into staging it. I have serious drama in mind, theatrical performances at their best, being not unmindful of the religious function of ancient Greek drama, for example, with its catharsis, its emotionally and spiritually cleansing effect on the audience. And yet, theatrically speaking, the cheap roadside show and the age-old classics of European drama, if they are to be at all successful, draw on similar resources. And, in our human experience, so do religious services. The collective name for these resources is communication, communication on different levels: on the physical level, on the emotional level and on the intellectual level, simultaneously, all three pointing towards a goal in the spiritual realm. I trust some of you may recognise in these categories the manifold nature of Man. Let me now, with hindsight, consider to what extent the two events I have described reflected, or indeed engaged, the manifold nature of Man. The Linlithgow event had no formal structure. It achieved a powerful sense of otherworldliness through the sheer emotional effervescence of its participants. I was not unaffected by it myself, struggling to maintain my intended role as a dispassionate observer. The Kingston event, on the other hand, had the formal religious structure of a Roman Catholic Mass, in a beautiful purpose-built setting, carried out with all pomp and ceremony. However, it again relied heavily on the worshippers emotional input to achieve the undoubted sense of otherworldliness I experienced. My intellect was not significantly engaged. The sermon, probably elaborating on the Easter story, made little impact and I simply cannot remember it. Should I now I compare these events with Presbyterian Church of Scotland Services I have attended, conducted by brilliant preachers like Campbell Maclean, or Murdo MacDonald? Students and Edinburgh folk of all 9
denominations filled their churches to capacity just to hear them speak. They were inspiring, uplifting and to a great extent entertaining. Our intellect was fully engaged and we would leave the church thinking and talking about the sermon quite unaware that a religious service had taken place. No sense of otherworldliness there! The nearest I had ever come to that blissful experience in a Church of Scotland context
was on the island of Iona, with its resident spirituality. I was there when the late George MacLeod was the Leader of the Community. Latterly a peer of the realm, then already a knight, with doctorates and a string of degrees after his name, he wished to be known by the sufficient title of Reverend. Contrary to Church of Scotland practice, we knelt for our prayers and followed monastic tradition in a variety of ways for instance, by eating our meals in silence, listening to a reader. This, of course, invited tacit disapproval from local Church of Scotland folk. They looked askance at our long rows of wooden cubicles our cells, used before the monastic buildings were restored and they called them the Rome Express. And as for devotion In that restored 13th century Abbey Church, devotion came naturally even to the hardest of hearts. What I missed there was the Catholic ritual. What I have learned, as a Liberal Catholic, from these experiences is that we must mean business, Gods business, like the born-again Christians do, whilst maintaining the precision and the dignity of our Catholic ritual. It is a ritual whose meaning can either be lost or made gloriously apparent through our words and actions, and it is our manifest intent that 10
can make that difference. If the intent to share meaning is there, the native apparatus of language will find the way to express it. One does not have to be a trained actor to do this and, of course, one has to know what one is talking about. Intent is no substitute for training and knowledge. Clearly, I do not have the time here to go through our Liturgy to illustrate my point, but I give, as an example, a prayer that we think we all know by heart the Lords Prayer. I realise that this has become a mantra through centuries of devout worship, and I do not suggest that we use its modern translation (there is contentious detail in the variants still under scrutiny). However, there is also food for thought in the text, as for instance in the word qualifying bread epiosion, a word that does not occur anywhere else in early Greek literature. It may well not indicate our daily bread but, as Professor Lorimer has it in his New Testament in Scots, bread for the incoming day. The compound word may well bear metaphysical connotations, as reflected in one of the Latin translations, Panem nostrum supersubstantialem. Since, however, the new day started in the Hebrew tradition in the evening, the early translators were prepared to settle for panem nostrum cottidianum, or in English our daily bread and thus has the text come down to us. The triad of verbs in the Lords Prayer be hallowed, come and come about open the clauses in the original Greek text as agiasthto, elthto and genethto, beautifully translated
[The LCC ritual is one] whose meaning can either be lost or made gloriously apparent through our words and actions, and it is our manifest intent that can make the difference.
into the Latin as sanctificetur, adveniat and fiat. Some of you may speak languages that can duplicate this. It certainly does not work like that in English, either because there are no single corresponding verbs in English, or because of the rigid modern English subjectEaster. 2003
predicate word order. The early English translators, however, had an ear for poetic language and they used other linguistic devices to reproduce the desired meaning. For instance, Hallowed be Thy Name, a beautiful mirror-copy of the Greek text, needs a heavy stress on each word to indicate the gravitas of the sentence. They intended to bring out the desired meaning in Thy Kingdom come by intonation and sentence rhythm with a strong emphasis on come. And in the next line, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven placing emphasis on be done on earth with a brief pause in between to indicate that will is a Noun, not an auxiliary Verb. Reciting these lines as Thywillbedoneonearth etc does not carry the meaning intended. And for what precisely was the meaning intended? It is a vision of divine order reestablished in the universe. Unless we share that intent, unless we have that vision in mind whilst reciting the Lords Prayer, and unless we reproduce that vision in our reading of the sacred text, we pay mere lip-service to the words and deceive ourselves as well as others. On page after page in our Liturgy we find meaning, inscribed and encoded; meaning that is crying out to be interpreted, with all our powers of communication, to bring new insights and revelations both to ourselves and to our fellow worshippers. Our intent to communicate is the means to unravelling that meaning. I would not like to speculate as to what extent intent can induce intuition, but neither do I want to exclude the possibility of a connection. We communicate, if we communicate at all, simultaneously on all levels of our being: on the physical level, the emotional and the intellectual. We pray on all these levels; that is, we communicate with God on all three levels. We are commanded to love God with all our hearts and all our minds, with our astral and mental link with the Divine. This link can be the means of a two-way communication. I do not want to reiterate here the points I made in my article in the August 1997 issue of the Liberal Catholic (Our Divine Heritage, the Logos Power of Articulate Speech,) but it has a bearing on my present subject the role Easter, 2003
