Ealing Abbey: Bede Lecture - In Memoriam, Geoffrey Wainwright

Rev Bernard Eckerstorfer OSB

A personal account of studying under Professor Geoffrey Wainright (1939-2020), Methodist theologian, was given at Ealing Abbey by Dom Bernhard Eckerstorfer, monk of Kremsmünster Abbey, Austria, and Rector of the Pontifical Athenaeum Sant'Anselmo, Rome last Saturday.

The personal character of the presentation illustrated the importance of biography as theology. Wainwright was born in Monk Bretton, Barnsley, Yorkshire, and taught theology at Duke University in North Carolina for nearly 30 years.

The talk, given in memoriam, was named after the volume Worship with One Accord: Where Liturgy and Ecumenism Embrace, and inspired by the first line of the Vatican II Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, Sacrasanctum Concilium, which unites ecumenism and the reform of liturgy: 'This sacred Council has several aims in view: … to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ …. The Council therefore sees particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the liturgy.'

The event was opened by Dom Dominic Taylor, Abbot of Ealing Abbey, who read from the latest encyclical of Pope Francis Desiderio desideravi, on the need for the formation of the people of God for the celebration of liturgy, and concluded with Wainwright's affirmation of the same. The annual St Bede Lecture is held by the Liturgy Institute London, sponsored by Ealing Abbey and St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough.

They offer two week summer courses in liturgy and Latin accredited by KU Leuven, and Syriac. For more information see: www.liturgyinstitute.org