After being with
us for a year as a deacon, yesterday, Saturday 2 July Gillian Gamble was
ordained priest at Leicester Cathedral. This is the second stage in the
Anglican model of ordained ministry.
The service, led
by Bishop Martyn Snow, took place in a Cathedral packed with the families,
friends and parishioners of the eight people who were to be ordained. Bishop
Christopher, the Assistant Bishop, also took part as did the Archdeacons, Dean
and Cathedral staff. The sermon was preached by the Archdeacon of Boston, Justine Allain
Chapman, who had led a retreat for the ordinands at
Launde Abbey in the days leading up to their ordination.
She studied the
story of Ruth, the ancestor of King David and of Jesus himself. Ruth had been
an outsider to the Jewish faith, but had been attracted by the witness of her
husband and of Naomi, her mother-in-law. The other reading, from Luke 24, told
of Jesus explaining the gospel to the couple on the road to Emmaus and then
revealing himself as he broke bread.
This witness to
the outsider, this teaching of the Christian faith and this revealing of Christ
who broke the bread would be the basis of the ordinands’ ministry.
After the
charges to minister in a way that was acceptable to God, the Bishop laid hands
on each of the ordinands and the Assistant Bishop anointed their hands with oil
for the task ahead.
There was then a
service of Holy Communion in which the ordinands were involved in distributing
the bread and wine.
After the
service the congregation milled into the Cathedral Gardens for photographs, a
glass of wine, the opportunity to listen to the jazz band and the opportunity
to greet the ordinands and to renew old friendships.
Gillian was to
preside at the communion service at St Paul’s the next day. We look forward to
her further ministry and pray that God may continue to bless her ministry.
