Remembering Father James Parker

If one listens to the recordings of the 1977 Congress of St. Louis, that gathering of concerned more than 2000 Canadian Anglicans and American Episcopalians concerned about the direction of their Church that saw the birth of the Continuing Anglican movement, one will hear Father James Parker, then-Rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Albany, Georgia, offer a prayer and then the following observation: 

We live, as  we all are aware, in a tragic moment in the life and the history of the Episcopal Church. I've always felt that we ought to look for some good even in the greatest difficulties, and I have to say that coming from Georgia as I do...  the kind of encouragement and consolation I find is the realization that a lot of you are beginning to learn what the word "secession" means.

For those who knew him, the remark was classic Parker, both in its appreciation for the South and for its quick wit.

Born Luther Wood Parker, Jr., in Charleston in 1930, he was graduated from Porter Military Academy, the University of South Carolina (A.B.), Virginia Theological Seminary (M.Div), and Rosary College (M.A.L.S.), he married a lovely lady named Mary Alma Cole who bore him two daughters and served tirelessly alongside him. After his ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of South Carolina on 25  July 2957, the Feast of St. James, he adopted the name of his patron -- James -- and served parishes in South Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, and Georgia and also served as a librarian in Tennessee. Of Anglo-Catholic convictions and High Church inclination, he was made Master of the Province of the Americas of the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) in 1977. 

All of the preceeding would've constituted a distinguished career for an Episcopal priest of his day but, as he noted in his St. Louis remarks, the era around the 1970s were turbulent times in the history of the Episcopal Church (something that has not changed). Clergy and laity who found that they could no longer in good conscience remain in the old church went a number of places. Some went to the Continuing Church that came out of the St. Louis Congress and then sadly fragmented, a few into the Reformed Episcopal Church, which had departed in 1873, others left Anglicanism or the church altogether. Through the years there had been Anglicans who "swam the Tiber" and became Roman Catholic, most notably among them John Henry Newman in 1845 but Newman, who reentered Holy Orders, wasn't married and clerical celibacy had meant that those married Anglican clergy wishing to go to Rome would do so as laymen. Until, as it were, Father James Parker.

Shortly after the St. Louis Congress Father Parker, who remained in the Episcopal Church, inquired of the Holy See whether or not he and other married priest might be able to be ordained as Roman Catholic priests. After a lapse of two papacies in 1978 following the death of Pope Paul VI and the 33 day reign of Pope John Paul I, approval came from Pope John Paul II. Father Parker resigned from St. Mark's Church and the Episcopal ministry in 1981 and was, with his beloved Mary Alma at his side, ordained a Roman Catholic priest on 29 June 1982, the first married western rite priest in nearly 1000 years. Father Parker was in his early 50s at the time and he continued in active ministry, serving as Pastor of several congregations, most notably Holy Spirit Church on John's Island, South Carolina, where he led a substantial building campaign. He and Mary Alma also served as mentors to clergy and their wives who were serving under Pastoral Provision.

I first met Father Parker in the mid-2000s, although I really can't remember where. We shared a love of our heritage and it may well have been at a meeting of one of the heritage societies to which we jointly belonged. Despite the fact that I am happily and committedly an Anglican, in the words of Bishop Cosin "Protestant and Reformed according to the principles of the ancient Catholic Church," Father Parker and I struck up a friendship through which I was blessed and I hope that he was as well.

Because much of my ministry has taken place in the context of hospice chaplaincy, he was a useful contact. One patient's daughter, sure that her mother would want her funeral mass said "the old fashioned way" asked me if I could call Father Parker to see if he could say it; I laughed and told her that I would because, "If you want a Roman Catholic mass said the old fashioned way, get a guy who used to be an Episcopal priest" -- the lady, who remains a friend, saw the irony (unfortunately trouble with his knees prevented him from fulfilling the request). On another occasion, I called upon him when a Roman Catholic patient who was near death and needed sacramental ministry that I, as an Anglican, couldn't provide; he was very helpful. 

I saw him at Mary Alma's funeral and it was clear that the loss of his longtime wife and helpmeet had taken its toll on him. Learning of his death yesterday was bittersweet; I will mourn his passing but give thanks that I had the privilege of counting him a friend and, most of all, that he rests in the Lord. 

Aubrey Alling Jones, R.I.P.

