RCA (NI) members visit Lewis ‘country’

Wednesday October 9th 2024

The Rev Mercia Flanagan receives a gift from the Ven John Scott (left) following her presentation on CS Lewis to Retired Clergy Association members in St Mark’s, Dundela. Looking on is Canon Jim Campbell. (Photo: Rev Clifford Skillen)

The Retired Clergy Association (Northern Ireland) recently held the first meeting of its autumn programme with a visit to St Mark’s, Dundela, East Belfast, the only church in Ireland designed by William Butterfield, the eminent Victorian Gothic Revival Church architect who was closely associated with the Oxford Movement.

For some members of the RCA, the visit was a welcome return to St Mark’s: the RCA chairman, Canon Jim Campbell, was rector there from 1995 to 2001; and for committee members, Canon Walter Laverty and the Rev Clifford Skillen, it represented a return ‘home,’ as both had grown up in the parish.

Members were warmly welcomed by the rector of Dundela, Canon Dr Helene Steed, who presided at a celebration of Holy Communion, assisted by Canon Campbell who also led the intercessions.

Following light refreshments, the Rev Mercia Flanagan, another RCA committee member, gave a talk on aspects of the life of CS Lewis, the writer, literary scholar and Anglican theologian widely regarded as one of the most influential Christian apologists of his time.

He was born in the parish in 1898 and spent his childhood years there. He was baptised in St Mark’s by his maternal grandfather, the Rev Thomas Hamilton, the parish’s first rector. Lewis and his brother, Warren (known as ‘Warnie’) presented a window to the church in memory of their parents in 1935.

Taking as her title ‘The Seeker and the Sought,’ Mrs Flanagan noted and illustrated by means of a power-point presentation a number of events and circumstances which challenged and influenced Lewis’ life and beliefs, ranging from his unhappy childhood (his mother died from cancer when he was nine years old) and early education through to his university careers at Oxford and Cambridge.

She particularly highlighted the unfolding of his spiritual journey and the effect on his life of his abandoning during adolescence the Christianity in which he had been brought up and his return to Anglicanism in the early 1930s after a period of atheism.

Lewis died on November 22 1963, though his death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of President Kennedy which occurred on the same day, as did the death of the writer, Aldous Huxley.

The Ven John Scott, the RCA’s honorary treasurer, presented Mrs Flanagan with a token of members’ appreciation of her thoughtful and enlightening talk and Canon Campbell did likewise to Dr Steed for her hospitality and hard work in facilitating a very enjoyable meeting.

Report by the Rev Clifford Skillen