Pilgrimage to Iona, 2007
Clive Bratt, October 2007
On Thursday 22 March this year I arrived at Ushaw College a huge R.C. seminary on the outskirts of Durham. There I met our leader Father Tim Bugby and the other nine pilgrims. The next morning we
travelled westward across the Pennines to Galloway for our first stop at Ruthwell Church on the north bank of the Solway Firth, south of Dumfries, After lunch we set off for Glasgow and then going up the length of Loch Lomond in glorious sunshine before turning west through the mountains to our destination for the night at a hotel on the esplanade at Oban.
We were greeted on Saturday morning by a blue sky and sunshine and this was to be the weather for the next four days. Ahead of us was a ferry taking us to Mull an hour and a half coach ride and then our first view of Iona, an island about three miles long and a mile wide surrounded by a deep blue sea. Our stay was at Bishop’s House, a retreat house built by the Episcopal Bishop of Argyll at the beginning of the 20th century. It stood on the eastern shore of the island looking over the Sound of Mull towards the mountains of Mull and it had a chapel seating about 40 people. With its pink granite abbey and a history of continuous Christian worship on the island for 1500 years, there was a feeling of great peace. To add to that mobile phones and FM radios do not work and there are very few cars on the island.
Father Tim’s sermons at the Eucharist were on our relationship to Jesus Christ being based on St John’s Gospel Chapter 1 vvs 35 -39. He also quoted a great deal of poetry, some pieces from T.S. Eliot’s Little Giddings remain in my mind and also some lovely Gaelic verse and I got a photocopy of one poem. We were blessed with such good weather it was difficult to imagine Iona surrounded by the angry sea but such is more often the case.
The Brave Sun
Each night the brave sun Lies down in the angry sea As the black waves bury him He flings over his head a comforter of crimson glory Pulls it tight and slumbers safely in the depths.
Each morning he rises Shakes off his orange-red bedclothes and Marches on the waves like a king Unwounded and triumphant.
The subject of the lectures we had was the significance of Iona first to the Celtic Church and then in the 20th century the development of the Iona community by the Rev George Macleod .
St. Columba was a monk who fell out with the Church in his native Ireland and in 563 with twelve trusted followers he sailed to Scotland. When he landed at Iona he climbed a hill, could not see Ireland, and so decided that to build his monastery there. At the time Scotland was inhabited by pagan Picts. Once he had established his community Columba visited the King of the northern Picts in Inverness and converted him to the faith. In the next thirty years following several missionary journeys the Celtic Church
Iona Abbey
was well established throughout Scotland. St.Columba died in 598, two years before St Augustine arrived in Canterbury to establish the Church in England
Now we come to George Macleod who in the 20th century played such a large part in the history of this holy island. He was brought up in a family which was rich and powerful in the Church of Scotland; five of his forbears had been Moderators. He was educated at Winchester School and Oriel College, Oxford from there joining the army at the outbreak of war in 1914. After the war he went into the Church of Scotland and became a minister in St.Cuthbert`s, Edinburgh a prodigious appointment in a very fashionable part of the town. He was a charismatic preacher and the church was frequently packed. He was clearly marked out for high office. However he got more and more concerned during the Depression in the 20`s, for the quality of life of the poor, who were poorly clad and with many starving to death, and that the church was doing nothing for them. He felt this was not the land fit for the heroes of war who had experienced the comradeship of the trenches.
He was invited to become minister of Old Govan Church in the slums of Glasgow and when he accepted, his friends and family were horrified. In the rundown church of Govan he breathed new life. He set up a series of local reforms including a major project mobilising the unemployed. George spent a great deal of his holidays on Iona and was appalled by the sight of the ruined abbey and conceived the idea of a band of young ministers and a similar group of young artisans, together with a band of unemployed labourers working as a community to restore the Abbey and the completely demolished monastic buildings.
He decided that he did not want sponsorship from the church as the whole thing would be lost in committees and church protocol. In 1938 the Iona Community was born. In 1958 despite the war years, the job was largely complete. The money came from those who came and saw this resurrection of a ruin and from many tours by George to churches in Canada, America, Australia and New Zealand. In the 1950`s on radio and later in the 1960`s on T.V., there were frequent broadcast services from the restored Abbey and George’s charismatic sermons were heard by a far wider audience
In 1988 the community celebrated its golden Jubilee. In the year 2000 it had 240 members working throughout Britain both lay and ordained of different denominations and backgrounds. They are supported by 1500 associate members and the same number of Friends of the Community. Members are committed to a rule of daily devotional discipline, sharing and accounting for use of time and money, to work for peace and social justice and to return to Iona once a year.
George Macleod died on 27 June 1991 at the age of 96. How much in this secular age with society close to anarchy do we need visionaries such as St. Columba and George Macleod?
