‘Signo te signo crucis, et confirmo te chrismate salutis’ – nine words, and it was done: the seal of the Holy Spirit, given to me in the sacrament of Confirmation to strengthen me for the journey ahead; and the seal too on a journey concluding, one which began some forty years ago, and which has encompassed thirty-five years of ministry in the Church of England and nearly two decades of teaching in Oxford.
I was brought up in the habits of a Low-Church Anglicanism that hardly exists now: the last generation to know the Book of Common Prayer as the normal liturgy of the English parish church. It was liturgical without ceremonial, sacramental but Protestant, with earnest and lengthy preaching. Bible reading and a daily examination of conscience were at the heart of personal piety. I am still very grateful for it.
