A Sermon

Extract

Preached at Blackfriars, Cambridge, on Sunday, 9 February, three days after Kenelm Foster’s death, to a congregation that knew him well. The readings for that Sunday were: Isaiah 6:1—8 (the call of Isaiah); l Corinthians 15:1—11 (Paul’s testimony of Christ’s death for our sins’ and resurrection); and Luke 5:1-11 (the call of the first disciples).

Kenelm would have been delighted at finding this Pauline reading, if he had been preaching today. He loved St Paul. He was his clear-favourite New Testament writer. Paul, who often spoke in the First person. Paul, who was like a boxer, and not in vain. Paul, who was always arguing, full of polemic and self-polemic. Paul, who could chart in his experience, even on his own body, the workings of grace, of grappling with the Saviour. Paul, who wrestled with meaning. We can even imagine Paul to be like his thought—tough, full of wiry strength. Kenelm had been a boxer at Downside and always kept some of the instincts and reactions of a boxer. Kenelm, who always asked awkward questions, even as a Dominican student; so he was banished to a parish as a kind of punishment, he who was so obviously clever. (But questions were not encouraged by all in the Study House in those days.) Kenelm on his death-bed, listening to a fellow-friar reading to him Hopkins’s poems—but not just listening, arguing about the meaning; getting impatient. Tenacious, dogged in style. You will never understand Kenelm properly unless you read some of his writings.