ADOLESCENT EBBSFLEET

FEW WEEKS ago we passed our thirteenth birthday. The See of Ebbsfleet was founded in 1994 and Bishop John Richards was consecrated the first Bishop of Ebbsfleet on 29th April 1994. He filled the position with such authority that, when Michael Houghton, second Bishop of Ebbsfleet, once answered the door to a caller, he said, 'You'll have to wait a moment: I'm on the phone to the Bishop of Ebbsfleet'. The caller said to Michael, 'but you are the Bishop of Ebbsfleet!' In my early days, when Bishop John was very much on the scene, I too had to remind myself from time to time that I was now the Bishop of Ebbsfleet.

Thirteen years on from 1994, we have survived infancy and grown in strength. There have been those - and there are those - who would kill us off. Like any growing child, we have sometimes had unreal ambitions and moments of self-doubt and uncertainty. And, just as parents wait anxiously for their children to grow, we have wondered whether we were going to grow. The number of parishes which look to me, even excluding Devon, is nearly twice the number that looked to John Richards. More important is the growth of congregations and of holiness. A previous record for a confirmation - over 40 candidates in Walsall - has just been overtaken by over 50 in Birmingham, with more than one parish providing candidates in double figures. The Ebbsfleet Festival of Faith in Bristol Cathedral, the single Paschal Stational Mass this year, was a splendid celebration of the fullness of the catholic and apostolic faith once delivered to the saints. 1,000 people attended, including, as the psalm puts it, 'young men and women, old men and children', each group in abundance. We gave Bristol Cathedral, we were told, the largest Saturday Evensong congregation they had ever had and, no doubt, many of our folk their first taste of Cathedral Evensong.

What shall we be when we grow up? Thirteen year olds are not very good at making that decision, facing it or planning for it and need to be patient. Thirteen year olds are not always wrong about things, however: when I was thirteen I was quite certain I was going to be a priest; it took me until I was 36 and, in that sense, my sight was clearer at 13 than when I had officially come of age. Conservatoires and academies are full of people who dedicated themselves to their art at an early age. Many nurses, teachers and scientists have known from an early age that that is what they were going to do. So what is our ambition? My ambition - which rekindled my priestly vocation nearly thirty years ago - is the unity of the Catholic Church. I was an Anglican NSM Ordinand, teaching music part time in a Catholic School, when the Pope came to Canterbury in 1982. Everything seemed to be pointing to reunion with the Holy See, the repairing of the torn garment of Catholicism in England and Wales. ARCIC was top of the news and central to theological study. Anglicanism seemed to be fulfilling its calling as the bridge-builder amongst the Christian churches. Our message - to Rome and to the Church of England - is that we Anglo-Catholics have stayed faithful to this vision, even if, 25 years after the papal visit, our aspirations seem old-fashioned. What happens next is not in our hands, and not in the hands of the churches, surely, but in the hands of God.

May the Ascended Christ, who prayed that his followers be one, bless you and through you bring his peace with others.

+ Andrew Ebbsfleet



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The Bishop of Ebbsfleet
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