ABIDING IN SOLITUDE

In the late summer of 1975 Bill Kirkpatrick, later known as Br Aelred William N/SSF and then Fr Bill, began to test his vocation as a Franciscan at Hilfield Friary in Dorset, at that time the initial formation House of the Anglican Society of St Francis.  He had been born in Canada where, at the age of 18, he had worked with Fr Aelred Carlyle who had become Chaplain to the Nursing Home his mother ran. That Aelred had founded, in about 1895, the first Benedictine community for men in the Church of England and became Abbot of Caldey Island where they finally settled. But by the time they met Aelred had been released from his vows. Bill was a qualified nurse and, after ordination, had become Coordinator of the homeless charity, Centrepoint in Soho. At his novicing in 1976 Bill took the name of Aelred William – ‘Aelred’ after the great 12th c. Cistercian saint of Rievaulx whose classic work, On Spiritual Friendship, greatly appealed to him (and, possibly, connected him to Aelred Carlyle) whilst ‘William’ was not only his baptismal name but also the name of the founder of Glasshampton monastery (Fr. William Sirr SDC d.1937 – a contemplative whose life and spirituality many saw resembled that of St Charles de Foucauld. St Charles had inspired the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus whose charism would also influence Bill).  But he wasn’t destined for the Religious Life and, in 1978 left the Franciscans, settling in a small flat in Earls Court where he became an Honorary As­­sist­ant Curate at St Cuthbert’s, Phil­beach Gardens. From his flat he founded the ministry known as ‘Reaching Out’, a ‘hearing-through-listening’ service freely available to all. Bill described this as ‘a small cell of contemplative action within the Earls Court area … allowing for a ministry of sharing from within the sacredness of each other’s vulnerabilities and strengths where there is no ‘them’ and ‘us’. This ministry led to a vital yet to a large extent hidden ministry to the LGBT community in Earls Court, a ministry which helped shape his vocation and had its most profound effect when AIDS emerged in the 1980’s. Bill’s was a life of “being there” informed by Divine Compassion. 

In his book The Creativity of Listening Bill writes of the way he spent a month in 1975 with the RC Franciscans at San Damiano in Assisi and met, during the last two weeks of his stay, Raymond Lloyd.  ‘Raymond’s charismatic enthusiasm was infectious’ he wrote, ‘We laughed, sang, ran up and down hills and spent much time in prayer in the various chapels within the cathedral and  elsewhere in the area.’ In the same year that Bill left the Franciscans Raymond, another former nurse, would also go to test his vocation to the Franciscans. This description of the brief meeting of two souls who shared so much in common seems to illustrate a Principal of Franciscan life:

‘… the brothers and sisters, rejoicing in the Lord always (Phil 4.4) must show forth in their lives the grace and beauty of divine joy. They must remember that they follow the Son of Man, who came eating and drinking (Luke 7.34), who loved the birds and the flowers, who blessed little children, who was a friend of tax collectors and sinners (cf Mark 10.16), who sat at the tables alike of the rich and the poor. They will, therefore, put aside all gloom and moroseness, all undue aloofness from the common interests of people and delight in laughter and good fellowship. They will rejoice in God’s world and all its beauty and its living creatures, calling (nothing) profane or unclean. (Acts 10.28)

They will mingle freely with all kinds of people, seeking to banish sorrow and to bring good cheer into other lives. They will carry with them an inner secret of happiness and peace which all will feel, if they may not know its source.’ (Day 28)

They were not to meet again.

Raymond had grown up in the Welsh non-conformist tradition and had had a conversion experience when he was seven. He took part in many evangelistic missions and his utter love for Christ and the gospel drew him to pacifism. Later he became a Baptist pastor before being ordained as an Anglican priest before testing his vocation to the Franciscans. In 1979 Raymond was made a novice of the Society and took the name Ramon after the great 13th century Spanish Franciscan, Ramon Lull (or Llull). Lull had entered the Third Order of St Francis in 1263 shortly after a series of visions. Apart from probably writing the first major piece of literature in Catalan he also wrote mystical poetry and his greatest work was probably his ‘Book of the Lover and the Beloved’:

"Tell me, lover," said the beloved, "will you still be patient if I double your suffering?" "Yes, as long as you also double my love."

