As I passed through the huge central doors of Westminster Cathedral one sunny spring afternoon, I was struck by the lingering smell of incense; the building seems constantly prepared for worship. There are always people at prayer, but it is as if a bell might ring at any moment, and a priest emerge vested for Mass and on his way to one of the many side altars, with their candlesticks standing ready at attention.  

I was also heading to a side altar, but for different reasons. The St Paul Chapel is off the south aisle; at the end of the queue for confessions, and next to the spot where Cardinal Heenan’s tasselled scarlet soup-plate continues to hang, patiently waiting to announce his late Eminence’s entrance into heaven. Under the chapel’s spangled apse a newly-commissioned icon was on display, which I wanted to see for myself. At first glance it looked a little like the statue of Our Lady of Westminster, which is nearby; closer inspection opened up a profound and moving story.

The image, the work of the iconographer Amanda de Pulford, is full of meaning: saints, ships, and flowers. It was commissioned by the Revd David Ackerman, vicar of the Anglican parish of St John’s, Kensal Green, in north London. I made contact with Mr Ackerman to ask him about it; an invitation to luncheon came by return. Sitting in his parsonage—just around the corner from the enormous Victorian cemetery that inspired GK Chesterton’s line “to Paradise by way of Kensal Green”—and surrounded by the strutting chickens with whom he shares his garden, he talked about what had inspired the original idea. 

The Windrush Generation was to the fore, he explained. Many of his parishioners are descended from people who came to Britain from the Caribbean; his is a black-majority congregation and “at a time when the Church of England seemed to have tied itself up in knots about race, I wanted to assert true diversity rooted in a place: my parish.” All the imagery on the icon has associations with the parish, but St Josephine Bakhita was included specially—St John’s has also supported the work of Bakhita House in Westminster.  

“I wanted a young black saint”, Mr Ackerman went on, “so that our own children whose parents and grandparents came from the Caribbean, or Africa, could see something of themselves. Perhaps it’s especially obvious in the depiction of the Windrush.” By his reckoning, his commission is the first icon to include the Empire Windrush; it is mirrored by the boat that brought St Augustine to Kent in 597. Again, this is no coincidence: “we ought to celebrate the fact that, like Augustine and his companions, so many members of the Windrush generation renewed the Christian faith in this country.”

I asked Mr Ackerman what he hoped the message of the icon might be to those who viewed it, or used it as a focus for prayer; he was adamant that it spoke of both the Incarnation and of his own community. “The Incarnation happened in a particular place and a particular time; people relate to place, either by living there or through existing associations. There is a depth and richness in any place, and everything in our icon relates our faith, and our hope for salvation, to one church in one small parish, in the context of an awareness of global concerns.” 

“I also think”, he went on, “that our icon is indicative of a different approach to the divisions that we see all around us in matters of identity politics. Too many people forget about our shared identity in Christ, and a sense of the redemptive history of salvation. Rather than be destructive, as some institutions have chosen to be, I hope that we have been constructive and thoughtful.” 

When I wondered how the icon had ended up at Westminster, and not in St Paul’s Cathedral, the mother church of the Anglican diocese of London, Mr Ackerman’s tone saddened slightly. “We offered it to St Paul’s in the first place, obviously,” he said, “but they couldn’t find space for it.” His disappointment soon turned into a fruitful ecumenical opportunity, however. “I approached Westminster Cathedral,” he continued, “and they couldn’t have been more welcoming”. Other venues are now planned, starting with Westminster Abbey: “we’re delighted to be able to share it more widely before it comes home.” 

Back in the cathedral, as I stood contemplating the icon, it occurred to me that perhaps it will come to be called “Our Lady of The Windrush”. The name itself has shades of Pentecost, and as my gaze fell on the vessel as it ploughed its way through the waves, Vespers began in the Lady Chapel. Deus in auditorium meum intende: Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina. After the Gloria Patri the office hymn was an Anglican classic: “Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us o’er the world’s tempestuous sea.” 

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