MY EARLIEST memory is one of petty larceny, which is good going for a vicar. I was about five years old, and I have a clear memory of stealing oranges from an orange grove near Sorrento, Naples, where I was staying with my parents. They had met in Naples during the war (my father was with the Royal Corps of Signals, running a communications network round Italy, and my mother was with the ATS in the Caserta Palace, where she developed an unhealthy taste for sunken marble baths), and they often returned with my sister and me. Hence my Neapolitan crib set is hugely resonant of my life and spiritual journey. Over the years, I have collected these terracotta figures — dressed in scraps of woollen cloth, feathers, and velvet — and I love them. Each reflects part of my past: Mary and Joseph and the baby; the three kings (where the feathers come in); four shepherds, one with a dog (naturally), and one with a set of the Neapolitan bagpipes called zampogna; and, most recently, an old woman selling vegetables. I add a figure or two every time I go and see my wonderful friend the Revd Julie Cave Bergquist, the Anglican Chaplain in Naples (“Madre Jules”, as she’s known in her neighbourhood); and I’ve now reached the stage of acquiring the raffish, vernacular figures — shopkeepers, stallholders, urchins, washerwomen: all the dodgy, Caravaggesque hustlers and bustlers of Neapolitan life. The crib set has a fountain with real, flowing water, too.
I am a Catholic-minded Anglican, largely because I think and feel through symbols: this crib set points me to my childhood, and the awakenings of faith; every year, when I get it out, it points to the presence of the incarnate God in the mess, untidiness, and everyday mayhem of human life; and to the fact that faith grows, develops, and deepens over the years. I hate to put it away — this year, I still haven’t, even though Candlemas is long past. Surely the incarnation is for life, not just for Christmas?
Archbishop Michael Ramsey’s book The Christian Priest Today was, and remains, hugely formative for me. During my twenties, in the 1980s, I had real doubts about presuming to be a priest. Finally accepted for training in 1985, I was still desperately seeking affirmation about this path, and Ramsey’s wise and gentle book helped enormously. Published in 1972, it is chiefly composed of addresses he gave during ordination retreats, and is dedicated to the priests he ordained in Durham, York, and Canterbury between 1952 and 1974.
The chapter that has remained closest to me is chapter 3, on prayer, for two reasons. First, he tells us that we are “as celebrant at the eucharist privileged with a unique intensity to ‘be with God with the people on your heart’”. That phrase crystallised my fragile understanding of what priesthood is, and has been my touchstone the thousands of times I have approached the altar. The other is his famous observation on prayer: “You put yourself with God, empty perhaps. But hungry and thirsty for him: and if in sincerity you cannot say that you want God, you can perhaps tell him that you want to want him: and if you cannot say even that, perhaps you can say that you want to want to want him!” It has carried me through many a wobble in my prayer life.
On my study wall, I have a large and battered icon of the Taizé cross, cut out from a poster, and stuck on a piece of hardboard. I bought it in Taizé when I was a curate, and it has been with me ever since. Taizé is an amazing place. With vibes of both prison camp and Shangri-La, it was founded just after the Second World War, in Burgundy, near the great abbey of Cluny, by the wonderful — and tragically martyred — Brother Roger. An ecumenical monastic community, it has been a magnet to generations of young people from all over the world seeking an authentic spirituality.
I first encountered the Taizé community at my theological college through its music — gentle, contemplative chants, which create an atmosphere of quiet reflection. I have introduced Taizé evening and night prayer to every parish I have been in, with this cross propped up on kneelers and surrounded by a pool of night-lights. As I had been brought up on a diet of Anglican matins and evensong, it came as a revelation that contemplative worship could be accessible and effective. I cherish the cross, and what it has meant in my 35 years as a priest.
The Revd John Wall is Rector of the Uckfield Plurality in East Sussex.
