IT WAS on the cheap shelf, outside one of those secondhand book shops that used to be so common in English seaside towns in the 1950s. We were on holiday in Bournemouth when I chanced upon a distressed copy of the Book of Common Prayer. I have always had a special sympathy for objects and people that have come down in the world, and I was immediately taken by the battered volume dated 1797. The tattered leather binding and the half-erased cipher on the cover proclaimed a distinguished past. On opening the book gingerly, I saw a faded inscription revealing that the original owner had been one General Philip Goldsworthy, Windsor Castle. The price was 7s. 6d., a substantial sum for a schoolboy, but I bought it and have it still.
A little research established that Goldsworthy had been Equerry to George III. He had been appointed “Clerk Martial” during the King’s first descent into insanity. Only while writing this piece have I discovered that the General had also been elected as MP for Wilton, in Wiltshire. He had died there, where I now live; and his prayer book — after God knows how many adventures — resides with me.
Our family did not attend church. There was no particular hostility, although my father used, semi-humorously, to refer to the clergy as black-coated parasites. Inspired by the associations of my Prayer Book, I started to read the psalms aloud, revelling in the sound of Coverdale’s words. This prompted me to explore further, and take myself to church. The world that opened up had such resonance that, little by little, I was drawn deeper into the mystery.
ALTHOUGH I have been inspired by voices from the past, I am deeply grateful for the living saints I have known. One of my most precious articles of faith is a simple cross plaited out of a single strand of leather. It has a complex design, set with tiny white stones from the desert, and was made by a Coptic monk.
I met Father Marcos the Ascetic at a conference in Birmingham, and we discovered much in common. He was, in origin, a Luo from Kenya, and had been preparing for the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church when it came to him that he ought to explore a more authentically African Christian spiritual tradition. He moved to Egypt and joined the Coptic Church, and was eventually professed as a monk in Anba Bishoi, one of the surviving desert monasteries in the Wadi Natrun.
We became friends, and I was invited to spend some time there as his guest. For me, it was a place of spiritual revelation. The Brothers (unless they were unfortunate enough to be chosen as bishops) each lived in a cell, under whose earthen floor they knew they would eventually be buried.
Although the monastery was surrounded by sand dunes, it had been established in the fifth century on an aquifer, which supplied the vegetable garden with fresh water. Besides working in the garden, the monks occupied themselves in plaiting the leather crosses, which they wore and also sold. My own cross was a gift from Marcos. It brings powerfully to life memories of the holy community, where we would rise at 4 a.m. to pray before the sun began to beat down. There was no electricity, and I can still smell the oil lamps that illuminated the monastic church. Each morning, as we entered for prayer, the kiss of peace was exchanged with every member of the community. Then, abruptly, on Maundy Thursday, the kissing stopped.
Marcos was appointed to the Coptic community in Dallas, where he was subsequently murdered. We were exactly the same age. I am deeply grateful that I have the cross that he made. It is still a vibrating chord between us.
DESERTS are full of a very speaking silence. I am privileged to have experienced the sand dunes around Anba Bishoi, but also the tortured lunar landscape of Sinai, in which St Catherine’s Monastery is set. My third article of faith is a reproduction of an ancient icon of Christ which has been lodged in the monastery there since the monastery’s foundation in the sixth century.
The icon is before me as I write. Christ is depicted with one eye brimming with human compassion and the other eye reflecting serene divinity. One hand is raised in blessing.
Christianity can sometimes seem over-talkative, and our prayers excessively busy. There is blessed refreshment in simply sitting still, so that Jesus can look at us with all our frailty, and we can look at him with love and gratitude.
The Rt Revd the Lord Chartres is a former Bishop of London.
