
Father Kevin Jordan was born in this parish in the hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. His family lived in Alexandra Road until he was two before moving to Kenton where he attended Salvatorian College and St Dominic’s Sixth Form College before going to the University of London and qualifying as a vet from the Royal Veterinary College in 1991. After working in Suffolk and Essex he entered Allen Hall (getting to know Canon McGowan, Canon Davis, Fr Mark Anwyll and Fr Allen Morris who taught him) and was ordained a priest in 1999. Since then he has had the immense privilege of witnessing the many ways in which God has worked in the lives of His people among the parishioners of the Cathedral, Enfield, North Harrow and Willesden Green; with staff and pupils in both day and boarding schools; among patients and carers in hospitals and hospices from the beginning of life to its natural end; alongside soldiers and their families; through the lives and stories of those who struggle with addiction. Inspired by these extraordinary people he hopes he can worthily carry their message of faith to you just as his predecessors here have done. Archbishop Terrence Cooke of New York once said, “A priest is called to be a brother who shares the worries and fears and the frailty of the people around him and who brings to them not any great strength and invulnerability of his own, but his joyful trust in the Father who loves him and in Jesus whose priesthood he shares.” He says that if he can spend his time here doing that, he shall be very happy indeed.
Father Ben Woodley, was born in 1973 in London and for many years sung as a treble at St John’s, Hampstead. From the age of eleven he was educated at the Purcell School, a specialist music school, and then at the Royal College of Music and London University. Underpinning his musical studies was the notion, the intuition that this great language, music, had its true source in Another, in the loving and saving Author of all: Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament.
This deep truth eventually led him to be received into the Catholic Church from Anglicanism. In 2011 he started seminary formation for the Priesthood and was sent to the Venerable English College, Rome. The formation in Rome is normally seven years, his' lasted eight; year six (for nine months) was spent as a postulant at the Trappist Cistercian Monastery in Leicestershire, Mount Saint Bernard Abbey. This experience confirmed that his vocation to serve the Lord was utterly rooted, yes, in prayer but also to be lived out in the world, at the service of God’s people.
This deep truth eventually led him to be received into the Catholic Church from Anglicanism. In 2011 he started seminary formation for the Priesthood and was sent to the Venerable English College, Rome. The formation in Rome is normally seven years, his' lasted eight; year six (for nine months) was spent as a postulant at the Trappist Cistercian Monastery in Leicestershire, Mount Saint Bernard Abbey. This experience confirmed that his vocation to serve the Lord was utterly rooted, yes, in prayer but also to be lived out in the world, at the service of God’s people.


Margaret Wickware, our Catechetical Coordinator has a Masters in Religious Education and Catechesis, completed certificates in RCIA and Ministry and Evangelisation for the familythrough the Maryvale Institute. (Masters thesis was on the sacrament of baptism as an opportunity to evangelise new parents.) In addition to contributing to twenty booklets of meditation for small faith-sharing communities in the Diocese of Westminster and beyond, she has offered baptismal preparation and assisted with RCIA at her previous parish in Wimbledon. Most recently, she organised adult faith formation at St. Thomas More, Swiss Cottage (using the Ascension Press programme -Come Follow Me, Encounter Christ in the Gospel of St. John) and the Discovering Christ programme at St. Luke’s, Pinner. Besides her work as a study tutor at Allen Hall (now in her fourth year), she is President of the Guild of Our Lady & St. Joseph with responsibility for organising its programmes and publications for almost four years. She works closely with our Parish Priest in catechetical formation of both adults and children and hopes to explore further opportunities for adult formation. Please contact Margaret under margaretwickware@rcdow.org.uk