of intent. Articulate speech is a creative power that we abuse at our risk. It is unique to our species, even surplus to requirement in our everyday life, a gift whose creative power is better honoured in divine service, within and without the Church, rather than in small talk. Careful use of the tongue is well enough documented in Scripture. Of course, one has to know, one must believe, that the words of the Divine Service mean what they do: when the priest repels all evil, all evil is repelled; when he invokes an angel, an angel is invoked; when he blesses an object, that object is blessed. This must be taken for fact. However, one may ask: Who am I, a mere mortal, to be able to do all these things? That is indeed where communication
Through the Divine Service, Man communicates with the spiritual world on all three levels of his being
with the angelic host on all three levels of our being comes into operation. What a priest cannot, out of his own resources, do but is intent on doing, the Angelic Host can bring about. Doing ceaselessly the will of God as they are, the angels have, from the human point of view, infinite power to put into operation any positive, forward-looking initiative proposed by Man, Gods as yet imperfect inheritor. But the initiative must come from the human being. That is his duty and his prerogative. Through the Divine Service, as I have said, Man communicates with the Divine, with the spiritual world, on all three levels of his being. And so we ought to communicate with our fellow worshippers, as well, in the course of corporate worship. This may mean reading, testing and rehearsing the Epistle and Gospel readings the day before. It is not sufficient for these readings nor, indeed, the sermon, merely to be heard. They have to be put over to the congregation to elicit the appropriate emotional and intellectual response, to be amplified and put into operation by spiritual agencies present for the purpose. This is why clergy and laity, but especially the celebrant and those reading the Epistle and 11
Gospel passages, must use their full range of communication skills to punctuate and to underline meaning. Let me list them once again: volume, rate of delivery, punctuation (ie appropriate pauses), intonation, quality of tone and, of course, body-language, including facial expression. Unless this communication between clergy and congregation is established, both on the emotional and the intellectual levels, the Divine Service is impaired for lack of astral and mental material to be amplified by the spiritual forces. A bland and indifferent lordbewithyou invites a bland and indifferent response from the faithful. Nothing comes from nothing; the spiritual helpers can only amplify that which the human being has already initiated and generated. This is not easy and, in most cases, is to be perfected by rehearsal and constant practice. However, such practice has the added, hidden advantage of enhancing concentration on what one is saying or reading. It is common experience that, in the midst of reciting well-known passages and prayers, the human mind is capable of wandering over a number of unrelated thoughts simultaneously. This is well documented. Attention to detail, therefore, with the full range of communication skills I have listed, tends to eliminate these aberrations. It makes the difference between reading and merely verbalising written text. Our communication skills can make us conscious collaborators with the cosmic evolutionary process. One might object to all this and ask: What evidence is there to prove this to be so? and I refer to the Liturgy and to Scriptural readings. I take this fundamentalist point of view because, if the meaning of the text in the Liturgy
is not accepted as implicit, it is not worth reading. Unless one has acquired spiritual knowledge of Christian concepts, non-physical entities, states of being and so on, one has to simply assume their existence in faith. The alternative can only be an endless sorting out of fact from fiction, historic event from scribal error, prophetic vision from poetic licence the very problems modern theology has been trying to settle in vain. Much knowledge has been unearthed, many interesting theories developed and advanced by theologians, yet we have an increasingly disillusioned, quasiChristian population, declining church attendance and socio-political problems galore. The Liberal Catholic Church, therefore, ought to remain above theological argument, concentrating on Divine Wisdom, rather than amassing knowledge of arguable pedigree. The principles and practice of the Liberal Catholic Church alien as they may appear to major branches of Christianity could in themselves support a level of morality and spirituality in clergy and laity that is sadly lacking in society at large. The potential implicit in the services of the Liberal Catholic Church could take Christianity well into the new Millennium, given the firm intent of her following to change the apparent order of things for the better. Christianity may have started as a religion, but it is more than religion. Reference in the Bible to moving mountains was not only a figure of speech I move that we reassess the implications of our attitude to faith and that we enhance the efficacy of our beautiful services with positive intent.
The word Easter is derived from Eostre, which is the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring; there is a further derivation beyond that, because Eostre is only another form of Ishtar, Ashtaroth, of Astarte, the Queen of Heaven, and even that in turn, if we go far enough back, comes from the Sanskrit Ush, which means light; the word from which springs the title Ushas, the dawn maidens of the Vedas. So fundamentally Easter is the great festival of light of the rising again of the Light of the World. (Bishop C W Leadbeater)
12
Easter. 2003
The Pilgrim and the Pilgrimage

