It is with sadness that we announce the death earlier today, 1st April, of Canon Eddie Matthews. Canon Eddie died peacefully at the East Surrey Hospital following admission last Thursday. While in hospital he received the Sacrament of the Sick.
Canon Eddie was born in London on 9th February 1937 and ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Westminster at the English College, Lisbon on 16th June 1962. In recent years he lived near Horsham, West Sussex having retired from active ministry.
Sympathy is extended to Canon Eddie’s family and friends, and to the clergy and parishioners of his former parishes in the diocese, and to those in Henfield and Horsham in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton.
Canon Eddie was a member of the Deceased Clergy Association. Funeral arrangements will be made in accordance with the protocols necessary due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Details of Memorial Masses will follow in due course.
We pray for the repose of Canon Eddie’s soul:
Lord Jesus, our Redeemer,
you willingly gave yourself up to death so that all people might be saved and pass from death into a new life.
Listen to our prayers, look with love on your people who mourn and pray for Canon Eddie.
Lord Jesus, holy and compassionate, forgive his sins.
By dying you opened the gates of life for those who believe in you.
Do not let our brother be parted from you, but by your glorious power give him light, joy and peace in heaven
where you live for ever and ever.
May the soul of this faithful priest rest in peace. Amen.
Obituary of Canon Edward Matthews RIP
‘The liturgy, through which the work of our redemption takes place, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, is supremely effective in enabling the faithful to express in their lives and portray to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church. For the Church is both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities, zealous in action and dedicated to contemplation, present in the world, yet a migrant, so constituted that in it the human is directed toward and subordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to the city yet to come, the object of our quest.’ (SC.2)
These words from Sacrosanctum Concilium, Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, December 1963, inspired Canon Eddie (few people ever heard him called Edward) Matthews who would be pleased that readers of his obituary would be drawn to the teaching of the Church as given by the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965, and especially concerning the liturgy, ‘the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the source from which all its power flows.’ (SC.10)
Just as Canon Eddie was inspired and motivated by this teaching, his teaching as a member of staff at Allen Hall, from 1974 to 1984, inspired his students. Canon Eddie’s love for the liturgy of the Church, and his scholarship in this area, enhanced the work of the Liturgy Office of the Bishops of England and Wales from 1984 to 1990. He also served as a member of ICEL, the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, a Joint Commission of Catholic Bishops Conferences, created in 1963 to provide English translations of the liturgical rites of the Catholic Church from the Latin in which they were written.
Liturgy was Canon Eddie’s passion. His lectures were delivered with energy and enthusiasm. It was often noticed that his socks were chosen to match the liturgical colour of the day or season, with his preference for deep purple rather than black! His familiar pale blue clerical shirts added to the colour of his personality, and communicated enjoyment of his life and ministry.
Edward Matthews was born in London, the sole child of his parents William and Catherine, on 9th February 1937. He grew up in the Parish of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, and spent a couple of years in Exeter due to the Second World War. In 1947 he is recorded as being top of the class at Sacred Heart Primary School, Holloway. At the age of 13 he went to St Edmund’s College, Ware as an ecclesiastical student and from there went to the English College, Lisbon. He was ordained to the priesthood in the college chapel on 16th June 1962 by Bishop Manuel Dos Santos Rocha, Auxiliary Bishop of Lisbon. Fr Eddie’s first appointment was to Hemel Hempstead East where he served as Assistant Priest from 1962 to 1965. He then moved to Westminster Cathedral, joining the College of Chaplains and serving as Master of Ceremonies.
During this period he was involved with the Cathedral parish school, St Vincent’s, and developed life-long friendships while there. From 1967 to 1972 Fr Eddie served as the Westminster representative on the national Liturgical Commission and as Secretary of the Westminster Diocesan Liturgical Commission. In 1972 he worked on the compilation of the Directory for Masses with Children. The Directory was published in Rome in November 1973. In 1972 he left the Cathedral for further studies in Rome, at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of San Anselmo. There he was awarded a Licentiate in Liturgical Theology, magna cum laude. While based in Rome he taught liturgy at the Beda College.
He returned to the Diocese to take up appointment as a resident member of staff at Allen Hall teaching liturgy, and also serving as Chaplain to Finchley Catholic School from 1974-76. In 1984 his passion for liturgy, and his learning in this area of the Church’s life, took him to the Liturgy Office of the Bishops Conference of England and Wales, as Secretary, until 1990. It was during this period he gave ten years’ service as a member of ICEL, from 1981 to 1991 attending meetings in Washington DC, Rome and London. Fr Eddie was in demand as a visiting lecturer at home and overseas. He penned various publications, including A Popular Guide to the New Mass (1970), A Holy Week Guide for Servers and Sacristans (1971), Celebrating Mass with Children (1975), Children Give Thanks (1976), The Forgiveness of Sins (1978), St Stephen’s Handbook for Altar Servers (1986).
Parish ministry beckoned and in 1990 Fr Eddie was appointed Parish Priest at Marychurch, Hatfield. After three years he was appointed to Brook Green, to the disappointment of many Marychurch parishioners. He was Parish Priest at Brook Green for ten years before being appointed Parish Priest at Bishops Stortford. While at Brook Green he was appointed to the Metropolitan Chapter of Canons of Westminster, in May 2001. Brook Green is the home of the Guild of St Stephen, and Canon Eddie was always supportive of the Guild and its work with altar servers.
Canon Eddie retired from Bishops Stortford and went to live with friends in Horsham, West Sussex in 2012 having celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his ordination, and his retirement, with a Mass of Thanksgiving in the parish. He enjoyed retirement and had time for the things he loved, including music, theatre, film and literature. He remained a happy, rounded and grounded man and priest. He continued celebrating public Mass, including in the chapel at Gatwick Airport and in local churches, always willing to respond to requests to assist or cover for priests. In the last year of his life public Mass was no longer possible as Canon Eddie’s health deteriorated. This caused him sadness, exacerbated by the difficulty of celebrating Mass at home.
Canon Eddie’s life was focused on the Lord Jesus, the High Priest who comes to his people in and through the Church’s liturgy. For Canon Eddie liturgy was celebrated not only in churches and chapels, but in the experiences of everyday life lived joyfully, sacrificially and in hope-filled ways. He is remembered for his cheerfulness and dedication to his priesthood as a ‘Vatican II priest’. He was gifted at communication with children and young people, and with seminarians and colleagues. His communication skills were evident in books and articles he wrote, sharing his love for the liturgy and its celebration. He eschewed pomp and clericalism while promoting the dignity and solemnity of liturgy and especially the Mass.
Canon Eddie died peacefully at the East Surrey Hospital on 1st April 2020. He had written down what he would like at his funeral: as much music as possible, both hymns and the parts of the Mass, and he had chosen the scripture readings. He could not have foreseen the restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and he did not have the funeral he envisaged, but he did have, and has, the prayers of all who knew him – prayers in thanksgiving for his life and ministry and for the repose of his soul.
May this faithful priest rest in peace and rise in glory.
