Tuesday in Holy Week (Part 1)

Some time ago I discovered that the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture held a regular Holy Communion service on Tuesday mornings at 8:00 am in the Prayer Room. It was a bit tricky organising myself to be there on time especially as it is the same morning on which the Grumpy Old Men meet in a café close by. But I made it nicely on time despite the difficulty of the sun and the traffic.

This was the first time that I had seen the Prayer Room. It is a wonderful small space at the front of the ACCC Chapel just perfect for this service. I have not had a great deal of association with the ACCC in recent times but it is on the same site as St Mark's National Theological Centre and Library with which I have great associations going back over many years. When I started working in Canberra in 1969 I was in the Department of Immigration which was housed in one of the old wool shed buildings in Barton. St Mark's was right next door. In those days it was just the Library and it was wonderful. I remember, one day at that time it was wet and cold so at lunch time I wandered into the library. The then Librarian, the late Stan Davies had rigged up an amazing sound system around the building and that day he was blasting Handel through the system. It wasn't quite your ordinary Library but it was great.

I considered doing a ThL through St Mark's back then but life was pretty busy and I was fiddling around with  other study ideas anyway. On our return from England in 1982 I enrolled in a BD from Melbourne College of Divinity. So for the next 6 years I spent every moment I could either at St Mark's or Chifley Library at ANU which also had an outstanding collection of theological journals and books.

The ACCC Chapel was built on the site that was originally allocated for a National Cathedral along the lines of the Washington National Cathedral. That is a great building both on the outside:

And on the inside:

However, this was never going to be possible in the Australian Anglican context for lots of reasons so eventually an ecumenical centre for engagement with the community was devised and the Chapel where this service was held is central.

The service was a simple reflective Eucharist in the company of 4 others all of them long-time friends. It was just what I needed to start the day.