Death of an Uncle

My sole remaining Uncle has just died, sadly, in a hospital after a fall, from which he suffered a broken hip, further complications weakened him so much he did not respond to treatment. He passed away alone at 0130 hrs, which I’m told is a common time for those near death to surrender to it. It seems to me that God has taken him into his loving arms to take away his suffering. The night before, when his partner visited, he had managed to summon the strengh to take and to squeeze her hand. Which she is now believing him to have used to say good bye.

I’m still in a little shock. While not unexpected, he had been unwell for the past couple of years and was waitng for transfer from hospital to a care home, something he was unhappy about, as he only wanted to be allowed to go home to die.

He had been a vibrant, fully alive and with all his faculties until very recently, when Dementia had reduced his ability to communicate. But he would come alive when members of his family or his partner Margaret visited and particularly when talking about his life and Army service in the last war.

I was incredibly proud of him, he was a true hero, in the quiet, unassuming way that he described his experiences of fighting with his Battalion in the Alamein campaigns. Being taken prisoner, his transportation to Italy and escaping by jumping of a moving train taking him to a POW camp. He ended up fighting with the Italian Partisans for nearly a year before recapture. He suffered ill-treatment at the hands of his captors, before being taken to be held in a POW camp in Poland. He endured the long march of prisoners forced to march back into Germany in the face of Russian advances until liberated by the Americans. He continued in the Army (he was a Regular), but remained haunted by the over 800 casualties from his Battalion, during WW2. He spoke about them with sadness and seemed to miss so many of them.

 As a person, he was a nominal Christian, but had felt very much estranged from God. He said to me once that he couldn’t see how a God would entertain him who had seen so many bad things, and who had killed people. He believed he was lost and seemed resigned to the fact. I’m not sure whether he actually had be able to reconcile this before his death, I sincerely hope that he did.

May Perpetual Light shine upon him,
May he rest in peace,
And Rise in Glory
Amen

Kings Badge of the Durham Light Infantry from http://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/british_regiment/durham_light_infantry.htm

Confession or Reconciliation or both?

Coming from a Catholic background, my concept of Confession is founded on my childhood experience of the Sacrement, which I discarded when I left the RC Church.

My view of the place of Confession in the Anglican tradition had been formed by initial contact and learning, in that unless there were real or specific reasons for someone to feel the need for personal confession to a Priest, the General Confession and Repentance within Anglican Daily Prayer and Worship services was sufficient to examine your consience and to offer the acknowledged errors and transgressions to Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Remeemer to be reconciled to God.  Confession within the Anglican tradition, seems to be a very specialised area, with few Priests actually available, unless you go to a High Anglo Catholic, where it is commonplace.

Having been thinking carefully and prayerfully about this - I believe that my views are changed, perhaps discussions with a Priest have helped, but also perhaps something has happened in myself, which allows me to put aside pre-conceptions and inhibitions going back to childhood regarding confession to view it in a renewed light.

So, I now accept that Confession AND Reconciliation are necessary to make us whole, to bring things out into the open between us and God, with the Priest as an intermediary - approaching this idea, after 25 years or more, without being in a confessional, is daunting but something I feel drawn to do if I can feel that I am made whole and to be fully reconciled with Jesus Christ.

I have found a Priest for this, and will be going soon.  Lots of reflection needed to allow discernment from my inner self, where I have issues, some historic, which need to be aired! Having repented already, they still seem to be there below the surface colouring how I feel and even impact on how I worship.  Very Soon!!