Mary Anderson International Secretary, the Theosophical Society
This abridged article is from a lecture given at the TS Convention, Adyar 2001. It appeared in this form in the Canberra Branch Newsletter in January this year. These sources are acknowledged. A pilgrimage is a journey of a sacred nature, a journey to a holy place, undertaken in memory of bygone personalities, happenings and deeds held to be sacred. People also go on pilgrimage seeking inspiration, purification, blessing or healing from these holy places ... Why do people go on pilgrimage? Are they seeking something new and yet something from the past, something that has been lost? A pilgrimage also has a symbolic meaning, often referring not to an outer, but to an inner spiritual journey, a transformation within ourselves. In 17th century England, John Bunyan described symbolically in The Pilgrims Progress the spiritual journey of a pilgrim named Christian. Certain landmarks symbolise difficulties and temptations for the pilgrim, and sometimes his virtues and joys. Companions on Christians journey symbolise people we meet in life or traits of our own which help or hinder us. The word pilgrim comes from Latin peregrinus meaning a foreigner or stranger. Is the pilgrim a stranger in a strange land, an exile in earthly life? Like the Prodigal Son, have we left our home and forgotten it? We become conditioned by our family, teachers, society; conditioned to conform, to pretend, to hide our true feelings, until we ourselves no longer know them. We succumb to the artificial, the unreal. But within us is a longing for what is real which, at some point, we begin to seek. At first, we may seek it in the wrong places, for example, in sense indulgence, excitement, or drugs, which may even take a religious form outwardly. It may take the form of what we imagine to be a pilgrimage, but leading us only to superstition and fanaticism. Finally, we may see through this self-deceit and embark on a true spiritual pilgrimage, though the pilgrimage, like the Path, is only a symbol. What does a true pilgrimage, a spiritual journey involve? In his poem, Sea Fever, John Easter, 2003 Masefield refers to his longing for a sea journey, an apt symbol for a spiritual journey across the seas of life. I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky. And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheels kick and the winds song and the white sails shaking And a grey mist on the seas face, and a grey dawn breaking. We may think of the following:
!" We must have an inner urge to go on the journey, such that we cannot do otherwise.
!" We must be well equipped and make a good start; we need a good foundation to carry us through. Our ship, vessel, or vhana, is the personality, which needs to be seaworthy. It must be adequately selfdisciplined, neither too rigidly, for then we cannot move, nor too loosely. !" We must travel light; the voyage is lonely and we must jettison all unnecessary weight, be ready to leave behind attachment to our earthly, emotional and intellectual possessions. This includes our attachment to certain people, to our image of ourselves and others, our desires. !" We must keep to the direction in which we want to go. Does this mean we must have a definite goal before us? How can we know our goal? We can know it only when we reach it, only when we are it consciously. But, if we do not know our goal, what is that star to steer her by? There was the so-called Star of Bethlehem by which the Magi found the infant Jesus. Might the star that gives light to all but takes from none symbolise the Diamond Soul, the Highest in ourselves, be it the 13
Divine, the Absolute, the One Life, the Ground of Being, the Sacred, whose very nature is compassion, truth, pure joy and peace? Thus, if we follow anything other than that, we are distinctly off course. !" We must keep moving; the navigator must live in the present and be aware of changing conditions, of wind and weather, currents, rocks and, most of all, the stars above and his compass down here. !" It helps if we appreciate beauty in all things; a grey mist on the seas face may indicate doldrums or cold weather. However, can we see the beauty of a grey mist? !" We must trust life, a grey dawn breaking: no matter how long the night, day inevitably breaks and brings light. The light of Wisdom was there all the time, unperceived and the warmth of Love was also always there, but unnoticed. We travel alone, but we travel in convoy with others, although we should not depend on them. The idea of our successive earthly lives as a pilgrimage is inspiring. John Masefield expresses this: I hold that when a person dies His soul returns again to earth, Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise, Another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain The old soul takes the road again So shall I fight, so shall I tread, In this long war beneath the stars. So shall a glory wealth my head, So shall I faint and show the scars, Until this case, this clogging mound Be smithied all to kingly gold. Not only might the pilgrimage symbolise our own journey through this life or through many lives, perhaps it symbolises the whole movement of life itself. What we call evolution is a pilgrimage, and the pilgrim is Life itself, the Logos crucified on the cross of matter and arising triumphant, or the One becoming the many and the many returning to the Oneness. We cannot know what the pilgrimage has in store for us. Still less can we know the end of the pilgrimage, if such an end has any meaning. For we ourselves may then be transformed beyond recognition, beyond what we can conceive of now. Will there still be an I at all? It is beyond our powers of conception, but the pilgrimage itself brings increasing happiness. So let us set forth.
The Heartbeat of the Universe

