Image taken from St. Agnes website
It was Sunday 28 February 1999 and I was attending St. Agnes Anglican Church, Grants Town, Bahamas. At that time Archdeacon William Thompson was the Rector and that Sunday, the celebrant at the Mass. At the Point of the Eucharist where the priest elevates both the chalice and host (bread) a man quickly ran down the isle, jumped over the sanctuary gate and lifted into the air like a bird. He had worn what looked like a colorful cape. For moment he was suspended over the altar. He had a perfect vantage point, with his fingers spread open to slap the chalice out of Archdeacon Thompson’s hand. The men in the church rushed to the priest’s aid and held the man as if they were taking him to be crucified. Archdeacon Thompson at the time said “take this young man outside please.” He continued the service as if what took place earlier was only a figment of the congregation’s imagination or at least my imagination. I came out of church that Sunday shaken. However, upon reflecting upon what happened I had a greater level of respect for him. How many of us would have been so unmoved, and promptly forgiving continued with such grace, if faced with such an interruption.
Sorrowfully, a few months after his retirement on the 29th May, 2000 an intruder broke into the church’s rectory and shot the Archdeacon several times in the back. He succumbed to his injuries on the 23 June 2000. As his friend Errol Miller of the Jamaican Gleaner puts it “he went out of his way to help the drug addicts, the unemployed and others who seem to be falling between the cracks. He would be the last person that you would think that one of these young men would kill.” At the time of his death he had served 42 years as a Priest in the Anglican Diocese of The Bahamas. May his memory and legacy live on. 
A renaissance man
Caribbean bread theologian
He celebrated as he lived -
Redress not revenge
Rituals of God’s transforming power
-
The uneven terrain of their years
He fought for and carried
Windstorm blows one early morning
Rip with vengeance
Plunge his reality
Unceremoniously he left
A nation in shock
A church still mourns
A widow smiles for her treasured love –
William of Grants Town
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Poem Written by Brenda L. McCartney
Tags: Anglican diocese of The Bahamas, Archdeacon, Bahamas, Bahamian renaissance man, celebrant at the Mass, chalice, church mourns, Errol Miller, Eucharist, Grants Town, Jamaican Gleaner, nation in shock, Priest, Rector, renaissance man, sanctuary gate, St. Agnes Anglican Church, Unceremonious departure, William of Grants town
