I am writing this letter on the feast of St. Mary Magdalene whilst I reflect on a particularly formative period of my life when I worshipped variously at the church dedicated to that saint in Bradford. I used to attend during Lent on weekday evenings for Stations of the Cross and sometimes for other special devotions like Benediction which we didn’t have at St. Michael and All Angels in Shelf where I was working.
St. Mary Magdalene’s, Manningham was completed in 1878 to a design in the Gothic Revival style by the architect E. Pearson Peterson. The church was built right up to the edges of the site and without the right to light so it is without ground floor windows, natural light being provided by clerestory windows instead. The entire East wall is also windowless on account of its proximity to a factory owned by Methodists who didn’t wish their employees to be distracted. These arrangements meant that the interior of the church was rather dark.
The darkness of the interior might have been off-putting for some, but every time I visited St. Mary Magdalene’s I found that I was able to concentrate on the important matters in hand whether it be the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament or the Stations of the Cross. As I write this I find it hard to remember any other aspect of the building apart from the rood figures high up on a tie beam, but despite the passing of the years my memory is of beauty, not the beauty of the building, but the beauty of the liturgical provision. God was present in the place and could be found. The experience of being in the midst of such beauty has remained with me and sustained me.
The beauty of St. Mary Magdalene’s was not to be found in its architecture, worthy though it was, but in the way it honoured God. The scriptures use a number of words for ‘beauty’ with a subtle variety of meanings. Inevitably the word expresses ‘fairness’, ‘pleasantness’ and ‘desire’, but the range of meanings also includes ‘honour’ especially when referring to God and the worship of him. Beauty is found in many places and in many ways, but especially in the divine.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. (Psalm 90: 17)
As we often sing at the Epiphany,
O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
Bow down before him, his glory proclaim;
With gold of obedience, and incense of lowliness,
Kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name.
J. S. B. MONSELL (1811 – 75)
In our devotions and in other areas of our lives may we never be diverted by the superficially attractive, but see instead where the beauty of God may be found and adored. St. Mary Magdalene’s, Bradford may sadly no longer be a church, but its legacy is maintained at least in the heart of this writer.
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