Markus van Alphen The Netherlands
One of the pillars upon which our Holy Eucharist is built is the co-operation between humans and angels. But the Christian tradition does not exist in isolation. It emerged from the Jewish tradition, which in turn has largely been derived from the Egyptian. In this article, an attempt is made to connect these three traditions via one of the great prophets known to us as Isaiah. What would the child have experienced in the time that it was still in the womb? Would it have been able to hear the heartbeat of its mother? Lying on the breast of his mother, with his ear pressed against her heart, he feels and hears her heartbeat: Kadosh Kadosh one might almost imagine it. The rhythm of 14 the heartbeat gives a sense of protection, a feeling of belonging and connection: for the child with its mother, and also for us, in a symbolical sense, with the heart of the universe itself. In Hebrew scripture, Isaiah tells us: Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh Adonai Tzivaot (Is 6:3), Easter. 2003
which has been translated into English as: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory. When we speak of Isaiah, there are two passages in the Eucharist that immediately come to mind: the Munda cor Meum and the Sanctus and Benedictus qui Venit. Let us commence with the latter. This passage is sung directly after the Preface, in which we call on the angelic orders to assist us in the great work of transformation. The Sanctus is the invocation, once all the hierarchies of Angels are present, of what we call the Angel of the Presence. The Benedictus qui Venit that follows is a psalm of praise, in which this shining Helper is welcomed. The word Adonai may be translated as Lord, or God, but is meant neither in the sense of the Absolute, nor of the Holy Trinity. It is used more in the sense of an immense creative power, as in the first chapter of Genesis. The word Tzivaot (sometimes spelled Zebath) can best be translated as Almighty or as Lord of Hosts. A search of the Internet for the word Kadosh, reveals several references to web sites about Jewish tradition and Freemasonry. It is generally assumed that Freemasonry originates from Egyptian times and that its present rituals mirror the original Egyptian temple rites, albeit coloured by Jewish and Christian practices. The word Kadosh in Freemasonry is connected to the so-called 30th degree, one of its highest, that of Knight of Kadosh. It is also generally known that the current Masonic rituals have something to do with the building of the Temple of King Solomon, the first Jewish Temple of Initiation. The salient point lies in the word Kadosh. We may have simply translated this as Holy in English, but the word has a far wider interpretation. The concepts of Holy, offering, sacrifice, Love and setting apart have a lot to do with one another. Returning to the Jewish tradition, the first time the word Kadosh is used in the Torah, is in the description of the seventh day of creation in Genesis. Even though the six preceding days were regarded as good, only the seventh day is regarded as Kadosh. In this sense Kadosh also means to set apart. In the Jewish tradition, this is reEaster, 2003
flected by the lighting of a candle at the start of the Sabbath, by which the Holy is set apart from the profane. We have a similar practice in the lighting of the candles on the altar before we commence a service. Another conclusion often drawn from this first mention in Genesis is that time is the first concept that is declared Holy by God. From a numerological point of view, the word Kadosh has the value 410, the same as the word Shema, which means to listen. Ap-
Kadosh also means to set apart. In the Jewish tradition, this is reflected by the lighting of a candle at the start of the Sabbath
parently both these words have a common root. These similarities in value and root are often interpreted to mean that study (listening) and ceremony (Kadosh) need to be brought into balance with one another. Mishkan, the Tabernacle, also has the value 410. So the Tabernacle is not just a holy place, it is Holy. As the place where the Shekinah rests, it could not be anything else. Back to Isaiah. Isaiahs vision has several similarities with that of Ezekiel. In both cases it concerns Angels, burning coals, and clouds of smoke that hide certain matters from sight. A veil of smoke also has another very practical application. It creates a border between two areas and, like a veil, can make visible something that is invisible. In Isaiahs vision, it is the Angels who sing the Sanctus. The thrice Holy is, then, especially connected to Jewish mysticism and the Temple rites. That it why, at every performance of the Temple rites, it is prescribed that at least a partial Hallel (Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, etc.) be sung. A similar practice has also been adopted in the Christian Eucharist as exemplified in our own service where the Sanctus and Benedictus qui Venit are sung. Since many of the Temple practices of the Jews had their origin in their Egyptian counterparts, it would not amaze me if this part also originates from them. What is, in any case, known is that, during one of the Egyptian temple rites, the initiates participated in a form of 15
communion. An especially cut bread, representing the sun, the symbol of Osiris, was consecrated and consumed. After receiving this communion, the communicant would be addressed: thou art Osiris. It is possible that it was exactly this secret that Jesus divulged, whereby the high priests sentenced him to death. The communion became a public sacrament for the first time in the Christian tradi-
The communion became a public sacrament for the first time in the Christian tradition. Prior to this it was restricted to initiates.
tion. Prior to this it was restricted to initiates. One may catch another a glimpse about the word Kadosh in a reference in Exodus. In Isaiahs passage, there is a peculiar phrase, Zel El Zeh, which is only found at one other location in the Tanach (a Jewish scripture from which parts of the Old Testament were taken), to whit, Exodus ch 14. This phrase refers to the place of the camps of the Egyptians and the Israelites, before the Red Sea separated them. In both cases, Zeh El Zeh is translated as the one came not near unto the other. In symbolical language, one recognises here the separation of the soul (Israel) from the personality (Egypt). The latter is eventually drowned in the world of feelings (Red Sea). So too the Gradual, which means step, is the link that directs us into the sphere of the soul, the Munda cor Meum following immediately thereafter, with its direct reference to Isaiah. By means of a burning coal from the altar, he is purified to such an extent that he is found worthy to proclaim the words of the Almighty. Again we discover in this the theme to set apart, that is, the separation of the profane from the Holy. So we see that, after the Gradual, we take the step with which we transcend our personality and at the Sanctus, with the aid of the Angels, we place ourselves outside the realm of time and space and thereby set ourselves apart from the temporary.
The sacrifice of the Eucharist, which was already celebrated amongst Egyptian initiates, is therefore also Kadosh, the Holy symbol of the Compassionate sacrifice by which humankind and the world are sustained. The invocation by means of the thrice Holy, whereby the Angel of the Presence appears, is therefore an essential part of the work of transformation. It is this Angel who is the connection with the Heart of the Universe, which we refer to as the Christ in Christianity. It is via the presence of this Angel that bread and wine are transformed by the Christ into the highest expression of Life, thereby making communion possible. One of the pillars of the temple upon which the Holy Eucharist rests is thus the collaboration between humans and Angels. It is, of course, not coincidental that in our church, the melody of the Preface is regarded as unalterable. Angels are sensitive to a broad spectrum of stimuli and patterns, amongst others music, and the Preface is the invocation par excellence without which the Eucharist simply would not work. Also the thrice Holy, which follows immediately afterward, is, as in ancient times, an essential part of the temple offering, a sacrifice we still repeat today in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. References: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Eparasha/bechuko/lan. html http://www.templebethel.net/jewish_basics/shabbat.php3 http://www.uahc.org/va/bnai_shalom/bitofshal om.dir/bitofshalom991114s.html http://www.maqom.com/shiviti.html http://www.hillel.org http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/parsha/haftorah/ archives/yisro62.htm http://www.butchtucker.com/council Knight, C & Lomas, R (1997) The Hiram Key. Element Books Leadbeater, C W (1926) The Hidden Life in Theosophical Publishing Freemasonry. House
16
Easter. 2003
Personalities Frank Waters Pigott, MA Oxon, 1874 - 1956

