Association of the Divine Call In 1908, two students at St John's Theological College decided to form a religious community, the Association of the Divine Call, with three-year vows of celibacy. The two students were Kelly and
Gerard Kennedy Tucker. Tucker had previously studied for ordination at
St Wilfrid's Theological College, Cressy, where, at the time (1906 to 1907), the warden of St Wilfred's was Nugent Kelly, the father of Maurice. Three other students joined. The establishment of the Association received a lukewarm response from Archbishop
Lowther Clarke, and, after ordination to the diaconate in 1910, the members of the community went their own ways. Tucker went on to found the
Brotherhood of St Laurence in 1930 and the Food for Peace Campaign in 1953 (which eventually became
Oxfam Australia).
Community of the Ascension Lewis Radford was appointed
Bishop of Goulburn in 1915, in succession to
Christopher Barlow. Barlow had died in 1914, having seen his former episcopal residence, Bishopthorpe, be severely damaged by fire the previous year. Radford was the first Anglo-Catholic bishop of Goulburn, and his impact was promptly felt. During Radford's episcopacy, Goulburn became the only bush diocese to have four religious orders. One of those was the Community of the Ascension. In 1918, at the end of WWI, three army chaplains resolved to form a religious community; and in that year Radford offered them the ruins of Bishopthorpe. The three army chaplains were Kelly, and two others: Fr Edward Kempe and Fr Stanley Homersham. The three were sent to the
Community of the Resurrection in
Mirfield in England for two years, to experience community life, and the House of the Ascension was opened on their return in 1921. The sequence of names is a logical one in theological terms for Kelly: from the Divine Call whilst as an ordinand, through the experience of Crucifixion as an army chaplain in the trenches, on to the Resurrection when learning to live the religious life, and through to the Ascension when professed in his own community. The influence of the Community of the Resurrection was strong. The Rule and Constitution were very similar. The Community was featured in an early edition of the Australian pictorial magazine
Pix in 1938, and the photographs show the Ascensionists wearing a habit which is almost identical to that worn by members of the Community of the Resurrection. The Community reached a high point in 1935, with 12 professed members. The following year, however, the Superior, Harold Davies, went over to Rome, and the community began to decline. The Community dissipated in 1940–41, with many members joining up, but was not formally dissolved until 1943. ==Personal life==