THE
P RTAL
April 2013
Page 17
A Clergy Wife’s View
by Rosalind Starkie
On 18 September 2010 as we drove from Manchester to London. We put on a freebie CD and were
greeted with the words: ‘Where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my
people, and your God my God’ (Ruth 1:16). We were on our way to Hyde Park to see Pope Benedict XVI and
the CD had come in our pilgrimage pack.
a milestone along the
way
Our family pilgrimage was not
the beginning of our journey
but a milestone along the way,
and just like Ruth, the journey
continued after these words were
spoken and is not over yet!
betrothed, had no idea what was
in store for Mary and him! Both
were obedient to God’s calling
and just had to follow where he
led.
Rosalind and Fr Andrew Starkie
Although each of us makes our
own way to God, to a degree in marriage that journey
can be made together, and my husband and I, seeking
God’s will, and with our family of five children, were
journeying towards the Ordinariate of Our Lady of
Walsingham.
where you go, I will go
where you lodge, I will
lodge
At the moment, we have
been led to a flat-roofed 1960s
concrete cube in Heywood, Lancashire: ‘where you
lodge, I will lodge’. We have also moved church to
worship in the town where we live. The majority of
those at the Anglican church we came from could not
journey with us, so we are a little Ordinariate group.
Our support network has come largely from Catholic
Home Educators in the North West.
The words of Ruth, ‘where you go, I will go’, were
particularly pertinent to me for we were heading into
The fact that most people we come across have never
the unknown. Whatever we came up against, I needed heard of the Ordinariate is a mixed blessing: it gives the
to state my loyalty to my husband who was at that time opportunity to talk about who we are and our journey,
an Anglican vicar.
but reminds us that we are quite isolated. With this in
mind, I am hoping to set up an internet support group
Our journey has not been easy! After six and a for wives of Ordinariate priests so that those spouses
half years in the North East, where my hus