Customer Reviews

Merrily On High: An Anglo-Catholic Memoir

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Having had interest in and contact with what's left of the Anglo-Catholic movement for 20 years, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Although in the end Fr Stephenson (writing in the early 1970s) seems to have abandoned some of the beliefs of the movement, regrettable in my opinion, he still wrote about the movement with a delightful sense of humor - nearly every paragraph ends with a little joke. I first read this book in England and have been to several of the places he describes so well, particularly in and around Oxford.

I didn't expect to love this book as much as I did. My family kept wondering why I was chuckling so much -- but Colin Stephenson provides a bit of a laugh on nearly every page. He also writes about some heart-rending events with clarity and admirable restraint. Reading this book, I learned about Anglo-Catholicism throughout the 20th century -- and what surprised me is how much is still alive. Like Father Stephenson, I fell in love with the Church when I encountered Anglo-Catholicism. Like him, I sometimes wonder why every Anglican or Episcopal church isn't higher than the Vatican! I looked up every place he mentioned, and thanks to the Internet found out that nearly all of them are still vital Anglo-Catholic places of worship. I was blessed enough to visit both Oxford and Walsingham in the last year, and they are exactly as Father Stephenson described them -- St. Mary Mags in Oxford is still a romantic and peace-filled refuge from the busy city streets, and the shrine at Walsingham still exudes mystery and holiness. Even my Protestant friend was impressed! The book ends on an amazing note with Father Stephenson's accounts of his time among the Orthodox monks on Mt. Athos as well as his meeting with Pope John. He gives us insight into how his devotion to the Catholic faith developed from his youthful extremism into the mature wisdom of his later life. Colin Stephenson, pray for us.

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES I COULD NOT PUT DOWN. BEGINS AS A "COMEDY" IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH ANGLICANISM IN GENERAL;

AND CONCLUDES IN A PROFOUNDLY MOVING WAY.

I was trained as an Anglo-catholic in the period following Vatican II. It was the beginning of the end of an era. I ordered Colin Stephenson's memoir for an Anglo-catholic friend who came along long after that time to help him have some understanding of "where we came from". Colin did that admirably.