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Moseley Chimes
November 2008
On the screen above the High Altar at St Mary’s is a plain wooden cross that has been in place for about twenty years now. This simple, even crude, religious symbol means a great deal to many people, but few are aware of it’s entire history. It was raised to it’s present situation when our insurers decreed that all silverware should be locked safely away when not in use for a service. Until then the Silver candle sticks and silver cross had been left in place on the High Altar, held in situ by threaded-and-bolted hooks (just look at the altar itself and each of the many decorated altar frontals - each bears three holes where the hooks passed through and were fastened). Many of those who regularly worked within the Church building then made it known that they desired the presence of a cross at or near the altar to replace the silverware — the cross within the tracery of the East Window satisfying no-one. And so the cross was raised above the altar screen and has sat silently through countless services over the past two decades.
But what is the origin of the cross itself? It is widely, but erroneously, held that Ralf Vines, a former Churchwarden, made the cross himself before it was put in place. He certainly did raise the cross and affix to it’s rear the lighting strip that often casts the distinctive dove-shaped shadow onto the stonework (that imagery in light and dark that has been commented upon by so many people in the last two decades) but actually the cross was donated to the Church as an act of redemption, or at least of reconciliation over a troubled past.
Originally the simple wooden cross hanged in the refectory of Father Hudson’s Home for Boys in Coleshill, Birmingham. Some years after he had left the Children’s home the cross came into the possession of one of the former Father Hudson’s boys. It is sad to say that he was one of the unfortunate Children who was abused, both physically and worse, when living at the Home.
When he heard that St Mary’s needed a cross to put permanently on display he knew that the Father Hudson’s Cross was exactly what was wanted, but he knew too that it would be difficult for him to enter a place of worship where was displayed an emblem that had looked down upon a place that hid considerable pain and suffering. However, a Cross is meant to be a symbol of suffering, from which God can offer release.
That, perhaps, explains why — after much soul searching and prayerful consideration — the Cross was offered to the Church, and why that same Father Hudson’s Boy can still regularly be seen attending Worship at St Mary’s.