REQUIEM MASS OF DAME SHEILA KEARNEY (09.04.1937-31.08.2026)
22 September 2026, eve of the Autumn Equinox
We were blessed with a beautiful autumn day for the celebration of the life of Dame Sheila Kearney, formerly of St Mary’s Abbey, Colwich, who died peacefully at Oulton Abbey Care Home on 31 August 2026.
September sunshine, mercifully more temperate than that of the heatwaves earlier in the summer, bathed the abbey church in a warm, golden glow as community and guests gathered to pray for Sr Sheila and send her on her way to the Father’s house.
Sr Sheila’s vocation journey had led her in an ever more northerly direction. Having entered with the Visitation sisters in Bridport, Dorset, in her early twenties, she took vows with them and lived for forty years in that convent, serving God and the community through prayer and teaching. When, at the turn of the millennium, the Bridport community was disbanding, Sr Sheila opted to move to the Benedictine abbey of St Mary’s at Colwich, Staffordshire, where she took solemn vows on 20 March 2006: the last person of the Colwich community to do so. Her next move, when the Colwich community became affiliated to Stanbrook in 2022, was ‘sideways’ to Oulton Abbey Care Home, initially as companion to Abbess Gertrude but then as a resident needing care herself. On 21 September, Feast of St Matthew 2026, her body was received into the abbey church at Stanbrook, Wass, North Yorkshire; her final earthly resting place.
Abbot Robert Igo, Abbot President of the English Benedictine Congregation, presided at the Requiem Mass and funeral rites. Canon Gerard Kearney of the Leeds Diocese, who is a second cousin of Sr Sheila’s, concelebrated and preached.
The traditional Latin chants were sung for both ordinary and propers with the Responsorial Psalm ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’, a Stanbrook composition.
Dame Theresa Mary Hutton, formerly of Colwich, proclaimed the first reading from Isaiah 25: 6-9 in which the heavenly banquet prepared for the faithful is described. Prioress Josephine Parkinson proclaimed the second reading from Romans 6: 3-4, 8-9 which explains that at our baptism we are baptised into Christ’s death, so as to share in his resurrection. The Gospel, Matthew 11: 25-30, spoke of God’s choice in revealing the mysteries of the Kingdom to little ones, and ended with Jesus’ appeal to all who are overburdened to come to him for rest.
Canon Gerard Kearney skilfully wove all these themes into his homily, interspersed with an appreciation of Sr Sheila’s long, faithful religious life, growing out of her baptism and marked by generosity in service. He mentioned particularly the encouragement she had given to countless people over the years which will go on bearing fruit in their lives.
A heavenly choir of chaffinches joined in the processional song to the graveyard where the grass, now fully recovered from the drought, was a most vivid green. As she would have wished, Sr Sheila is buried in the same grave as Mother Gertrude Baker who died in 2024.
As Mother Anna said at the end of the Committal and final prayers, the heavenly banquet mentioned by Isaiah in today’s first reading was to be continued in real time in the monastic refectory, though almost half the assembly chose to eat alfresco.
The Autumn Equinox (23 September this year) can be marked by stormy weather and high tides but it is also a time when all places on the globe enjoy equal hours of daylight and night, and today a deep stillness and calm seemed to envelope the landscape here in North Yorkshire as if the earth is quietly rejoicing in the gift of life received and given. This sense of peace has been palpable as we have celebrated the life of Dame Sheila Kearney. May she rest in peace and see the Lord, whom she served so faithfully, face to face.
From the House Chronicle