BISHOP GRAHAM WALDEN
A lecture given by Father David Chislett SSC
at Aldinga in the Diocese of The Murray
on Friday 18th May, 2001,
to honour the ministry of Bishop Graham Walden
and mark his retirement

When I sat down to write these words my gaze fell upon an old book on the far corner of my desk - a book whose spine is split and whose leather cover is seriously worn. This volume is part of the memorabilia of All Saints', Wickham Terrace, and will soon be restored. It is an original edition of The Anglican Missal, published by the anglo-papalist Society of SS. Peter and Paul. (1)

It contains various arrangements of Cranmer's liturgy, as well as such gems as the translation of the Roman Canon based on that by Miles Coverdale, and the Exultet, translated from the Latin by the young Anglican Ronald Knox into matchless Tudor English. Inside the cover of this exceedingly worn Missal we find these words:

"Presented to The Right Reverend R. C. Halse, Bishop of Riverina, by friends at S. Saviour's Poplar. All Saints' Day 1925".

This seems like a good place to begin, for Halse, the former Bush Brother from Oxford and his curacy at S. Saviour's in the East End of London, who had founded All Souls' School Charters Towers, who went on to become Bishop of the Riverina and then, in 1943, Archbishop of Brisbane, was at the height of his spiritual influence at the time when Graham Walden was emerging into adulthood. Indeed, Halse (or "Regie" as he is affectionately called by those who date back to that era) was a major influence in the lives of a remarkable cluster of young men, a disproportionate number of whom, like Graham Walden, went on to high office in the Church. Bishop Graham was away from Brisbane when Halse died in 1962 and had never been to his grave; so it was fitting that when the Waldens stayed with me at All Saints' just four years ago we should drive to the Sherwood cemetery in the south-western suburbs of Brisbane for a special time of reflection and thanksgiving.

Archbishop Halse had a great love of All Saints' Wickham Terrace and its robust catholic ways. It was at All Saints' that Graham Walden came under the influence of The Rector, Father Richard Pearson (2) a greatly loved priest who touched many lives for Christ. Preaching at all Saints' during that same visit to Brisbane, Bishop Graham told the congregation:

"To him [Father Pearson] I made by first confession in my teenage years. He was the officiant when I first attended Benediction here in 1949. I did so because a layman, four years older, already a lecturer in Classics at the University, invited me and instructed me, and brought me. On 25th October, 1952, Richard Grenville Pearson, died. A bursary was established in his memory. I was honoured by being awarded it. I was asked if in gratitude for being given it, I would pray for his soul. I have done so ever since." (3)

Graham Walden, born in 1931, grew up in Brisbane, spending his last five years of school as a boarder at "Churchie" (The Church of England Grammar School). In 1952 he gained a B.A. in philosophy with first class honours from the University of Queensland. He proceeded to St Francis' College, gaining his Th.L. in 1954, the same year in which he was awarded his M.A. in philosophy, and, more importantly, was made deacon on the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Having won the Douglas Price Memorial Prize as well as the University of Queensland Travelling Scholarship he set sail for England, where he was to continue his studies at Christ Church College, Oxford.

One of his fellow students at St Francis' College had been Ian Hazlewood, whose brother, John, was serving a second stint on the staff of S. Michael and all Angels, Camberwell in Southwark Diocese, following a particularly colourful but stormy curacy at St Jude's, Randwick in Sydney. I have heard Bishop Graham tell of his voyage to England during which he received a telegram conveying the devastating news that his mother had died. He was met in London by the young Father Hazlewood who drove him straight from the wharf to St Michael's. Before Graham had a chance to unload his bags from the car, John Hazlewood bundled him straight into church and said a requiem Mass for the repose of his mother's soul.

By 1955, it was the habit of Canon Ivor Church, the Warden of St Francis' College, Brisbane, to speak of Graham Walden as "Our man at Oxford". Doctor Eric Mascall, the great Anglo-Catholic neo-Thomist mathematician/theologian, was his supervisor of studies. According to Saraband, Mascall's memoirs published in 1992, Oxford was an amazing place in the '50's, and many of the great minds associated with the Anglo-Catholic movement were involved in the life of the university in some way. Apart from Mascall himself, this was the era of Austin Farrar, Leslie Cross, Lionel Thornton, and a whole host of others who were household names in theological circles.

