The Funeral of Dame Joanna Jamieson OSB (21.01.1935-13.10.2025),
Abbess of Stanbrook 1983-2007
The photograph that illustrates this post was one of a series taken, at the instigation of M. Joanna, shortly after she was elected abbess in 1983, of each member of the Stanbrook community. M. Joanna is holding a branch of what seems to be laurel, the plant from which the victory wreaths at the classical games were made. Today’s Requiem for M. Joanna was, in several ways, a victory celebration. First of all, as at every Eucharist, it was a celebration of Christ’s victory over death through his undergoing death and rising to new life. Secondly, it was a celebration through grace of M. Joanna’s faithful living out, over nine decades, of her baptism, her incorporation into Christ’s victory. Thirdly, it was a celebration that that victory was gained through many challenges, including, most recently, the challenges posed by old age and ill health.
On a wet and windy autumn day about seventy people, some from north of the border and some from the southern coast of England and even further south, gathered in the abbey church at Stanbrook, Wass, to pray for M. Joanna and give thanks to God for her life and Christian, monastic witness. The assembly included family members, friends from Worcester, three former English Benedictine abbots and three reigning EBC abbots, the abbess of St Cecilia’s Abbey, Ryde, oblates and local friends as well as some of the staff of Apley Grange Nursing Home where M. Joanna resided for the last few years of her life, receiving excellent care.
Given the uncertain weather and the exposed walk to the monastery cemetery, prayers for a clement interlude were no doubt among the intentions of most of the assembly.
Abbot Robert Igo of Ampleforth was the principal celebrant, assisted by Abbot Geoffrey Scott of Douai who preached the homily and Abbot Dominic Taylor of Ealing.
With so many guests and good singers as well as many monastics familiar with plainchant, the chants, which were those traditional for a Requiem in the Roman liturgy, filled the abbey church, aided by its resonant acoustic, so that the sound seemed to be the musical equivalent of the incense as it rose towards the high-beamed roof of the building.
The readings took up the victory theme with the rich banquet promised by the Lord for his people (Isaiah 25: 6; 7-9) and echoed in Psalm 23/22, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ to a Stanbrook setting. Romans 6: 3-9, traditionally the last reading before the Gospel at the Easter Vigil, recalls how the Christian dies with Christ in baptism, to rise with him to a new life, not only after death but also on earth: the monastic life witnesses to this radically new life won for us by Christ and into which we are called. The Gospel (John 6: 37-40) repeated this promise, ‘whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life and shall be raised up on the last day.’
Abbot Geoffrey Scott (Abbot of Douai 1998-2022) who, before his election as abbot, was chaplain to the community at Stanbrook, Worcester (1993-96), was singularly well-placed to give the homily.
And as a historian he was able to place M. Joanna’s abbacy in its broader historical context, and to bring out some of the challenges and inevitable tensions which arise when someone tries to initiate change in an institution with a long history and strong tradition. One small but significant change initiated by Abbess Joanna was her desire to be known as ‘Mother Abbess’ rather than the ‘Lady Abbess’ which had been the customary address previously. The bigger changes called for by the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, such as liturgical renewal, were embraced by M. Joanna and the community, and led ultimately to the move to ‘new’ Stanbrook in the North.
Vatican II also encouraged a more outward focus for religious communities. M. Joanna responded to this call by her involvement as a founder member of the Association of British Contemplatives (ABC) in the late 1990s and the establishment of the worldwide confederation of Benedictine women (the C.I.B.) in 2001. At the same time she welcomed nuns from overseas, including Africa and Taiwan, for extended stays in the Stanbrook enclosure, thus exposing the community to broader currents of monastic life.
Nevertheless, Abbot Geoffrey perceives in M. Joanna’s artwork a distinctive quality, ‘a subdued glow’, born, he suggested, from the enclosed environment in which M. Joanna lived most of her life, unaffected by currents of fashion. Her most enduring artistic legacy is probably the large scale mural in the Grange at Buckfast Abbey, depicting the construction of the abbey church there and commissioned by Buckfast as part of their millennial celebrations in 2018.
Mass continued with not a few eyes on the weather as the time for the committal drew closer, but prayers were answered, and we were able to process to the cemetery dry-shod, leaving the battery of umbrellas unopened in the church porch.
The view from the cemetery adjacent to woods behind the monastery and overlooking the tree-lined Crief Gill was sombre under grey skies, recalling the words from a German poet quoted by Abbot Geoffrey in his homily, ‘and in the reeds the dark flutes of autumn mutter their undertone.’
And yet, there was also that ‘subdued glow’, as if, in the absence of sunshine, the sun stored in the golden autumn leaves was lending a gentle light to proceedings – and celebrating Mother Joanna’s victory.
The celebration continued with a warming home-made meal and heart-warming fellowship in the monastic refectory. We extend thanks to all who participated in person or in spirit, and to all who have sent kind messages of sympathy and appreciation over the past weeks. May we all meet merrily in heaven.
from the House Chronicle