TRIBUTE TO JOHN HAZLEWOOD

by Bishop David Chislett SSC

"The passing of an era" is how the Ballarat Courier summed up the Requiem Mass offered at the funeral of Bishop John Hazlewood on Wednesday 9th September, 1998.

The Anglican Cathedral of Christ the King was unable to be used because of repairs being made to the roof. And so, in a quirky twist that Bishop John would have enjoyed, the Anglican Diocese accepted the Roman Catholic Church's invitation to use St Patrick's Cathedral for the occasion.

The Ballarat Courier went on to describe Bishop John's funeral as "a fitting end to a rich and unusual life", and continued: "One suspects that this extraordinary service for an extraordinary man would have sat as comfortably with Bishop Hazlewood as his mitre."

Principal celebrant of the Mass was the Rt. Rev'd. David Silk, Bishop John's successor. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr George Pell, whose friendship with Bishop John was well-known, sat with Bishop Connors of Ballarat, and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, Archbishop Keith Rayner.

Almost 100 clergy filed into the Cathedral to say farewell to a greatly loved Father-in-God. They were joined by local political leaders, and, to quote the Courier one last time, "the hundreds of others who had been touched in some way by the flamboyant Bishop Hazlewood".

Bishop John had left strict instructions about his funeral, and so it was that, under the direction of Father Bill Edebohls (who had just resigned the Deanery in Ballarat) the Mass was celebrated from the Missal, with Eucharistic Prayer 1, the ancient Roman Canon. Father Peter Treloar, who had been Bishop John's chaplain, preached a magnificent sermon/eulogy.

Before six priests who had been ordained by him carried Bishop John's body from the cathedral, the Regina Caeli was sung, honouring Our Lady, and rejoicing in the glorious resurrection of her Son - the victory over death that he shares with his people.

John Hazlewood was born on 19th May, 1924 in London and raised in New Zealand. He served in the RAF during World War II and then read theology at Kings College, Cambridge. Following priestly formation at Cuddeston Theological College, he was ordained deacon in 1949 and priest in 1950, both in Southwark Cathedral. He served the docklands parish of St Michael and All Angels, Camberwell in London.

After a short curacy in Sydney (St Jude's Randwick) and a couple of years in Dubbo, N.S.W., he returned to Camberwell where he remained until being appointed Vice Principal of St Francis College, Brisbane, in 1955. It was during this time that he preached and said Mass regularly at All Saints' Wickham Terrace as a valued honorary assistant priest to Father Peter Bennie. At the time of my induction there were still parishioners who remembered the dashing Father Hazlewood sometimes riding his motorbike from St Francis College to All Saints, clad in soutane and biretta!)

From 1960 to 1968 he was Dean of Rockhampton. During this period he married Dr Shirley Shevill, sister of the Bishop of North Queensland. In 1968, John Hazlewood was appointed Dean of Perth, where his innovative and exuberant style brought him into national prominence. Thousands of young people flocked to hear Dean Hazlewood preach the Gospel in a way that was fresh, relevant and arresting at the famous rock Masses.

In 1975 John Hazlewood was elected seventh Bishop of Ballarat, and embarked on a programme of Catholic Renewal, promoting the ministry of lay people, supporting youth ministry, encouraging lay education programmes, and attracting many men to the priesthood. He proclaimed the Blessed Virgin Mary to be patroness of the Diocese under her English title "Our Lady of Walsingham", and links were formed between the Diocese and the shrine in Norfolk.

Bishop John worked tirelessly to renew parishes in the disciplines of catholicism, placing the Eucharist at the heart of each community. He was responsible for the renovation of the Cathedral and the building of an impressive Diocesan Centre. Great diocesan rallies were held at Portland and Warnambool.

In 1978 he established a Joint Diocesan Commission with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat, "to work and pray towards the reunion of our churches."

Throughout his episcopate Bishop John was one of the few real champions of catholic orthodoxy within Australian Anglicanism, which was rushing headlong into liberal protestantism, not least of all in the matter of the ordination of women.

In 1988 he entered into a formal relationship of Communion with Archbishop Louis Falk and the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia, and in retirement participated in the consecration of bishops for that body, as well as administering the sacrament of Confirmation for them.

John Hazlewood retired in 1993, continuing to live in Ballarat where his wife Shirley was a popular General Practitioner. She and their son Paul predeceased him. He is survived by his younger son, James.

Bishop John inspired countless young men to offer their lives to Jesus and the Church as priests. He was not without his faults - some of them conspicuous! - but his time as Bishop of Ballarat is widely regarded as having been a great spiritual adventure. Those of us who were nurtured by him and ordained by him regard ourselves as blessed indeed.

