Rector's Letter - Rev’d Jeremy Trew - October 2025

About the time this edition of the parish magazine is published, the church remembers one of its most famous saints – Francis of Assisi. He was, by any account, an extraordinary young man, who abandoned a privileged lifestyle in medieval Europe, to live out a peculiar and itinerant vocation that caused a remarkable revolution within the life of the church.

Francis was born into an affluent family, and had the opportunity to enjoy riches, and a lifestyle that went with such assets – but renounced them completely to pursue a ministry that was, at the time, so radical as to verge on the subversive. He took with him a handful of followers, and renounced not merely ownership of any possessions at all, but also any sense of hom e or base. He saw the joy of God the creator in every aspect of life – and indeed death – and was a guileless and loving champion for the Good News of God in Christ. His most remarkable - and, perhaps, most naïve - venture was to call on the Sultan of Egypt in 1219, in a single-handed attempt to end the crusades, and bring peace to the Holy Land.

The life of Francis is well-documented, although often his life is reduced to a nonsensical simplicity that portrays him as being little more than a Dr Dolittle figure that knew how to ‘speak to the animals’. Much less documented are two of the twelve apostles, whose feast day falls very near the end of October – the two apostles who were known as Simon (but not Simon Peter!), and Jude (who is not Judas Iscariot). While Jude probably rejoices in not being his infamous namesake, most people would find it galling simply to be remembered for being not someone considerably more famous.

Almost nothing is known about either of these apostles – almost nothing save that Jesus saw in them both something so special as to call them away from their regular life in Galilee, to spend some three years in his company learning first-hand about the excitement of the in-breaking Kingdom of God. And while we are very unclear about any personal details in the lives of these two members of The Twelve, we will recognize that the call to follow Jesus as an apostle was radical, costly and ultimately dangerous, and we assume that a martyr’s death marked the end of the earthly life of both Jude and Simon.

Taken as a ‘job lot’ that mark the beginning and end of October, Francis, Simon and Jude make a strange little group. One is remarkably famous, and the other two curiously obscure (at least for two people who were personal friends of the earthly Jesus). But they are united in the embrace of a totally radical claim on their life, which turned it upside down, and saw them give up any notion of home, family, or security. Perhaps, as this month progresses, we should all pray for the gift of a life similarly stood on its head.

Best Wishes

Jeremy