St Catherine of Siena 2026
1 Peter 2.2-10
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
When the bell that hangs in our tower was struck, the year—so its inscription tells us—was 1448. St Catherine of Siena had been dead sixty-eight years; but she was only beatified in December 1460 and canonised in June 1461; that is, thirteen years after the bell. Therefore when one Roger Landen of Wokingham carved the words “Sancte Caterina, ora pro nobis” on the bell, he could not have had our Catherine of Siena in mind. In all likelihood, it was St Catherine of Alexandria from whom he was requesting intercessions. And he would not have been alone: her popularity had surged in the 15th century—by its end, there were nearly 70 churches named for her, and 170 bells including her name. By contrast, we are one of only three Anglican churches named for Catherine of Siena, and the only medieval one; there are a handful of Roman Catholic ones, but all are modern. Both in terms of chronology and on the balance of probabilities, my esteemed predecessor-plus-one—for whose health we continue to pray—simply got it wrong; whether deliberately or by accident, I do not know.
I bring this up today, in part because it is among the most amusing facts about this place, that our saintly dedication was given under false pretences—and also because, some months ago, a resident of Heyshott came to us bearing a gift of a reproduction of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s oil painting of St John the Baptist as a Boy, the 17th century original of which hangs in the Prado Museum in Madrid. Our older bell—dated 1420—has on it the name of St John, without specifying which. However, in the late 13th century, there was in this village a three-day-long festival around the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist, August 29th: perhaps this indicates a special connexion between the Baptist and this parish, which might be a clue as to the identity of our bell’s St John, and even the more appropriate patron, no offence intended to Catherine. In any case, that painting now hangs above the font, next to the crucifix, both on iron bolts that used to bear a tapestry of the crucifixion, now lost to us.
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This all reminds me how much I’m going to miss this place, where I have prayed almost every day for the past five years, and where I have, on occasion, given little tours, during which I gave a spiel not unlike that one. Visitors who have had the misfortune of bumping into the parish priest when all they wanted was some peace and quiet have been subjected to my half-remembered factoids from David Earley’s much more rigorous booklet. The arch is always mentioned; as is the debate over the age of the font; as are those bells; and also the various exuberances of our Victorian forebears.
They surely have left their mark here. The whole north aisle and its organ, and the vestry behind it; the elevated east window, the brutal cast iron impaled into the medieval stone; the restoration of images destroyed by iconoclasts; and much more besides. And equally surely, among the marks left by my predecessor’s-predecessor Fr Colin is the bequest of our name, our association with Catherine: and it is an association for which we should give thanks, not least as it so easily would not have been made at all.
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There is one fact about St Catherine, which in its historical context, is really not so remarkable, but that I nevertheless want us to focus on this morning: and it is that she was a layperson. Now, I don’t know whether she had a vocation to ordained ministry that was thwarted by her historical circumstances, the medieval Church sadly not having yet discovered women’s ordination. Probably, nowadays, we’d have tried to persuade her to discern such a vocation, and that’s all well and good, of course; but the fact remains that she was a layperson.
God knows what else she may have achieved had she gained entry into the echelons of medieval ecclesiastical hierarchy. But as it was, she is one of only four laypeople among the thirty-eight Doctors of the Church, recognised for their significant theological contributions. All four are, like her, women. Furthermore, alongside Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio, Catherine and her prodigious epistolary output are increasingly considered a crowning achievement of Italian literature. In her life and letters, she influenced popes and princes; and continues to inspire the Church, not least in her call for reform and renewal, not least of the clergy, whom she held to a rigorous standard.
Catherine never made the mistake of thinking that ordained clergy ran the Church for the sake of laypeople like her. She knew that the true priesthood is the royal priesthood of the Church as a whole, of which she was no less a full member than the Pope himself. She is absolutely of this chosen race, this holy nation, God’s own people, called out of darkness into light to bring that same light to the dark regions of the world.
As are we all, of course; me and most certainly you too. Priest or no priest here, you are the Body of Christ, who live and work for the sake and salvation of the world. Through the various challenges of a vacancy, and I’m sure there will be some: do not forget who and what you are, and what you can achieve for Christ’s sake. The mission of the Church—the mission of this church, these churches—has not changed, will not change. You are to continue to love the people whom God has especially given you to love, these parishioners who may have little in common with you or each other, except that they happen to live here in this parish of St Catherine’s patronage. You are God’s gift to them, to all of them: you are to pray for them, to comfort them in their suffering, to work for and fight on their behalf whenever the need arises. And having seen it up close for five years, these are all things I know you do well.
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Though my prayers will continue to go with you, I shall miss seeing you carry on the mission of God in this place from up close. I hope to hear, then, from time to time, the good news that comes from here, of how you continue to make Cocking and West Lavington more and more truly God’s kingdom under the Downs.
Sancte Caterina, ora pro nobis.
Sancte Johannis, ora pro nobis.
Sancta Maria Magdalena, ora pro nobis.
Omnes Sancti et Sanctae Dei, intercedite pro nobis.