A tribute by a wayward pupil the Rt Rev Allan B Barns Grail Community, England
It was on a bright Spring day, sixty-two years ago, in 1941, that the Rev Harry Farrow took me to St Marys Pro-Cathedral, London, to climb the narrow stairs to the Servers Vestry, and select a red cassock, red slippers and a white cotta, the garb of a novice server. It was there that I first met Bishop Frank Waters Pigott. * * * To attempt to write an article, even if only of reminiscences, on the third Presiding Bishop of our Church must seem presumptuous when everything that could be said has already been set forth in the excellent and comprehensive Memorial Number of the Liberal Catholic (Vol XXX, No2, April 1956). However, that was a long time ago, so it seems worthwhile to include a very brief biographical rsum. Bishop Pigott was born on the 20 April 1874 and died on the 26 January 1956, in his 81st year. He was educated at Oundle, where he was a Prefect and an outstanding all round sportsman; followed by Trinity College, Oxford (1893) where he obtained an MA (see his own story of this in the Liberal Catholic (Vol XX, No1). He was ordained in the Church of England in 1903. After a short time as curate, he took ship to New Zealand to become vicar of St Thomass, Auckland, a journey that was to change his life. It was here that he joined the Theosophical Society. And it F W Pigott at Oxford, 1893 - 96 was here that his Bishop gave him the ultimatum; drop this dangerous TS nonsense or resign your living. True to his firm principles, he left the Church rather than give up his new found TS teaching and returned to England. (An interesting sidelight on this period is the fact that the same Bishop also ordered the Rev C W Scott-Moncrieff to leave the TS or resign. Fortunately for our Church, Scott-Moncrieff also left his Church and, in due course, gave us the lovely Benediction closing hymn as well as a number of others in the New Saint Alban Hymnal.) Back in England, Frank Waters Pigott had trouble finding any Bishop who would give him a living but finally, after a very unhappy period, he took on the Headmastership of the TS School (191922). This was eventually taken over by the well-known vegetarian school of St Christophers at Letchworth, Hertfordshire, but he did not get on with the new management and retired shortly after. It was in 1924 that Bishop Leadbeater called him to Sydney to be consecrated as the Liberal Catholic Regionary for Great Britain, an office that he held until about a month before his death (January 1956) when he handed over the heavy post-war burden to Bishop Sir Hugh Sykes, whom he had consecrated some time before as his Assistant Bishop. It is interesting that this shy, quiet man should have been Bishop Leadbeaters choice as his successor in 1934 as Presiding Bishop, rather than any of the more obvious candidates. The GES unanimously confirmed the appointment, an office Pigott often admitted was a difficult one, following as it did in Bishop Leadbeaters shadow. * * *
Easter, 2003
17
So much for the bare outline of a life spent in the service of Christs Church. But what about the private man that I knew? Reserved, shy, dour, principled, a difficult man to know, are all descriptions that have been used. However, the real man hidden underneath a Victorian exterior was something quite different. He had a most lovely smile and sense of humour. He was kind and caring, completely reliable, a lover of sport and of the beauties of nature. It has been said that the Bishops outlook on life was dictated and coloured by his [alleged Ed] previous incarnation in early Greece. He greatly admired the grace of Greek sculpture, and his philosophy was firmly set in his special love of the teaching of Plato and the NeoPlatonists (see his Essay on Plato and St. Paul in 1944). He often brought into his sermons those ultimates GOODNESS, TRUTH and BEAUTY and saw the work of Our Lord behind all that went on around him. What better way to give some shape to otherwise random memories than to set them down under these three Bishop Pigott after his conseheadings?
cration in Sydney, 1924
Goodness Bishop Pigotts shyness and deafness made him seem somewhat stern, aloof and otherworldly. But that was certainly not the case. Once one knew him, one realised that he took a keen interest in all that went on around him. He saw Goodness, Truth and Beauty in many everyday actions of kindness that would normally pass unnoticed the Spirit of God working in the world he would say. Goodness was the important light in his life. This he saw firmly as something impersonal, an Ultimate. He often repeated that we should try and do what the Lord wanted, not what we wanted. It does not matter whether you do good or whether I do good. All that really matters is that good should be done. Bishop Pigotts sermons were always erudite, theologically correct but understandable. As a fifteen-year-old crozier bearer, standing at his side while everyone else was sitting, I had no trouble keeping awake. Admittedly, the secret was to stand very close to the altar so that one could rest ones back against it without anyone noticing and, if one should lose the thread of the argument for a moment, there were always his slippered feet, that tended to flap up and down as he spoke, to bring one back to the present I know that some of the younger members of the congregation used to watch for this Holy Ghostly sign! Two examples of his unselfish kindness must suffice. During the WW II, a short Congress (Priests Week) was held at Tekels Park, Camberley, mainly for the benefit of the clergy. The Bishop was, appropriately, the main speaker and his subject was The Eschatological Background to the New Testament. I wouldnt bother to come. You wont find it very interesting. I went, and I didnt. However, I did learn the meaning of the word! It was customary to confer the diaconate in the Oratory where the deacon was going to serve. So on the 20th November 1949, we entertained the Bishop at my mothers house in Folkestone. After my Ordination, the Bishop turned to me and told me to take my fiance for a walk as I had spent quite enough time looking after him. My wife-to-be was very touched, having felt rather left out of all the church goings-on. Truth During and just after the war, we often used to correspond and on one occasion I used an envelope from my office with John Lewis & Co Ltd [a famous UK department store Ed] printed on the back flap. I expect that you paid for the envelope was his greeting when we next met. Oh dear!
18
Easter. 2003
