Very Revd Lynda Patterson is laid to rest at her home church
The Very Revd Lynda Patterson, who died while serving as Dean of Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand, was buried yesterday in the churchyard of Dromore Cathedral, the parish in which she grew up and played an active role.
The Archdeacon of Dromore, The Ven Roderic West, conducted the service with Revd Trevor McKeown and the address was given by Lynda’s Bishop and friend, the Rt Revd Victoria Matthews, Bishop of Christchurch.
Addressing a packed cathedral, Bishop Matthews said: “This is not easy for us. We are devastated and we feel our life has lost a wheel and is stuck deep in the mud.”
She added: “All I can say as a fellow mourner and close friend of Lynda is that our challenge is to do what Cedric and Evelyn did when Lynda went off to Oxford University and New Zealand.
“Her loving parents said to her, ‘We have prepared you for this moment. It is time to go where you were called’. And she did. And she has.”
She added: “Dean Lynda Patterson was a theologian who had the most common touch” who “could take the most complex theology and make it accessible to the people in the pew”.
“She had an extraordinary ability to make clear what was complex.
“But now Lynda knows Christ even as is known. She no longer gazes into a glass darkly but sees God face to face.”
Bishop Matthews said that in “accepting the call to ordained ministry” Lynda “rolled up her sleeves and helped people address and recover from any number of difficulties”.
She added: “She was Christ’s hands and feet; heart and voice in more ways than can be described.
“She proclaimed the Gospel and lived the Gospel. Why? Because she knew the love of God in Jesus Christ her Lord and the power of the Spirit.”