PREPARING the altar at St Wilfrid’s, Melling, for the Good Friday service this year, the Revd Jane Lee was not expecting to find a “miracle” under a wedding kneeler. Inside a plastic bag were nine golden coins, left with a note on Salvation Army paper: “Hi there, I’d like to donate these nine gold Britannias to Melling church.” It was signed: “James, servant of the living God”.
“I can remember just looking at each other and feeling absolutely gobsmacked,” she said this week of the discovery, made with a church officer, Jennifer Brook-Thompson. “We both burst into tears. It was like a miracle.”
The recovery was made four years after Ms Lee first arrived as Vicar of the East Lonsdale Benefice in “deeply rural” Lancashire. Among the challenges that she inherited was the need for a new roof, estimated to cost about £450,000. There were no legacies, and the reserves had been exhausted. The “small, very faithful and generous” congregation numbered between five and ten on a typical Sunday, and last summer approached her to tell her: “We can’t go on.” Even meeting the insurance bill was a worry.
The church, which mainly dates from the 14th century, but is believed to occupy the site of a Saxon church, is Grade I listed and known locally as “the Cathedral of the Lune Valley”. The Good Friday discovery was made after weeks of seeking God’s will, asking: “Do you want this church to close? Is it time?” Ms Lee recalled this week.
The response to an initial local consultation was “flat”, and the congregation began the route to closure. But, in the following months, a local group, fearful of losing the “beautiful building in the heart of the village”, formed a heritage group, catalysing a visit from about 170 people. The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, proposed “one more push”, promising his support.
The four-year period before the coins were found reflects “God’s timing”, Ms Lee believes. Had they been discovered when she arrived, the money would have been spent on the “day-to-day running” of the church. But, by the time they were found, “momentum” had begun to build locally. “All of a sudden, people are coming forward where we thought it was hopeless.” She is reminded of the passage from Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”
The money will not be used until a second public consultation has been completed, and a plan has been developed. The congregation do not “have a clue” to the identity of the donor, she said. But she regards the anonymity as “quite biblical”.
“We are so grateful to this person for what they have done, but we have to respect they didn’t want to do a big fanfare. They left it discreetly for us to find. It was in God’s timing.”