The Right Reverend John Daly became the first Vicar of The Church of the Holy Cross, Airedale, which was consecrated at 3.00pm on the fourteenth July 1934.
This a transcript of his letter taken from the Church Magazine of January 1934.
Holy Cross House
Airedale
New Year’s Day 1934
My dear People
Another glorious Christmas has come and gone – now for a glorious New Year! These hard years of poverty should have taught us by now not to seek our glory in riches and success, but to glory solely in The Cross of Christ. I honestly do not see any very bright prospects for this parish in increased employment or improved wages. Nor do I expect any spectacular advances in Church Membership. We know that our Lord taught “blessed are the poor” and again “blessed are the poor in spirit”, and it is our vocation to plan our lives and live them with complete dependence upon God. It is in this attitude of poverty of spirit that we must face 1934 with a joyous certainty that it will be glorious. (I once heard the definition of a good priest as one who kept his nose upon the grindstone and looking up said”Lord, this glorious!).
The Church Council will give you a lead in making 1934 glorious. They have two suggestions. the first is that during the year we should conduct a mission from St. Peter’s in Fryston, and the second is that the finances of Holy Cross should be placed on a thorough-going envelope basis.
I want to just mention these two jobs in this New Year’s letter for we intend holding congregational meetings at each Church in January for their discussion. I place the Mission at St. Peter’s first because it is the more important. It seems to me, and the Church Council was in unanimous agreement, that the time is ripe for a mission in Fryston. I would suggest three indications of their readiness for a mission, a). Recently the regular church people have shown a great keenness to work together and to introduce new people into the family and to win back old ones. b). Many lapsed Church people, of whom there are a very large number in Fryston, have been “giving us a look in” lately. c). Those who are trying to live decent lives and yet go to no place of worship, and the majority of Fryston are like that, are showing signs of giving way to the pressure of poverty and general depression. This last point makes me particularly keen to have a mission, whilst a). and b). make me hopeful of its success.
Let me try to expand what I mean by c). I believe that most men and women in Fryston have always tried to live good lives and above all to do well for their families: but now for years they have been up against it and the Devil is whispering in their ears, “What is the good of trying? What good has it done you and what good is it likely to do you?”. they are becoming hopeless. I remember visiting one of our lads in the Hospital at South Shields shortly before I left: he had tried to cut his throat” there were eight attempted suicides in Hospital at that time and constantly bodies were being recovered from the Dock and the Tyne.
We are learning more and more Hopelessness spells spiritual as well as physical suicide. Christ has a message for the hopeless and it is the Church’s business to deliver that message or if we are unable to deliver it, it is time to shut down. Many people fancy that the Church means the clergy: they are wrong: the Church is the divine society of all the true followers of Jesus Christ: more are called to serve as clerics and some as laics, each have their special function. Recently the Archbishop of York said, “the work of the clergy is to conduct public worship and to deal with individual souls: it is the work of the laity to evangelise”. If we have a mission in Fryston therefore, the work will have to be undertaken by us all. As our Lord contented Himself to give special training to twelve chosen men whom He sent out into all the world, so must I content myself to train you, and for you to go out in the church’s name.
I am not suggesting that you should all become out of doors speakers, although some may, but that you should band yourselves into a team of visitors, so that each of the three hundred homes in Fryston should receive at least three friendly visits from some member of the team before the Mission itself. The success or failure of the Mission will depend upon this work of yours almost entirely. That is job number one.
I believe that the opening of a new Church in Airedale will draw in a number of lapsed Church goers. Many of us love the intimacy of our little Church, we all know one another so well and our fellowship develops into many activities outside that of worship: we shall be keen not to lose that close family spirit when we move into a larger Church. But I meet with many shy people who are afraid of the intimacy which our close quarters foster: they will, I believe, find courage to come to Church when, in the larger building, they will be less noticed and they will be able to slip in to worship god and slip out again. I want to give these newcomers, whom I expect, time to settle down and then possibly in the autumn of 1935, to have a Mission in Airedale.
Meanwhile the people at Holy Cross will have to face a greatly increased expenditure: heating, lighting, cleaning and insurance of a Church to hold five hundred people are no small items. All who have longed and worked to build a Church will want to see it properly cared for and I believe that they will all be ready to give systematically to this end. Whilst we are giving our mind to our finances the Church Council suggests that we should be wise to have a complete overhaul of our system: to this end we should make a Budget of our probable needs for the year and then to invite Church members to promise so much each week – whether they go to Church that week or not – when we have received in promise 25% more than the amount for which we have budgeted we should launch the scheme and cut out all collections and all money raising efforts. The budget would include not only the money required for our own running church expenses, Sunday Schools, Hut, Choir, etc. The scheme will be laid before you one Sunday evening, and I hope that you will all be present to give it a fair and thorough discussion.
Both these matters, the Mission at S. Peter’s, and the envelope scheme at Holy Cross, will have their final discussion at the Annual Parochial meeting on Wednesday, February 7th, at Holy Cross Hut at 7 p.m., together with other plans for the future.
Finally let me wish you God’s richest blessings for the New Year, in the sure hope of our Lord’s true promise, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”
Yours ever affectionately,
Father John
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