Lesser lights illuminate darkness of grief in an emotional service
by Barney Zwartz
FOR all the high-powered contributions of political and public leaders at yesterday's state bushfire commemoration at St Paul's Cathedral, the most powerful moments came from two women without a public profile, at each end of the service.
First was Carol Matthews, speaking on behalf of the bereaved who between them lost 173 parents, spouses, children, brothers and sisters in the Black Saturday fires.
Speaking with quiet dignity, she said: ''We have no one location. We are scattered across Victoria, interstate and across the globe. One year ago, our lives changed forever. Our son was killed by the bushfire, and our house and our memories were destroyed. On that day we lost our past, our present and our future.''
Carol Matthews lights a candle. Photo: John Woudstra
What sustained her and the others, she said, was the overwhelming love and support of friends, colleagues and all Australians.
The other inspirational moment came after a moving candle-lighting ceremony for each community that suffered loss, one by one up to 109. Then young Melbourne soprano Siobhan Stagg, 22, sang Faure's Pie Jesu with an angelic purity and beauty that palpably deepened the already solemn mood inside the cathedral. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was visibly moved.
A cathedral, with its vast scale, is all about transcendence and awe, distance and a long perspective. But if the raw immediacy of grief is muted amid the solemnity, there is still room for emotional power, as the service showed.
Political and public leaders were out in force: Governor-General Quentin Bryce, Victorian Governor David de Kretser, Mr Rudd, Premier John Brumby, federal and state opposition leaders Tony Abbott and Ted Baillieu, and a rich array of religious leaders in ceremonial dress. Volunteers, emergency and support groups were also well represented.
The service was sombre from the start, with half-muffled bells tolling.After a minute's silence, broken by a solitary didgeridoo, Dean Mark Burton said: ''We gather in the long shadow of disaster … Mingled with grief and bewilderment may well be deep feelings of anger, dismay and defiance, mixed through perhaps with thanksgiving. All of this, and more, we bring to God.''
Premier John Brumby read a poem, the Governor-General and Prime Minister gave the Old and New Testament readings, from Isaiah 8 and Revelation 21 - ''God shall wipe away every tear''.
Anglican Archbishop Philip Freier said one of his clergy ordained on Black Saturday started her ministry the next week at the relief centre in Wallan and recalled mattresses being laid out at Wallan, including some for children with teddy bears on them.
"It's often in the small events that we can make some sense of the immense scale of something like what happened last year."
The main feature was the candle ceremony, with clergy intoning the towns' names one by one for a candle to be lit while Tin Alley Quartet quietly played Elgar and Dvorak. The list was so long the musicians had to resort to some unscheduled Bach (the great chorale from the St Matthew Passion).
Few of the congregation were confident in either hymn, though Mr Rudd sang the first, Be Still My Soul, with conviction. So when, at the very end, it came to the national anthem - mandated by the presence of the Governor-General - they sang with gusto and palpable relief before ceremoniously filing out.
Source: The Age