JONATHAN EWER SSM is a member of the Society of the Sacred Mission, an Anglican religious community known for its theological training and missionary spirit. In the UK, they were known as the Kelham Fathers, because the community was based at Kelham in Nottinghamshire and, until 1972, engaged in training ordinands in a distinctive theological and monastic setting. Ewer himself was born in Sydney and was trained by SSM Fathers at St Michael’s House, in south Australia. After ordination and a curacy, he joined the community.

Ewer says that he was encouraged to write his memoirs and sees doing so as way of thanking his many friends. Friendship is the underlying message of the book, and, throughout, his love, ability, and pastoral heart shine through to reveal a man of many gifts and interests, whose membership of the Society of the Sacred Mission opened a variety of doors for ministry, study, and teaching in England, the United States, and his own native Australia.

As with all autobiographies, it has for the writer stirred up a myriad of memories both of joys found in ministry, music, and study, and of times of illness, regret, and disappointment. Looking back, he realises how much he had been affected by narrowly escaping from a bush fire, and how much in his life was to make his parents proud of him.

The book reveals his love of classical music and his ministry of encouragement and discernment as a university chaplain, pioneering parish priest, novice master, and diocesan director of ordinands, and as the UK leader of his community. He undertook teaching, postgraduate studies, and a doctorate, interspersing them with ministry, but admits that after studying post-modernism he still doesn’t know what it means!

The author has been a priest for 62 years and during that time witnessed many changes in the Church and the consecrated life, on which he comments. He now lives in retirement in St Albans, where he enjoys the musical and liturgical tradition of the Abbey.

The Rt Revd Dominic Walker OGS is a former Bishop of Monmouth.

One Thing at a Time, Johnny
Jonathan Ewer SSM
SSM Press £12.99
(978-1-0687286-1-7)
Church Times Bookshop £11.69