01.03.2021
Columbarium Wall Dedicated in Irishtown
A new columbarium wall in the graveyard of St Matthew’s Church in Irishtown was dedicated by Archbishop Michael Jackson yesterday (Sunday February 28). The columbarium will offer a place of repose for parishioners and for people from the wider community.
The dedication took place during a Service of Holy Communion which was livestreamed to parishioners who could not attend due to current restrictions. The Archbishop said that the dedication within the celebration of the Eucharist was “a sign and a symbol to us all of the communion of saints and of the spiritual and loving connection of the living and the dead as we journey through Lent 2021 and beyond”. During the service, the Vicar, the Revd John Marchant, commended parishioner and architect, the late Stuart Hamilton, whose vision led to the building of the columbarium.
The word columbarium derived from the nesting boxes of pigeons or doves, Archbishop Jackson noted. “The dove, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the desert at his baptism and this cannot but be another resonance of the columbarium in a Christian context. It is a gentle and a delightful image of what we do with the ashes of those whom we love now parted from us. We treat them with respect and affection. We share their memory with church and with community. Their ashes rest and nest, so to speak, in the columbarium. And for me in a very particular way these niches, these holes in the stone, connect me with that transformative and spiritual experience on The Mountain of Temptation and its perspective on an even more untouchable life with God on the next–door mountain,” he said.
Archbishop Jackson also paid tribute to the Revd John Marchant who retires at the end of March, for all the wonderful positive and active things he has done in the parish in his years of service there. He described him as “tireless, responsive, industrious, helpful, courteous, outreaching and Godly” and wished him and his wife Pat everything that is best as they journey into the years ahead. He added that they would both be missed and cherished greatly.
He also acknowledged that there were many who would have wished to be in St Matthew’s in person for the dedication. However, he added: “. We all continue to seek for God and be found for God in Level 5 Lockdown wherever we are. It adds a certain frisson, a particular sharpness to Lent 2021. We carry in our own person the burden of responsibility for others as the first receivers of the burden of responsibility for ourselves. We have been here before. It gets no easier. Yet we are still all in this together and that too is part of our new understanding of gathering.”
You can watch the act of dedication below.