Address preached on the occasion of the dedication of All Hallows Window at Kendal Parish Church

  May the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world illuminate our minds and warm our hearts.

When the sun rises behind the Howgills its rays reach out across the valley to touch the tips of the Serpentine Woods. The light then comes down the fellside and until quite recently it illuminated the east window of All Hallows. Whilst the rest of Kendal was still in shadow the window was suffused with colour and the church was filled with light.

I am reminded of when I was a young priest in Lincoln. It was a real pea-souper of a fog and I was groping my way across the cathedral close to the great west wall. I opened the door and entered, and to my surprise, the whole building was filled with sunshine which was pouring in through the windows above the fog. The sun had been shining all the time. It was just that I hadn’t seen it.

So it is with the infinite mystery of the divine light – the light that shines in the darkness and which the darkness cannot overcome. We cannot gaze upon it or even conceive its source, but it permeates everything that is.

How can we perceive this light? George Herbert, the seventeenth century poet and country priest, suggests that that it is through windows, and that furthermore, we are the windows. Herbert’s poem specifically refers to the preacher but it applies to us all.

Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
He is a crazy brittle glass;
Yet in thy Temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.

Jesus is perhaps the human window through which we most perceive the divine. We call him the Dawn, the Dayspring from on high, the Light of the World. But there are many others. Some we call saints and they are portrayed with a halo of light. There are many others, and one such window was John Cooper who in the nineteenth century was for some fifteen years Dean of Trinity College Cambridge.

Here he met with the good and the great throughout the land and he taught their sons. At the same time he was also Vicar of St. Andrew’s Church in the town and here he taught the children and cared for the poor. He even built some cottages at his own expense which he let out at reasonable rents. Each dwelling had a garden, for Cooper said that it was good for a man at the end of the day to have a place where he could sit and smoke his pipe.

When the living of Kendal Parish Church became vacant in 1858 it was offered first to Cooper as senior fellow, and he felt that it was a call from God. In Kendal he again showed his concern for the poor. Ladies of the parish were organised to visit, especially on the Fellside where there was great poverty, poor housing and even worse sanitation. They took food, medicines, clothing, and their church tracts. But there was no way that the fellsiders could worship at Kendal Parish Church. They would have to pass the ladies and gentlemen in all their finery stepping down from their carriages and going to their own private pews. The poor had some seats reserved for them at the front of the nave. John Cooper understood this and so with the help of some generous friends All Hallows Church was built where all seats were free. The posters to advertise the opening of the church proclaimed :-

The inspiration for the stained glass window was not Christ in Judgment, or Christ Crucified, but Christ the Light of the World. See the warm hues of his dress and the great circle of light surrounding him. At the top of the window can be seen representations of the sun and the moon, the old gods of light whom Christ had superceded.

The church prospered and it soon had its own priest-in-charge, morning and evening services, a choir, and in due course a football team and dramatic society.

When I arrived in 1971 the poverty had long gone and the housing rebuilt or renovated. There was a flouring congregation who came from all over the town and beyond. They were like sheep hefting on the fellside, always coming back to the place where they were born.

The Book of Common Prayer was the accepted order of service but I wondered if they would like to try one of the new experimental services which were in use at the Family Communion. One Sunday I took up copies of Series 3 and this was met with less than enthusiasm. My daughter Sarah was the organist at the time and when she came home she was very cross with me. Dad, it’s not fair to treat All Hallows as second class citizens. they want the proper service. So without more ado, the proper service is what they had for the rest of my nineteen years

Well we have to listen to our daughters, and so when the time came that our daughter church decided that it was time to return home, she was welcomed with open arms. She brought many gifts with her including the splendid east window which now takes its place amongst all the others.

Together, the windows tell the Christian story, and one thing that they all have in common is that they have been annealed. When colour has been applied to the glass it is placed in the furnace so that colour and glass become as one. Without this annealing process the colours and their story would but be waterish, bleak and thin and eventually fade away.

And so with us, the windows through whom the divine goodness can shine, our faith and life need to become one.

It may well take a life-time of worship and prayer, reading and meditation; making mistakes and new beginnings; facing up to doubts and coming to a new understanding; learning to love and to serve one another. There will be times of suffering and all this is part of the annealing fire which by the grace of God will unify the Christian story with our lives.

George Herbert takes the preacher for an example but his poem applies to us all.

  As the sun rises each morning and disperses the shadows of the night, so may the divine light
  pierce the darkness of this world, illuminate our minds and warm our hearts.

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