When I first decided to attend Georgia Military College (where, I am quick to point out, I was in the Corps of Cadets -- it was a different school than it is now, just an observation) on of the first letters that I received was from A. Alling Jones, the-then Alumni Director (I can't recall exactly what his title was) and I remember specifically it referencing "when you pass through those historic gates" somewhere in the course of it; it was a form letter and he did not then know me from Adam's housecat but the phrase stuck with me. Later on, during my time as a cadet I needed some bit of information for, as I recall, a dining-in and so I went to see him and had a good time visiting with him. I got the information that I needed and we saw each other occasionally during the rest of my time there. After I graduated -- and became an alumnus -- I got to know Alling better, especially after he engineered my election to the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association some years later.

Alling had trained in the law and practiced it for a time, but he loved GMC and so he was happy to go and work there, doing yeoman's work keeping alumni connected with the school. He also taught French and, somewhat unusually, enrolled at Georgia College after completing college and a law degree to obtain a second bachelor's degree in French so that he could teach the language at GMC (I know he taught in the prep school and he may have taught in the college as well -- languages not being my forte, I stayed far, far away during my time there). Such was his love of learning and of the school that he'd attended as a younger man. Alling had done some work at Duke Divinity School but ultimately decided on the law and when he found out I was headed to seminary he made a point of giving me my first Greek Lexicon; I still have it.  

Some time after that he left the Alumni Office at GMC, going on to do other things including serving as a municipal judge, but his love for the institution endured.

Alling was an active Episcopalian and communicant at St. Stephen's Church in Milledgeville. When he found out that I'd swum the Thames and moved from the Presbyterianism of my upbringing he heartily congratulated me on the decision. I last visited him in December 2006 while in Milledgeville; it was a good time of catching up but he'd had some health problems. Some time ago I'd gotten wrod from a mutual friend that he'd moved to a nursing home and he had been remembered in my prayers for some time. I had hope to visit him when I got back to Milledgeville.

Judge Aubrey Alling Jones died this morning, and I regret that I'll not have a chance for that visit but I give thanks for his friendship and a life well lived. May he rest in peace and rise in glory!

The Rev'd Canon Dr. William Griffin, Ph.,D., R.I.P.

When I left the meeting of the Rotary Club of Goose Creek this afternoon I had a message from Karen Griffin and suspected, correctly, that the news was sad, namely that her husband, the Rev'd Canon Dr. Will Griffin, had passed away -- he indeed had the previous night.

Will Griffin and I first corresponded via email before finally meeting in person at the annual Mere Anglicanism conference in Charleston in, I believe, 2006. At the time Will, whose earthly pilgrimage had included time as an Old Catholic as well as Roman Catholic (with a stint as a monk) in addition to time in the Episcopal Church before heading for the Continuum, was a priest in the Anglican Province of America and fairly recently widowed. We struck up a friendship and some time after that he married Karen, who brought him great joy. Will's service on the board of the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas brought him to Charleston with increasing frequency and we often enjoyed getting together -- in between those meetings we would keep up by telephone and email. When a large number of parishes left the APA to form the Diocese of the West of the Reformed Episcopal Church and later of the Anglican Church in North America and added benefit was that I got to visit with him more regularly. At the enthronement of Archbishop Robert Duncan, we processed together.

Will lived a full life in service to Christ and His Church. May he rest in peace and rise in glory!

Remembering the Very Rev'd Craig Edward Young, SSC

The year was 1995 and it was late December. I was a middler (second year student) at Erskine Theological Seminary, under care of Catawba Presbytery of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and I wanted to procure a copy of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (I really can't remember why I had it fixed in my mind that that was superior to the 1979 version [something that is now a deep conviction after having studied and compared the two] but I had). I was spending quite a bit of time in Columbia and I knew that I had seen ads for a church over on Beltline that used the 1928 BCP and so one morning I went over to the Church of the Epiphany and upon entering the parish hall and introducing myself to the priest said that I was trying to acquire various worship manuals for my library and wondered if I could buy a 1928 Prayer Book from his parish. It was clear from our conversation that he didn't much approve of the term "worship manual" and wasn't wild about Presbyterians either (nor did he care for the mainline Episcopal Church). He did part with a Prayer Book for $5.

