Five years ago Bishop Cornell
spoke to our Guyana Diocesan Association of the challenging yet exciting task
of becoming Bishop of Guyana in these words: ‘When one considers the scarcity
of the population in such a large country, the many natural resources, the warm
and kind temperament of the people and the strong influence of people of faith,
among them Christians, the country is poised to make some serious steps ahead.
This requires the coming together of all, not to simply shape policy and
develop programmes as important as these may be, (but) it is the coming
together to lift the spirits of people who for generations have been on the
sharp end of socio-economic and political experimentation that burnt many
bridges’.
As I read these words from
November 2010’s El Dorado magazine they reminded me of the man of God who, like
me, became a man of Guyana for the sake of God and his Church and did so much
to fulfil the aspirations he listed five years ago. His warmth engaged what he
called ‘the warm and kind temperament’ of Guyanese. His faith made him one with
people of faith across this land and, though he has developed programmes over
his five years most of all he has lifted the spirits of the people.
As His Excellency the President of Guyana, David Granger has said Bishop Moss’s assignment to the diocese from the Bahamas in 2009 “came at a time when there was need for spiritual guidance and physical rehabilitation of the church’s property; as an Anglican I was very happy with his all too brief tenure as he re-invigorated the Anglican diocese in Guyana and provided quality leadership. He is a great loss to the diocese and to the country.”
This invigoration is cause of
our joy as we say farewell to this much loved Bishop who build well yet briefly
on the legacy of Archbishop Alan Knight and Bishop Randolph George under whom I
served in the 80s and 90s training priests. In my regular visits to Guyana over
25 years I have seen how this Diocese has an exceptional honouring of young
people which Bishop Cornell made high priority on taking over from Bishop
Randolph.
I am myself in regular ongoing
contact through the GDA Facebook group with some of them and many of their
elders and they are sign of the invigoration the President spoke of. I should
also mention in this context of legacy Duke Edwards School which my own school
at St Giles, Horsted Keynes has supported. My children loved the Bishop and sent
a large card to the Diocese and Duke Edwards expressing their sorrow at the
news of his passing which is cause of today’s gathering.
Children, people, were dear to
this warm and compassionate man whose death brought tears to many who had even
brief contact with him. As our head said to me after his first visit to take
school assembly, ‘he’s a real charismatic isn’t he’ and she meant it is the old
sense of the word, though Jerome believed in the power of the Holy Spirit
alongside that of the holy, catholic church whose travails often burdened him.
I was honoured to be asked by him to present to Diocesan Synod last year on the
arguments for and against female ordination. He was concerned Anglicans should
weigh heavily the authority of Scripture and Tradition along with what is
reasonable in changing and varied contexts.
Vocations to the priesthood
were top of his agenda, and confidence in and within the ministerial priesthood
but that prioritization came naturally to him alongside deep commitment to lay
empowerment. He showed in his own style
of priesthood how faith in the priest or Bishop as Jesus’ man is no cause for
self importance, for the ministerial priesthood is given to be servant of the
servants of God. The paradox our Bishop
noted five years ago to GDA in El Dorado, of an immense land scarce in people,
was paralleled in his book by the scarcity of priests, and its underlying
vocational crisis, set against the demands of ministry to so many Anglicans
spread across the immense land mass of Guyana.
Bishop Jerome’s last message
in El Dorado magazine thanked GDA for its contribution to funding or acquiring
funding for three men to be ordained priests and two made deacons on his fifth
anniversary as Bishop in December, which was joyous land mark for him. GDA also
helped cover his health insurance which facilitated his care and ability to
continue active as Bishop right to the premature end of his life. In his last
message to us he mentioned that ongoing problem of staffing, which the new
ordinations do something to offset, as do priests called to serve from afar.
His death presents us with as acute a staffing issue as there could be, though
I feel his legacy of empowerment serves a Spirit given dynamic that will soon bring
one among us to lead who is ‘good to us and to the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 15:28).
In that last letter Fr Cornell
spoke also of his inaugurating the Archdeaconry of the interior under the title
of St Barnabas with first post holder Fr Terry Davis as, I quote, ‘indicative
of my seriousness in bringing the entire Diocese together for more effective
Mission and Ministry’. Whenever I met
the Bishop he would draw out from me what wisdom he could find from my
experience, for example as Principal of the Alan Knight Training Centre. These
conversations weren’t always easy. Cornell Jerome Moss had a capacity to see
into people and I found it hard to answer him truthfully at times.
His basic honesty always appealed,
as did his need to be given all the help I could give him for his most
challenging office as Bishop both of the coast and the interior wanting the
Diocese to pull together more.
Given the high moral tone he
set I am honoured to have been made his UK Commissary and Canon of St George’s,
though I remain challenged as we all should, clergy especially,by those last
words of his in last November’s El Dorado: ‘As clergy, and laity, we must
be wholly committed to the standards of Christ and accept nothing else. As
custodians of the resources of the Diocese we must be honest, transparent and
responsible in our leadership. As persons of faith, we must daily avail
ourselves to the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us in this work… the
mission I am committed to is one where there can be no retreat, no digressing.
It is forward march. All are invited to join what St Paul calls this ‘triumphal
procession’ which will engage and empower us as servants of the True and Living
God, create clean hearts within us, hearts to love – and set us on our way to
glory’.
Cornell Jerome Moss, peace be with
you, we are marching forward catching the momentum lent you and to us through
you in extraordinary fashion by the Holy Spirit!
May you rest in peace and rise
in glory at the prayers we offer, here, in the UK and across the world!
Ecce sacerdos magnus – behold
a great priest.
God raise up another from his
store!
