John will be ordained Deacon on 28th September by the Bishop of Fulham. Here John tells us about his journey to ordination.
I am a 58 year Civil Servant from Chelsea, currently working for the Ministry of Justice, on tribunals. I studied theology at St Augustine’s Theological College to be a worker priest and I will be serving with Fr Phillip Corbett at All Saint’s with St Michael’s Notting Hill.
It has taken me a long time to get here as I first felt the call to priesthood following a trip to Walsingham in 1976. I took up the discernment process while I was at University in Lancaster studying law. A bishop’s selection conference recommended me for training on the condition that before training I spent a year abroad. I was sent to the Anglican Centre in Rome. I felt so at home there I become a Roman Catholic in 1987.
On my return to England I found myself unemployed but had met the Director of the Roman Catholic Shrine at Walsingham while I was there who offered me somewhere to stay while I decided what to do next. I spent three seasons at the shrine as the Master of Ceremonies and Sacristan before joining the Civil Service. I returned to the Church of England in 2013.