One of Bishop Pigotts principles was that, as a Headmaster, he always made it a point of honour to say yes when asked for permission to do something, unless there was a firm reason to say no. However, in his last years, this seemed to have been forgotten and at St Marys, when some slight change in the order of things was wanted, the secret was to suggest exactly the opposite so that the Bishop would say no. Then we could go ahead and do what we wanted! Bishop Pigott had a sharp and quick mind and could always be relied upon to give a swift, considered and definite answer to any question asked of him, a useful attribute, especially at Clerical Synod meetings, which he always liked to chair himself, until his deafness made his reconsider. No nonsense. No trying to sneak in proposals that were the prerogative of the Ordinary or items not on the agenda. They were stopped before you had finished speaking. No time wasting. Any other business? No. The meeting is closed. As with most great people with character, Bishop Pigott certainly had many idiosyncrasies. For some reason, despite his Anglican background, he always used the Roman form when blessing incense Ab illo which rather put the thurifer and boat-boy off until they got used to it. He did not like to hang about (still running after buses into his eighties) and expected the service to start when HE was ready, leaving the MC to warn Bishop, it is not quite 11 oclock yet and Eric has only just arrived. (Dr Eric Taylor, later PB, was always late and known as the late Dr Taylor to his friends.) The winter Evening Sunday Services at St Marys had to be held in the afternoon because of the wartime blackout and were often very poorly attended by the clergy. Knowing that the Bishop might be on his own, I would sometimes ask if he would like me to come in to take Vespers. I never got a yes please or thank you, just Come if you want to. It had to be my decision. One of the regulars at St Marys was a little man, Mr Hurst. He was a bone setter and a natural clairvoyant. But he knew nothing at all about, what one might term, the inner side of the services and therefore would describe exactly what he saw, uncoloured by the ideas of others. At the time when the Church was having all that trouble in America in 1944, Hurst asked the Bishop one Sunday why he just sat in his throne surrounded by such a gloomy and unhappy aura. Where better place to bring ones worries, replied the Bishop. He later printed a Confidential leaflet for the clergy setting out the facts and why he and the GES acted as they did (A Summary of Proceedings in the Recent American Dispute, 1944). However, the most heartening comment on the break-up is found in Peter F Ansons marvellous book Bishops at Large where he states Few of the religious bodies dealt with in this book can claim that they carried on for thirty years without one or more schisms, but such was the case with the Liberal Catholic Church. It is common knowledge that when the Clerical Synod of the British Province wanted to start a fund to pay for the reprinting of Bishop Pigotts books, he immediately vetoed the idea saying that they were out of date now and he would word them differently if he rewrote them. This might be true of Religion for Beginners (1928) but The Parting of the Ways (1927) is still worth reading today. Beauty Bishop Pigott was always interested in art and tried hard to understand the strange modern creations that appeared just after the war. I just cannot see anything beautiful in it. There may be Beauty behind it but I cannot recognise it. To the bishop, beauty could be seen all around him; in the trees, in the ducks on the pond, and particularly in young people. A child skipping down the road just for the sheer joy of it would always produce a comment about the Holy Spirit at work in the world. The beautiful was obvious in his vestments and conduct in church, an understated handembroidered stole and mitre, after the Anglican style, for example, or his small fairly plain silvergilt crozier rather than the ornate one illustrated in most of his early photographs. He tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to train the clergy to avoid exaggerated gestures when celebrating, pointing to the Easter, 2003 19
drawings in the then Black Book and Fortescue (The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described) whom he claimed was to be the ultimate arbiter if the Black Book did not have the answer. He was slightly surprised but greatly amused when I, as thurifer one Sunday at St Marys, finished off the Gloria with a full circle swing. However, despite this attitude, there was one gorgeous garment that did not please him his cassock with its velvet cuffs and long train held out of the way by being secured with a button at the back. As a very young crozier bearer, I tried to persuade him to let it down. No, he said, it would make me look like a woman. Fortunately, after the war he was able to replace it with a more up-to-date version. I, however, had no such inhibitions. As soon as I had my lovely red cassock home, I put it on and draped a rug over the top to act as a cope and admired myself in the mirror. Well, I did not realise ST ALBAN PRESS then just how heavy and uncomfortable a bishops vestments can Publishers to the be. Thank goodness we no longer have to wear a dalmatic and Liberal Catholic Church tunicle under our chasubles! Bishop Hugh had a lightweight set for that came in useful for ordinations to the diaconate. Books, Pamphlets Bishop Pigott always said that his one relaxation was gardenInformation ing, although I must admit that, having only seen his small garden in Edgware [a north London suburb Ed] in the winter, I did Contact our manager in your not think a lot of it. Another example of Bishop Pigotts underlying enjoyment of location life was singing. As I had recently joined the University of London Choir, I was always keen to sing the bass line of hymns and UK chants. This seemed to amuse him, and he would often enjoy St Alban Press, Meadowsweet, Wash Lane, Witnesham, Ipswich, joining in. Suffolk, IP6 9EW. Bishop Pigotts true, shy, modest, and almost unsure, old- Email, TheSt.AlbanPressUK fashoned nature is revealed in his private correspondence. Here @lccuk.freeserve.co.uk are some extracts from letters written a few weeks before my Voice/fax (44) 01473 785 672 wedding.
USA
10 May, 1950 My dear Allan Do let me know if there is anything you need for your establishment and have not got, so that I may supply the need if at all possible. I want to give you something in the way of a wedding gift but I dont want to send you something you have already had sent to you or something you dont want. Help me, please, by mentioning a few things In any case it will be blessed before it reaches you: that at least is something I can give you that you need and properly want. 15 May, 1950 A long letter explaining that he was in many ways, unorthodox, unconventional, informal and unusual and listing the various shops that he had had to visit to buy a set of soup spoons for an important wedding gift. The letter ended One request. It is that you will not think of writing to thank me you will be far too busy this week for anything like that. Just tell me on Saturday if you had them, that will be quite enough. Frankly they are hardly worth a letter. I did write and we still use them today. 20
St Alban Press, PO Box 598, Ojai, California 93023
AUSTRALIA
The Rev Laurence Langley, St Alban Press, PO Box 85, Gordon, NSW 2072 Telephone (61) 2 9418 2827
LES EDITIONS ALBANUS

