Written by JOHANNA ERNEST

By the same author:
 

DOROTHY KERIN: UNE VIE UN SIGNE

in collaboration with the Rev. G. Grosjean (Geofranc)

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST THE HEALER

THE TEACHING OF DOROTHY KERIN

THE LIFE OF DOROTHY KERIN

Dorothy, 1 would have thee go and tell my children what I have wrought in thee. Speak of these things in the secret places, and if they listen not, tell them not again.

The Living Touch.

This book is dedicated to those who have listened - and hearing have enabled the commission entrusted to Dorothy Kerin to be fulfilled.
 
 
 

Illustrations

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction
 

Part 1 - The Resurrection Life

Childhood

The Message to the World and to the Press 30th June 1912

Preparation 1912-1929

Dorothy

Burrswood

The Resurrection Life
 

Part 11 - The Living Touch

The Living Touch

Medicine and Religion

Ministry

But if not . . . *

Medicine and Drugs

His way . . .

Age

Healing

One Life

Postscript

Dorothy Kerin 1889-1963

Biographical Notes

Bibliographical Notes

Illustrations
 

Frontispiece - Dorothy Kerin in 1961 at St John's Church, Washington. By courtesy of The Archives Department, United Press International Photo Library, New York, U.S.A.

Prayer- In handwriting of Dorothy Kerin
 

Foreword
 

by the Right Reverend George Appleton formerly Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem

The centenary of Dorothy Kerin's birth is a great opportunity for those who knew her, to thank God again for all the spiritual lessons we learnt from her. For those who did not have such blessing, this book written by Miss Johanna Ernest, her devoted friend and colleague at Burrswood, will provide an opportunity to learn something of her spiritual experience and the simple but deep things she heard God saying to her. Those same things God says unceasingly to every human child of His, in every generation, though many may not yet hear 'the gentle, exquisite courtesy: with His tap on the door of our hearts'.

I mention one or two sayings which Dorothy heard and which speak to my own condition and need:

Dorothy was, after her own God-given recovery, always conscious of the presence of God and of His living touch. She was always living in the divine milieu, as evidenced in her own experience:

I was deeply moved when I learnt from another great teacher of the spiritual nature of mankind, that for over sixty years he had been inspired by Dorothy's short book The Living Touch. Sir Alister Hardy, the great biologist in a tribute to Dorothy quoted a paragraph from his Gifford Lectures The Divine Flame:

In conclusion, I may add that I have a personal reason for being grateful to Burrswood, for it was there that I made my retreat before being consecrated as a Bishop on the Feast of John the Baptist 1963.
 Oxford. 
 June 1986.
 
 
 
 
 

Preface
 

Early in the spring of 1958, on a Thursday morning, a service of prayer for the sick, with the laying-on-of-hands, was taking place in the Chapel dedicated to St Luke, the physician, in Burrswood. Many people were present.

The quiet voice of Dorothy Kerin spoke the prayers from behind the congregation. While the hymn was being sung, 'Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire', Dorothy walked, almost unnoticed, down the aisle of the Chapel. She knelt before the altar.

Her prayers, which prefaced the laying-on-of-hands, were heard clearly . . . 'Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof, but speak the word only, and Thy servants shall be healed . . . O my God, our hope is in Thee, because of Thy promises and Thy power.' But for once the congregation was inattentive to the prayers. Everyone present was disturbed. Their eyes were riveted upon a woman who was kneeling about four rows from the chancel step, on the left hand side of the Chapel. It was hardly correct to say she was kneeling. She altered her position interminably, making facial grimaces as she looked about her with the fearful glances of a trapped animal, all the while clutching at the hassocks hanging from adjacent hooks. As people began to walk towards the altar, she too rose to her feet. With rapid, disco-ordinated steps she arrived at the rail and knelt. In her turn, Dorothy Kerin rested her hands lightly upon the woman's bowed head. She prayed her usual prayer, 'In the Name of God most High, and through His infinite love and power, may release from all sickness he given thee. In the Name of the Holy Spirit, may new life quicken thy mortal body, and mayest thou be made whole, and kept entire, to the glory of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.'

And then Dorothy spoke again, saying quietly:

. 'I command you to be still'.

The woman rose steadily to her feet. She walked back to her seat and knelt. Her body was tranquil.

The service ended, and the congregation walked out into the sunlight. Everyone was speechless. Friends who usually talked together, went their separate ways. Before the power of God words cease.
 
 
 

Sincere and grateful acknowledgement is made to all who have given generously of time and thought, to the preparation of Dorothy Kerin - Her Ministry of Healing: the Reverend Graham Jeffery for the drawing of the Church of Christ the Healer, on the cover; the Right Reverend George Appleton, formerly Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, and a Trustee of The Alister Hardy Research Centre, Oxford, for kindly writing the Foreword; the Archives Department, United Press International Photo Library, New York, for permission to re-print the photograph of Miss Kerin; the Editor, Kyrkans Tidning, formerly Vär Kyrka, Sweden, for passages from an article published in 1959; the Executive Editor, Parabola Magazine, 5th Avenue, New York, U.S.A., for permission to re-print words by Richard R. Niebuhr, and Saul Bellow, from Volume IX, No. 3, published August 1984; Edward Robinson for quotations taken from The Original Vision, published by The Religious Experience Research Unit, Oxford, 1977; Professor Robert Faricy, S.J., for generous permission to re-print certain words which are applicable to Dorothy Kerin, from All Things in Christ: The Spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin, published by Fount Paperbacks, 1981; the Right Reverend Cuthbert Bardsley, Bishop Warden of Burrswood 1954-1963, and Chairman of The Dorothy Kerin Trust 1963- 1980, for permission to quote from a letter to the press, 1960; the Reverend Frank Drake for his inimitable words in Thy Son Liveth, published by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, 1959; the Reverend Frank Browning for permission to reprint passages from See Through, by Kathleen Browning, 1974; to the late A. Graham Ikin; Sir Alister Hardy; Christmas Humphrys; Bishop Philip Loyd; Professor G. F. C. Searle, Sc.D., F.R.S. for their valuable insight. Each quotation re-printed will be acknowledged in footnotes on the appropriate pages. Appreciation is acknowledged to the London Weather Centre for details of the weather on the day of Dorothy Kerin's birth; to Willow and Keith Ellis, for kindly reading the manuscript and their advice before publication; and finally to Dorothy Kerin herself, for her books, The Living Touch, 1914, and Fulfilling, 1952, which continue to open the hearts of men and women to the ministry of healing.
 
 
 

In his preface to Dorothy - A Portrait, the author says, 'On Whitsunday 1957, Dorothy gave me permission to go ahead. This was not an easy decision for her to make, for throughout her life she had shunned publicity, in any form or shape. But on this Sunday, after many weeks of prayer and thought, she knew the time had come for her to allow further light to be thrown on her life and work. In her humility she hoped that a book about Dorothy would help the reader to share the same abundant gifts which had flowed to her, to learn a little about the Living Christ, who gave these gifts.' ⁽ⁱ⁾

This book is compiled in the sincere conviction that the time has come to share more fully many unrecorded details of the life and ministry of Miss Kerin. Almost a century since her birth in 1889, and nearly a quarter of a century since her passing in 1963, Dorothy is becoming a historical figure. As the twentieth century comes to its close she will be among those people whose lives have been significant. In 1959, Dorothy handed to Dorothy Musgrave Arnold ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ a packet which obviously contained letters or papers. Subsequently she wrote a letter to Miss Arnold, authorising her to open the packet, 'when I have gone', and to do with the contents exactly as she thought right - either to destroy or to make known. Many details have been taken from this source in the present publication.

The impact of the healing ministry of Dorothy Kerin is now undisputed by the established Church. It is studied by many traditions at home or abroad. The story of the instantaneous healing that astounded the world in 1912, is probably well known to the reader; it has been re-told many times. In the present study Dorothy herself looks back over the years, and tells the story as it seems to her in retrospect. Although her life and ministry are inseparable, they have been separated in order to look at each more closely. Many details may seem fragmentary- life can seem made up of fragments - but in later years a fine connecting gossamer thread may be discerned intuitively.

She stresses the need for implicit obedience. 'Through the long years of my life, through the grace of God, I have come to know that obedience is the golden key which unlocks the door to every spiritual experience, and I humbly believe it is the most important thing in the life of all Christians . . . and we shall find that when we have learned to obey in small things, the Lord will ask more intimate and costly obedience from us, and we shall delight in the glory of obedience which is better than sacrifice.'

In reality the life of Dorothy was one continuous sacrifice of self. She would have said of gifts of love, 'Is it not splendid of Our Blessed Lord to accept tiny gifts of sacrifice that we can give to Him, when His gifts to us are so great and glorious? His love makes one ashamed.'⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

It was this supreme gift of self, a total relinquishment of her own will, that allowed her to be spiritually chiselled to become the channel of the Living Touch. The agony she suffered joyfully will never be known; the agony of a sensitivity attuned to hear the voice of God, and so hyper- sensitive to the critical voices around her. Many times her credibility was put to the test, for 'one must follow Him in the darkness as well as in the light'. ^(iv) There were many times when Dorothy did not know the route along which she was being asked to go - so how could those around her understand her actions?

A further reason for the present publication is to bring completion to a work hitherto incomplete. In 1912, Dr Edwin L. Ash published Faith and Suggestion - Including an account of the remarkable experiences of Dorothy Kerin. ^(v) Immediately after her instantaneous healing had been reported by the press, Dr Ash invited Dorothy to his home. He wanted to study every aspect of the healing, and to study Dorothy herself. The last paragraph of his book reads:

Throughout the fifty years of her extended life span, Dorothy witnessed by her life, and through her ministry (seeking first the Kingdom of God) in perfect biblical sequence, that Christ still asks His followers to lay hands on the sick in His Name, and they shall recover. And as she prayed without ceasing, that more priests and ministers should learn to use this ministry of healing, she went forward, 'the Lord working with her, and confirming the word by the signs that followed'. ^(viii)

On Sunday evening, 18th February 1912, Dorothy Kerin was practically unknown, except for her immediate family and her personal friends. She was a young woman in her twenty-third year; a person of no privilege whatsoever. Her limited education of five years, at a dame school, had ended with the death of her father in 1902. When Queen Victoria died, in 1901, Dorothy was in her twelfth year, and her life was to extend through six reigns. The fifty years now before her were to know more scientific, social, religious and political changes, and to be more turbulent, than ever before in so short a time. The suffragette movement was well organised for militant resistance, and for the third time in the century a crisis with Germany was making the ultimate world war ever more inevitable. Science was on the threshold of splitting the atom, with the subsequent dawn of nuclear energy, technology was about to introduce speed, hitherto undreamed of, into daily life. Battery powered cabs, with a speed of about 9 mph, shared the roads with horse-drawn vehicles, when Dorothy was about eight years old. The first mechanised war, 1914-1918, speeded up research for air travel. The Second World War, just twenty-one years later, made still greater demands on the technology for destruction. The first atom bomb, which killed 80,000 people, and maimed a further 75,000, was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, about the time that Dorothy was planning to move from Ealing to Etherton Hill (later Chapel House), Speldhurst, Kent. The move which would ultimately lead her to her final foundation, Burrswood. By the time she was sixty-three, supersonic aircraft were taken for granted. Dorothy died six years before men reached the moon for the first time. In 1912 women did not have the right to vote for the government of their country - this was granted to women over thirty in 1918, at the end of the war. The law allowed women over twenty-one to vote in 1928, the year before Dorothy made her first venture in faith, to take 10 Culmington Road, Ealing, and to begin to receive people into her care. At this time she made no charge for having them. This was a time of world financial crisis and depression.

