Heaven on Earth

Charles Chapman Grafton was an early member of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, with a missional heart and soul for the Gospel nourished in the Anglo-Catholic spirit of Edward Bouverie Pusey: which is to say, one who understood both the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty. He served at Boston’s Church of the Advent, and later as Bishop of Fond du Lac. He was an active supporter of the revival of religious life in The Episcopal Church, and assisted in the foundation of the Sisters of the Holy Nativity. He also sought rapprochement with the Orthodox and Old Catholic church leaders of his day.

It would be a great mistake to reduce such a legacy to the “Fond of Lace” school of prettified and petrified worship of the means of worship. For people like Grafton, the smells and bells were not an end in themselves, but a mark of the singular dignity evoked by a lively awareness of the presence of God in our midst, and in our persons, a deeply incarnational faith.

May he and all who seek the glimmers of God's presence — in art and music and the human person — here on earth rejoice unto the ages of ages in the imperishable halls of heaven.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
icon in wash and ink 2013