Friday, 25 March 2016

Hove’s Ecumenical Walk of Witness 2016

The annual ‘Walk of Witness’ was rather different this year.

 For a start, the weather was glorious with bright blue skies, nary a cloud in sight, with tropical – well for Hove - temperatures of 16 degrees Celsius (61 F). Not bad for the tail end of March and a lot better than last year’s cool and wet walk (see last year's Walk).

Walker numbers were up too; in 2014, I counted 150 walkers, last year 164 set off, and this year there was an increase to 182 (although that had fallen to 165 by the end of the walk). Part of the reason for the increase was the participation of the Chemin Neuf Community (a Roman Catholic ecumenical community founded in France 43 years ago).

The number of stops (‘Stations of the Cross’) was also reduced from seven to four. Instead of stopping outside several of the participating churches, as last year, the stops this year were at what may be loosely called ‘landmarks,’ ending as usual at St Andrew’s Church.

Finally, we walked a few hundred yards more this year as the procession started from the north side of Brunswick Square, rather than from the traditional start outside St John the Baptist’s Church.

 
The First Station - Jesus is Condemned to Death – was at the top of Brunswick Square, which is famed for its stunning Regency architecture. As the photo shows, there are renovations underway and quite a lot of scaffolding in the area.

After the reading and reflection we sang ‘Crown him with Many Crowns’ a composition by the prolific Victorian composer Matthew Bridges, written three years after he became a Roman Catholic as a result of the influence of John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement.

 
Then we formed a straggling crocodile and, following the cross-bearer, we strolled for a few hundred yards along the pavement beside busy Western Road until we came to Palmeira Square, best known for its floral clock built in 1953 to commemorate the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

 
At this Second Station – Simon of Cyrene helps to carry the cross – we listened to the Gospel and a meditation and then sang (those of us that knew the tune!) the seventeenth-century hymn ‘My Song is Love Unknown.’ Among the 182 walkers was a dog that attempted its own version of the hymn but was dragged away by his unimpressed owner.

 
Then it was on to Hove Town Hall – and more scaffolding. By now a few of the elderly walkers had retired and the line of walkers itself stretched for more than 100 yards. Fr Kevin read the Gospel and gave a short reflection for the Third Station – Jesus speaks to his mother. Then we launched into one of my favourite hymns ‘Were You There when they Crucified my Lord?’ It was probably composed by African-American slaves in the 19th century, likely before the American Civil War. The lyrics are simple, moving and beautiful while the tune has a call-and-response structure and the pained ‘Oh’ that begins the third line is sometimes sung with such a hold and slur that it sends goose-bumps down my spine. Brrrr!

 
Finally, the home stretch, past the pavement cafes, past the gawping shoppers of George Street, the procession made its way to the Anglican Church of St Andrew, beside the busy Church Road. The church is of a striking Norman-influenced design and is surrounded by a lovely old churchyard, replete with impressive gravestones and memorials. It is the final resting place of many prominent Hove families as well as Sir George Everest, who gave his name to the world’s highest mountain, and George Westphal, the last surviving officer to serve on Nelson’s flagship, the Victory, at Trafalgar.

 
And in this fittingly serene and weighty space we prayed the Fourth Station – Jesus dies on the Cross. After the meditation we sang another favourite, Isaac Watts’ timeless classic ‘When I survey the Wondrous Cross,’ still going strong after more than 300 years. They say that Isaac Watts was a sickly and unattractive child - but he was also something of a genius, studying Latin from age four, Greek at age nine, French from 11 and Hebrew from 13. He also had great skill at rhyming and – despite his father trying to thrash ‘this rhyming nonsense’ out of him, he went on to write more than 600 hymns.



For all of us, particularly the wilting elderly and the waning youngsters, it was time for refreshments in St Andrew’s Hall.

(A belated apology to some of my friends if I ignored you today: if you saw me behaving strangely, muttering to myself, I was just trying to count the number of genuine walkers. It’s not easy, you have to discount the ‘fellow travellers’ who walk alongside; in the end I restricted the numbers to those who carried the hymn sheet and their companions.)    

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