During this time Bishop Graham had a Permission to Officiate in the Diocese of Oxford, but he was, in fact, licensed in the Diocese of London, initially by Archbishop Halse's predecessor in Brisbane, Bishop Wand, who ordained him to the priesthood in St Paul's Cathedral, London, on Trinity Sunday, 1955. Bishop Graham's first parochial work was in the Diocese of London during the long university vacations, first at Hackney, and then &endash; you guessed it - at the same St Saviour's Poplar where Reginald Halse had been a curate between 1906 and 1911!

As Halse had gone from the East End to the Brotherhood of S. Barnabas in North Queensland in 1913, so 46 years later in 1959 Graham Walden returned to Australia, having signed up for ministry with the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd whose mother house was in Dubbo, New South Wales. He worked under the direction of The Venerable Leslie Walker and the new Bishop of Bathurst, the Rt. Rev'd Ken Leslie. The Brothers at that time included another Oxford man, Barry Marshall (known as Brother Timothy), Bill Scattergood, and Andrew Gilbert, now retired, who is one of my honorary assistants at All Saints' Wickham Terrace.(4)

In 1960, Bush Brother Graham was sent to Gilgandra, to the church of St Ambrose, from where he had to care for the Gulargambone and Warrumbungle areas. Along the connecting road (known as the Box Ridge Road) lived a young lady named Margaret who was deeply involved in the preparations for the All Saints' Gulargambone Ball. One might wonder in retrospect just how many times Bush Brother Graham's car traversed the Box Ridge Road during this period on errands that may have been, strictly speaking, unnecessary! A friendship developed between Margaret and Brother Graham, blossoming into love and then into a wonderful marriage that down through the years has been a source of great blessing for so many of their friends and associates.

In 1963, Graham Walden had to cope with yet another dramatic change when he became vice principal of St Paul's Theological College on the Island of Moa in what was then the Diocese of Carpentaria. The islands of the Torres Strait have a fascinating history, and Anglican Catholicism has had an honoured place in island culture. In fact, it may be said that the Torres Strait is the one place in Australia where the Christian Faith has been truly indigenised in a way that has been fully catholic and fully evangelical at the same time. More than that, the islander priests (the first of whom were ordained in 1921) play a vital role in the religious and social life of their communities. Bishop Graham was only there a couple of years, yet he is remembered with enormous affection by the islander clergy as someone who truly loved them. I was up there just a few weeks ago to conduct the clergy retreat for the Church of Torres Strait, and I mentioned that I was coming here to give this lecture. The older priests who had sat at Bishop Graham's feet all those years ago wished to be remembered to him tonight. I was particularly moved by Father Napoleon Warria, now on Yorke Island, who asked me to say that "the teachings of Father Walden are still what we feed our people today".

It was not surprising, then, that through the traumatic series of events leading to the formation of the Church of Torres Strait at the beginning of 1998, Bishop Graham was entirely sympathetic to the islanders. He, in fact, showed me his file of correspondence with the late Father Stanley Waigana, a Saibi man who was extremely concerned about the dire consequences for his people, of the Torres Strait remaining part of the Anglican Church of Australia. When three bishops of the continuing Anglican movement known as the "Traditional Anglican Communion" consecrated one of Graham Walden's old students, Father Gayai Hankin, to be Diocesan Bishop of the new islander church, and Bishop Graham's courageous letter officially consenting to the consecration was read out, there was a spontaneous burst of cheering and applause from that vast crowd on Badu Island. I was there, and I can tell you that it was one of the highlights of the day. Bishop Graham's letter was a significant gesture of fellowship and communion which, I am pleased to say, was subsequently endorsed by the Synod of the Diocese of The Murray.

It was during this period in the Torres Strait that Bishop Graham journeyed south to Sydney in order to marry Margaret at St James' King Street, which reputedly (according to generations of brides) has the longest aisle in Australia! Margaret accompanied him back to the Torres Strait and stayed there until she became pregnant with Judith, returning south for the birth.

In 1965 Bishop Graham returned to the Diocese of Bathurst in order to become Rector of Mudgee. While there, in 1968 at the unusually young age of 37, he became Archdeacon of Barker. He held this post for only two years due to Bishop Hardie's invitation for him to become full-time Archdeacon of Ballarat to replace Robert Porter who had been elected first bishop of The Murray. Again, the Brisbane factor comes into prominence: William Auchterlonie Hardie had been Warden of St John's College at the University of Queensland from 1946 to 1950 before becoming Dean of Newcastle, and during that time had taken a keen personal interest in Bishop Graham's vocation and prodigious achievements at the beginning of his tertiary study.

