At the end of the 1980s I returned from a year in Nice and took up a place at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield. I began preparation for ordination in the Church of England. Growth in holiness, growth in wisdom and growth in pastoral effectiveness were the three pillars, as it were, of our formation. Key to all of this was the Principal, Denys Lloyd, himself a member of the Community of the Resurrection, the largest community of religious men in Anglicanism. The community and college history and ethos and the strong sense of common life was imbued by us all. In 1990 Denys left Mirfield and was received into the Catholic Church, he was eventually ordained a priest for the diocese of East Anglia. This made a great impact on us all. From my Mirfield year alone five of us have become Catholic priests.
Last night Fr Denys came to celebrate Mass and stayed to dinner. It was a great joy to see him and talk over old times with a great deal of humour and perhaps some important insights. I didn't relate this story to the people at Mass, the liturgy is not for that, and anyway, what is important is that Denys and I are now Catholic priests.
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