But the study of Dorothy Kerin is not basically involved with contemporary history. The word of the Lord had come to Dorothy- her life was a spiritual pilgrimage listening to His will - obeying His will.

Apart from visits about the country, the life of Dorothy was encompassed within a radius of about fifty miles, from her place of birth, until the last few years of her ministry when she was invited overseas. She never travelled by air but preferred to cross the seas by ship. She passed long hours in prayer and contemplation while others slept, but her days were devoted to a ceaseless labour to accomplish His will, in 'the spreading of His glorious ministry of healing - the healing of body, mind and spirit that our stricken, suffering and agonising world is in such need of today'. ^(ix)

Surely it was the reality of His presence which prompted a cab driver to come up to her in the street, after the story of her healing had been published in the press, saying, 'May I just touch you, miss?'

(ii) Dorothy Kerin: Called by Christ to Heal, Dorothy Musgrave Arnold, (Hodder & Stoughton, 1964).

(iii) Letter to Dr Langford-James 1915.

(iv) Healing in His Wings, A. J. Russell, (Methuen & Co., 1937).

(v) Faith and Suggestion, E. L. Ash, (Herbert & Daniel, 1912).

(vi) Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury 1920-42.

(vii) The Rt Rev. Cuthbert Bardsley, D.D., Bishop Suffragen of Croydon, 1947, Lord Bishop of Coventry 1956-76.

(viii) Mark 16:20.

(ix) Letter to the Fellowship and Friends of Burrswood, 1959.

(x) The Right Reverend George West - formerly Bishop of Rangoon. He was at Burrswood when Dorothy died.

Thursday, the 28th November 1889, was a cold, clear day. The temperature was lower than was customary at this time of year, by twelve to thirteen degrees. A north west by north wind, which later became north west, sent a cold current of air along the road. Dorothy was born, on this day, at 6 Boyson Road, Walworth. Until 1900, the Vestry of St Mary Newington, was the governing body of the district. Then it became part of the London Borough of Southwark. The baby girl, born on a day so exceptionally cold, was shielded momentarily from the world outside her home, and welcomed with love and warmth. The dreaded asylum stood at the end of Boyson Road. At the further end of Westmorland Road, which is parallel to Boyson Road, but closer to the river, was Newington Workhouse. The crowd of ragged, hungry people, nearing a thousand, who waited outside for out-door relief each day, would have been huddled together for warmth against the biting wind. So close to the new baby girl was this scene of desolation, to the child whose supreme gift to the world was to be love and welcome. Yet if love and welcome was to be her message to sufferers and the hopeless, her gift must be transmuted to become the gift from God - the love of God and His welcome. In the years to come Dorothy must decrease that He might increase - that His promise should be fulfilled, 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'. ⁽ⁱ⁾ A more literal translation might be, 'And I will give you the strength to go back into your life and circumstances'. The promise is not an end in itself but towards a new beginning.

Remembering her childhood, Dorothy would tell a story, 'One day, when I was a child, Our Lord came to me, and in His hand He held a little brown object. He said, "Tend this with obedience, and I will water it with the dew of My love. One day you shall behold a mighty oak." That little brown object was an acorn. These acorns have pursued me all my life.'

An experience, similar to the one described by Dorothy Kerin, was known to Mother Julian of Norwich. ' . . and in this He showed me something small, no bigger than a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand. And I perceived it was round as a ball. I looked at it, and I thought, "what could it be?", and I was given the general answer, "It is everything that is made." And I was amazed in my understanding.'

On the 15th May 1958, Dorothy testified to a congregation in the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, 'Today I stand here, all unworthy and sinful as I am, and dare to say to you, in the presence of God, and all the company of heaven, that I have seen Jesus; I have heard His voice; I have felt His touch, and I know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Thanks be to God, Whose arm is not shortened, Whose power is no less. ' ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾

But how could a child keep this 'original vision' throughout the years - in face of the world conditioning which begins soon after birth?

Dorothy's parents were happy people. William Augustus Kerin, her father, was the second son of Surgeon-Major Dr Frederick Kerin, of the 2nd Life Guards, whose obituary notice in 1876 read, 'Dr Kerin was much esteemed by his fellow officers, for his assiduous attention to the sick'. Dr Kerin was the son of Michael Kerin, to whom belonged the family home of Roslevin, Crusheen, Ennis, Co. Clare. This old manor house, with its considerable acreage of land, was sold around 1870 on account of financial pressures. Roslevin was burnt down in 1921. The parentage and upbringing of Mrs Jenny Emily Kerin, nee Jenny Emily Wilson, well enabled her to become the mother of Dorothy Kerin and to be sympathetic towards this delicate, spiritual child. A short, quiet woman who exuded a sweet gentleness, Mrs Kerin was the ninth child of Amelia (née Baggs) and William Price Wilson. Amelia Baggs' father, an Admiralty official, disowned his daughter when she married her music master. Mrs Kerin's great grandmother, the Contessa Clara Amelia Sistini, had been an Italian prima donna; and her own mother, Mrs Price Wilson was a vocalist of note from whom she had inherited a glorious coloratura voice. Her parents, who had sacrificed worldly prosperity and conformity to material standards, had given to their children a home in which love and joy were paramount, and far outweighed their problems through poverty.

William Augustus Kerin had inherited a ship broking firm, together with his brother Charles. Charles died, and eventually the business failed. William and Jenny Kerin moved, together with their four children, to Milkwood Road, Herne Hill. In 1897 a fifth child, Evelyn, was born here, but it is apparent that they moved again quite soon, this time across the river to Tottenham. For a time Dorothy attended a dame school in Epping. William Augustus Kerin died on 29th March 1902.

Mrs Kerin's own account of Dorothy's childhood is a valuable record of her early ministry of healing through intercession: 'In writing this little account of my daughter's ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ life I am confronted by the difficulty of selecting such incidents as will be of most interest to the reader, although they are not necessarily those most dear to me, her mother. I will mention first the spiritual side of her nature. Even as a tiny child she had an immense love of all that pertains to the spiritual, caring little for the amusements which children are wont to indulge in, and preferring pictures of angels and religious subjects to the crudely humorous picture books which most children love.

'She was most sensitive to harshness in any form, and for this reason, and because of her delicate health, she was allowed more latitude than other children. This latitude I have never had cause to regret, for the natural sensitiveness of her nature never allowed her to take undue advantage of it. She was by no means abnormal intellectually, and experienced the same dislike of learning as other children of her age. As a friend once remarked, "She appeared to be a child whose soul had outgrown her body, living ever in the presence of the angels."

'Up to the age of seven years, she suffered from the illnesses common to childhood. After her seventh year she was almost continually in the hands of doctors, and at the age of ten was disabled by erysipelas in the legs, which prostrated her for about ten weeks. After this she contracted congestion of the liver, from which she was some time in recovering.

'About this time her father died, and the shock of losing one she loved dearly, in addition to adverse domestic circumstances, no doubt contributed to the terrible time of suffering which she was to pass through. For from this time forward her life was one long stretch of physical suffering, with but short periods of relief. A long succession of serious ailments, including pneumonia and pleurisy, culminated in phthisis, with complications of gastric ulcers, and for a great part of the time diabetes. The terrible sufferings of those five years proved that she possessed the great patience of which her childhood had given promise.

'During this time all who saw her were deeply impressed by her patient cheerfulness, and would often remark that it was almost supernatural. She lived very near to the Master, and all who entered her room felt the unseen Presence. Many were the heartaches and burdens that were brought to the little sufferer, and laid down for ever at her bedside.

'God used her wonderfully in intercession for others, and lists of those in sickness, sorrow and trouble, were brought to her. In answer to her prayers many have felt His touch, and have received great blessing through this little channel.

'During the last six months she grew rapidly worse, and so great was her exhaustion that some days she was too weak to speak, or lift a hand. In all this time she never made an impatient murmur, but often remarked that it was a privilege to suffer with Christ.'

As he was dying, one of Dorothy's brothers spoke of her childhood. 'She was not as other children,' he said. 'She was a child who saw angels. Other children were drawn to her- she would be surrounded by them.'

The years of business failure were obviously a great strain upon Dorothy's father. He became ill, but tried to hide this from his children. By the time he was forced to remain in his bed, just about three weeks before his death, he was desperately ill with Bright's disease and the accompanying convulsions which, at that time, were not medically controllable.

It would be reasonable to assume that Dorothy, now in her thirteenth year, had prayed continuously for her father's recovery. She seldom left his bedside. He was forty-five at the time of his passing.

Soon after becoming a widow, Mrs Kerin moved back to Milkwood Road, Herne Hill, almost opposite to the house in which her youngest daughter had been born. A long straggling road, winding up a steep hill, the even numbers backed onto a railway line. Steam engines passed frequently, emitting black smoke across the small suburban gardens. Here Dorothy passed the next ten years of unremitting sickness, and initially, probably, coming to terms with her father's death, and the prayers for him, that had not been answered.

The tubercle bascilli now multiplied. They had found an easy host in the child's lungs long exposed to the damp air and winter fogs in Walworth, a town built upon marshland. Grief, poverty and poor health made an easy setting, and soon Dorothy was a victim of tuberculosis, at that time a deadly disease, with no known remedy to control it.

Dr Frederick Norman, J.P., F.R.C.S. a highly esteemed consultant physician, and also a practitioner in Brixton, attended her for the next ten years. He brought consultants to the home; he personally paid for every remedy prescribed and collected these from the chemists' himself, so that no bills should cause embarrassment to Mrs Kerin. In Dr Norman's words, 'They have everything except money'. Dr Norman was a man well able to discern the spirituality of his patient.

