Peter Ramsden

 

On returning from Papua New Guinea, I was kindly invited by the Bishop of Carlisle to be an Honorary Assistant Bishop in his diocese. I chair the committee that keeps an eye on the diocese’s overseas companion links to Stavanger, Northern Argentina, and Zululand. So far so good – hostilities have not restarted between us and the Vikings, Argentinians or Zulus! Now that the Covid restrictions have eased it has been good to be back administering the sacrament of Confirmation. I always go to meet the candidates in their parish a few weeks beforehand. Farmers’ families at Plumpton, (where a great-great-grandmother of mine was born) north of Penrith, were my last group. Within sight of the great Lakeland mountains of Blencathra and Skiddaw, the gospel of the Transfiguration was a gift. Our Lord still calls us by name to go with him, along with the others he has called, on the journey of faith. A future Confirmation will be at Sedburgh School set beside the Howgill Fells. *

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I enjoyed returning to Durham, the diocese of my ordination, with a Papua New Guinean bishop, Nathan Ingen and his wife Jessica after the Lambeth Conference. We visited St Ignatius Hendon in Sunderland. The parish priest there in 1936 was Fr Philip Strong, who was called that year to be the Bishop of New Guinea. Later he led the Church through the desperate wartime years after the Japanese invasion in 1942. His leadership was straightforward – to encourage his people to be faithful and his staff to remain at their posts. He was blamed by some for the subsequent deaths of the martyred teachers, nurses and priests, but they freely chose to stay and their legacy has enriched the faith of many ever since. Some people at St Ignatius remembered his return visit to the parish in 1971 and continue to generously support the Papua New Guinea Church Partnership (PNGCP).

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Some of my wanderings are deputations for PNGCP, most recently to St Clement’s Leigh-on-Sea. Fr Clive Hillman had heard me speak about the PNG Martyrs at Walsingham and invited me. What most impressed me was the shorter Family Mass at noon, with real children and young parents in church, a welcome contrast to my local parishes.

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I presided at the Corpus Christi sung mass with incense at St John the Evangelist Skirwith with a choir of 24 – yes, this is the diocese of Carlisle. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the organist at St Lawrence Appleby, the deanery gathers together local choirs for occasional sung celebrations. A former parish priest of Skirwith, once a Mirfield living, was Fr T.W. Bradburne, father of John Bradburne, who became a Roman Catholic and a Franciscan lay brother in Zimbabwe, working among those with leprosy at Mutemwa Care Centre. He was murdered there in 1979. The cause of John Bradburne’s beatification started in 2019. After Corpus Christi, Bishop Paul Swarbrick, the RC Bishop of Lancaster, led the annual John Bradburne Pilgrimage walk up Cross Fell, at 2930ft the highest point in the Pennines, which looms up above Skirwith. On the same day Anglicans in Zimbabwe marked the murder of Bernard Mizeki, another evangelist and faithful disciple of Christ, who gave his life in 1896. 

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I’m happy to be numbered among the train-spotting clergy. I was invited to St Andrew’s Crosby Garrett (Midland Railway milepost 270 north of St Pancras) to bless a new memorial stone in memory of the 30 men, women and children who died during the building of the Settle- Carlisle line between 1870-76. Their names are known to God alone.

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Most Sundays I’m presiding and preaching in the local village churches as one of the so-called ‘active retireds’. Ten congregations are gathered under the wings of St Martin’s Brampton. Rebuilt to the design of Pre-Raphaelite architect Philip Webb in 1878, it has a complete set of windows by Burne-Jones and manufactured by William Morris. For three months I’ve been covering for our local priest who has been on sabbatical. Locally the benefice is supported by 5 retired clergy – I’m the only male. There are no Society parishes in the Diocese of Carlisle, which is a particular challenge for the scattered traditionalist lay people, as patterns of ministry and ministers constantly change. I always thought the gift of stamina was needed in PNG, as I walked across mountain ranges considerably higher than the Lake District or Pennines. I now find that spiritual stamina is what is most needed by those called to walk with us on the way of Christ.

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The journey continues – future wanderings will take me to Durham Cathedral for the Walsingham Festival and to West Kirby on my North Wirral home turf for St Andrew’s Eve, before welcoming our next Bishop of Beverley at York Minster.