Alex Jennings as Revd David Hyland in Stephen Beresford’s The Southbury Child has become latest priestly character portrayed in popular culture. I gathered many of us from the parish have seen the play near Tower Bridge. Jennings’s character was far from perfect, (spoilers – the ending was very dignified).
Like Tom Hollander’s portrait in Rev. or Sean Bean’s role in Broken. They are not your perfect parish priests, and far from it! Their vocational struggles were much closer to the working title of Sean Bean’s series. None of the episodes ended in such a Hollywood fashion. Yet these brought out the true essence of our faith. Our faith is never about achievements or success, Baptism or Confirmation is never graduation or an entry ticket for the pathway to heaven. There is no perfect portrait of vicars, whether people prefer the Vicar of Dibley or the Fleabag priest.
Having gone to see The Southbury Child myself, reminded me of some of the literature I read when I first started training for ministry. Bishop John Pritchard and Archbishop Michael Ramsey both in their writings highlighted that a priest’s vocation will come to its fullness when they truly understood the pain of our world.
As people in Holy Orders, it is not what we do, but who we are. Across the Anglican Communion, whether we are in Nairobi or Los Angeles, our role as presbyters is to bring people closer to God and bring God closer to people.
I hope these actors and actresses have brought their audience closer to God in their portraits as vicars and priests!
I wonder who your favourite priest is in popular culture.
Revd Harry Ching