And it was here, in a small house almost built onto the pavement, except for steps leading to the basement, that Dorothy's eyes and ears were closed, 'that she might hear heavenly things'. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

The childhood of Dorothy merged into womanhood, adolescence passed by unnoticed, a continuous whole - but she must first undergo this creative experience till she was able to radiate from her presence that 'a thousand unpleasant realities can be transformed by the loving hand of God'. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

'Spirituality must be lived before it is formulated.' ^(iv)
 
 

(i) Matthew 11:28.

(ii) Dorothy: A Portrait, James Davidson Ross, (Hodder & Stoughton, 1958).

(iii) The Living Touch, Dorothy Kerin, 1914.

(iv) The Spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin, Professor Robert Faricy, S.J., 1981. Re-printed by courtesy of the author and the publishers Fount Paperbacks, London.
 
 

During June 1912, Miss Kerin went to London to give a message, to be published in the press, telling of her instantaneous healing, which had taken place on 18th February, and which had been given wide coverage both here and abroad. The stenographer, who took down the message in shorthand, looked up frequently at the young women who spoke the message with neither notes nor any momentary hesitation. The message was published on Sunday, 30th June, in the magazine section of The London Weekly Budget. A full page, and a further column, were devoted to it under the heading, 'A Message from the Miracle Girl - Miss Dorothy Kerin tells of her own marvellous cure and its significance to the World'.

Dorothy had made no preparation for the words she would speak, leaving this entirely to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In retrospect, the years between 1902-1912, may have been looked back upon as sheltered years. The Living Touch ⁽ⁱ⁾ includes these words, 'In His wisdom He closed my human eyes and ears, that I might hear heavenly things. The health and happiness that have come to me are so complete, and the pain and suffering of past years are almost obliterated from my memory.' The word almost is significant. During those years Dorothy's childhood merged into womanhood. Adolescence was totally eclipsed by helpless invalidism. Yet the original vision of childhood remained. This 'original vision which is no mere imaginative fancy, but a form of knowledge, and one that is essential to the development of any mature understanding'. ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾

Dorothy retained the spontaneous laughter of a child throughout her life. She had the ability to recover swiftly from mishaps and set-backs, as well as having a keen sense of enjoyment. During the years of stillness, the Kingdom of Heaven within became a reality - it was her centre for repose, the generating point of her later activity. To the end of her life, it was noticeable that Dorothy receded within herself before replying to any question which merited a decisive answer. The response seemed to come from 'the inmost centre . . . where truth abides in fulness'; the source of 'this perfect clear perception'. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

On Thursday, 22nd February 1912, Dorothy re-crossed the threshold of her home. She was in her twenty-third year. The world from which she had been withdrawn ten years before, was quite different now. England was on the brink of war with Germany. The masses of the underprivileged people, previously separated by class distinction from those they served, and who lived upon their ill-paid labours, now questioned their conditions. The Church had hitherto accepted social inequality. Children were nurtured upon it. A children's hymn in current use included the words, 'God made them high or lowly, and ordered their estate'. ^(iv) The line was erased from books published after 1906. This was probably the result of political pressure rather than religious conscience.

Dorothy's faith must now be put to the test.

At just this time a London consultant, Dr Edwin Lancelot Ash, was making a study of psycho-therapy, the power of suggestion. This might be defined as a process of insinuating - suggesting - an idea (thought) into another person. The Evening News of 20th February 1912, reported the instantaneous healing of a young woman, Miss Dorothy Kerin, at 204 Milkwood Road, Herne Hill, on the previous Sunday evening. The Daily Chronicle published the same story on 21st February. Dr Frederick Norman, her medical practitioner, testified that the patient had been at the point of death when this unpredictable recovery took place. Indeed, he said to a reporter, 'Had I read about it, I certainly should not have believed it.' ^(v)

Dr Ash saw in this occurrence his supreme opportunity to prove his own theories. He hastened to see Dorothy. He invited her to his London home immediately. Dorothy records the visit, ^(vi) 'Three days after my healing, I was invited by Dr Ash to his home, that I might receive the necessary rest and quiet. I accepted his invitation gladly, and remained there several weeks. It was here that God revealed to me, in a vision, His purpose in restoring me to health.'

To have been a guest in this house must have been a most disagreeable experience. Dr Ash subjected Dorothy to many hours of painful cross-examination. He was trying to prove that the sudden healing was the result of a supernormal experience, which could be analysed between visionary and dream states of consciousness. He questioned her frequently. Had she read books about religious people, for example St Teresa? Did she know about a mystic play, called The Miracle? Did she know there had been a faith- healing mission in her neighbourhood? He asked intrusive questions about the services and prayers that had taken place in her sick room. Throughout these weeks of questioning, Dorothy affirmed, 'My healing came direct from God, and from God alone; to Him be the glory'.

On the 30th June 1912, The London Weekly Budget ^(vii) published a full page message, from Dorothy Kerin, to the world and to the press. By this time she was a guest in the home of the Revd Logan Thompson, a Baptist Minister, at 15 Leathewaite Road, Clapham Common. Dorothy stated clearly that she could not agree with Dr Ash. Faith and Suggestion - with an account of the remarkable experiences of Dorothy Kerin - was published later in 1912. In the final paragraph of his book, Dr Ash acknowledges that he was not able to contain the healing under a complete medical formula. 'In any case, one finds it difficult to neglect the spiritual as distinct from the mental aspects of such problems. Time alone can provide us with this evidence. The subject of the "revelations" in question, believes implicitly in their reality, and in the mission given. Her future may perhaps be the witness to their inner meaning.'

But the study of Dorothy Kerin is greatly enhanced by one observation made by Dr Ash. His precise, analytical mind noted one word, indeed the golden key, in a vision as told to him by Dorothy, which took place during the night of 11th March 1912, while she was a guest in his home. She will have told him undoubtedly of this visitation, on the day immediately following its occurrence, while her mind was crystal clear.

The family of Dorothy, who had shared her initial ten years of suffering, towards the first death, the death of the human body, could no longer accompany her along the Via Dolorosa, towards the second death, the death of the self. The many different addresses on her letters between 1912- 1929, testify to her frequent changes of residence. During the next seventeen years of preparation, for her ultimate ministry, she needed to be alone. At times she knew the insecurity of not knowing where she would find shelter for the coming night. And those were the days of World War I.

Isis Residential Hotel, Oxford, July 1916:

'We left The Burford yesterday and came here. It was a dreadful business finding these digs. We met an old man with an awful cart, and he took us all over the place. It seemed hopeless. At last we found this. It is nice and quiet and comfortable. The Burford was rather a hole and seemed away from everything, and too expensive. The Church here is delightful.' ^(xi)

Enmeshed by the exacting trivialities of suburban domesticity, there could have been little occasion to listen to the spiritual unfoldment which was afforded to Dorothy, as she became enabled to receive it, through suffering long hours of loneliness, weakness, and spiritual desolation which preceded the transcendental experiences of which she wrote to Dr Langford-James, at that time the only person in whom she could confide, and with whom she could share some of her spiritual development.

Highgate, 1915:

'I marvel often at my badness . . . and the loving patience dear Holy Jesus has with me . . . I feel it would not be fair to Mrs Langford-James if I come to her till I am less of an invalid. Is it not splendid of Our Blessed Lord to accept tiny gifts of sacrifice that we can give to Him, when His gifts to us are so great and glorious. His love makes one so ashamed . . . and the rest of the day Our Blessed Lord felt so near that one dares scarcely make a sound. I know He was here, though I did not see Him with my eyes - my soul sees Him, I felt His arms outstretched . . . I seemed to sink back till I was right in His heart. It seems almost impossible to tell you this experience in words, it seems almost sacrilege to try, but you will understand.'

The following two extracts were written to Dr Langford- James from Worthing in 1916: '. . . in the Kingdom of the garden there is no language except that of the Divine Heart.'

'The weeds in the garden . . . in the corner of the garden I saw a little heap of weeds; some were quite near the plants . . . and as I looked at them it was given to me to see my life. Every sin and impatience which had made those weeds was shown to me. In this moment my soul knew the agony of real repentance. I have never known it before, and I rushed to pull up the weeds. The small ones came out and were added to the heap, but others would not yield, only bit by bit. They were creeping towards the King's best loved plants, and one little tendril had started to clutch the stem of the Hope plant; the weed was Fear.

'The same with the Charity plant; only the weed was Judging. And the Faith plant . . . the weed was not so near this, but was creeping on. That weed was Despair.

'. . . sorrow is the remedy against weeds.

'This will be the third attempt I have made, to tell you about my last visit to the garden. It is so very difficult to tell you in words what happened there, for in the Kingdom of the garden there is no language save that of the Divine Heart, which, you know so well, does not consist in words. I have asked the Holy Spirit to help me, if He wills it so, that I may be able to share with you, in some degree, the unspeakable joy and pain that came to my soul in those moments of seeing. You know how unhappy I have been in my heart, that I have done so badly with the difficulties that have come lately, and how ill I have used the graces that the King has given me. Well, I was in my prayer, that was taken up with these thoughts, when I found myself in the garden . . . and then Our Lord clasped me in that unspeakable love embrace . . . I dare not try to tell you in words of those transcendental moments, for it would be impossible . . . but I want to tell you this, that in that space there was nothing but God . . . but O Father, this is what I could not tell you the other day, in that Divine embrace I was God, for I was in God, nothing else existed. You will not be afraid of my saying this, for you will know that I dared to say it, because there was no more me. I saw that all the weeds had gone from the garden, and my heart was breaking with thankfulness. Help me to remember always, dear Father, that sorrow is the remedy against weeds.' ^(xii)

In the early days of preparation things did not always go right. Dorothy had to learn obedience. She had to learn to wait for God's timing for her every action. She was quick by nature and it was not easy to curb her desire to do things. She wrote, at a later date: 'I prayed much that God might guide me and point the way of ministration and it has been shown me that the gifts of God can only be received through prayer . . . and there came a period of waiting when one's soul had to be possessed in patience. It was, oh, so difficult to be still and wait when there were so many in spiritual darkness with whom one longed to share this new-found health and happiness.'

This is surely the 'thirst for souls' an experience attributed to the mystics and those few persons who align themselves with the profound, mystical sufferings of the Passion. But it does explain the look of spiritual love, love outside human knowing, with which Dorothy looked upon the unloveliness of the many sufferers brought to her, scarred by deformity, accident, or sickness.