Almost ten years later I had taken to heart what I found in that Prayer Book and embarked upon the Anglican Way, having been received as a postulant for orders and later ordained deacon and priest in the Reformed Episcopal Church. The Rt. Rev'd Kieth J. Ackerman, SSC, then-Bishop of the Diocese of Quincy and a man whom I'd long admired, was to dedicate a chapel in Mayesville, South Carolina, and I had been invited to participate. Upon arrival I met the priest whom I'd encountered on that December morning and we renewed our acquaintance with considerably more pleasant results (that may or may not have been due in part to the mint juleps that we were enjoying at the reception that followed!). In the course of our conversation I mentioned that I'd heard that he had a source for cloth collars (as opposed to the plastic ones that I had worn up until that point); he paused for a second, said, "This should fit," and literally gave me the collar off of his neck (I was touched and have been wearing cloth ones ever since).

That priest was the Rev'd Canon Craig Young and it was my privilege to get to know him at meetings, worship services, and social events as well as to correspond with him via e-mail and to have him become my friend. In 2007 when his parish, the Anglican Church of the Epiphany, became the Pro-Cathedral for the Diocese of the Holy Cross and he became it's Dean, he invited me to the service and it was my honor to participate. He represented the Anglo-Catholic "face" of Anglicanism while I am more representative of the Protestant one, but we shared a commitment to Evangelical Faith, Catholic Truth, and Apostolic Order that transcended those distinctions. We were both members of Forward in Faith and over time our jurisdictions forged their bonds in the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas. He was fond of saying, "Fr. Collins is the most Catholic priest in the Reformed Episcopal Church;" while that may be disputable, I knew the spirit in which he intended it and I took it as a high compliment.

Craig was a force to be reckoned with, a man with deeply held and forthrightly expressed opinions with a wicked sense of humor. A mutual friend told me of taking him -- wearing his cassock -- into the Back Bar of the Carolina Yacht Club in Charleston after an event. When he entered some of the patrons, not really sure what to make of the sight, grew quiet as he approached the bar. When the bartender asked what he'd like, Craig responded, "I'd like a Scotch, and make it a double!" At that point the conversation was restored as the patrons figured out that this guy was alright.

This afternoon news came via email from the Rt. Rev'd Paul Hewitt, SSC, his good and godly bishop, that Fr. Craig Young died peacefully in his sleep last night. He will be missed by his family, his parish and diocese, and all who knew him. I thank God for the privilege of being one who knew him and counted him as a friend and fellow priest in the Church of God. R.I.P.

For a departed Priest

O God, who hast made thy servant Craig to flourish among the Ministers of Apostolic Succession in the honourable office of a Priest: grant, we beseech thee, that he may be joined with thine Apostles in a perpetual fellowship, Through thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen --From A Manual for Priests of the American Church, Complimentary to the Occasional Offices of the Book of Common Prayer, 5th edition.

For All the Saints, Who From Their Labors Rest . . .

Tonight is Halloween (All-Hallow's Eve) and also Reformation Day (the observance of Martin Luther's nailing of the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517, but that's another post for another time -- you can click here if you'd like a little musical tribute) and tomorrow in the Feast of All Saint's. When I was growing up and during my (Presbyterian) seminary education All Saint's Day got short shrift (either totally ignored or subsumed under Reformation Day/or Reformation Sunday). Becoming an Anglican meant that there was a Church Calendar to be learned and that All Saint's Day assumed an increasingly significant role.

Some years ago I listened to a series of talks that the Rev'd Dr. Rod Rosenbladt gave at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, on the subject of fatherhood. In remembering his own father, now deceased, he mentioned that the time at which he is now closest to him is during Holy Communion. The remark was made in passing, almost as an aside, but it stimulated me to think further on the doctrine of the Communion of the Saints. Most Christians confess the Apostles' Creed as a summary of their belief and for those of us who use the Daily Offices we do so twice daily, reciting belief in the "communion of saints," but the extent to which that is driven home to us on a daily basis varies.

The fact of the matter is that there is only one Church, the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Despite the various divisions of it (Eastern/Western, Protestant/Roman Catholic, geographical, chronological) Christ has but one Church. That Church is in communion with one another and even with Him we are truly surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) and in communion with them. When we, as the Church Militant, gather around the table of the Lord we on earth take part in what is going on in Heaven with the Church Triumphant and look forward to that day when we will do so together as one. For that reason, Holy Communion is a time of blessed fellowship with Christ and will all of those who have died in the Lord.

As we worship we can rightly pray to God that we:

bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service, and to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom. -- 1928 Book of Common Prayer

and in that we can rejoice with those whom we've loved who've gone to be with Him!