On Thursday 25th April, 2024 at 11:30am a service of thanksgiving for the life of Jeffrey Rose CBE was held at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street. Download Order of Service (pdf)
The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce delivered the opening:
A very warm welcome to St Bride’s, as we come together to honour the memory and to celebrate the life of a remarkable man who lived life to the full – and who enjoyed life to the full.
Jeffrey Rose was man who loved what he did, and who excelled at it: a man of vision and energy, with a profound sense of duty; a man of character; who could be staunch in his views, yet capable of immense thoughtfulness and generosity. He was also very close to our hearts here at St Bride’s, as a dedicated member of our Evensong congregation for many years.
As we remember him today with thanksgiving, we can rejoice that the world was the richer for his place within it, and our lives the richer for having known him.
We begin now with an opening prayer by the priest and poet, John Donne.
Let us pray:
Bring us, O Lord, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house where shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession: no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity in the habitations of your glory and dominion world without end. Amen.
Addresses
Adam Rose
Lord Blyth of Rowington
Readings
Steven Norris read The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 13
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Katherine Rose read Nothing will die by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
When will the stream be aweary of flowing
Under my eye?
When will the wind be aweary of blowing
Over the sky?
When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?
When will the heart be aweary of beating?
And nature die?
Never, oh! never, nothing will die;
The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.
Nothing will die;
All things will change
Thro’ eternity.
‘Tis the world’s winter;
Autumn and summer
Are gone long ago;
Earth is dry to the centre,
But spring, a new comer,
A spring rich and strange,
Shall make the winds blow
Round and round,
Thro’ and thro’,
Here and there,
Till the air
And the ground
Shall be fill’d with life anew.
The world was never made;
It will change, but it will not fade.
So let the wind range;
For even and morn
Ever will be
Thro’ eternity.
Nothing was born;
Nothing will die;
All things will change.
Susannah Rose wrote and read Goodbye Poem
Music
The choir & organist of St Bride’s performed the following anthems and songs:
Prelude in E flat (St Anne) BWV 552 – Johann Sebastian Bach Hear my prayer, O Lord – Henry Purcell Stabat mater dolorosa – Giovanni Battista Pergolesi Let thy deeds be glorious from Deborah – George Frideric Handel Otche nash (Pater Noster) – Igor Stravinsky Fugue in E flat (St Anne) BWV 552 – Johann Sebastian Bach
Hymns
Abide with me
Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven
Jerusalem
