wfn.org | Episcopal Churches help thousands m

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)]

September 26, 1997
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

97-1966
Episcopal Churches help thousands mourn Princess Diana, Mother
Teresa

By Michael Barwell
      From Central Park to Salt Lake City, from cathedrals to small
mission churches, Episcopal churches helped thousands mourn the death
of Princess Diana in early September.
      "Thank you for making this available," mourners told the staff of
Christ Church Cathedral in Lexington, Kentucky. "She suffered many of
the same kinds of things my friends and I have suffered . . . I needed to
pay my respects and I wanted my children to have something to
remember."
         In the weeks following the sudden death of Princess Diana,
who died with two others in an automobile accident in Paris on August
30, diocesan, cathedral and parish staff members around the country
scrambled to accommodate requests to respond to the tragedy, which
became a media-driven, worldwide period of intense mourning.
      In Chicago, Presiding Bishop-elect Frank Griswold said in a
homily to the 700 mourners jammed into St. James' Cathedral, "Diana
was courageous and fearful; intensely private and shockingly self-
disclosing; self-serving and self-giving; she was in so many ways a
mirror of our own humanity writ large, complete with all its paradoxes
and contradictions, all its struggles to find meaning in life and to find
love, which is perhaps why so many thought of her as `one of us.'" 

Responding to many needs
      Initially, many congregations planned only a few words or prayers 
on the Sunday following her death. As the week wore on, and televised
reports from England and around the world showed thousands of
mourners leaving flowers and tributes, many Episcopal churches offered
opportunities for local residents to respond.
      "We were just delighted" with the response, a spokesperson for
the British consul general said in Chicago. "It answered so many needs
for so many people," she said in a newspaper interview.
      In New York, the Diocese of New York and the Cathedral of
Saint John the Divine moved their planned memorial service from the
cathedral to the North Meadow of Central Park to accommodate the large
numbers of people expected to attend.
      Elsewhere, hundreds of Denver-area residents crossed a flower-
strewn vestibule at St. John's Cathedral to attend a service organized by
the Daughters of the British Empire. Joining Mayor Wellington Webb
and his wife, Wilma, people of East Indian descent, Hispanics, and other
nationalities listened to Dean Charles Kiblinger's sermon, signed
condolence books, and wept as a bagpiper played "Amazing Grace."
      The same story was played out in St. Matthew's Cathedral in
Dallas, Texas, where 600 mourners joined British expatriates. "I thought
we were the only ones who felt it," said one English-born woman in a
newspaper interview. "It really, really helped us. People told us . . . `we
share your loss.'"

A beam of light
      Cadets from The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina,
served as acolytes in a service at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul
in Charleston. Members of civic organizations and other denominations
participated in the ecumenical service in which Bishop Edward Salmon,
Jr. presided.
      At historic Truro Church in Fairfax, Virginia, members of The
British Club said they were "grateful [for] this chance to come together
to share our great sorrow both with each other and with the American
public."
      While some commentators expressed scorn for the unusual
outpouring of grief, and questioned turning Diana into "an earthly saint,"
Episcopal clergy such as the Rev. Caryl Marsh of St. Paul's in Salt Lake
City, Utah, noted in their sermons or homilies that Diana "was a beam of
light in a world that in so many ways is in darkness, a symbol of
compassion in a world in which it is sadly lacking."

Mother Teresa also mourned
      Many churches combined their memorial services to include
Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who founded a world-wide
religious order dedicated to serving the poor, outcasts, and dying in
Calcutta.
      The 87-year-old, Nobel Prize-winning nun died five days after
Diana of heart failure. Many homilists compared the two lives -- one
glamorous and troubled, the other simple and self-giving. 
      "In Mother Teresa deep and compelling spirituality was combined
with a practical application of faith," said Archbishop of Canterbury
George Carey. "I am sure that these were the qualities that drew Princess
Diana and others to hold her in such affection."
      Tributes to the tiny nun poured out of religious offices around the
world.
      "In a world where the gap between rich and poor continues to
increase, where millions are denied basic human rights and justice is a
stranger to entire nations, the world will honor the memory of Mother
Teresa best by its commitment to eradicate the greed and exploitation
which creates, for the majority of the world's people, so much suffering
of body, mind and soul," said Dr. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of
the World Council of Churches in Geneva.
      "Her gentleness and strength, her gifts of endurance and loving
service become models of hope and promise for all who pursue the
journey of faithful service," said Dr. Joan Campbell, general secretary of
the National Council of Churches in New York. "We praise God for
Mother Teresa, a saint for our time."
      The Rev. Canon John L. Peterson, secretary of the Anglican
Communion, said from his offices in London, "Her ardent faith and her
deep compassion are something that will be remembered for generations
to come. Her greatest gift to us is not only the admonition to work for
the poor, but to love the poor, the outcast."
       "In a hurting world, where enormous problems make it hard not
to lose heart, Mother Teresa encouraged us by giving vibrant witness that
one person can make a difference." said Presiding Bishop Edmond
Browning. "We never had any doubt that her loving labor among those
ignored, and even despised, was an obedient response to her Lord.  May
her faithful witness inspire our own."

--Michael Barwell is deputy director of news and information for the
Episcopal Church.