Bishop Hardie was sometimes thought of as being hard and uncaring. He was not called "Basher Bill" for nothing! He expected the highest possible standards in those around him, and would say so. But that was only half the picture. Clergy and lay people who faced personal difficulties and trauma in their lives and ministries during his episcopate testify to his very real compassion and pastoral care. Nevertheless, Hardie was obviously shrewd enough to see that given his own style, the appointment of Graham Walden as full-time Archdeacon would be a stroke of genius. Apart from gifts of scholarship and holiness of life, Graham Walden would bring to the leadership of the Diocese a totally different temperament, including his gentle, winsome approach towards others.

Somebody once said that an archdeacon is "the crook at the head of the bishop's staff". A priest, not of this diocese, recently said (and please forgive the coarseness of his language) that the great imponderable in their part of the country is "whether it is possible to be an archdeacon without being a complete bastard!"

During Graham Walden's nineteen years as Archdeacon of Ballarat (which includes his eight years as Assistant Bishop) both he and Margaret were greatly loved. Never one to shirk the administrative aspects of the archdeacon's job, he was always concerned to be a healer, ensuring that the pain of difficult decisions was ameliorated by sensitive pastoral care. In addition, he was unflinchingly loyal to both Bishop Hardie and Bishop Hazlewood, and at least some of the time with bishops of such distinctive and strong personalities that cannot have been easy.

Bishop Hardie retired in 1975 and the Ballarat Election Committee had to choose a new bishop. As Vicar-General and Administrator, Bishop Graham presided over this process which resulted in the consecration and enthronement of his old friend the flamboyant, controversial and brilliantly catholic John Hazlewood, who by then had been Vice Principal of St Francis' College, Brisbane (during which period he was also an honorary assistant at All Saints', Wickham Terrace), Dean of Rockhampton, and then Dean of Perth. 1975 really was a case of "Fasten your seat-belts" for the spiritual adventure of catholic renewal, Hazlewood style.

One of the most popular decisions made by Bishop Hazlewood was for Graham Walden to become his Assistant Bishop, thus sharing the episcopal load, with respect to confirmations, bishops' meetings and a host of other duties. And so it was that on the evening of Wednesday, 25th March, 1981 (Lady Day), St Paul's Cathedral Melbourne was packed for the consecration. Father Ian Hazlewood was brought out from England to preach the sermon, a dynamic reflection on what it means to be a successor of the apostles, based on S. Augustine's remark: "Without God we cannot . . . without us He will not . . ."

The following night in Ballarat Cathedral, Bishop Graham was vested with his episcopal insignia. His ring and pastoral staff formerly belonged to Bishop Hardie. With characteristic flair, Bishop Hazlewood's sermon concentrated on the "new look". He said:

"Upon ordination to be a bishop, the front of one's body suddenly glows with imperial purple, buttons go red on cassocks, and like a lady, one actually wears a tall hat in Church. So, you see, nobody has seen our beloved Graham dressed like this before . . . but this is not a fashion parade, and what has happened to our brother is far more deep and amazing than a change of clothes. He has been caught up by the Word of the Lord to be incorporated into the company of the Apostles . . .

"Whether a bishop is good or bad, saint or sinner, martyr or geriatric, he is the living sacrament of the ever-present leadership of the Lord Christ in, and for, and to His Sacred Body, the slightly ridiculous Church . . .

"The leadership thing in the Church has only one example. That authentic leader is our ever-present but so often wounded Saviour. He attracted his disciples. He held them in bonds of love. He gave himself for them. He ticked them off. He laughed at them and with them . . . He taught them, and he lived with them, eating their food and sharing in their poverty. He challenged them, and he helped them. He forgave them but never captivated them, so that Judas was free to drop out and Peter free to deny and Thomas free to doubt and John and James free to ask Mum to get them special thrones in heaven . . .

"This leadership he taught and showed as being the servant of them all, and before he left behind the ever-living recalling of his impact upon the world in the precious Eucharist, he put on a towel and washed their filthy feet.

"So the ideal of leadership in the Church Catholic . . . is a leadership from weakness, from being despised, from unpopularity, from scorn, from ridicule, from misunderstanding. It is leadership from the position of slavery, from an almost magical bondage, because it is a burden of lightness and easiness as long as Jesus remains in sight.

"Of course we dress it up in as gorgeous a uniform as we can afford because that is the way human beings express love, faith and hope in all kinds of extravagance and exuberance and it is, we hope, a token of the glory and majesty of our blessed Lord Jesus, whose crowns are worn and rewarded only in heaven . . ." (5)

I have quoted John Hazlewood at length, because I and many others believe that Bishop Graham has exemplified this inspired description of Christian leadership.

