“In the midst of death, life persists. In the midst of untruth, truth persists. In the midst of darkness, light persists.” – Mahatma Gandhi
In my last blog, I shared some thoughts about a recent retreat at Fairacres in Oxford.
In an attempt to tidy up the ever accumulating photographs on my mobile phone. I was rather struck by the images that I captured at the end of a half an hours walk north of the Convent into the parish of Iffley.
Exercise is always good. I headed off to Rose Hill Cemetery- a large expanse of land – with views across the city. I hadn’t been in this pace for sometime. My last visit followed the funeral of a Sister from the Convent who had been my spiritual director over many years. She died in August 2018 not long after my own mother earlier that summer.
I felt a strong impulse to visit and to see the grave, to pray and say thank you for all that the community and this sister had shared with me. This intuition that I should visit conquered the damp rainy morning and the navigation of a traffic that filled the Iffley Road heading into Oxford for Saturday retail therapy !
I had last been in this place in September 2018 for the funeral of Sister Edmee.
It was a great gathering of sisters, staff, priest associates, friends and neighbours. The mass in Chapel was simple and dignified with an insightful and affectionate homily which honoured this particular life. As I approached the cemetery, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place. I wondered if I would ever find the area where the sisters were laid to rest until I came across this pathway. It brought back the memories of that day and I suddenly reconnected with the slow journey towards the grave that day. It was almost as if it were yesterday.
I walked on and remembered the route the coffin had taken headed up by the officiating priest and a sister with a thurible – the hot coals sending clouds of fragrant incense into the late summer sky. The cemetery somehow felt cared for. Lines of graves many with fresh flowers and some even with notes and balloons and soft toys.
Other plots were less attended to and weeds and flowers combined to give a sense of a late emerging spring even in the rain. Oddly in a place where the dead were like to rest there was a great deal of life. Birds were singing. The wild flowers bearing colour. The rumble of cars and lorries heading down the Iffley Road. The sound of children playing.
I wonder when you were last in a graveyard? This designated space was that day also a very spiritual place for me. It was a place belonging to the Oxford community where they laid their loved ones to rest and, perhaps, found some consolation in the revisiting the memorial to their family or friends.
It was a place of rest but also prayer perhaps? A place to ponder what this living and loving amounts to? Perhaps it was even a place where the memory of loved ones continues to sustain the living.
As I walked on, I suddenly remembered where the graves of the sisters were situated. In the distance I could see the flat memorial stones set out against the far boundary wall of the cemetery. The relief not having to search too long was comforting and reassuring as I walked closer to that area. Here in carefully organised symmetry were the graves of many sisters. Some of the headstones were almost impossible to read eroded by years of weather. Some names were familiar and others less so.
The sisters grave was not easy to locate, but when I did find it, I was overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for her tinged with some sadness that often comes with happy memories of people we have lost and continued to mourn. In this place where she and others are memorialised I prayed for the community and all those who had sustained its life over many decades.
A deep sense of gratitude emerged from those prayers for their witness and ministry and care to so many. But above thanksgiving all for the discipline of prayer -each day punctuated with the rhythm of the offices and the discipline of contemplative prayer.
The uphill, wet walk was more than worth it. I did as many have done in this place- and pursued a conversation aloud naming my gratitude for so much that had been shared and given.
And praying for the souls of all the faithful departed. But also praying for the present community and their witness and life and ministry.
In the midst of death, life persists.The Christian story offers us hope that in the mystery of the gentle and humble Christ, crucified and risen, God gathers all the fragments of our lives together and brings them to completion in healing and reconciliation.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.