Dorothy records one mistake she made. There is a footnote in an early re-publication of The Living Touch that reads: 'I now see definitely that it was a mistake.' She refers to her acceptance of a speaking engagement. 'I was asked by the Vicar of All Saints' Church, Monkwearmouth, to speak in his Church on the first Sunday after Trinity, 1913. I stood on the chancel steps, facing the congregation, and had begun to speak, when I was seized with a dreadful faintness, and felt as though I was falling into a black pit. I realised my danger, and was just able to breathe out one word, "Jesus" when two great, bright angels appeared, one on each side, supporting me. It seemed as if they put words into my mouth, and when I had finished speaking there was a great hush, and I found myself back in the choir stalls. How I got there I do not know, for I did not feel my feet touch the ground. Almost everyone in the church felt His presence, and two were healed.'

These untoward happenings taught Dorothy to wait upon God. The following statement explains, in some measure, the need for this long preparation. 'Dr Searle was sure the secret of Dorothy Kerin's being used by Christ to heal, lay in the utter surrender to Him, and the great need for repentance and the awakening to the dimension of "holiness". Repentance, in this sense, was not only in the moral sense of leaving conscious sin behind, but a true awakening, a metanoia, to the life of the Spirit.' ^(xiii)

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, 8th December, 1915, the outward signs of the perfect alignment with the sufferings, death and resurrection, of Our Lord, came to Dorothy. ^(xiv) The marks of the Passion appeared over several days. On this day the first wound appeared in her left hand. She suffered intensely, both physical pain and an agonising spiritual desolation which had been with her since the previous October, but which was now intensified. This desolation remained with her till February 1916. The wounds remained open for several days, and were visible for many years afterwards.

From henceforth Dorothy was to become aligned with the Mystical Suffering of the Redemptive Christ, and also to be at one with the suffering of all who came to her - with the pain of the world. She had yet to learn to relinquish this suffering, from her human self, to the Christ within - the Christ with Whom she was at one within. Until she could do this perfectly, she would continue to be subject to human ills, to ill-health, and overwhelmed time and time again by the horrific stories confided to her. On one occasion she was rendered senseless, lying upon the floor, at the feet of the one unfolding descriptive details. Dr Langford-James testified to the out-of-body experiences, Dorothy had confided to him, during World War I. She had found herself kneeling by dying men on the battle fields, undiscovered between opposing armies, during the hours of darkness. This may explain her constant ill-health during those years.

It is worth noting that Dorothy had believed that the marks of the Crucifixion, borne by St Francis, were not visible physically - indeed that they were only spiritually discerned. ^(xv)

On 28th November 1916 Dr Fynes-Clinton wrote to Dr Langford-James to testify that he had seen the wounds now borne by Dorothy, over the past eleven months: 'She appeared to be endowed with a great humility: and told me that she shrank very much from the showing of the marks to others: but that she obeyed in the matter . . . she was evidently still suffering, and spoke of having prayed that she might suffer, if it were God's will, on behalf of others. She spoke of her great pain, and above all of the awful pain of entering into the sacred Dereliction. Yet she felt perfectly happy, she said, as it was "His Will and for Him".' Dr Fynes-Clinton's letter continued, 'I was much impressed, indeed more deeply than I have ever been in speaking to any other person, with her simplicity, humility, her patience and her spirituality.' ^(xvi)

The Kingdom of Heaven within - the inmost centre of us all, where truth abides in fulness - the source of this perfect, clear perception - the en Xpistw - it was here that Dorothy's ministry of healing began, and ended.
 
 

(i) The Living Touch, Dorothy Kerin, 1914.

(ii) The Original Vision, Edward Robinson, R.E.R.U., 1977.

(iii) Paracelsus, Robert Browning.

(iv) Mrs Alexander 1823-1895.

(v) The Life of Dorothy Kerin, J. Ernest, 1983.

(vi) The Living Touch, Dorothy Kerin, 1914.

(vii) Recorded in full in London's Modern Miracle. The Revd Logan Thompson, 1912, by permission of The London Weekly Budget.

(viii) John 14:20.

(ix) Letter to the Galatians, Ch. 2, v. 20.

(x) Letter to the Philippians, Ch. 4, v. 8.

(xi) Letter to Dr Langford-James.

(xii) Letters to Dr Langford-James.

(xiii) Letter from A. Graham-Ikin.

(xiv) The Teachings of Dorothy Kerin, J. Ernest, (Letters which bear testimony). 1977.

(xv) Dorothy Kerin: Called by Christ to Heal, Dorothy Musgrave Arnold, 1965.

(xvi) Full text of this letter- The Teachings of Dorothy Kerin, J. Ernest, 1977.
 
 

Dorothy
 

Within the following pages are the impressions given by people upon meeting Dorothy for the first time, as well as others who had known her more intimately.

'Dorothy Kerin, who is known far outside the borders of England, through her wonderful work among the sick and suffering, has accepted an invitation to come to Sweden in the beginning of May.' Thus ran the opening words in the invitation, which friends and sympathisers distributed before Miss Kerin's visit. It was signed by many well-known Swedish bishops and clergy. The writer continued, 'It all sounded very notable and - considering the names behind it - prepossessing. But the journalist is not yet born, who before such an accumulation of testified excellence, does not become a little sceptical. We are all aware of our general Swedish attitude towards the question of healing by faith. We accept the phenomenon theoretically - of course such things can happen - but in practical life we shy from it. We have - we think - experienced too much humbug, in the borderland between faith and knowledge, where the healer moves, to have the right to be mistrustful . . . You see we did not know what kind of person we should meet.'

Such then was the atmosphere into which Miss Kerin went during Ascentiontide 1958. She was in her sixty-ninth year. Behind her were already forty-six years since the healing in 1912. Before her there remained just four and a half years.

The journalist continued, 'And so we met Miss Kerin. A little mild-blue English lady - pastel all over - that is what meets the eye, until she begins to speak, then you find, like her biographer, you would wish to be eloquent; that you very much want to describe the seer's expression in those very kind blue eyes; that you hope to be able, to some degree, to interpret the absolute conviction that radiated from her whole personality . . . Dorothy Kerin possesses something more than personal charm. What is the secret? Miss Kerin belongs to the rare persons who not only believe, but who know.'

'What is it that Dorothy Kerin knows? She knows that nothing is impossible to God. In her own words, "And I have found that all the time He has led me on the way that was best for me." That is the initial position of Dorothy. All that happens to her, and through her to others, is a result of this conviction. ' ⁽ⁱ⁾

In America she made a similar impact best summarised in the words of the Rector of Virginia where she took part in a mission for three days in October 1961. 'There grew up in the hearts of the people a tremendous awareness of an inner Presence that is the gift of God through His Son . . . the breath of the Spirit filled the whole Church, and the healings which have been affected by His presence are witnessed day by day. She gave us a rather graphic illustration of the "lost" department in heaven which is filled with "gifts" that Jesus had planned to give His children, but because of their demands for what they thought they needed, the best gifts have been left unwrapped. Jesus' best gifts undoubtedly will be the best healings.'

In her letter to the Burrswood Fellowship, 1954, Dorothy wrote, 'Surely the most exciting and wonderful adventure in life is when we put our hand into God's hand and trust Him utterly, for indeed His ways are not our ways, and His ways are best.' The following words might have been written for Dorothy, 'Yet the ultimate authority for any doctrine is not in the written, nor in the spoken word, but rather in its own sweet reasonableness, and in the fact it is ratified by the intuition, and seems to "work out" in the day's experience.' ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾

One testimony to Dorothy, after her passing, likens her 'to Phoebe of old, a servant of the Church . . . and indeed a kind friend to many, including myself'. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

During the week which followed the death of Dorothy, ^(iv) the Bishop Warden of Burrswood, ^(v) ended a letter to The Times with these words, 'At the centre of this dynamic work was a fragile, gifted and inspired woman, Dorothy Kerin.' The central word is fragile. Throughout her extended life span of fifty years, till her seventy-third year, Dorothy's health never allowed her to forget that her strength was made perfect through her weakness. ^(vi)

Enthusiasm, en theos - God within, might well have been included within St Paul's list of the fruits of the spirit. Enthusiasm, a word bequeathed to the language by the Greeks, surely is the vitality of expectancy; the Holy Spirit. The spirit of the living God promised to the children of Israel; the promise ratified by Jesus before His death, to be operative after He had risen again. But the promises of God in Christ must be appropriated. That is the nature of free- will, and is the prerogative of man. Dorothy accepted the promises of Christ.

On 30th June 1912, four months after the instantaneous healing? Dorothy gave a message to the world through the press. ^(vii) She told the story of her marvellous cure, and its significance to the world. The following extracts are central points taken from the complete script.

The Revd Frank Drake in Thy Son Liveth said: 'She might with justice be described as a genius in her own field' is another testimony to her ministry, 'but this word is never used of Dorothy because it would imply a purely human quality of her own, an implication which she would never allow. It should be said rather that she is a direct channel of God's Love to a degree which amounts to genius . But to appreciate her quality you must never make the mistake, which many have made who do not know her, of supposing that she is by nature, in her own right as it were, a very joyful person, a very mirthful one, or even a very tender or loving one. She is these things, of course; outstandingly so. But they would cease if her Master left her. Her joy, her mirth, her tenderness are the Joy, the Mirth, the Tenderness of One who pours His own gifts into her, and through her, so that they may bless the folk whom He sends to her. If He were to leave her - He never will, of course, because He promised not to - her Joy would vanish at once, and I do not think that even joy would remain. Indeed, I know it would not.

'How can these things be?

'To understand how this came about, you must realise that as a girl Dorothy was not merely ill for nine long years, but at the end had been for long months a skeleton, a shadow, a ghost, lying motionless for week after week, emaciated and exhausted. The long slowness of this near approach to death burned out of her personality almost all the usual desires, greed and fear, almost, I believe all the normal self which lives in the flesh. Then, for the last two weeks, while her unconscious, almost lifeless, body lay inert upon its bed, her spirit soared away into heavenly places, moved with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, heard the singing of angelic choirs and spoke with the Master Himself.

'Purged and purified by her long illness, she then returned from heaven, as I believe, bearing the actual touch of Our Lord Himself. Many, many times since then Our Lord has been beside her and she has heard His Voice.

'Dorothy is a contemplative of a high order. To realise more fully what this means, one must read at least something of the lives of the saints and mystics. Dorothy receives constant guidance from Our Lord. And I believe that frequently in the silent hours of the night, when at last she is alone, she visits heavenly places. Complementary to the prayerful attitude of her mind is the permanent desire to obey. Adoration of her Lord, and obedience to His wishes, make up the sum of her life. As with St Paul, so with her, "To live is Christ!"