Bishop John maintained his affection for All Saints' Wickham Terrace down through the years. He encouraged me to accept the parish in 1995, and was a most helpful advisor in the delicate discussions that led to my appointment. He visited five times after my induction, and, before his health deteriorated, had seriously considered moving to Brisbane to be with old friends.

It is fitting that under the magnificent portrait of Bishop John in the All Saints' Parish Centre are the words:

"He kept the Faith - and he loved us."

Some All Saints' parishioners will remember the Midnight Mass sermon to which Father Peter Treloar referred in his sermon (below), as well as the extraordinary Holy Week he preached for us in 1996.

The obituary Father Treloar wrote for the media concluded with these words:

"A man of letters and history, of art and drama, of music and gardens, Bishop Hazlewood was anything but dull. He had lunched with T.S. Eliot and Elton John, Princess Margaret and Mick Jagger. His reputation as a theological conservative masked a keen and open mind. Most of all, he was a man who lived by the love he proclaimed. The Rock Mass for Love stood at the centre of his career and as the focus of his beliefs. He is thus mourned by his opponents as well as by his friends."

+ Give him eternal rest, O Lord, and may your light shine on him forever.

THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE WEAKNESS OF HUMAN FLESH
Sermon preached by Fr Peter Treloar at Bishop Hazlewood's Funeral Mass

Let me begin with the obvious: John Hazlewood was once the Dean of Perth. He burst like a Roman candle (no pun intended, your Grace) onto the somnolent scene of Australian Anglican church life. Teenagers climbing the pillars of St George's Cathedral to get a look at the groovy Dean. Monday Conference with Phillip Adams. Lunch with Elton John. And disapproving letters from Sir Marcus Loane. For all its Camelot qualities, it was a chapter in Australian Church history which stimulated a sea change in the way we communicated the Faith.

Some, no doubt, were attracted by the showman. And that he most certainly was. The tallest mitres this side of the Council of Trent. The ability to captivate an audience of growling heathen teenagers. The huge red nude on the dining room wall. He knew how to turn it on, alright. I don't think I'm the only one here today in Holy Orders because of a few hefty scotches and 'The Dream of Gerontius.' But those who came for the show usually stayed because of the substance which sustained him. Another of his victims tried to describe it like this:

"The richness of catholicism, in the charismatic personification of John Hazlewood, had invaded me through every sense. Here was a form of Christianity that took my humanity, my embodiedness, seriously - which proclaimed that the sacred could be revealed to me through ordinary "stuff" - that spirit and matter do not in fact have to be at war; and that flesh, in all its weakness, is the unlikely vehicle of God's most intimate indwelling of creation."

There are some very John Hazlewood phrases in there, like "flesh in all its weakness". Weakness was something he knew well, although doubtless he was more comfortable with failure in others than in himself. So perhaps I might be allowed to observe that it was not always easy being John Hazlewood's wife, or his son. Two people here today can testify to the amusements of being his Archdeacon. It was not always a bed of roses I suppose being his Dean, or his housekeeper, or his Primate. And if you listen carefully, you can just hear an ancient voice crying: "You should have tried being Dean Hazlewood's Archbishop!"

The weakness of the flesh was a theme almost as dear to Fr John as was its redemption. His was an utterly incarnational theology. Heaven and earth are both full of God's glory, and so both are good. Jesus came that we might have life in all its fullness, which presumably means the fullness of sorrow as well as the fullness of joy. He knew them both. Next Monday is the anniversary of Paul's death. Anyone who thinks that Fr John's life consisted only of Rovers and Benson & Hedges has missed the point.

Truly incarnational theology must issue in a life full of sacraments, and Fr John stood at the Altar, I suppose, as much as any priest in the history of Christendom. In more than eight years as his Chaplain, I never recall a day when he failed to hold his priests and people up to the throne of grace, in motel rooms, in private homes, in churches around the diocese, and in the Chapel at Bishopscourt. There, in its dual dedication, were focused the two great spiritual forces in his life. One was Michael and the Holy Angels, on whose feast day he had been made deacon, ordained priest and consecrated bishop. His beloved first parish in the slums of London bore that dedication. Angels were for Fr John not a matter of superstition, but a sign of the protective presence of God which, in his weakness, he knew to be very real.

But pride of place in the Chapel at Bishopscourt was held by Our Lady of Walsingham, to whom he dedicated the Diocese during his episcopacy. Our Saviour dying on the cross gave his Mother to John and John to his Mother. This John took that relationship very seriously, and knew its power. It was a great comfort to many of us, but doubtless no surprise to him, that just as she had done for so many years, so she prayed for him at the hour of his death.

