BELFAST RB BOOKLET 2020 - Flipbook - Page 71
Ci t y of Belf ast Grand Bl ack Chapt er - Dem onst rat i on Bookl et 2020
School before finally graduating
made his way to France as an
from Trinity in 1904.
Army chaplain. It was a position in
Although a clever person, he was
which, and without any conscious
never academic but eventually in
intention, Studdert Kennedy would
1907, he did enter Ripon Clergy
be transformed from a vicar in one
College, studying there for just nine
of the poorest parishes in the land,
months before his ordination in
to a figure recognised throughout
Worcester Cathedral during the
the nation: and one who could
summer of the following year.
attract thousands to listen to his
Worcester would soon become his
inspired words, and whose books
spiritual as well as his family home,
of poetry sold out just as soon as
although initially he did serve his curacy in they were published.
Rugby.
Although he soon grew to hate the war,
It was in Rugby that his powerful ministry he never lost his belief in the quality of
to the poorest in society was nurtured courage, amply displayed in his own
when he was placed in charge of a mission experiences. He was awarded the Military
to some of the worst slums in the town, Cross for acts of conspicuous gallantry at
where his forgetfulness, eccentricities and the attack on Messines Ridge.
complete lack of self-awareness or selfThe war became the context in which his
importance marked his whole life and long-held concern about the problem of
ministry.
suffering took on a new significance and like
Shortly after his father’s death in 1914, and many other sensitive minds in that conflict, he
a few months before the declaration of war, chose poetry as a way of grappling with it all,
Reverend Kennedy married a local girl and with his dialect poems focusing on what really
accepted the slum parish of Saint Paul’s in the gripped the imagination of the common
Blockhouse, at Worcester.
soldiers and their loved ones back home. In a
This desperately poor area was to be his style akin to Kipling, yet with a power and
spiritual home for the rest of his life. Here his authenticity impossible to compare to anything
ministry was woven together with his else, Studdert Kennedy explored the problem
theological understanding of suffering of suffering through the simple yet profound
humanity and a suffering God, which was to thoughts of ordinary soldiers.
occupy him throughout his life.
Studdert Kennedy gave to the simple
At that time, he was a strong supporter of soldier the dignity of straining and groping
the war and of the campaign to persuade towards recognition of God’s place in the
able-bodied men to join up in the service of midst of suffering. It was powerful stuff,
his country, whereby he wrote in the parish which got to the heart of what the gospel
magazine that there ought to be no had to say at a time when the Church,
shirking on that duty, although over time, along with other national institutions, was
his view was transformed into a
experiencing a near crisis of
trenchant rejection of war and the
credibility.
barbarity and waste of that
By the time the war ended in
particular conflict.
March 1919, Studdert Kennedy had
None the less, he yearned to
finally returned to Worcester, and by
serve, just as he had urged others to
that time his volume of poetry,
do and finally, late in 1915 he was
Rough Rhymes had made him a
allowed to leave the parish and
national figure. He also had an
IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN - 69 - AND THE FUTURE OF THE LIVING