When Bishop Robert Porter retired from the Diocese of The Murray, the election committee sensibly chose Bishop Graham to succeed him. The departure of the Waldens was a huge loss to Ballarat Diocese in general and to Bishop Hazlewood and his wife Shirley in particular. Margaret had been very active in Ballarat church life. Indeed, many of us believe that she and the Walden children played no small part in nurturing the family atmosphere for which the Diocese of Ballarat was noted during that period.

As you know better than I, Bishop Graham has served The Murray with distinction. He has maintained theological orthodoxy at a time when in the wider Anglican Church just about every distinctively Christian doctrine has been up for grabs. He has cared for his people and his priests, and has agonised over the difficulties of financial management in a sparsely populated rural diocese. Yet he has never failed to preach the Gospel; he has been an evangelist, pointing the people of The Murray to Jesus, that they may come to know and love him as their Saviour and Lord. He has taken care to teach the whole counsel of God. He has continued to impart wisdom and spiritual direction. He has done The Murray proud. He has been rocklike for Jesus in his own gentle way.

Well, that's the history lesson. But it would be a mistake to end there and not consider the things about Bishop Graham's life and ministry that are examples for us.

When I was thinking about tonight, a sentence from the prophet Micah came to mind. It is, I believe, a Scriptural exhortation that has been more than fulfilled in our brother's life and ministry. The prophet says:

"He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what doest the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (6)

Bishop Graham is indeed . . .

1. A kind man who walks humbly with God
I have seen this man disarm warring factions at various levels of church life with his humility and his smile. I even suspect that he overcame some of the tough nuts he had to deal with in Ballarat Diocese because they could not bring themselves to offend the personification of Godly kindness they encountered in him.

Father Andrew Neaum wrote these words in the Ballarat Church Chronicle in the lead up to Bishop Graham's move to the Murray:

"Bishop Graham is such a gentle, unassuming and quiet man that it comes sometimes as a surprise to realise just how learned and well-read he is. His sermons are pastoral, not academic. His chairmanship of meetings is quiet and more devoted to listening than pontificating. I remember doodling and dreaming my way through an Education Commission meeting once, under his chairmanship, and suddenly catching hold of a casual phrase he uttered, almost as an aside, that was of such compressed subtlety and wisdom that I realised, even in my habitual committee meeting torpor, that I was in the presence of someone who could dole out, for those with ears to hear, magnificent food for thought." (7)

Speaking personally, I must say what a blessing it was as a newly ordained priest to have Bishop Graham as a sounding-board for my thinking and theological exploration. He never seemed to lose interest in us, his patience was never-ending and in his humility he always gave the impression that we were contributing to his own understanding of various matters. On occasion he would borrow a recently published book, returning it later with gratitude - sometimes by mail. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have found inside the cover a neatly typed book review - a review worthy of being published! - beginning politely and with praise for the author's genuine insights, but ending up just as politely showing how the main thrust of the book was up the philosophical or theological creek!

I will always remember the first time I heard Bishop Graham speak. I had just begun my curacy at the Cathedral in Ballarat, and had been sent by the Dean to a healing prayer group that met in the home of Kevin and Ena Wealands. Bishop Graham was the guest speaker that night, and the subject was the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Bishop Graham spoke about going to confession from a biblical, theological and historical perspective, and then with absolute sincerity and humility went on to share with the group his own personal experiences of meeting Jesus in that Sacrament, and how vital the Sacrament of Reconciliation had been for his life and ministry. His personal testimony "clinched it" for some who were there that night.

2. A man whose life and ministry have been centred on Jesus
I agree with such diverse minds as Cardinal Ratzinger, Bishop John Broadhurst and Bishop Paul Barnett that the real battle in today's church is not over women priests, inclusive language, or any of the other things that necessarily occupy a lot of our time. They are very much derived issues. The real battle is for a proper understanding of just who Jesus is. The other matters flow from that. Bishop Graham's old teacher, Doctor Mascall, spent most of his career demonstrating from Scripture, philosophy, history and even science, that an orthodox understanding of Jesus is not only possible for intelligent seeking minds, but that it is essential for an integrated spirituality that will help us address the real issues confronting human life at this point in time.

