Men and women whose lives have proclaimed Christ and inspired the faith of others

August 2017: Barry Marshall - Trinity College Chaplain

By Nola Firth

March 7 2017The late Trinity College Chaplain Dr Barry Marshall was a brilliantly original priest who warned that Christianity would become irrelevant unless it flowed from an authentic spirituality grounded in total commitment to God and service to others, reflects Nola Firth, author of The Armour of Light: The Life of Reverend Doctor Barry Marshall.

I met Barry Marshall in the late1960s when I was a young undergraduate at the University of Melbourne. He was chaplain of Trinity College and took an interest in the university Anglican Society. At lunchtimes our small group often celebrated the Eucharist with him in tutorial rooms or in Trinity College chapel where I think I may have been one of the first altar girls. Under Barry's leadership we were welcomed into the worshipping community he created around him.

One Saturday afternoon, Emily Hope, freethinking daughter of Australian poet A.D. Hope and a member of the Anglican Society, suggested we scrub the marble floor of the Trinity College chapel. Barry happily found some brushes and then joined us on his hands and knees. Later he invited us up to his rooms. Sitting in his big leather chair he casually mentioned that for him life had opened out into an ever greater and more wonderful mystery. I sensed a depth of spiritual understanding that I had never previously encountered.

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