'When, therefore, Dorothy talks of matters relating to God and man, whether in a private interview or among her friends, she speaks firmly and with conviction. She knows. She has been there. Just as one who had recently climbed Everest would speak with calm assurance about the conditions he found there, so Dorothy speaks with calm assurance and certainty about the ways of heaven and earth, at least in so far as her experience goes. This experience, immensely limited no doubt in comparison with the saints who have passed through the Veil, is yet immeasurably greater than that of the average person. She speaks of what she has actually seen and heard. For the rest, all who have received her help will remember the distant look in her eyes, the rapt expression of her face, which so often show that she is turning, for immediate guidance, to heaven. Those who know her realise that this small saint, so perpetually joyful, so perpetually occupied with ministering to the sick, running a great house, and travelling to different parts of England, invariably manages to spend many hours out of the twenty-four in prayer. What few realise is that, side by side with all this, she has a vast and awful capacity for suffering, far beyond the power of ordinary people even to imagine, and that this suffering, arising directly out of the sins and sufferings of those whom she would help, descends upon her not infrequently. Happily, those who are called to share a little part of His suffering, Our Lord Himself grants, we believe, the strength to bear it.

'Many people have been cured of sickness, often of incurable sickness, through the prayers and ministrations of Dorothy Kerin. But she never, never, I am sure, primarily brings them healing. She brings them Christ. This then is her priceless and immeasurable gift, that Christ Himself, no less, honours her presence, accompanies her into the life of the patient, and when it is for the best, heals them physically.

'That is her secret. She brings them Christ.'
 
 

(i) Vär Kyrka. Translation of an article 1958.

(ii) Christmas Humphreys.

(iii) The Bishop Suffragen of Tonbridge, the Rt Revd Russell B. White. 1969 Romans 16:1, 2.

(iv) 26th January 1963.

(v) The Lord Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Revd Cuthbert Bardsley.

(vi) 2 Cor. 12:9.

(vii) The London Weekly Budget, 30th June 1912.

(viii) Dr Cuthbert Bardsley, Lord Bishop of Coventry, 18th February 1962.
 
 
 

The A264 route from Tunbridge Wells turns sharply to the right a few hundred yards beyond Langton Green. It continues to East Grinstead. The route B2188 meets the A264 at this turn off. It continues southward for a further hundred yards and turns left. A perfect distant landscape of Sussex hills comes into view. The road descends down Groombridge Hill. Formerly Gromenbregge Hill, the name indicates a Saxon origin. During World War II, 1940-1945, howitzers were stationed at the angle of this turn off, to control a possible invasion. A few cottages on the left-hand side of the hill preface a steep drop into woodland. During the months when foliage does not obstruct the view, Groombridge Place, a red bricked, moated grange, with mullioned windows, can be seen deep down in the valley. ⁽ⁱ⁾ This mansion, which had been rebuilt by Philip Packer, upon the site of a much older building, formerly had walls which reached out to the encircling moat. The Domesday Book, which had been drawn up, in the first place, for the purpose of teaching the state how to levy Danegeld, mentions this house. Collection of this national burden had originally been entrusted to the townships, before it was passed into the hands of the Lords of the Manor. ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ The Crown Inn, on the right at the foot of the hill, facing the village green, has stood there for at least three hundred years. Here the London to Brighton mail-coaches changed horses.

St John's Church, on the opposite side of the road, was built in 1625 by John Packer, a Clerk of the Privy Seal, in the reign of James I. He had acquired the Manor of Groombridge from Richard, Third Earl of Dorset, in 1618. St John's Church was built as a thank-offering for the safe return of Prince Charles from Spain, not betrothed.

The ceaseless flow of traffic on the road between the Crown Inn and the church is avoided by taking the pathway across the village green, towards a gateway signposted, 'To Burrswood' .

In the early part of 1948, Dorothy Kerin motored along the way already indicated, an historic route trampled over by chariots during the days when the men of Kent put up a stout resistance against Caesar, clattering down the war ways, between the years 55 and 54 B.C.; this descending road which has known strife and resistance throughout the centuries.

In more contemporary times, the Canadian Forestry Corps, during World War I, and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, in World War II, were stationed at Groombridge. Later the Canadian Assault troops used the road. The Pioneer Corps, of the Royal Ordnance Corps, had its headquarters at Burrswood, when the surrounding woods became an ammunition dump. D. Company, of the 7th Battalion Rifle Brigade, were billeted in Groombridge.

On a day marred by pouring rain, and already in her fifty- ninth year, Dorothy Kerin made her way along the cart track leading to the house. Thirty-six years lay between her and the miraculous healing that had astounded the world in 1912. The house-agent had finally relinquished the key, still protesting that such a military damaged house was beyond repair. Passing the first of the five ponds which are on the left of the track, Dorothy would not have known that many 'Molotov cocktails' lay unrevealed in the mud beneath the water. Jettisoned from an enemy plane during the day raids of World War II, they had yet to be discovered during a drought, when a small boy was delighted to find a little bottle, with a sweet smelling liquid inside, standing up in the mud.

Dorothy may have seen daffodils, primroses or bluebells, whichever were in flower just then, on the right-hand banks of the path; and maybe she heard the 'bell-beat' from the wings of heron, flying above the orchard.

This path to the house of Burrswood had formerly been used by the domestic staff and tradesmen . It is doubtful whether the occupants of the house knew of its existence in the early part of the century. They travelled a path of soft green grass, flanked by cultivated rhododendron bushes; a path assured of being weedless as the little boys of the village were given one halfpenny, by the keeper at the East Lodge, for any weed found as they walked to the farm to fetch milk. But the war of 1914-1918, followed within twenty-one years by the world war of 1939-1945, had turned the world's values upside down. The owners of the house now walked the way formerly trodden by those who had served them.

The lower drive, which is nearly a mile in length, and mostly uphill, was used to bring the most severely wounded troops, during World War I. A part of the house was in the care of the Red Cross. The upper drive, which leads off Ashurst Hill, is also nearly a mile in length, but it is down hill all the way. The largest ammunition dump in the country was secreted in the surrounding woods.

The previous history of the route to Burrswood only enhances the spirit of peace that broods over it today. This sense of otherworldliness is experienced by many who do not know where the drives are leading them.

The route to Burrswood has become a 'pilgrim's way'. For 'are not pilgrims but persons in motion, passing through territories not their own?' ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

A mind sufferer, who had been uncontrollable throughout a long journey, coming from a hospital that had diagnosed a condition that was 'not certifiable, but beyond the reach of reason', entered the drive and became quiet, saying, 'The air is like velvet.'

Dorothy did not feel the driving rain when she reached the front door of the dilapidated house; neither did she see the surrounding banks of overgrown weeds; she heard the Voice she knew, saying,

Bishop Philip Loyd, ^(iv) dedicated Burrswood to St Michael, on 15th September 1948.

A few steps beyond the front door is a small archway which now leads to a church. ^(v) It is a church built facing the sun that is setting; not the sun that is rising. A stranger may question this. During the spring of 1959, Dorothy was given a vision of this church, standing on the former rose garden of the house, built exactly as it stands today, and in the following words Dorothy made known the vision of the church that Our Lord asked her to build for Him.

face the rising sun. But the Church of Christ the Healer was designed outside temporal building restrictions. It is faithful in every detail to the Church which was shown to Dorothy.

In a letter written to the Burrswood Fellowship, dated 10th October 1959, Dorothy wrote, 'It is with a heart full of gratitude and thanksgiving, that I can tell you that the foundation stone is well and truly laid. ^(vi) Thanks be to God Humbly I believe He asked me to build this Church for Him, and I know our efforts will be blessed and used by God in the spreading of His glorious Ministry of Healing. The healing of body, mind and spirit that our stricken, suffering and agonising world is in such need of today.'
 
 

(i) Groombridge Place, Barbara Lee, 1979.

(ii) Domesday Survey 1086.

(iii) Richard R. Niebuhr, re-printed by kind permission of Parabola Magazine. U.S.A.

(iv) Bishop of St Albans - formerly Bishop of Nasik.

(v) This archway has been replaced by a new building, 1986.

(vi) On the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, 29th September 1959, and the consecration of the Church took place on 14th May 1960.
 
 
 

In 1958 Dorothy was asked to speak a. a diocesan conference. She never spoke from a prepared script. Yet she experienced the same trepidation as any inexperienced teenager asked to speak in public for the first time. If she was to be the channel for the Holy Spirit it had to be so. But her personal thoughts were ever the same; 'I have nothing to give.' Then only could she bring a pure message to her hearers. At this time, 1958, Dorothy looked back over the forty-six years since the healing in 1912, and beyond that to the ten years of helpless invalidism between 1902 and 1912. Between 1912 and 1929 were the years of testing and preparation which brought her to begin her first venture of faith in purchasing 10 Culmington Road, Ealing, and subsequently Chapel House, Ealing; to the years of war, and the adoption of nine babies; to the shock of giving up her many homes in Mattock Lane, Ealing, and restoring a military damaged house, Etherton Hill, Speldhurst, re- named Chapel House, Speldhurst. And now she had been at Burrswood just ten years, and had built an extension of fourteen rooms, which had been dedicated recently, and named St Faith's. She had already contracted for a further house to be built, and she knew time was not on her side. She had still much to do. She probably did not know that less than five years remained before her. Invitations from overseas were increasing. And so, on this day, looking back over the years, she spoke: '. . . as you know I am not a speaker, neither am I able to give you a learned discourse upon the technique and problems of Divine Healing. That subject embraces a very wide field into which many doors open. But I can, if you will be patient with me, speak to you of what I know, and at the risk of telling you things you are already aware of, I am going to venture, with God's help, to tell you something of what He has done through this most unworthy channel, indeed I might say, in spite of the unworthiness of this channel . . . I believe this wonderful ministry of healing is the most potent unifier, binding men together in love, men and women of every shade of Christian belief coming together in harmony. I suppose that is the thing we need most in this distraught, troubled world today, that the spirit of love should abide among us, because in it there is no room for fear.

'I want to tell you what Our Lord, in His goodness, did for me. Not for me as a unit, but through me, that He might, of His goodness use it for His purpose and glory.

'Most of you know the story of my miraculous healing, as I know the story of the raising of Jairus' daughter. I often think if I had the opportunity of speaking to her, I should like to hear from her own lips the story of her healing. Forgive me if I burden you. Of course I have thought much about what I should say to you today, and this morning it came to me very forcibly that I must tell you what He wrought in me, and so I am going to tell you a story of wonder that is never old, but always new.

