Earlier this year our bishop, Bishop Tricia, experienced in the most deep and personal way the sudden loss of Andrew, her husband.
This last weekend, across our churches, we remembered and gave thanks for all those we have loved and lost. At this significant time, Bishop Tricia chose to share her feelings and reflections on her own experience of this loss with Judith Ley of Manx Radio. In her reflection she talks of how she and Andrew felt “an enveloping cloud of love” from the Manx public.
The whole reflection is honest, gracious, illuminating and encouraging, as Bishop Tricia acknowledges that, through this difficult experience, she is learning still more about faith. In her life Bishop Tricia has experienced loss in her family, and alongside others as a social worker and priest, and she acknowledges the deep challenges in the personal experience of bereavement. She explains that she and Andrew had come to the Isle of Man both feeling that they were ‘setting sail with God’, and she now feels she is entering further into this unknown voyage of faith, going deeper with God into a deep, deep ocean. Referencing the Methodist Covenant Prayer, Bishop Tricia says she continues to trust God’s call, even though it may take her out of her comfort zone.
Responding to the natural question about whether this unexpected dramatic change in her life might lead her to withdraw from the post of Bishop of Sodor and Man, Bishop Tricia described how she and Andrew had both felt that they’d been called to “abiding in the Island”, and so she hopes that her continuing ministry as Bishop will be accepted. Through Andrew’s illness and death she had experienced love and care from people in the churches, in Tynwald, and across the Manx community, including a member of staff in Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, and she describes “the sense of being held by the prayers of others that really allowed her to feel that God was holding her.”
Bishop Tricia’s reflection is rich with beautiful stories, depth, inspiration, and heart-warming touches of humour. Plus a sprinkling of poignant quotes including this prayer from Brendan the Navigator:
Help me to journey beyond the familiar
and into the unknown.
Give me the faith to leave old ways
and break fresh ground with You.
Christ of the mysteries, I trust You
to be stronger than each storm within me.
I will trust in the darkness and know
that my times, even now, are in Your hand.
Tune my spirit to the music of heaven,
and somehow, make my obedience count for You.
AMEN.
Bishop Tricia’s reflection for All Saints & All Souls, beautifully woven together by Judith Ley with some reflective music, was broadcast in “At Your Service” on Sunday morning, and you can listen to it on the At Your Service podcast here.
All Saints and All Souls
1st November is All Saints Day when, as Archbishop Stephen Cottrell says, “We celebrate All Saints, all those Christians, known and unknown, who have come before us, rejoicing in their lives, and in the communion that unites all the people of God.”
It is a time to be encouraged by the example of the saints and to recall that sanctity may grow in the ordinary circumstances, as well as the extraordinary crises, of human living.
2nd November is All Souls Day – the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed – and celebrates the saints in a more local and intimate key. It allows us to remember with thanksgiving before God people we have known ourselves: people who gave us life, or friendship, or who nurtured us in faith.
A beautiful Christian symbol is to light a candle remembering loved ones and giving thanks for them. The candle is a sign of our prayer, and also signifies the light of Christ that lives on, in and around them.