THE Church seems increasingly these days to confine the notion of vocation to some kind of formally authorised ministry. Yet the Prayer Book Catechism sees vocation in much wider terms as “To my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me”. This an expectation that God intervenes, and calls and has an expectation of every baptised Christian.

I have been reflecting on the life of a member of our cathedral community who died, aged 93, on Boxing Day. Muriel Allen was the third of ten children brought up in relative poverty in Peckham, and with little formal education.

At the age of 16, she had a strong sense that God was calling her to the prison service. There was, though, a problem: the death penalty. Muriel made it clear to the Almighty that she would not be available until this was abolished — which it was, in 1968. Meanwhile, she worked with young offenders and ran a Borstal. Her first prison job was at Holloway. She later served as an assistant governor in Durham, before being appointed as the first woman governor of Kingston Prison, in Portsmouth, in charge of male prisoners, many of them “lifers”.

A few weeks before she died, Muriel told me how she refused to tolerate abuses of power, whether by prisoners or officers. She recognised that many prisoners came from dysfunctional homes and had never had the chance of a decent life. She ensured that prisoners had opportunities for education, and acquired computers and other aids to learning. She was proud that there were no suicides on her watch. In retirement, she supported plans for a hospice, raising large sums of money, while also supporting a family liaison centre that worked with troubled and homeless children.

Muriel was, in every sense, a tough old boot. She had never avoided conflict and even seemed to relish it, which may have helped in her pioneering work — she was deeply respected — but less so when she was dependent on others. Frustrated by age and immobility, she could be a trial: demanding, sometimes truculent. And yet, she told me, every day she began by saying the words of “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow”.

Reflecting on her life this week reminded me of Frederick Buechner’s wonderful definition of what it means to be “called” as a Christian believer: vocation is “the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger”.

In her later years, Muriel was horrified by what had become of the prison service: the squalor, drugs, violence, and lack of care. She was a model of female drive, daring, and persistence.

It is good to know that the Lord calls tough old boots, who are ready to listen and to go (as long as certain conditions are met) where others would not choose to.