"Who do you say that I am?" asked Jesus. (8) Well, so many in our church seem to think of Jesus as a pale Galilean mystical-new-age type religious teacher primarily interested in bottom-up social reform, who was so culturally conditioned by the age in which he lived, as to be of little help to us as we face our contemporary problems. It is common to find, even among bishops, the idea that the resurrection is a "purely spiritual phenomenon", or sometimes even just a poetic way of describing the enduring spiritual influence and impact of Jesus' teaching on his followers.

Doctor Mascall is not the only scholar who has identified much modernist liberal theology as a form of gnosticism at the basis of which lies almost a revulsion that matter should have anything to do with spirit, that God could really and literally become man in the flesh of Jesus taken from Our Lady, and that "salvation history" should coalesce with real history. In terms of the resurrection, we must ask these liberals "What is it that makes matter so unworthy that it cannot participate in the resurrection?" Thank God for Bishops like Graham Walden who have, sometimes at great personal cost, continued to affirm that everything that went into the tomb came out again (except for the grave clothes) - or in the words of a much younger and orthodox Richard Holloway, "a handful of dust has made it to glory" (9) as the first-fruits, not just of our resurrection, but of the glorification of the whole creation. (10)

Or, in Doctor Mascall's words (and I can't resist giving you some vintage Mascall!):

"Because there still appear to be people who, after nearly a century of relativity and quantum theory, think of the material world as composed of indestructible ultramicroscopic billiard balls controlled by fixed unutterable laws, it may be well to recall that modern physics view the world as a spatio-temporal manifold of centres of energy and spontaneity; in such a world Jesus' resurrection may well be seen not as a violation or an over-riding of the inherent and proper workings of nature, but rather as their joyful and blessed fulfilment, in bringing nature to a perfection that it could not reach by its own efforts." (11)

Of course, the notion that grace perfects nature lies at the heart of the Catholic Faith, and it is not surprising to find Bishop Graham's teacher applying the principle to the resurrection of Jesus.

Grace perfecting, not destroying, nature is connected with a theme we regularly encounter in sermons and theological papers by Graham Walden - the deification of human nature in Christ. In arguing that Christ was not degraded by becoming man, S. Athanasius was able to say, ". . . rather he deified what he put on [i.e. his human nature and body]; and more than that, he has bestowed this gift upon the race of men." (12) He also said that ". . . humanity would not have been deified if the Word who became flesh had not been by nature derived from the Father and his true and proper Word." (13)

Most startlingly he wrote elsewhere, "The Word was made man in order that we might be made divine." (14) This notion - still central to the theology and spirituality of the Eastern Churches - is always associated in Bishop Graham's teaching with 2 Peter 1:4 which says that through the promises of God we become "partakers of the divine nature".

For Bishop Graham, this means that through Christ we have received freedom, joy and grace, and are therefore being saved, not away from and out of the real world, but IN the real world in order to become more truly human and more godly at the same time.

I have heard Bishop Graham preach many times. Every one of those sermons has been centred on the Lord Jesus Christ, proclaiming some aspect of the Gospel or the faith that will enable us to be more confident in what God has done for us in Jesus, or to be able to draw more fully in our daily lives on the reality of Christ in us, the hope of Glory. That expression is from Colossians 1:27. The apostle Paul goes on to say, in words that describe the burden of Bishop Graham's ministry:

"Him we proclaim, warning every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires me". (15)

This leads into my next point. Bishop Graham is

3. A man of the Scriptures
Bishop Graham's Biblical scholarship is conservative though not fundamentalist; it is informed by up-to-date reading. But he is passionate about the Bible in a way that is not always the case among modern Anglo-Catholics. I have never heard Bishop Graham preach or speak without encouraging his hearers to refer back to a Biblical passage. In doing so, he is in step with what real Catholics think, for Dei Verbum, the Vatican II document on Revelation, quoting St Jerome, said that "to be ignorant of the Scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ"(16), and that the faithful were to become more familiar with the Bible. Dei Verbum had stressed in a previous section that

" . . . all the preaching of the Church must be nourished and ruled by sacred Scripture. For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets his children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it remains the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and perennial source of spiritual life." (17)

Over the years I have noticed that in his writings and especially in his speeches at Synods on various matters, Bishop Graham's habit has always been to examine the teaching of God's Word. Frequently he has reminded his hearers that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary for salvation; and that nothing (not even the ordination of women!) may be taught as necessary for salvation that cannot be proved by recourse to the sacred text. In his devotion to and submission to Scripture, Bishop Graham is as much a "Bible Christian" as any capital "E" evangelical you could meet!

