Press Releases
DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES
Belfast Cathedral - Sunday 7 September 1997 at 11am
Service of Thanksgiving
ADDRESS BY THE MOST REVEREND DR ROBIN EAMES ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH , PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND
It must seem that after one of the most remarkable weeks of our lifetime little more can be said about Diana, Princess of Wales. As a nation, indeed as a world, we have lived through seven days which will be analysed and talked about for generations. From the early hours of last Sunday until now we have been caught up in an atmosphere of profound and moving significance in which we have learned so much about human nature, human emotion and human expectation.
At the centre of all we have witnessed is the memory of a young woman, a mother, a woman of great personal beauty who had captured the imagination and the approval of the world. Rarely out of the news, rarely failing to be the source of speculation, Diana, Princess of Wales in death has brought to the surface so much we failed to recognise during her life. Truly we have learned as much about ourselves this past week as we have about her.
We recall the words of Grandma Moses the American artist:
"What a strange thing is memory and hope : one looks backward, the other forward. The one is of today, the other is the Tomorrow. Memory is history recorded in our brain, memory is a painter. It paints pictures of the past and of the day."
In this Cathedral which has been the setting for so many Royal occasions we pause in our worship and in the presence of Almighty God to give thanks for her dedication and public service. We thank God for the inspiration she was to so many who were so easily the 'forgotten people of this world.' The suffering, the under-privileged, the children with terminal disease, the refugees, the victims of violence and war. It was not that no one else had supported such needs before. It was rather that Diana brought to those causes so much of herself as a person.
Herself as a person ...People felt they knew her as a person. People saw the many faces of Diana : the joy and happiness : the sorrow and the disappointment : the achievement and the failure. A whole generation of young people identified and recognised those different faces. Suddenly their doubts, their problems, their frustration built a bridge with her which has burst out this week in their reaction to her death. They may never have met her or talked to her - but they regarded her as their own. This past week we have seen how that generation in particular have felt their loss.
Herself as a person ... She was a celebrity in an age of idols. She was the centre of speculation, a gift to the tabloid press, the source of endless comment - not all of which was just She dominated the social scene and moved in a world which the vast majority of people could only imagine. She knew the unhappiness of the broken family and the cost of rejection. She sought love, she cried out to be wanted and she begged to be taken seriously. Yet in all of it people identified with a real person who despite the privileges faced many similar problems.
Herself as a person ... a woman who typified a new generation and dared to confront conformity with a new approach, to challenge the social conscience with her involvement in charity and to pose questions about the life of the establishment which will have ripples for many years.
But behind it all, behind the success and the failure, the public face and the private grief there was a mother of two young sons. How much those Princes deserve our prayers today. Standing themselves on the threshold of life we can only imagine their personal feelings this morning. In many ways I feel they are the real victims of this tragedy. May our prayer be that one day they will embody the leadership for which society is so desperately searching.
Today our hearts and minds turn to the future. In this age of idols it will be easy to create one more. But such will be a disservice to Diana. So many who benefited from Princess Diana's attention are bereft this morning. History will make many judgements of her and judgements of - not waste all the love and concern she showed; surely we must not lose the need for action and the compassion she brought? Millions will no doubt flow into the Memorial Fund - but she of all people would have wanted action too Will the conscience of the world look again now at the needs of the refugees, the casualties of war, the land mines?
Time cannot touch Diana any more. New controversies will not accompany a new day. She has found peace. In human terms we are left with the tragedy of unfulfilled promise for no one knows what she would have accomplished. No longer will we speculate, praise or condemn. The judgement of God contains a compassion she rarely found in this world. Let the judgement of the future be thankfulness for her unique way of remembering the forgotten, supporting the weak, lifting up the fallen and daring to touch the untouchable.
In the words of Shakespeare:
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
But life moves on. The momentous week is over and the Princess of Wales is at peace. Time will pass and other world and local issues will fill our minds. In the eternal spectrum of God we must place things in perspective. Vision, need, want, injustice and "the forgotten" are more important than even the individuals who bring such to our notice. We mourn also the passing of Mother Teresa who herself brought to the attention of the world the cries of want and ignorance. In each generation God uses the imperfect and the fallible to prompt the conscience of the world. The real judgement lies in the response of that world to the causes and the needs individuals bring to our notice. That surely is the real question we must face this morning.
Life is fragile, life is momentary. Love, compassion, caring - such are eternal. In the mercy of God may we be pointed now to the ways in which any of us as individuals may make this world a better place for all made in His image."
Further information from:
THE CHURCH OF IRELAND PRESS OFFICE
Church of Ireland House
61 - 67 Donegall Street
Belfast BT1 2QH