"If ye will have fire," the Lover cried, "O ye that love, come light your lanterns at my heart." This aphorism would have appealed to Ramon whose heart burned with a powerful love for God.

            I feel privileged to have known both men who, to me, mirror souls whose love of God is so powerful – or, perhaps I should say whose awareness of God’s love for them was so powerful – that it led each to a form of the solitary life. Not that either lived apart from others – Bill had his hermitage beneath a pavement in Earls Court Road in south west London where he would spend a significant period of time each morning in silent prayer, whilst most nights would be spent talking to people on the streets and bars of Earls Court. Ramon, on the other hand, never left the Franciscans but was permitted to spend long periods of time in a variety of hermitages in Dorset, North Wales and, finally, Glasshampton in Worcestershire. Yet what both experienced was the lure, the draw – the call – of silent, solitary contemplative prayer. Of that call Ramon wrote: ‘One of the most precious experiences of the time was to descend into the depths beyond my own individuality into a profound corporate sense of our common humanity with its pains and joys, and to find that the divine Love is in and through all, and will ultimately be manifested as ‘all in all.’ (Br. Ramon SSF, A Hidden Fire, Marshall Pickering, p.57). Bill, on the other hand, wrote profusely about the importance of listening in depth – of ‘being there’ for people and of the value of ‘co-creativity’.  That 'co-creativity' can only occur when the call of 'deep unto deep' is heard (Ps.42.7). As someone said: 'their disposition to allow God to pull them into their depths, in the grittiness of life without removing them from it, empowers them to be evermore immersed in human reality. Going beyond/below themselves and into that place where the Divine resides within, propels them into that fullness of life which exudes love, compassion and friendship to all.' (1)

            Bill and Ramon both found in Mother Mary Clare SLG ² a woman whose wisdom they valued and who helped to guide them forward in their eremitical ways. (*Mother Mary Clare had written about solitude and prayer (Encountering the Depths, SLG Press, 1993). 

            They were also informed by the writings of people such as Thomas Merton; Bill had a paper published by the Thomas Merton Society, A Contemplative in the City’ (date unknown) in which he says: As I pray within and before the mystery of God for the world and for all God’s people, I can identify with Thomas Merton when he writes, ‘I am talking about a special dimension of inner discipline and experience, a certain integrity and fullness of personal development which are not compatible with action, with creative work, with dedicated love. On the contrary, all these go together’³.  Merton’s influence on Ramon can be explored in his book Soul Friends – a Journey with Thomas Merton. ⁴
            Both also wrote a series of books which in different ways concern this ‘listening to the Other’ and which continue to speak to people. And whilst both had their own, small physical hermitages it is clear that it was the ‘cell of the heart’ that mattered to them –that place deep within them where they encountered the One they sought. It was also their struggle with solitude and prayer which truly united them in that inner place.

Ramon died in June 2000 and Bill in January 2018 although his ministry had been curtailed in 2007 after a serious breakdown.

            People like Bill and Ramon do not often appear in the life of the Church but those three decades, from 1978 to 2007, they shone for a brief time like stars in the firmament and, if the Church of England had a process for recognising saints, would be clear candidates. We poorer for their passing but enriched through their lives.

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¹  JMO’B

² Mother Mary Clare SLG:

'Our life proves the reality of our prayer, and prayer which is the fruit of true conversion is an activity, an adventure - and sometimes a dangerous one - because it brings neither peace nor comfort, but always challenge, conflict and new responsibility.  We must try to understand the meaning of the age in which we are called to bear witness. We must accept the fact that this is an age in which the cloth is being unwoven. It is therefore no good trying to patch. We must, rather, set up the loom on which coming generations may weave new cloth according to the pattern God provides. We must learn to wait upon the Spirit of God. As he moves us, we are led into deeper purgation, drawn to greater self-sacrifice, and we come to know in the end the stillness, the awful stillness, in which we see the world from the height of Calvary.’ 

³  Merton, T. 1971, Contemplation in a World of Action, London, George Allen and Unwin.

⁴  Br Ramon SSF, Soul Friends – a Journey with Thomas Merton, Marshall Pickering, 1989