In fact, going back to the 1980's, one of the finest papers I have in my possession arguing the case against the ordination of women to the priesthood is a presentation Bishop Graham made to the Ballarat Synod. It is characteristically long and thorough. Unlike a lot of specifically Anglo-Catholic arguments against women priests, it confines itself to Scriptural emphases - and in so doing won a great deal of support.

A few years ago Bishop Graham gave me a copy of a paper he presented to the National Church's Doctrine Commission in 1996 on the subject of women bishops. Having myself felt compelled to revisit the "headship" argument (an argument Anglo-Catholics so often made light of because of its extensive use by evangelicals) I was delighted to see that Bishop Graham's paper was a kind of extended Bible study which sought to take seriously the headship argument as found in the Scriptures, and as it applies to the difficult ecclesial questions before us as the liberals hurtle along the road towards women bishops.

But Graham Walden's devotion to the Scriptures is not just a matter of scholarship. I have often heard him encouraging lay people to read the word of God, to ponder it, to hide it in their hearts, and to be formed by it, even as his own meditation and prayer life is centred therein.

4. A convinced Catholic
I have already noted the importance of the people and places of Bishop Graham's youth in this respect. His theology is totally incarnational - and I have already mentioned this in speaking of his Christ centredness. But nobody can be with him for very long without discovering his absolute devotion to the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament or his personal love for Our Lady and the Saints - those of our brothers and sisters in Christ who surround us in that great cloud of witnesses, cheering us on, supporting us with their love and prayers as we run the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith (18) - our brothers and sisters in glory who are always part of the meeting of the Christian community for worship as we are made part even now of the heavenly Mount Zion - the innumerable companies of angels, and the spirits of the just made perfect! (19)

The apostle Paul speaks of Christians as those "upon whom the end of the ages has come." (20) And in the letter to the Hebrews, we are described as those who have (already) "tasted of the powers of the age to come." (21) Certainly, Bishop Graham has always had a dynamic sense of God's presence with us, and an openness to both ordinary and extraordinary workings of his grace. He believes in times of specific pilgrimage to shrines of Our Lady in order to seek renewal and spiritual favours. He believes that we are involved in a kind of "mopping up" operation in which Jesus' decisive victory on Calvary is applied to the lives of people like you and me, and that from time to time that may even encompass the ministry of deliverance and exorcism. Our liberal friends might smile, but, again, no less a scholar than Dr Mascall reminded Christian and non-Christian alike in his Boyle Lectures that

". . . it is part of traditional Christian belief that, behind and beyond the physical universe, there is a realm of purely spiritual beings, in whose affairs we have become implicated. I need hardly recall you to the tremendous and superb imagery in which the last book in the Bible . . . depicts the warfare in the unseen world between the angels of light and the powers of darkness." (22)

Mascall later pointed out that

"Scripture, tradition and Christian experience combine in assuring us that the struggle against evil with which Christians on earth are concerned can be seen in its true proportions only against the background of a vaster and more mysterious conflict in the unseen world in which they, too are caught up. When we are faced with the claim that Christians in a secular age ought to live as completely secularised men we can only reply that such a programme does no justice either to the true nature of this world or of existence as a whole . . . It ignores also the resources which we have at our command." (23)

At the beginning of St John's Gospel, the Lord Jesus told Nathaniel that he would see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man (24). This is a powerful image. We know that Jesus is OUR Jacob's ladder (25), and that in him heaven and earth are joined. Bishop Graham has always encouraged us by his example to live and minister under an open heaven, entirely dependent on Jesus, who "works with us, confirming the word with the signs that follow it". (26)

There is another dimension to being a true Catholic, and that is to strive passionately for the Church's visible unity - the unity for which Jesus prayed on the night before he died: "Father, may they all be one, that the world may believe." (27) Catholics take seriously the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ in the world (28); for us its disunity is a major factor undermining the proclamation of the Gospel of God's grace.

It is not surprising that Graham Walden's ministry should include a strong ecumenical aspect, for such was to be found in different ways in the ministries of those who formed him.

One of the first things that Bishop Hazlewood did when he became Bishop of Ballarat was to set up a joint Diocesan Commission with the local Roman Catholic Diocese, "to discuss matters pertaining to the advancement of Christian reunion". (29) The original joint chairmen were Graham Walden and George Pell.

