Christopher Bryant, SSJE (1905-1985)
FATHER CHRISTOPHER REX BRYANT, SSJE
died June 8, 1985
Father Christopher Rex Bryant, a priest of our English Congregation, died on 8 June 1985 at Tunbridge Wells, Kent in the eightieth year of his life and the fiftieth year of his religious profession.
Born in 1906 in Woolwich, a district of London, where his father worked at the Greenwich Observatory, Father Bryant was educated at Kings School, Canterbury, Pembroke College, Cambridge and St. Augustine’s Theological College, Canterbury. He was ordained in 1929 and served a curacy at St. Paul’s, Clapham, in the Diocese of Southwark. He came to our community at the Mission House in Oxford in 1932 and was professed in 1935. He then spent the first ten years of his professed based at the Mission House in Oxford. From 1945 he lived at our house in Doune, Scotland, and then Joppa, just outside Edinburgh, returning to the Mission House in 1949 where he served first as the Novice Master and then as the Assistant Superior. In 1955 he became the Superior of St. Edward’s House, London. There he began to be widely known as a retreat conductor and spiritual director. From 1968 until 1971 he was on the staff at St. Augustine’s College, Canterbury, which at that time was the place where ordinands from King’s College, London spent their final year. He returned to the Mission House in Oxford in 1971 and remained there until he went again to St. Edward’s House in 1980. It was during the last fifteen years of his life that he became widely known as an author of books on spirituality and the relationship between psychology and prayer. His most influential book, The River Within was published in 1978. His last book Jung and the Christian Way appeared in 1984. One of Susan Howatch’s Starbridge novels draws heavily on Father Bryant’s writings. At the same time he edited a popular theological journal called New Fire which had a wide circulation. Once when asked to define prayer he replied that prayer was not about saying prayers, but rather what happened when the mystery that was God encountered the mystery that was the individual. He died suddenly and very quietly one day when he and some friends were out exploring the Kentish countryside. He is buried along with other members of the community, at Rose Hill Cemetery, Oxford.
I encountered Fr Christopher Bryant when I was still an undergraduate trying to work out if God was calling me to the religious life. That turned out not to be case and I have been a parish priest for nearly 40 years. But I still remember an extraordinary conversation with Fr Bryant over several successive evenings at St Edwards House that opened the door to depths of the spiritual life that I had never envisaged and have sustained prayer over time. His characteristic humility came home to me in his comment one evening that he had set out to learn the Four Quartets by heart but realised that as he was approaching the end he was forgetting the beginning. It was only years later the resonance of that comment in relation to the opening lines of the poem.
Stirred by the wisdom of Father Bryant’s “Jung and the Christian Way”. I feel that it is a way forward to a healing and a deepening spirituality. I was drawn to C.G. Jung in my university days but have never been able to reconcile some of Jungian concepts (the Shadow) with my Catholicism. I am looking forward to reading the River Within.
I wish I had met him.
Father Christopher was my spiritual guide on private retreats at Saint Edward’s House Westminster from 1958 until 1962 when I decided to become a Roman Catholic. I remember him as a kind, deeply spiritual man and a wise counsellor.
May he rest in peace!
Father Bryant was my wise spiritual director in my Anglican days from 1958 until 1963.
I owe him a debt of gratitude.
I only know Christopher through his writing but he has been and continues to be a good and wise friend to me and I am very thankful for his insights and wise counsel.
I was also indebted to his writings on my own journey.
Father Bryant’s writings integrating Jung and Christianity helped me greatly in my spiritual journey.