BISHOP RALPH HESKETT’S GOLDEN JUBILEE:
Next Friday 10 July, marks the 50th anniversary of Bishop Ralph’s Ordination to the Priesthood at our former parish, St Benet’s in Sunderland. I remember it well because as the young priest in the community at the time I had helped to prepare the ceremony and had produced the booklet for the occasion. On the same date in 2010 he was ordained Bishop in Gibraltar and in 2014, remarkably on the same date, he was installed as the third Bishop of Hallam. Bishop Eton was well represented in Gibraltar and at Sheffield Cathedral as it will be again this coming Friday. Ralph and I have shared a genuine friendship over the years and our lives have been interwoven, including that short period from 2008 to 2010 when we formed a mission team working from here in the Bishop Eton community. However, as you know, that venture was interrupted by Pope Benedict XVI and a year later, while he was ministering in Gibraltar, I was asked to look after the parishes of Bishop Eton and St Mary’s Woolton. In the Book of Revelation, as John reflects on the challenges for the early Christians communities, we hear him say repeatedly: “If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” As we seek to discern what the Spirit is saying to the churches of today, we note the need to continue to pool our resources. With Bishop Ralph’s retirement on health grounds, the Diocese of Hallam has been incorporated into the neighbouring Dioceses of Leeds and Middlesbrough and we have had to return the care of St Mary’s Woolton to the Archdiocese of Liverpool. St Benet’s in Sunderland was returned to the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle in 2011. None of us can predict how things will reflect on our own histories and the history of the world, the more expansive our vision becomes and the more we recognise that wonderful insight of Père Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, namely the interconnectedness of everything and the fact that the whole of creation is moving towards its ultimate fulfilment in Christ. So, for now, let’s just thank God for all the blessings that Bishop Ralph has brought to so many of us and to the wider Church and pray that he may now be able to relax and regain his health and strength.