Those were the heady days when even Anglicans who didn't really approve, knew that Rome and Canterbury were both serious about reunion. The Statements on the Eucharist, Ministry and Authority had been released. In the context of studying these documents, the Ballarat Committee released its own statement in 1978 calling for a reconsideration of Anglican Orders in the light of the obviously "catholic" conception of ministry and sacraments that pertains among many Anglicans. The reply from the Secretariat for Christian Unity in Rome made it clear that the whole question was now "complicated" by the ordination of women to the priesthood in some Anglican provinces. It is important to mention this because these days there is a tendency on the part of the liberals to deny that things were as close as they were at the "official" level.

The Commission went on to do some very fine work. I was privileged to succeed Bishop Graham as Anglican Chairman (and I must confess to having photocopied for my own files some of the learned papers from the Walden/Pell days!). The Commission even had some input to the International Commission, as is made clear in some of the correspondence that still exists.

Unlike some such Commissions, it was felt by the Ballarat group, under Bishop Graham's leadership, that the sharing of theological discussion at the "top" was not the only level at which our ecumenical relationships should prosper. So, in both 1982 and 1984, the Commission prepared studies for use by joint groups in parishes - an enterprise that was enormously successful in breaking down misunderstanding between ordinary Anglicans and ordinary Roman Catholics.

Dr Mascall often explored the mystery of Church as local and universal. He made sure that his students learned to read the theologians of the wider Catholic Church, both East and West, before it was all that common to do so in Anglican theological colleges. Many of the Doctor's disciples journeyed to a papalist understanding of the Church in the sense of recognising the Bishop of Rome's God-given Petrine primacy, and that no scheme of Christian reunion that fails to acknowledge this has any future. Those of Mascall's disciples, like Graham Walden, who (however subtly) followed their teacher's reasoning to its logical conclusion were a despised lot until quite recently. However, their position was comprehended in the early ARCIC documents, and then most brilliantly expressed in the latest document "The Gift of Authority." (30)

Along the way, Bishop Graham spoke to the Ballarat Synod a number of times about the Petrine Primacy, carefully distinguishing, for the sake of the sceptics, between the Primacy itself in the purpose of God, and both the manner in which it has sometimes been exercised and the trappings it has gathered to itself over the centuries. Interestingly, in recent times Pope John Paul II himself made these same distinctions most emphatically. (31))

Since coming to The Murray, Bishop Graham's ecumenical work has been in the context of his joint chairmanship of the Anglican-Lutheran conversations, and his chairmanship of our General Synod's Doctrine Commission. Given the theological traditions represented in Australian Anglicanism, one can be forgiven for regarding the latter as no less an ecumenical exercise than his engagement with the Romans or the Lutherans. Yet when I told Dr Peter Jensen of Moore College, Sydney, about tonight's lecture, and suggested he might like to give me something I could quote, he wrote these words:

"As you can imagine, the General Synod Doctrine Commission was not an easy group in which to provide leadership. In the first place, there was a completely divided bunch of people with tenaciously held views, the undying conviction that they were right, and a tendency to think that any opposition was thoroughly misguided. Secondly, no chairman in the Australian Church -and least of all Bishop Graham -could possibly fail to have his own tenaciously held views as well. How did he manage this unruly household? With tact, firmness, courtesy, humour, grace and winsomeness. He modelled rational and civilised theological discussion. I think above all I was aware that here was a man who listened, and was open to persuasion by appropriate argument. Consequently, he was a chairman who all could trust. He has my gratitude and admiration." (32)

Well, so far we have spoken of Bishop Graham as

walking humbly with God

totally centred on the Lord Jesus

a man of the Scriptures

and

a convinced Catholic

I want to finish tonight by saying that God has used Bishop Graham to remind us of the priestliness of the priesthood. In his company it is so easy to catch the sense of the sacredness of the ordained office and of the particular duties and privileges that are attached to it.

During my time as a curate at the Cathedral in Ballarat, it was not uncommon for Bishop Graham to be first in church and last out when he was rostered to offer the Mass. One of the things that the newly ordained would frequently remark on was the notebook he took with him to the altar - the book which contained the names of friends and acquaintances who were the focus of his intercessory prayer. (In fact in those early days when The Ballarat Rite was still evolving, Father Bill Edebohls and I would occasionally joke about the huge armful of books he carried to the altar. Somehow he balanced the lot of them, and even - when there was no server - juggled the little bell that he himself would ring at the Consecration in honour of the Eucharistic presence of Jesus!)