A booklist of French language publications is available from: The Manager, Les Editions Albanus, 199 Rue de la Procession, B-1070 Bruxelles, Belgique
LCC WEBSITES
www.kingsgarden.org/English/ organizations/LCC www.kingsgarden.org/ALBANUS www.lcc.cc http://members.tripod.com/ ~LiberalCatholic www.eglise-catholique.org
Easter. 2003
30 September, 1953 My dear Allan, How very good and kind of you to write as you did about the baptism [of our daughter] and to send me that book token. Thank you immensely for both letter and token. It was a real pleasure for me to be given the chance to admit to membership of our Church the child of my very dear friend of many years standing. It is like all our services, a very impressive ceremony, though the exorcism is perhaps a little too strong in its wording. I shall get some book that I really want and as I read and enjoy it my thoughts will often turn with love too little Gail and her parents. * * * These anecdotes about Bishop Pigott will, it is hoped, show another side of the character of this extraordinarily complex man. His outer life and work are well known but, by bringing together the two sides of his character, we can see why Bishop Leadbeater so confidently proposed him as his successor and leader of the young Liberal Catholic Church. Unlike Bishop Leadbeater, Bishop Pigott was well grounded in the theology of the Christian Church. On a number of occasions he tactfully had to tone down some of the wilder Eastern ideas that could have so easily coloured our early church and make it unacceptable to the rest of Christendom. Remember that Bishop Wedgwood, although an ardent Theosophist, was always insistent that the church was for ALL seekers, not just those with a Theosophical bent. So our Bishops work in this incarnation was surely that of consolidation after the hectic excitement of the early days of innovation and expansion; to ensure that it remained a truly Christian body, a respectable church in its own right. This he did with great success, despite many pressures. As editor of The Liberal Catholic, he produced an erudite magazine that sat happily on many a university table and yet carefully put forward ideas that were possibly novel to the orthodox church of the time. He produced many informative leaflets. He was a man of his time. He consolidated our Church at a period when, we must be honest, it could easily have taken off into the blue yonder, Krishnamurti not withstanding. On the 31st May 1959, the Solemn Dedication took place of the Nave Screen and Plaque written by Rev J L Shepherd in memory of Bishop Pigott. Where is the Screen now? Gone with the rubble of St Marys. Maybe in the world of today, where many church groups have adopted those very ideas and innovations that were introduced by our Founding Fathers, it might seem that we are now lagging behind, caught in a clairvoyant time-warp. Bishop Pigott passed on to us a firm foundation, but what are we going to build in this twenty-first century? The time is ripe for our current bishops, clergy and, of utmost importance, the laity to start looking anew towards the future, to be innovative, to once again be the leaders in the field, and not just an old fashioned anachronism. Bishop Pigotts work is done. However, it should not just be forgotten as an unspectacular passage from the past. It is up to us to carry forward into the future that Goodness, Truth and Beauty that was his, and the Churchs, inspiration. He was a veray parfit gentil knight Chaucer What is needed is groups of intensely convinced people who put themselves, when they enter the church, at the service of Our Lord and His ministering angels to bring about a result of supreme importance which they and they alone in all probability are able to see. It is the spreading around in the neighbourhood of the church the spiritual power and blessing which have been brought down to our level at the service in which they are engaged. It is a joint action of angels and human worshippers and therefore it must be in very deed a real work (opus) conducted throughout with close attention by all engaged in it (Bishop F W Pigott, the Liberal Catholic, 21 November, 1945)
Easter, 2003
21
Relic of St Alban
Extracts from an item by Margaret Duggan in the Church Times, 5 July, 2002
At last there will be something inside the reconstructed shrine of St Alban in St Albans Cathedral. A shoulder blade, believed to come from the body of the saint, was given to the Cathedral last weekend by the Roman Catholic Church of St Pantaleon in Cologne, Germany. The shoulder blade will be fixed in the shrine, not carried about, says the Dean, the Very Revd Christopher Lewis. But it makes more sense of the shrine and completes its restoration. The shrine was broken up at the Reformation, and nothing is known for certain of what became of its contents, though some might have found their way to Germany. Pieces of the elaborately carved pedestal of the shrine were used to block up a Cathedral doorway, but were put back together in 1872. A more expert restoration was undertaken a decade ago, and the shrine, on its original site behind the reredos of the high altar, has become a place of prayer. The questions often asked about whether St Albans remains are in the shrine can now be answered with a caveat. It is possible the remains are genuine, says the Dean, but well never know for sure. The bones of the first English martyr started their travels around Europe in 429, when Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, visited Albans grave and was given some relics of Alban in return for some relics of the apostles. Germanus may have kept some of the bones for his own church at Auxerre, but almost certainly sent others to Rome. In the 10th century, the Pope gave them as a wedding present to Theophano, a Byzantine princess who had a devotion to St Alban, on her marriage to the holy Roman Emperor Otto II. When Otto died in 972, she returned to Germany, and took Albans bones with her. She gave them to the Church of St Pantaleon, where she herself is buried, and where the bones have been ever since. It is also possible that some of Albans bones remained in England until the Reformation, when they were smuggled to Cologne, and made up some two-thirds of Albans skeleton, says Nicholas Bates, the administrator of St Albans Cathedral. In 793, King Offa of Mercia founded a monastic community at St Albans shrine and, finding the skull of the saint, placed a gold band around it. When the relics in Cologne were examined recently, among them was a skull bound with a gold band.
For Your Book List