There were other ways apart from his love of Our Lady in which Fr John showed himself to be a truly catholic priest. He was grounded in the discipline of the Daily Office, a practice which seems to have followed the dodo into extinction. He practised and advocated sacramental confession, because he knew both our need of it, and its effect. [That practice of course preceded the dodo.] He had a high theology of priesthood, and because he expected so much of those who joined it, he thus attracted an astonishing number to it. When I came south in 1980, there were 16 men in training for the priesthood, a number surely remarkable for a small country diocese. The Hazlewood lads are now scattered across the country and the globe, making life miserable for our new bishops far and wide! We carry with us the vision of our first Father-in-God, who said at the ordination of one of us:

"When the Blessed Trinity has finished with you tonight, you will go out in the company of the Saints as part of a mighty power house of glory, to be a light in the darkness, a shelter for the afflicted, and a living sacrament of Jesus Christ in whom you will offer his Sacrifice for the whole world as you unite your own sacrifice to his."

Of course the question of ordination - who can and who can't - tended to dominate his years as Bishop of this Diocese. It was, and in some ways continues to be, a matter of great passion and conviction. Strange then that John Hazlewood should have so many friends in all corners of the debate. He much preferred to be in communion than out of it, and had no qualms about maintaining friendship with those who could not for conscience' sake, stay within the bounds of Mother Church. But he was equally magnanimous with those who should have been his bitter enemies.

Perhaps it is now safe to recall in public the times when the Dean and I trod the footpath along Wendouree Parade just in case any member of the press should venture by and discover what, or more to the point, who was going on in the Chapel up the driveway. I have to confess that his generosity to those on both sides of the debate drove some of us young and idealistic purists to distraction. I was often full of righteous indignation, but I misunderstood him. Just as many undervalued his intellect or mistook his sense of presence for self-absorption, so I mistook as vacillation what was really self-emptying love. Listen to these words from his sermon in the Rock Mass for Love:

"Love flows from God to all people, all the world, because God is in the flesh of Jesus, not just what pleases me. Some of our loves may have to be like hell because Jesus said we had to love our enemies... I say to you, in Jesus who comes to us tonight in this Sacrament, gentleness is strength, peace is power, love is God, among us, in the eyes of someone we know, in the voice they speak to us, in their touch, in their tenderness, in their beauty, in the bread and wine of the Sacrament we shall receive, in relationship in Christ always. This is the love of God."

Fr John's life was a journey in every sense. Physically, he came from London to Wellington, then while his parents went to Sydney and his brother Ian to St Francis' in Brisbane, he went via Canada to England to join the RAF. Then Kings and Cuddeston and Camberwell. Then followed a brief stay in the Diocese of Sydney which according to legend came to an abrupt end when the Rector discovered him teaching the Rosary to the youth group. He was exiled to Dubbo, where a remarkable team of priests gathered around Bishop D'Arcy Collins. Then back briefly to London, and just as his brother moved to England, he came to St Francis'. Then north to Rockhampton with his new bride, and where at St Paul's Cathedral at this very moment his friends are offering Mass for him. Then to Perth and finally here. Where did he belong? I keep thinking of a verse of a hymn:

These stones which have echoed their praises are holy
And dear is the ground where their feet have once trod
Yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims
And still they were seeking the city of God.

It is a reference to Hebrews 11, and it speaks of one who, despite much faith, has not yet found their homeland. There was this side to Fr John, an insecurity, a humanity, masterfully masked by his flamboyance, but which meant that he found it much easier to be the Bishop of Ballarat than to be John Hazlewood. It was a brokenness, a real and honest and inescapable humility, which is encapsulated in this story told to me by a Hazlewood priest. He wrote:

"Shirley died a few months after my induction. Bishop John accepted an invitation to spend Christmas here, and my invitation to preach at Midnight Mass. (In the years when he was Vice Principal of St Francis' College, he preached fortnightly here at High Mass, and some of the people remembered him from those glory days.)

"During the week leading up to Christmas, Bishop John said that I should preach - that he 'had lost it' and would probably let me down. I twisted his arm, and although he was a bit agitated about it, he eventually agreed to preach as we had originally planned. All he said was this:

"'Well do I remember the first time I stood in this pulpit, forty years ago, a young man straight from Cambridge, Oxford, and the slums of London. A young man who knew everything. I now stand before you as an old man, a broken man, a man who knows very little.'

"Then he paused and looked up with that twinkle in his eye, raised his voice and proclaimed to the packed church: 'But the little he knows will get him to heaven!'

"He beckoned to the Christmas Crib, set up at the foot of the pulpit, and talked about the littleness of Jesus - God in the weakness of flesh - resting in holy Mary's arms.

"He then beckoned to the Tabernacle on the High Altar and talked about the littleness of Jesus - God in the weakness of flesh - in the Blessed Sacrament.

"And then Bishop John stepped down from the pulpit."

 

Father Peter Treloar was Bishop Hazlewood's Domestic Chaplain for eight years. He is now Chaplain of Ballarat & Queens Grammar School.