But, seriously, Bishop Graham going to the Altar to say Mass was a visible reminder to us that the Mass is not just the great Sacrifice of Jesus that unites heaven and earth in one eternal act of praise and thanksgiving, when, to use the ARCIC expression we are "caught up in the movement of our Lord's self offering" (33); nor is it just the moment when "between our sins and their reward, we set the passion of thy Son our Lord" (34); it is also the time when we share in the ministry of intercession - the priestly ministry of Jesus for us and on our behalf, for it is Jesus our great High Priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities (35) who ever lives to make intercession for us (36). We saw in Bishop Graham a priest who really believed with all his heart that at Mass the Church mysteriously enters into the intercessory ministry of Jesus, recalling the well-known words of Michael Ramsey to a group of ordinands:

". . . we find the concept of the interceding priest simpler still. When we say 'he lives to make intercession' we note that the verb which we habitually translate 'intercede' means literally not to make petitions or indeed to utter words at all but to meet, to encounter, to be with the Father; with him in the intimate response of perfect humanity; with him in the power of Calvary and Easter; with him as one who bears us all upon his heart, our Son of Man, our friend, our priest; with him as our own. That is the continuing intercession of Jesus the high priest.

"Now we can begin to see what is our own role as men of prayer, as priestly intercessors. We are called, near to Jesus and with Jesus and in Jesus, to be with God with the people on our heart." (37)

It is an enormous privilege to have been asked to deliver this tribute to Bishop Graham tonight in his presence. In conclusion, might I presume to say, Bishop Graham, on behalf of many, many people who are not here because they are scattered around this country and throughout the world, that your faithfulness to God in fulfilling the ministry to which he called you in Brisbane all those years ago has enabled us to see more clearly his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. (38) You have held before us the Catholic vision of all things in heaven and earth being reconciled by the precious blood of his cross (39), of the created order itself sharing in the glory to be revealed in us (40) - of grace perfecting, not destroying nature. You have helped us to have confidence in Scripture, "God's Word written" (41) and in godly learning. You have led us in prayer. You have helped us to try and serve each other with the humility and grace you yourself have modelled. For those of us who are ordained, you have inspired us to believe in the extraordinary sacredness of our office.

St Paul says that we have "many teachers, but not many fathers" (42). Bishop Graham, you are both to us, and we say thank you.

I am not alone in hoping that after a well-earned break, you will further enrich us in your retirement with a stream of publications on a whole range of topics.

As you and Margaret prepare for your retirement may our Blessed Lady and all the Saints enfold you in their prayers. May God's richest blessing be upon you as you discover new ways to exercise your ministry of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus and teaching the full Catholic Faith.

NOTES

1 Numerous editions of The Anglican Missal were made until the time of liturgical revision in the mid twentieth century.

2 Father Pearson was Rector of All Saints Wickham Terrace from 1947 to 1952.

3 A sermon for the All Souls' Day Solemn Requiem Mass on 2nd November, 1997.

4 I am indebted to Father Andrew Gilbert for some of this information.

5 Ballarat Church Chronicle, April 1981

6 Micah 6:8

7 Ballarat Church Chronicle, February 1989

8 Matthew 16:15

9 Richard Holloway Dust and Glory, a lecture published by the Church Union in the proceedings of the 1978 Catholic Renewal Conference at Loughborough, U.K.

10 See Romans 8:18-23

11 E.M. Mascall Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?, an essay in If Christ be Not Risen . . . published by S. Mary's Bourne St, London, 1986, p. 65

12 Contra Arianos i:42

13 ibid ii.70

14 De Incarnatione 54

15 Colossians 14:27-29

16 Dei Verbum 25

17 ibid 21

18 Hebrews 12:1-2

19 Hebrews 12:22-24

20 1 Corinthians 10:11

21 Hebrews 6:5

22 E.M. Mascall The Christian Universe Darton, Longman & Todd, London 1966, p. 110

23 ibid, p. 129

24 John 1:51

25 Cf Genesis 28:12

26 Mark 16:20

27 John 17:20-23

28 1 Corinthians 12:12-13

29 A copy of Bishop Hazlewood's letter is in my posession.

30 The Gift of Authority, published by ARCIC II, April 1999

31 In the document Ut Unum Sint, 1995

32 Private correspondence

33 ARCIC 1971 The Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine, paragraph 5

34 William Bright's hymn "And now, O Father, mindful of the love" (E.H. 302)

35 Hebrews 4:15

36 Hebrews 7:25

37 Michael Ramsey The Christian Priest Today, SPCK London 1972 pp 13-14

38 2 Corinthians 4:6

39 Colossians 1:19-20

40 Romans 8:18-25

41 Article 20

42 1 Corinthians 4:15