Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Lichfield Cathedral 24th April 1994

I'd waited a long time. The first real milestone came on 11th November 1992 when to my enormous surprise the General Synod of the Church of England decided that the time had come to ordain women as priests.  That decision was followed by sundry shenanigans as various objections were raised in parliament, in the courts and anywhere else that anyone could object but on 12th March 1994 thirty two women became priests at Bristol.   Forty three days later I knelt before the Bishop of Lichfield and was ordained.  That same evening, 24th April 1994 I celebrated the Eucharist for the first time in Shrewsbury Abbey.  Today is my Silver Jubilee.

Apart from a period of one year after I retired when I was carer to my terminally ill sister, I have had either a licence or permission to officiate in the Church of England since that day and still marvel at that privilege.  Most recently I celebrated at Thornton le Moor on Easter Sunday and at the beginning of the service I shouted "Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!"

May women and men continue to shout those words for ever and to all corners of the world.