And the Award Goes To....

I am quite pleased to announce that I won an award at this week's Trinity Convocation. I am the 2008 winner of the Canon Charles Frederick Pashler Prize for Moral Theology. Charles Pashler was quite a fellow. He was an Englishman who, when a student at Trinity College, signed up with the CEF and fought in the Great War (a particular interest of mine), where he was severely injured at Passchendaele. You can see his Attestation papers here and here.

After the war he returned to Trinity and became a priest in the Diocese, where he went to St. Bartholomew's parish, and stayed for an incredible 39 years!

St Bartholomew’s thrived and prospered during the Great Depression under Fr. Pashler: social outreach, education and evangelism continued. There were: a Boys’ Club, a Red Cross organization, a breakfast club, Bible camps, choir camps, a vacation school for poor children, and an active ministry of social work. All this continued during and after the Second World War. Many people were deeply touched by Fr.Pashler’s life and ministry.

Pashler was captivated by the Oxford Movement, with its dual emphasis on solemn, reverential liturgical worship, and on the “social Passion”. High Church worship, emphasizing as it did the transcendent glory of God and the beauty of holiness, had a powerful appeal to working class poor in east Toronto, as it had during the previous century in east London. St. Bartholomew's is still a very High Church parish due to Pashler's devotion and ministry there.

I am very proud to receive this award given by such an accomplished man and priest.