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Penelope Eckersley

The death of Penelope Eckersley on 20

January aged 89 has brought to a close a

remarkable ministry of counselling,

befriending and retreat-giving across a wide

spectrum of Christian groups and activities.

Earlier in her life she contributed to formal

Anglican structures as an ACCM selector for

10 years and a member of the English

Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission.

However her particular calling was to

promote personal prayer and healing as the

foundation for a life of social responsibility.

For many years Pen (as she liked to be

known) led the prayers for unity from 12 –

3pm each Friday established by George

Appleton at Westminster Abbey. In 1965

she was professed as a Tertiary in the

Society of St Francis, where despite a

comfortable upbringing she gladly

embraced its voluntary simplicity. From

1968-80 she was the secretary of the

Association for Promoting Retreats, where her skills at listening and bringing people together

supported its amalgamation with the Roman Catholic National Retreat Movement and other

Free Church groups to form the National Retreat Council.

Many people will have known Pen, and sought her spiritual guidance, through her decades of

participation in the life of St James’s, Piccadilly. During the rectorship of Donald Reeves, St

James’s was renowned for innovation, and attracted many who might otherwise have been

sceptical about Christianity. This increased the need for someone like Pen, an archetypal ‘wise

woman’ who was anchored in Christ yet able to relate to those who were searching and

questioning. She was a regular preacher, ran a Julian group in the Tower, organized prayer vigils,

and helped the Dunamis project bring theological scrutiny to bear on pressing issues of power,

peace and international security in the fraught 1980s. Artists in particular seemed to gravitate to

her. Some came to stay in her home, and found that their interrogative eye could see the world

more keenly after discussing the big questions of life with Pen.

Following her studies with the National Retreat Movement and at Heythrop College, Pen

became greatly in demand as a leader of retreats and quiet days. Although well-grounded in

Ignatian and Franciscan spirituality, she developed a distinctive approach that brought together

body and spirit using exercise, fasting, creativity and a powerful sense of God in nature. She also

devised her own form of Tai Chi, flowing movement to accompany interior prayer. Every aspect

of Pen’s life was rooted in her personal commitment to silent prayer. She particularly loved the

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solitude, silence and grandeur of nature on Bardsey island, and her retreats there were much

sought-after by those who knew about them.

Pen offered discreet guidance and encouragement to all who asked. Those who benefited from

her spiritual direction would find that she recommended a wealth of reading, ranging from the

classical (the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Julian of Norwich, the Beguines) to the contemporary

(Denise Levertov, Rosemary Radford Ruether, R. S. Thomas). A lot of informal spiritual direction

took place around the kitchen table of her home in Paddington, London, where the seeker or

the broken-hearted were welcomed and nourished. She had an immense gift for friendship and

hospitality, and for supporting people on their individual journeys.

After the death of her much-loved husband Timothy in 1980 Pen began to travel more widely.

This led to a remarkable journey in her 70th

year, when she spent a month on retreat at a

Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the Nepalese Himalayas. Getting there involved an arduous

mountain trek at altitudes where the air was thin. Staying there meant embracing deep silence

and spartan living conditions. She wrote about this in her book Holding the Silences: A Nepal

Notebook published by Abbey Press, Glastonbury.

Pen experienced the deep grief of losing a

daughter in infancy, but was enriched by her

four other children and an ever-expanding

circle of grandchildren and great-

grandchildren on three continents. Certainly

her family helped keep her young, but there

was always something youthful about

Penelope Eckersley that flowed from deep

within her. Her open-mindedness, her desire

to understand the world around her, her

innate sympathy – all these testified to the

spark in her soul.

Right up to the end Pen’s mind was as sharp as ever, although heart and joints had slowed her

body. She left instructions for the funeral that, at the words of the resurrection by the

graveside, ‘all the grand- and great-grandchildren able to be present should release gas filled

balloons of all colours into the Sussex sky with shouts of joy and clapping.’ At St Mark’s, Hadley

Down, on 30th

January, they did just that, as she was laid to rest next to her husband and

daughter.

Alison Murdoch and Terry Tastard

February 2010