A proper farewell to Canon Lynda Barley

Yesterday, 20 March, we were highly delighted to welcome back to the cathedral Canon Lynda Barley and her husband Chris, two years after Lynda retired as Canon Pastor. Not surprisingly, Covid intervened to prevent us from celebrating Lynda’s ministry at the cathedral by giving her a proper farewell, but on Sunday we managed to do that. Lynda preached at the 10:00 Eucharist and talked about the challenges, but also the joys, of Lent, and during the reception afterward, Dean Roger thanked her for her care and consideration of the cathedral’s pastoral care team, which grew under her oversight to become a major aspect of the cathedral’s duty of care to our regular congregations. She was also praised for the many diocesan roles she undertook, as parish priest and rural dean. Dean Roger also thanked Chris for his enormous hard work behind the scenes, supporting his wife’s ministry in all those unseen, unheralded ways, without which nothing would get done. Lynda said that coming from a Church House office role in Westminster to the friendly, warm and personable place that is Truro Cathedral was just what she needed, and she paid tribute to the many people who made her and Chris’s time in Truro and Tresilian, where she was priest-in-charge such a joy.