Canon Christopher Hall

We are grateful to Christopher Hall for coming to St Peter's to be our preacher recently. He is pictured here with his wife, Vivienne, next to the Li Tim Oi Foundation banner. The text of his sermon is printed below.

Sermon preached at St Peter's, September 2007

Thank you for your welcome. I believe I may have worshipped here before - in the loins of my ancestor. Thomas Hall was my gt10 grandfather, in the reign of Henry VIII. On our family pedigree he is described as of Ipswich and of Coggeshall, and also as Clerk of the Hamper. That was an office in the Exchequer. I just wonder if he acquired land here during the dissolution of the monasteries. I’ve now discovered that John Owen was Vicar here in 1646; his niece was my Gt6 grandmother!

Henry VIII was given the title ‘Defender of the Faith’ by the Pope. (That’s why we have F D on our coinage.) In 1944 many regarded my father as a Betrayer of the Faith. He broke with Catholic tradition by ordaining Florence Li Tim-Oi as a Priest in the Church of God, so the Church Times called him ‘Bishop in Insurrection’. Why did he do it? Tim-Oi was a Deacon in charge of the Anglican congregation in Macau, the Portuguese colony which was neutral during the war. No priest could get there. So that the congregation should receive the sacraments, Tim-Oi was given a Licence to preside at the Eucharist. That smacked of Lay Presidency - still a definite No-No for High Churchmen. My father had grown up in a Tractarian vicarage. But God had given Tim-Oi the gifts of priesthood, so on St Paul’s Day 1944 my father made her a priest in the Church of God. He nearly renamed her Cornelia, because, as when Peter baptised the first gentile Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, my father was only confirming what God had already done. 

Li Tim-Oi was a remarkable woman. She had chosen to serve God for the rest of her life, but discipleship for her meant, as Jesus promised, carrying her own cross. First, after the War, an episcopal vigilante, what I call a ‘Purple Guard’, persuaded her to surrender her priest’s licence. She did, but not her Priest’s Orders which are indelible. Then Mao took over China where she was in charge of another parish. For the next 30 years she could not endanger her fellow Christians by associating with them. I asked her “How then did you worship?” “I just went up the mountain to pray; nobody knew.” Brain-washing led her close to suicide. God said to her: “Are you - a priest - going to take your own life?” She chose life rather than death, but it was life with adversity. The Red Guards made her cut up her vestments. When at last she was able to join her family in Toronto, she resumed her priestly ministry - a ministry of loving service. The Primate of Canada, Ted Scott, came to know her. He told a TV audience: “She was never bitter, never harboured any resentment against those who caused her suffering. She had the resources to forgive all that had been done to her.” There was not an ounce of bitterness in her for all that she had suffered from the Red and Purple Guards. 

Tim-Oi proved the truth of what the Bishop of London said in the Guards Chapel ten days ago: “The mystery is this, the more you go beyond yourself, the more you will become your true self. The more you lose yourself in loving and serving others, the more you will find yourself. The more you keep company with those who suffer the more you will be healed. This is the knowledge which passes all understanding. This is certain and has been proved experimentally in the life of the saints.” 

Tim-Oi made no claim to be a saint; she didn’t want to be famous. She said “Iam just an earthen vessel with God’s treasure inside me.” Now she is included in the Calendar of Celebrations in the Anglican church in Canada and in the States. There is an icon of her in St Martin-in-the-Fields. This year is the Centenary of her Birth. Surrounded by the portraits of archbishops we celebrated her centenary in Lambeth Palace, the place where in 1948 my father was carpeted by his brother bishops. Did we hear Laughter in Paradise? After Tim-Oi died in 1992 her sister asked us to set up a Foundation in her memory to empower women for lay and ordained Christian ministry in the Global South. To date we have dispensed nearly £400,000 helping over 200 women, so far mostly in Africa. A year ago with our help Faith Grace Alidri, aged 34, graduated in Social Work and Administration from Uganda Christian University for work in the Sudan. She wrote to me: “In September 2006 the Bishop of Lainya Diocese appointed me as Manager of the Diocesan Women Training Centre and as well to act as the Diocesan Planning and Development Officer because the Diocese lacks trained manpower to help run the Diocese administration. God willing I am shifting to the Sudan to start on this new job where I have to begin from scratch with no proper accommodation, no salary, and yet I have to be on the ground to see that the Kingdom of God is established in that part of the world. This means leaving my husband in Uganda where he is helping as a tutor in a Sudanese Theological College which was shifted to Uganda because there was war in Southern Sudan.” Faith Grace Alidri is another disciple of Jesus ready to carry her own cross, ready to choose life rather than death, but life without prosperity. If you will, please support the Foundation empowering more women to fulfil their vocation as disciples of Jesus. 

But for my ancestor Thomas and for what my father did, I would not be here. But for Florence Li Tim-Oi, Judith Sweetman would not be here, starting her ordained ministry with you. She is one of the more than 2000 ordained women now in England discovering the truth of the mystery: “The mystery is this, the more you go beyond yourself, the more you will become your true self.” A Prayer for the Li Tim-Oi Foundation: ‘Empowering God,y ou chose one woman to be the mother of your Son and another woman to witness his resurrection; you chose your beloved daughter Li Tim-Oi to be a priest in your church. Where the need is greatest you now call women to be ministers of change in your church and their communities. Enable the Li Tim-Oi Foundation to empower each of them to fulfil their vocation that your kingdom may come and your will done on earth as in heaven today and in days to come.’ Amen.

ENDS

To find out more about the Li Tim Oi Foundation, click here.

To find out more about the Li Tim Oi Foundation, click here.

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