'I am going to ask you to visualise in your mind that wonderful vision on the shores of Galilee, where we shall find Jesus of Nazareth; there we shall see Him in all the beauty of His young manhood. His disciples are around Him. He is teaching His message of love and redemption. His fame has gone abroad. Crowds flock to see Him, and to hear Him, and to touch Him. As they look at Him they know He is the Incarnate Son of God, and that all power from God is committed to His keeping. We know He wrought many mighty works, the dead have been raised, the blind have seen, the deaf have heard, the lame have walked, and the hungry have been fed, and the sorrowing comforted. How wonderful it must have been for those people who could see Him with their physical eyes, and touch Him with their hands. Faith must have been an easy thing for them. I doubt whether any demand was made upon their faith at all! What has happened since those glorious days? What is happening to us today in this tormented, distraught, suffering and chaotic world? Are we conscious of that living Christ working among us? Some of us are, thanks be to God, but I believe it would be true to say of the vast majority, that in regard to that living resurrection life of Our Lord, they either do not believe, or cannot do so, because they have nothing tangible to help their belief. But Our Lord said, "Lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world", and we know that eternal promise, of the Father through His Son, is true yesterday, today and forever, and that the power of Jesus has never been withdrawn. If we had eyes to see, and ears to hear, we should see these miracles happening among us today, and they have never ceased. What is the cause? The cause is in you and me, because we do not believe Our Lord's promise. So many of us follow Him to the Cross and there we pray to a dead Jesus still hanging on the Cross. My friends, if we could only see, and know, that Jesus did not stay on the Cross, but went on into the Resurrection Life to which He is calling each one of us! He has never said, "Stay with Me on the Cross", but "Come with Me, follow Me into this glorious Resurrection Life!" As this truth is borne in upon us, it is almost more than we can bear, but it is true.

'I am now going to take you into a quiet little room on a Sunday evening, where a young girl lay dying. She had been bedridden for five years. Everything that medical science could do had been done. It was so much an accepted fact that she was dying, that no one was trying to do anything more to help her. Her friends were gathered about her bed waiting for the last flicker of life to die out, when suddenly they saw her raised to a sitting position, surrounded by a great light, and then she said to them, "Do you hear? I must get up and walk!" She put her hand on the beam of light, and got up and walked, and was made every whit whole in the twinkling of an eye.

'There are two points about this healing to which I want to draw your attention. In the first place, it was because it was the resurrection power of the Living God who gave that command, that that miracle happened. Had it been any other voice, nothing could or would have happened. Nothing. That is the first point. The second point is that the servant to whom the Lord spoke, knew it was the voice of the Lord, and without question obeyed, and got up and walked. In my own experience through years in the ministry of healing, I believe the important fact is that there must always be obedience to the heavenly vision. This is the key which opens the door to the supernatural life, without which we cannot be in God's will, or abide in His peace.

'We have the living example of Our Lord Himself. His obedience was the genius of His life. Has it occurred to you that Our Lord did not want to be crucified? He prayed, "If it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me." But He obeyed. He obeyed and the miracle of His resurrection life took place. That is the lesson for you and me - we must obey His will.

'Doubtless, you are asking in your minds, "Why should this miracle have happened to Dorothy Kerin rather than to anybody else?" It happened to her, not because she deserved it in any way, but because it was in God's plan and purpose. After much prayer and waiting, God told me in a vision that in His name, and through His power, many mighty works would be wrought. During the years that have passed, all these things have been fulfilled. Both myself, and those called to participate in this wonderful work, have seen many miraculous happenings, all those promises in the Bible fulfilled, thanks be to God.'

By the bruising of my whole life, strengthen me with sympathy for every wounded soul, and let my prayers be as balm for the wounds of Thy children, that they may be healed.

The Living Touch
 

'At the end of 1914, there came into my hands Miss Dorothy Kerin's little book, The Living Touch, a record of her miraculous healing. I had been going through a dark time of nervous and physical weakness for the past seven years. It opened my eyes, as they had never been opened before, to the present-day power of the Living God, the Creator of the universe. As an immediate result, all the old weakness left me, and I was well.' These words preface a book on experimental physics, published by a university lecturer ⁽ⁱ⁾ in the early part of this century. A further testimony from this physicist is included in a letter, ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ '. . . Dr Searle was sure the secret of Dorothy Kerin's being used by Christ to heal lay in the utter surrender to Him, and the great need for repentance and the awakening to the dimension of "holiness". The recipient of the letter adds, repentance in this sense was not only in the moral sense of leaving conscious sin behind, but a true awakening, a metanoia, to the life of the Spirit. I would endorse Dr Searle's fear lest some set up as healers, without this concern for spiritual reality. There is a measure of healing on psychical levels which, if known as such, is good as far as it goes, but which can be disastrous if taken to imply a real regenerative process, which heals the one concerned to "go and do likewise" if indeed the deep spiritual centre has not been reached.

'It was here that Dorothy's work was so outstanding, and her sharing the burden with the sick and sinful, really taking it into herself, was the secret of the transmutation that so often followed.

'It was the Living Touch which was the dynamite.' ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

'To those who are coming seeking the Living Touch of Our Lord, through His Ministry of Healing, I humbly address these few words, ^(iv) "Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will illumine the dark recesses of our lives, so that we can see where we have failed to respond to God's love. When, through His grace, we can see where and how we have failed Him, let us ask for His forgiveness, and pray that our hearts may be made ready to receive His blessing. We know not what blessing He may will to give us, but we can be abundantly sure that if we come in humility seeking only His will, we shall be given what God in His love and wisdom knows to be best for us. We are coming in faith to touch the hem of His garment - that same Jesus who wrought mighty works along the shores of Galilee two thousand years ago, the very same Jesus whose power is no less today, who always gives more than we can ask or think. Lose sight of the channel who is nothing, and keep your eyes and mind fixed upon Him, the only Healer and Wholemaker." '

Dorothy spoke rarely during, or before, a service, but the following words were spoken on another occasion:

'Nothing equals the abandonment of the will to Our Lord. Nothing is more intimate to a person than his or her will, tastes, likes. To love and to look for those things in Our Lord is to find what is most profound in Him, His Heart, and it is to meet Him in a most sure and profitable way. Most sure because nothing should be able to shake us at any moment from that true communion that God gives us in his action on us through everything, every person, every event. Most profitable, equally - because everything in our life becomes material for supernatural growth, and because a thousand unpleasant realities are transfigured at the touch of God's always very loving hand.' ^(v)
 
 
 

(i) Professor G. F. C. Searle, Sc.D., F.R.S.

(ii) Letter from A. Graham Ikin, M.A., M.Sc., 1969, referring to her book, Studies in Spiritual Healing, (World Fellowship Press, 1968).

(iii) Dr G. F. C. Searle, Testimony, 1952.

(iv) Words spoken by Dorothy Kerin, before a service with the laying-on-of- hands.

(v) All Things in Christ- Teilhard de Chardin's Spirituality, re-printed by courtesy of the author, Professor Robert Faricy, S.J., and the editor, Fount Paperbacks, London.
 
 

Medicine and Religion
 

In October 1953 a Commission was appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury, ⁽ⁱ⁾ and York, with the following terms of reference:

The Commission received written evidence from a variety of sources known to have interest in the subject. Personal evidence was given by a number of people, including Dorothy Kerin. She was very disappointed by the Report. Her distress was but the measure of her desire to see the commission, entrusted to her, by Our Lord Himself, accepted by the Church. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ As far back as 1914, ^(iv) she had written, 'It was, oh, so difficult to be still and wait when there are so many in spiritual darkness, with whom one longed to share the joy of this new-found health and happiness.' In her - message to the world, ^(v) given shortly after the instantaneous healing, she said, 'I know that by the mercy of God I have been brought into direct communication with the eternal, the beautiful, and I know it is for the good of humanity - for the uplifting of man spiritually, irrespective of religion and creeds. In my restoration to health I have been entrusted with a message to the whole world. A promise of healing to the sick, comfort to the suffering, and faith to the faithless.'

It was, undoubtedly, the responsibility of this entrustment which weighed heavily upon her heart - a longing to know that the Church had wholly accepted this entrustment, that prompted her to write a letter, dated 27th June 1958, to The Church Times.

But God's work permits of no static repose. The prayer of intercession - 'that the Church's Ministry of Healing may be revived with boldness, wisdom and humility . . . that more priests and ministers may learn to use this ministry of healing' - has become a prayer of thanksgiving. 'For the movement of His Spirit in our time; for the renewal of the Ministry of Healing, and for an awareness of things divine. Thanks be to God.' ^(vii)

Many more conferences were held - many more discussions took place after the Archbishops' Commission in 1953. In 1973, ten years after the passing of Dorothy Kerin, a conference was convened to discuss the Ministry of Healing, in all its branches. When greeting and blessing all those who took part, the Archbishop of Canterbury ^(viii) said, 'I hope that the Conference will result in a deeper understanding of a ministry which is an inherent part of the work entrusted by Our Lord to His Church.' Yet a further ten years elapsed before the full, authentic seal of approval was conceded by the Church. Seventy-one years after the instantaneous healing of a young woman - dying in a London suburb from an illness of long standing, incurable at that time - had confronted the world with the power of God to heal, and to make whole, the Ministry of Healing was restored to become once more a part of the normal ministry of the Church, together with prayer, counselling, the laying- on of hands, and anointing with oil.

In 1983, a new post was created within the Church. The first bishop was appointed as the national co-ordinator of the Church of England's Healing Ministry, and to be adviser to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on this Ministry, with effect from 1st April 1983. ^(ix)

On the Saturday before Passiontide, an impressive service took place in Wells Cathedral, to commission the bishop now dedicated to further the Church's Ministry of Healing, both for individuals, and for the healing of the nations. The ceremony was attended by a procession of choirs, bishops, canons and dignitaries of the law.
 
 

(i) Archbishop Fisher, 1945-1961.

(ii) Report of the Archbishops' Commission - The Church Information Office.

(iii) 'Dorothy, will you go back and do something for Me?', 1912.

(iv) The Living Touch, Dorothy Kerin. First published 1914.

(v) The London Weekly Budget, 30th June 1912.

(vi) Richard Whitwell.

(vii) Order of Service, Burrswood, 1960 and 1982.

(viii) Archbishop Ramsey, 1961-1974.

(ix) The Right Revd Morris H. St John Maddocks, Lord Bishop Suffragen of Selby since 1972; Bishop visitor of Burrswood, 1981.
 
 

Ministry
 

This Little Way of Prayer was found after the death of Dorothy, and now prefaces the ministry at Burrswood.

