Fr Robert Llewelyn
1909 - 2008
The glory of God is a living man, and the life of man consists in beholding God. St Irenaeus.
On Friday 4th April 2008, a community of some 400 mourners and admirers gathered at Norwich Anglican Cathedral at a service of remembrance and thanksgiving for the life of Robert Llewelyn.
The service was conducted by Graham James, Bishop of Norwich. Prayers, hymns, readings and music were offered in honour of Robert and of a life of extraordinary witness to the love of God.
Robert's own words were read from a passage of his autobiographical work Memories and Reflections, which spoke movingly of his devotion to the church and his remarkable sense of connection with Julian of Norwich:
What would I have done without this Church which so lovingly sustained me, fed me with the bread of life, raised me when I fell, and in my fellow travellers encompassed me with so much patience and forbearance? The Church has been my mother and to complain that she has been less than a perfect mother would be ungenerous in the extreme.
I consider myself to have been exceptionally fortunate in those fellow church people I have met, who have directed me and encouraged me. Of these Julian stands first, for although unseen by the outer eye, she has through the magic of her writing been made more visible to the eye within than many whom I have loved and known in the ordinary ways of life. One day, if ever I am allowed to approach the exalted plane in which she now must rest, I hope to be able to thank her for the encouragement and hope with which she has endowed me in my later years.
The memorial address was given by Canon Michael McLean, friend and former Rector of St John's with St Julian's. At Michael's invitation, Robert came to Norwich to be a prayerful presence in the Julian cell after nearly forty years of active ministry as priest and schoolmaster overseas. There followed for Robert a second ministry which was to last some thirty years in which he became widely known as a skilled retreat leader, writer and as a ‘populariser' of Julian's work.
Michael spoke compellingly and endearingly of Robert's contemplative vocation and of how Robert had been a very human embodiment of the resurrected Christ. "I'm not sure I know what a saint might look like," he said. "But I do know what a holy man is like - and we saw this in Robert."
He described Robert as an adventurer, someone who ‘knew himself as unfinished', whose life, even in his last years, was a continuous journey of discovery. He spoke of Robert's ‘earthy' humour, and of a warmth and compassion that embodied the archetype of the Father. "Robert embraced everyone," said Michael, "the wise and the foolish, the whole and the broken, the saved and the sinner. Just like his Master."
Michael talked affectionately of what he called Robert's ‘steely core' - a man who was gentle and yet who spoke his truth with conviction, often placing demanding expectations on those around him. The other side of this was what Michael described as a ‘sometimes maddening humility'.
He remembered Robert's endearing, compassionate, and sometimes ‘mischievous' smile, which he believed arose from Robert's conviction, inspired by Julian, that, despite the often overwhelming evidence to the contrary, all shall indeed be well.
The mourners and celebrators offered a prayer of thanks "for great souls who saw visions of larger truths and for quiet gracious souls whose presence purified and sanctified the world." We count Fr Robert among these. He will remain in our hearts as an inspiration and an encouragement as we strive to continue Julian's work to proclaim the unconditional love of the Father who is revealed to us, in all fullness, in Christ Jesus.
Suddenly, said our courteous Lord, you will be taken out of all your pain, all your sickness, all your unrest and all your woe. And you will come up above and you will have me for your reward, and you will be filled full of joy and bliss, and you will never again have any kind of pain, any kind of sickness, any kind of displeasure, no lack of will, but always joy and bliss without end.
I saw that God rewarded man for the patience which he has in awaiting God's will and his time, and that man has patience to endure throughout the span of his life, because he does not know when the time for him to die will come. It is God's will that so long as the soul is in the body it should seem to a man that he is always on the point of being taken. For all this life and this longing we have here is only an instant of time, and when we are suddenly taken into bliss out of pain, then pain will be nothing.
- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, chapter sixty-four.
Obituaries
Network Norwich (first published in Eastern Daily Press).
Church Times - by Canon Michael McLean