Page 20 - The Priest, Summer 2015

A tribute to Fr Geoffrey Taylor PE (1926-2015)
Vale, Sacerdos Magnus
by Rev Simon Grainger
Fr Simon Grainger is canonical administrator of St Thomas More Parish, Belgrave, in the Melbourne Archdiocese. He was for many years a bene ciary of Fr Taylor’s spiritual direction, and he literally wrote the book on him.
Down in Adoration Falling: the journey in faith of the Reverend Geoffrey James Taylor, by Gareth Grainger. Pommegranate Publications, 2008, 130pp, $25. Available from publisher, PO Box 391, Bungendore, NSW 2621.
Father Geoffrey James Taylor was “a single-minded servant of the Divine Master and Eucharistic Lord to whom so many, Anglican and Catholic, owe a huge debt of gratitude.” This tribute was offered some years ago by the Most Reverend Geoffrey Jarrett, Bishop of Lismore, who knew Fr Taylor from his teenage years in the 1950s.
Geoffrey Taylor was born on 1st De- cember 1926, the second son and young- est child of Percival George Taylor and Esther Elizabeth Sandery. He had a strict Methodist upbringing, but one infused with a love of the visual arts and music. The Burne-Jones Tapestry of The Adoration of The Magi at the Feast of the Epiphany in the Adelaide Art Gallery had an early impact on him, as did visits with his mother to pi- ano recitals in the Elder Hall. He suffered from infantile paralysis as a young child, and an undercurrent of health concerns would continue throughout his life, de- spite his look of robust vigour.
A stay with his sister and brother-in-law at a remote township on the Murray River, gave Geoffrey his rst insight into beau- tiful liturgy when he attended the local Lutheran church. This led, as he moved
through his teens, to a mixing of Meth- odist Prayer Services with Evensong at St Cuthbert’s Church of England church in Prospect.
By the age of sixteen Geoffrey was lead- ing services for children of Prospect Meth- odist Church and seemed destined for a life in Methodist ministry, despite a nig- gling attraction to Anglican sacramental life. In early 1946 he was received as a Can- didate for Methodist ministry and took up residence at Wesley Theological College in Adelaide, playing the organ in the Col- lege Chapel. In 1949 he was appointed to his rst probationary year as a Method- ist minister. Here Geoffrey displayed his tendency to high liturgy. The disquiet this provoked in Methodist circles led to Geoffrey’s placement on a punitive post- ing to the remote settlement of Penong — located, perhaps appropriately, at the edge of the Nullarbor Plain between De- nial Bay and Cape Adieu! This brought to a head the crisis in Geoffrey’s vocational life which had been long brewing, and he resigned as a Candidate for ordination in the Methodist Church, being received into the Church of England by Adelaide Bishop Bryan Robin on 5th April 1950.
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