Jesus was as present to her, at the time of ministering, as He had been to Jairus, impatient to lead Him to his dying daughter, while Jesus was talking to the woman who had touched the hem of His garment. And vital moments were passing . . . ⁽ⁱ⁾

Almost imperceptibly resting her hands upon each head of the kneeling people, Dorothy prayed a simple prayer; her voice was quiet but clear:

The vocal prayer was as unnecessary as had been the prayer of Our Lord, at the moment of the raising of Lazarus. St John records that Jesus said, '. . . I know that Thou hearest me always, but because of the multitude that standeth around I said it, that they may believe. ' ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

On very rare occasions Dorothy would hear herself give a direction, and this, she emphasised, must never be disobeyed.

However many people Dorothy ministered to at any one time, she was never fatigued. On one occasion she remarked there had been three hundred people who had come forward to be ministered to, during one service. A channel of the Holy Spirit, she too was revitalised. The following prayer concludes the ministry - in the Order of Service formulated by Dorothy.

Our Lord's long years of preparation, for His short time of ministry, are surely the perfect example. Although Dorothy suffered ten years of initial sickness, before the first healing was accorded to her, this in no way completed the healing in herself, of 'all that was not of God' in preparation for her ultimate fulfillment of the commission which Our Lord had asked her to agree to, before she was told to get up and walk, on 18th February 1912. Dorothy, will you go back and do something for Me?, to which she had answered, 'Yes, Lord.' ^(vii)

The tests to her faith brought her back and back to seek 'the Living Touch'. Throughout her life, as greater and greater obedience was being asked of her, she was being tempered and refined within her spiritual self, until she could bear the full measure of the task to which she had been committed.

(ii) The words timeless moment' when spoken to Dorothy, drew from her the response, 'Mother Julian's mid-point'.

(iii) John 11:42.

(iv) Hope - used biblically, comes from a word meaning certainty, in both Greek and Hebrew.

(v) Isaiah 40:31.

(vi) Luke 4:23.

(vii) Dr John W. Crawford, M.D., D.P.H., 1960.

(viii) The Life of Dorothy Kerin, 1983.

(ix) Recorded talk by Dorothy Kerin.
 
 

But if not . . . *
 

Sickness of mind or body is always frightening - it is necessary it should be so, otherwise the cause, or consequences, may be overlooked. But this is not the best time to undertake a course of treatment, based upon theory, or wholly experimental. Teaching the underlying principles of spiritual re-adjustment, within which may lie physical re- adjustment, can be hampered by the symptoms of disease and disharmony within a sick person, or more distressing still, in one dear to another. 'Crisis involves danger and opportunity; ordinary sanity sees only the danger; the higher sanity sees, and frequently takes advantage of the opportunity. ' ⁽ⁱ⁾

Life opens out in all its simple loveliness for John. His home is happy; his work rewarding. He is secure. But then there comes an uneasy pain followed by another and another which do not respond to care.

Then follows anxiety, doubt and fear. 'Is it cancer?'

'Yes.'

'How long have I got?'

'A few weeks!'

At the altar of the Church of Christ the Healer, a young man kneels; a man with a burden. But with him Another is kneeling; He kneels for John and in John. He holds him at the place of Communion which John cannot reach alone. Above John He stands in glory and through the wounded hands Grace flows. At-one-ment is complete - God to God. Realisation is born in John and he leaves his burden at the altar.

The 'I am I' consciousness within the man stands apart from the pain and the growing weakness so that he watches the disharmony of his flesh as one man might watch another.

Then, three nights before John's soul left his body, he became aware of his father standing there in his room. But at this time his father was in America and he seemed troubled by the weakness of his son. John spoke to him, and he heard himself saying, 'Do you not know that now I belong to God?'

John was radiant - it was the last day of his consciousness and the joy of the spirit radiated from him. 'Now I know that my redeemer liveth!'

* * *

John can be Everyman. The mystery of our faith is in the One Who stands waiting. He is not waiting for men to ask- He waits for each one who will accept His proffered Grace.

The words written for another young man, in just such circumstances, might well have been written for John. ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾

Here, in this story, we have glowing and irrefutable proof, if we need it, of life after death. We see also, in no mean measure, the glorious fruits of obedience in accepting God's will.

Why then did John die? The answer to this question, one that is in the heart and mind of many committed Christians, can only be answered if we humbly remind ourselves that Almighty God, in His infinite wisdom and love, refused the request of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ; 'Father, if it be Thy Will, let this cup pass from me.' In His refusal was bought for all mankind Eternal Salvation.'
 
 

* Daniel 3:18.

(i) Victory Over Suffering, A. Graham Ikin.

(ii) Foreword written by Dorothy Kerin to Thy Son Liveth, Frank Drake, (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1959).
 
 
 

'I will not cease from mental fight,' declared William Blake. Yet mental fight is surely free-will in action. God's own gift to mankind.

The following two letters determine Dorothy Kerin's attitude towards medicine and drugs. The first, written from Chapel House, Ealing, in March 1946, is in answer to an article in a national newspaper. The second is written to a personal friend, from Burrswood, between 1958-1959.

1953

A dying man could not find rest. It seemed he could not die. He could not understand why, daily, he grew more confused. He did not wish to see his minister again. He had been a devout churchman all his life and he was broken- hearted that the prayer offered on his wedding day fifty years before was not being answered. He had asked, at the altar, that he should die after his wife, so that he might care for her to the end of her days. She had the appearance of great frailty.

His treatment was adjusted and he was able to take food again. The pain was helped from time to time to bring him restful sleep and his mind remained perfectly clear.

On the tenth day he fell into a deep coma throughout the day; the Archdeacon of the island came and prayed in his silent, darkened room. A short time later, a woman from his meditation group came and she too knelt in the quiet room and prayed. She then left.
 
 

The man awoke. He was radiant and the joy of the Spirit streamed from his ravaged face. He stretched out his arms to embrace, saying, 'I accept God's will. I am ready to go. God will protect you all - God bless this house.'

He kissed his wife; the radiance faded and he fell asleep. He never spoke again and three days later his soul left his body.
 
 
 

'Surely the most wonderful and exciting adventure in life is when we put our hand into God's hand, and trust Him utterly, for indeed His ways are not our ways, and His ways are best.' ⁽ⁱ⁾

And one person's way is seldom the way for another, in responding to Him. Dorothy knew this. She never evinced surprise at diverse behaviour. Most unlikely ways are followed by the restless heart. Yet the longer route may be more salutory and lasting than an instantaneous healing. Appropriation has still to take place; both the conscious will and the subconscious will are put to the test. The final response must come from 'the intuitive place within, where visualisation takes place, ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ with thanksgiving.

The silhouette of a lonely figure, moving rhythmically before the altar, outlined by the last rays of the setting sun shining intermittently through the high west windows, in the Church of Christ the Healer, was as natural to Dorothy as seeing anyone kneeling in a pew; or, watching unseen, a man kneeling on the floor before the carved figure of Our Lord, surrounded by forty lighted candles, and still lighting more, which dripped hot wax onto the newly laid parquet- flooring, she whispered, 'It may be his way - watch him', and went on her way.

A mind sufferer, who had been taken to Dorothy many times, was asked in later years, 'How did you see Miss Kerin?' The answer was given literally, 'I never did see her - for when I was taken to her I was going through my worst times of darkness - and I could not look up, for the Light was too bright.'

A well-known psychologist ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ sent a patient to her nursing home in Ealing, and then realised he only knew of this Miss Kerin through other people. He went to see her. It became evident to him that she saw each person as unique; she did not rely upon experience of similar conditions; she awaited the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To give advice would be an intrusion. In the words of another consultant, ^(iv) '. . . her sharing the burden with the sick and sinful, really taking it into herself, was the secret of the transmutation that so often followed.'

Hours of prayer, while others slept, was her hidden, sacrificial ministry.

The focal point of the story of the paralytic, lying beside the pool near to the sheep gate, recorded by John, ^(v) is within the deeper significance of the question with which Our Lord challenges him. Translated literally, He said, 'Have you the will to start again?' He did not ask if the man wanted to be healed. The question was a challenge to the subconscious mind. The answer was an evasion. Yet he is healed. He neither knew who had spoken to him nor had he asked for healing, faith can take no credit. Later in the day Our Lord seeks the man, and warns him with an unaccustomed severity, 'Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more lest a worse thing befall thee.'

The word which Jesus used for 'having the will' is the same word which He Himself used, in His prayer to God, in the Garden, over the brook Kidron. ^(vi) It is a decisive word, within which obedience may be an integral part.

Many people who continue to bear their suffering, and dependence upon others, are aligned in this prayer with Jesus; and actually 'the answer was the greatest the world has ever known' ^(vii) by accepting the greatest healing of all, within the words, 'Nevertheless Thy Will be done'; and 'desiring nothing but that Our Lord be glorified in all'. ^(viii)
 
 

(i) Fulfilling, Dorothy Kerin, 1952.

(ii) Everyman's Mission, Dr Rebecca Beard, (Arthur James, 1952).

(iii) F. S. Livie-Noble.

(iv) G. F. C. Searle, Sc.D., F.R.S.

(v) John 5:5.

(vi) Luke 22:42.

(vii) Everyman's Mission. Dr Rebecca Beard, (Arthur James, 1952).

(viii) The Little Way of Prayer, Dorothy Kerin.
 
 

Age
 

He stood hesitant on the threshold of the church. Behind him the night was black. Rain fell relentlessly. The church was warmly lighted - he scarcely noticed. He just stood - undecided. His eyes were filled with tears; in spite of his embarrassment they welled up, unrestrained. His head was bent low - one arm seemed limp. A grey haired man, not tall, a little bowed; one who had seen about seventy years. Yet at this moment he was like a little child of maybe seven.

But where is the difference?

An old man has the experience of many years behind him - his future is still unknown. The present is dominated by a weakness that is accentuated by a sense of failure.

And a child? There are few years behind him.

And the future? Children do not concern themselves with tomorrow. They live in the present. But if a child is insecure he can comfort himself by dangling a teddy bear. He knows quite well the teddy bear has no personal strength; yet are not two helpless people better than one?

Mervyn stood still, like a child without a teddy bear in spite of his years. He was led to a seat near the altar. Too weak to kneel, he waited his turn to know the living touch, through the hands of another. The following day Mervyn went back to the church. He walked with quiet dignity; slowly with the deliberate steps of an invalid. He sat down on the seat of the former evening. 'Yesterday I came to ask for help,' he said. 'Today I have come to say thank you.'

For are not two better than one?
 
 
 

Healing
 

At an earlier time, Dorothy was staying at Paignton. She was attacked by a tramp and suffered a fracture at the base of the skull, and the left ear drum was ruptured. The accident took place on 13th July 1913, but she was still suffering acute pain on 11th September. It was then that Our Lord came to her, and said,

As this doctor supports her at this time of her supreme need by sharing her suffering, surely the shadow of a man carrying the cross for Another falls across the page? ^(vi)
 
 

(i) The Living Touch.