Excavating Jesus; Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts, by John Dominic Crossan & Jonathon L Reed In this publication around the theme of the historical Jesus, well known religious historian, John Dominic Crossan joins Jonathon Reed, a leading authority on the archaeology of 1st century Palestine, to present a thorough synthesis of science, history and theology through which we get the most vivid picture of Jesus world currently available. Particularly valuable are its insights into 1st century religious practice and the history of the Jewish resistance to Romes domination. Excavating Jesus is important reading if you wish to be up-to-date on the facts surrounding the revolutionary context in which Christianity was born. 22 Easter. 2003
INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY
Presiding Bishop: the Rt Rev Ian Hooker PO Box 1953, Midland D C, WA 6936, Australia
Argentina: The Rt Rev Miguel Batet, Granja Kaspar Hauser, 5182 - San Estaban, Cordoba, Argentina Australia: The Rt Rev James White, 23B Donar Street, Innaloo, WA 6018, Australia Belgium: The Rt Rev Maurice Warnon, Kings Garden, 460 Station Rd, Rock Tavern, NY 12575, USA Brazil: Bishop Commissary, see Argentina Canada: Bishop Commissary, see Belgium Central Europe (includes Austria & Germany) (vacant) Chile: Bishop Commissary , the Rt Rev Arnoldo Salzmann, Castelar 1010, 5500 Mendoza, Argentina Columbia: Bishop Commissary, see Cuba Congo: The Very Rev Loius Koubemba, 39 Rue NZougou, Bacongo, Brazzaville, Rpublique du Congo Croatia: Frau Greta Vinkovic, CR 4J0020 Novi Zagreb, Siget 16a, Croatia Cuba: The Rt Rev Gaspar Torres, Apartado No 6385, 10600 Habana, Cuba Denmark: Interim Episcopal Agent, the Rt Rev Sten-Bertil Jakobson see Sweden Finland: The Rt Rev Gran Brlund, Koristonkaari 4D100, 20780 Kaarina, Finland France & French-speaking Africa: The Rt Rev Christian Schoch, 24 Place du Jardin des Plantes, F45100 Orleans, France Gabon: The Rev Opap Onanga, BP 13226, Libreville, Gabon Ghana: The Rt Rev Isaac Zaney, PO Box 451, Ho, Ghana Hungary: see Central Europe
Great Britain & Ireland: The Rt Rev Graham Wale, 2 Dairy Farm, Goring Street, Goring-by Sea, West Sussex, BN12 5AE, England Iceland: Interim Episcopal Agent, the Rt Rev StenBertil Jakobson see Sweden
India: the Rev T A Echikwa, c/o the Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai 600 020, India
Indonesia: The Rt Rev Setia Pramana, Manyar Tirtomoyo V/4, Surabaya, CP 60118, Indonesia Italy: Ordinary the Presiding Bishop Netherlands: To be advised New Zealand: The Rt Rev Walter Turvey, 3/11 Faulkner Rd, Northcote, Auckland 1309, NZ Norway: Interim Episcopal Agent, the Rt Rev StenBertil Jakobson see Sweden Philippines: Bishop Commissary, see USA Portugal: The Rt Rev Viriato Santos Dias, Rua des Peixeiros, 28 Lagos, Portugal Slovenia: The Rev Aristide Havlicek, Linhartova 64, Ljubljana 61000, Slovenia South Africa: The Rt Rev Boudewijn Goudriaan, PO Box 1576, Southdale, 2135, South Africa Spain: Bishop Commissary see Argentina Sweden: The Rt Rev Sten-Bertil Jakobson, Solrosgatan 16, S 722 45 Vsters, Sweden Switzerland: The Rev Claude Tripet, 25 Rue des Crtes de Champel, 1206 Genve, Switzerland Togo: The Rev Gregoire Ativohr, PO Box 2688, Lome, Togo USA: The Rt Rev W Downey, 1206 Ayers Avenue, Ojai, CA 93023-3627, USA
Easter, 2003
23
ISSN 0024-1792
Printed in Australia by AussiePrint, The Boulevard, Canberra City, Australia

2003 01

Transféré par

Informations du document

Description originale:

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

2003 01

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC

the international journal of the Liberal Catholic Church

The Liberal Catholic

THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC

Business Assistant (Temporary)

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

Resurrection and Reincarnation

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Role of Intent in Liberal Catholic Services

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Pilgrim and the Pilgrimage

The Liberal Catholic

The Heartbeat of the Universe

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

Personalities Frank Waters Pigott, MA Oxon, 1874 - 1956

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

St Alban Press, PO Box 598, Ojai, California 93023

LES EDITIONS ALBANUS

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

For Your Book List

The Liberal Catholic

The Liberal Catholic

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi