The Archdeacon Returns - Chapter Six
Chapter Six: Requiem for a Bishop
Two days after the Archbishop
presided over the ordination of deacons, the Bishop was dead. It seems so strange to say it. She had been
such a force and such a presence in the Diocese over the past twenty years that
it was difficult to imagine a world in which Temperance Verity was no more. She,
who presided over her flock like a stern parent, was no longer amongst us. Sentiment across the Diocese was mixed, as
they might be in any family upon the death of such a parent. She had led the Church through challenging
days. Her devotion to it was almost ascetic in its austerity. During her episcopate, the Diocese had shrunk
considerably. It had gone from having three suffragan, or assisting, bishops to
none. During her time, the diocesan
office staffing had been reduced by two thirds.
During her time, a quarter of the parishes in the Diocese were closed,
while many more were amalgamated. It
could safely be said that aside from restoring the office of archdeacon in the
person of her friend the Ven. Thomas Fulman, she had added very little to the
Diocese during the time of her episcopacy, and in fact she had taken much away.
For this, she was unappreciated, and in some quarters, hated. But she had saved
the Church.
There was no way things could have continued on the
way they were, the way things had been for generations, they way things had
been unrealistically expected to continue for generations to come. A strong hand
was needed to get the house in order, and Bishop Temperance Verity was the one
person ordained by God to do this work, the work that no one else would countenance,
the work that no one else had the courage to undertake, much less admit it
needed undertaking.
A wise clerical friend once told me that all ministry
has a personal cost, and indeed so it did for our recently departed
Bishop. She had sacrificed her popularity,
her friendships, and even her own dreams for the future of the Church on the
altar of truth. She knew what needed to be done when others refused to face the
facts, and she did it. Many thought she
liked doing it, and while she did enjoy her vocation and believed herself truly
called to it, she used to argue with God about why she had to be the one to do
this work of pruning, the work that no one else would do. The decisions she had
been forced to make as bishop were painful to her, although I don’t think anyone
really understood that. In the early days of her priestly ministry, before she
was a bishop, she imagined herself a builder, not a dismantler, but God gives
each of us gifts and we are called to use them according to his purposes, not
our own. God had given Bishop Verity a spine of steel that remained firmly
intact after her consecration. He had
given her focus, clarity of vision, single-mindedness, and yes, a high sense of
duty in her calling. She was stubborn and
she was fearless, and that was what the Church had needed these past twenty
years if it were to survive. The Bishop served faithfully to the end, and at
great personal cost. Perhaps, then, we
might be able to forgive her, or at least understand her desire to remain
steadfast at her post until her Lord called her home.
If the majority of people in the Diocese, or the old
Archbishop, did not have this insight into her, there was one who did – her old
friend the Archdeacon. He had known her since their seminary days and in these
last few years he had understood the cost of ministry better than most. She had
taught him well. She had handpicked him from his charmed parochial life and place
upon him a portion of her burden and the burden of securing the future of her diocese.
He understood her burden and he understood the cost. In his archdiaconal role he had lost many
friends, the respect of many of his peers, and most tragically, he had lost
Christa.
Yes, ministry does have a cost – often a very high
cost. This is something that all clerics
learn, sooner or later. All cost carries
with it regret, I suppose, but the joy of the call always outweighs the loss.
At least that’s what we tell ourselves; that’s what we believe.
Thus, there was muted grief that accompanied the Bishop’s death, and a sense that while the mourning would follow its prescribed course, it would not last long. The Bishop had appointed the Archdeacon as her executor. Her modest estate was to be sold and the money given directly the poor, no endowments, no funds, straight to the poor at the Archdeacon’s discretion. The Archdeacon, with David’s assistance and that of the Cathedral Dean (who happened to be another enemy of the late Bishop) planned her Requiem. Weeks ago, when the Archdeacon had opened the thin folder with her funeral instructions, he found them to be remarkably simple. The liturgy was to be without pomp or ceremony – a very simple affair, if a bishop’s funeral can ever be such a thing. She explicitly instructed that the Croft Burial Sentences were not to be sung, nor should the Kontakion. She stated that under no circumstances should the casket, a simple pine box, be asperged or censed. There would be no visitation prior to the Requiem Eucharist, and there would be no eulogy. While she relented to the tradition that the Archbishop should preside over the service, she insisted that Archdeacon should preach, and was emphatic that her name not be so much as mentioned during the sermon. The sermon should be based on the long reading about the Resurrection found in 1 Corinthians 15 and the Archdeacon should confine his comments to that subject alone, not the deceased.
The funeral, then, was quite a solemn affair. She
wanted no choir anthems, but the Archdeacon did exercise the prerogative of the
living on this one point. At the end of the service, as the casket was taken
from the chancel and carried down the nave to the coach, he had instructed the
choir to sing these words (slightly modified by himself) from the old John
Bunyan hymn, as a very fitting tribute to her life and ministry:
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