(ii) Baron von Hügel.

(iii) Luke 17:17.

(iv) Bishop of St Albans.

(v) Fulfilling.

(vi) Luke 23:26.
 
 

One Life
 

Giotto, mystical artist of the 13th century, immortalised St Francis in pictures and frescoes, upon which men gaze and thereby absorb mystical experience by visual means. ⁽ⁱ⁾ The 20th century has no artist with his singular abilities to depict the spiritual. But quite simply it has occurred. In the Church of Christ the Healer, Burrswood, a stained glass window records the miraculous healing of Dorothy Kerin, in 1912, with the words, written in Latin, 'To the Greater Glory of God, and to render thanks for the full recovery to bodily health given through God's power to His servant Dorothy Kerin'.

The scene depicts a young woman propped up in bed. On one side of her stands a man, obviously her father. Jesus stands at the foot of the bed. In the forefront sits a brown dog. The scene is the traditional setting for the raising of the daughter of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, recorded in the first three gospels. With the daughter of Jairus, Dorothy shared the experience of a personal visitation from Our Lord. But this time Jesus came to a home in a London suburb, in the winter of 1912. The story has been told, in the years that have followed, within the anonymity of the healing of Jairus' daughter. The scene emphasises Dorothy's wish to be lost to sight. 'Pray for me - pray that I may be lost in Him' was the constant cry of her heart. In one letter she adds, 'For there is my only safety'. The window was first unveiled at Chapel House, Ealing, on the Feast of the Ascension, 10th May 1934. It was transferred to the Chapel of St Winifred, Court Lodge, Groombridge, on 30th November 1955. It was placed in its present position for the consecration of the Church, 14th May 1960. The dog was neither present in the window in 1934 nor in 1955. It was added between 1957 and 1960. The following events, which took place after Bishop Hough had dedicated Chapel House, Ealing, on 25th October 1930, may have influenced this.

The following passage is written in Fulfilling.

Together with the stained glass window, there remains a pen picture, ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ written by an artist who 'sees beyond and beneath the material to the spiritual, who sees beyond the temporal to the eternal'. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

An account of the last days in the life of Dorothy Kerin, has been recorded already. ^(iv) On Christmas Eve 1962, Dorothy had had an extremely busy day, in preparation for Christmas. Towards midnight she had started to make her way to the Church. After walking a few steps down the staircase in Chapel House, she could go no further. A little time later she was found sitting on the stairs, and she was helped back to her room. She remained in her bed till Thursday, 3rd January (1963). Snow had been falling almost continuously since Boxing Day. The drives leading to Burrswood had become wellnigh impassable. But on this morning Dorothy rose from her bed and put on her clothes. She walked to the Church for the Healing Service at 11.30 a.m. preferring the snow covered path outside, rather than the stairs within Burrswood. Dr Aubert did not attempt to dissuade her, knowing full well obedience came before any consideration for her personal health.

She had said that she knew someone was coming who needed her. Half an hour after the service had begun, and at the time of ministering, Dorothy rose from her prie-Dieu. The previous weakness, and fatigue, caused by the heart deterioration from which she was suffering, seemed to have left her. She looked radiantly beautiful, and no longer fatigued from walking to the Church on a bitterly cold day.

A nun was wheeled down the aisle; sitting erect, the black habit emphasised the more the whiteness of her face, ravaged by weeks of suffering. ^(v) A novice mistress, dearly loved by her young nuns, she had fallen, and as a result of this accident her speech had been taken from her, when she recovered from long unconsciousness.

It was because of the sadness in her eyes, and her inability to communicate with anyone, or indeed receive words of comfort, that she had been brought to Dorothy. Her eyes never left Dorothy's face. Dorothy rested her hands gently on the woman's head, and said the usual prayer. At this moment, these two women, both so soon to walk through the valley of the shadow, came together. The one who had dedicated her life within enclosure - the other by the same dedication had served Him in the busy thoroughfares of the world.

By Wednesday, 16th January, Dorothy's condition had deteriorated. Breathless, often in pain, cyanosed, unable to take any food, and as time went on, unable to sip water, Dorothy became unconscious by the morning of Thursday, 24th January. For a time she had difficulty in breathing. As the nurse who attended her watched her, she saw her lips moving, and then in a weak voice the words of the Nunc Dimittis became audible. As she said the last words, she raised her head, and a wonderful smile transformed her tired face. She began to speak, 'Oh, it is so beautiful; there is water everywhere, and flowers and birds.' She laughed and nodded her head several times. 'Oh, yes, I will - oh, yes, Lord,' she repeated again and again. Then closing her eyes, she said, 'His voice is like silk.' ^(vi)

Dorothy's physical condition was now astounding. At one moment she had been a sick person fighting for breath, and losing the fight, and the next moment she was sitting up in bed perfectly well. Then she asked for food. This was brought to her, and she ate with enjoyment. It was at this moment that she perplexed her physician by asking him to bring her a consultant as soon as possible. A heart specialist from a London hospital came on Friday evening, 25th January. ^(vii)

Then Dorothy prepared for sleep - looking across her room towards the west window she would have seen the great stark, naked branches of the Sweet Chestnut tree, silhouetted against the clear night sky and the whiteness of the frozen snow that covered the garden. This tree with its massive, creviced trunk, the delight of tree creepers, that had stood just here since Elizabethan days. Quietly her words came again, into the stillness of the night,

On Saturday morning, 26th January, Dr Aubert had only one concern - that Dorothy should take adequate time for convalescence. He remarked that she seemed more interested to make sure that her visitor should receive hospitality, than to learn from him anything about her condition, on the previous evening. At 11.15 a.m. he was sitting beside her, and they were talking together, when Dorothy lent forward, and seemed to catch her breath - and she died instantly. It was a still morning, a day of brilliant sunshine lighting up the garden and the Sussex hills beyond.

On Thursday morning, 31st January (1963), the funeral service took place in the Church of Christ the Healer, which she had built only three years before. ^(viii) The rays of the morning sun shone through each window, lighting up the flowers which filled the chancel. A robin flew in, singing gloriously, and this robin came each day to fly round the Church, till the snows of winter had given place to the early signs of spring, at the end of March. And his song was ever the same, Jubilate Deo.
 
 

(i) Giotto di Bondone, 1266-1337.

(ii) See Through, Kathleen Browning, 1974.

(iii) Foreword by the Right Reverend Cuthbert Bardsley, Bishop of Coventry, by kind permission of the Revd Frank Browning.

(iv) The Life of Dorothy Kerin, Johanna Ernest, 1983.

(v) The nun returned to her convent to pass there the days that remained. A new inner light replaced the sadness in her eyes. All around her gave thanks to God for the peace that enfolded her.

(vi) Testimony.

(vii) Had Dorothy not had a second medical opinion within a few hours of her death, Dr Aubert might well have been criticised. He would have been unable to make it known that he had repeatedly asked Dorothy to have further advice and she had always declined.

(viii) The service of consecration took place on 14th May 1960.
 
 

Postscript
 

Time has proved the answer! During the following seven decades, the world has brought its own judgement; its own response. The Living Touch, the tiny booklet which was first published in 1914, was probably never envisaged as being more than a statement written down under obedience; a disjointed fragment of writing which has become a spiritual classic. ⁽ⁱ⁾ Since 1914 it has been reprinted more than twenty- one times; been translated into other tongues and it is a testimony that Jesus heals today.

And Dorothy's foundation, Burrswood, stands today, a life-line for many. It would be more poetic to speak of crossing the plains of Umbria, and to see the first sight of Assisi outlined against the setting sun, yet the route from Tunbridge Wells to Groombridge leads to just such another centre, where the message entrusted to St Francis, and the commission given to Dorothy, become one.

Francis was walking near the little Church of San Damiano, which stands on the slope of the hill outside the city walls; the Church was in a crumbling condition. He felt strangely drawn to enter. While he was praying before the altar he heard a Voice speaking to him. It seemed to come from the Crucifix. It said, 'Go and repair my Church, which thou seest is wholly in ruin.' This was in the 13th century.

The same Voice spoke to Dorothy. This time it was the 20th century. But the message was the same. 'Build this Church for Me.' Francis was commissioned to, 'heal the wounded; bind up the broken hearted; and to recall them that have erred'. Dorothy was entrusted to, 'heal the sick; to bring comfort to the sorrowing; and to bring faith to the faithless' .

Obedience to the Divine Will, which motivated Francis, was paramount to Dorothy. The world into which each one was born - in which each one lived, was torn by war, social inequality, greed and abject poverty. Neither had any social privilege. They faced every obstacle by prayer and relentless hard work. They gave to each one they encountered the overwhelming assurance of the Presence of God; but they did not need to proclaim this assurance in words, they radiated it. In the words of one bishop, ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ 'Here is Dorothy giving this message to the world in her daily life.'

The route to Assisi has been a path of pilgrimage these many centuries; on the path which leads to Burrswood, when the traveller has left the village green behind him, something is communicated, 'the air itself is thought nourishing'. ⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ There are those who just come to see, but even they may become aware of their need to be changed. For whether life's journey draws some people to reach the moon or the furthest planets, all are really seeking completion, or perhaps the word clarity will suffice, 'a goal to which only the compass of the spirit points the way' enabling each one to be 'kept entire' ^(iv) until, in the fulness of time, a ray of glory lights the way to 'an indescribably lovely place, where everything both to see and to feel, is exquisite harmony'. ^(v)
 
 

(i) Professor Sir Alister Hardy, F.R.S.

(ii) Bishop Philip Loyd, Bishop of St Albans - formerly Bishop of Nasik.

(iii) Saul Bellow, re-printed by permission of Parabola Magazine.

(iv) Order of Service - Burrswood.

(v) The Living Touch.
 
 

Dorothy Kerin 1889-1963
 

Biographical Notes
 

Bibliographical Notes
 

For those who wish to study further the published works relative to the life of Dorothy Kerin, a few of the main titles are indicated.

Ash, Edwin Lancelot

Arnold, D. M.

Aubert, E. F.

Browning, Kathleen

Drake, F.

Ernest, J. R. M.

Farr, R.

Hardy, Professor Sir Alister

Ikin, A. Graham

Kerin, Dorothy

Lee, B.

Russell, A. J.

Stacy Waddy, R. P.

Thompson, The Rev. Logan

Waterfield, Evelyn

Winslade, J.

* In collaboration with the Rev. G. Grosjean (Geofranc).