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Rachel McDougall has returned to parish ministry after four years as Precentor of St Paul’s Cathedral. She spoke to Beryl Rule about the health obstacles she had to overcome, and the joys
and challenges of being Precentor.
Rachel McDougall was half-way through a music degree in Hobart, with the intention of teaching music, when she felt the first inklings of a call to ordained ministry.
She had always been very involved in church life, and in retrospect can see the importance of her experience acting as server to the Assistant Bishop of Tasmania, Mervyn Stanton. Travelling with him to far-flung parishes gave her a realistic view of what ministry entailed, and caused her to ask herself how much she would be willing to give up for it.
“It was a great learning experience about the nature of the Church, and its diversity,” she recalled. “I went through doubts about ordination but always felt a stronger calling afterwards.”
Six weeks after being priested in 1995, Rachel – the innocent party – was involved in a serious car accident. For a time she was not sure she would survive at all; she had nerve damage, with back and neck injury and a dislocated jaw. Healing was slow and there was much pain. She did eventually manage part-time curacy, but could do nothing full-time until 2005. The doctors had told her she would never work full-time again, nor, because of the neck and shoulder damage, be able to resume playing the viola.
“During that time I learnt what is important is who you are, not what you do. You may not be able to do much, but you can still minister. And I realised that life is a gift, not to be taken for granted,” she said.
When she married Ross Fishburn in 2000, neither of them knew whether she would ever get better. Three years later, she was involved in another car accident; Ross was driving this time, and it was not his fault either. After this the pain grew so bad Rachel went to a pain clinic. It proved wonderfully helpful, and she even began to play the viola again.
Still not up to fulltime work, she did “lots of locums” gaining experience in aged care, pastoral ministry and wedding preparation. Through her own experience of injury, and these ministries, she “learnt a lot of empathy. You have to accept where you are. Things don’t always get better and it’s no-one’s fault.”
Rachel had tried for a position in six parishes when someone mentioned that the Cathedral needed a Precentor.
“I didn’t see myself at the Cathedral, it seemed too formal; I expected to go into small parish ministry,” she said, but she got the job.
Looking back, she can see that not only her musical background but her pastoral experience too had prepared her for the role she was to play.
“Co-ordinating State funerals includes meeting with bereaved families, caring for them and hearing their stories,” she said. “Special services like the Bush fire services – both during the fires and the memorial service afterwards – meant talking with people who had been through all that, being part of their journey, and putting together a liturgy which expressed it.”
“You are really an events manager,” someone remarked to her recently, commenting on her work as Precentor, and in many ways it is an apt definition.
The Precentor’s role involves co-ordinating all the details for the ‘special occasion’ services, which in the case of State funerals also means working with those responsible for State protocol. There is an extraordinary amount to remember and to communicate.
Did she find it hard to retain a spiritual focus during a service, when she was also keeping an eye on everyone and everything?
Citing a favourite quotation from Brother Lawrence, ‘All things can be a prayer,’ Rachel said that she took time beforehand to come into God’s presence and commit what she was going to do to Him, and that she had learnt to be able to operate on both levels at the same time – worshipping and yet being alert for all the details.
The bushfire memorial service holds a very special place in her memories of being Precentor.
“Hearts came together,” she said. “It was a very Holy time.”
She admits that on occasions like this she struggled to contain her own emotions.
“Sometimes it was very difficult not to cry,” she said, referring also to the funeral service she had taken for a member of the Cathedral congregation. She had visited him most days in hospital, and had sung the 23rd Psalm for him.
“I was on the edge of tears in that service but I was aware that I was present for those who were there. I couldn’t let myself go. God’s gift to me in those times has been a sense of deep peace.”
She has loved her years at the Cathedral but feels called to move on.
“It’s God’s timing – it’s right. The intensity of this job means you can’t do it for too long. It’s hard to keep a balance in your life because you don’t have heaps of choice about when you are going to work. And you don’t get a lot of time for reflection.”
At Rachel’s farewell the Dean, the Rt Revd Mark Burton, praised her administrative ability and her assistance with liturgy and worship, but spoke particularly of her role as ‘First Singer’ (from the Latin Praecantor).
“Singing is the thing for which Rachel will be remembered most,” he said. “She will be remembered for having a voice which is able to take worshippers into a contemplative space and become the vehicle by which the whole liturgy is carried.”
Rachel took up her new position as Incumbent in the parish of St John’s Bentleigh on 8 November.