It is with sad news we announce the death of Fr Aidan Bede Sharratt. He died peacefully yesterday evening, 22 April, at St Anne’s Care Home in Stoke Newington with Little Sisters of the Poor, and Sr Clement, praying at his bedside.
Fr Aidan was born in Northumberland on 15 May 1940 and ordained to the priesthood on 1 July 1965. Condolences are extended to his family and friends and to parishioners who recall Fr Aidan from his ministry in various parishes in the Diocese, and to Sr Caroline and the Sisters, staff and residents at St Anne’s.
Information about funeral arrangements, and an obituary, will be circulated in due course.
We pray for the repose of Fr Aidan’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 Fr Aidan.
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.
Amen.
These words were written by the late Pope Francis on 7 February 2025 for the preface of a book soon to be published by Cardinal Angelo Scola, ‘Awaiting a New Beginning. Reflections on Old Age’:
"…these are pages born ‘from the thought and the affection’ of Cardinal Scola: not only from thought, but also from the emotional dimension, which is the one to which Christian faith points, since Christianity is not so much an intellectual act or a moral choice, but rather the affection for a person — that Christ who came to meet us and decided to call us friends. It is precisely the conclusion of these pages by Angelo Scola, a heartfelt confession of how he is preparing himself for the final encounter with Jesus, that gives us a consoling certainty: death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something. It is a new beginning, as the title wisely highlights, because eternal life, which those who love already begin to experience on earth within the daily tasks of life — is beginning something that will never end. And it is precisely for this reason that it is a ‘new’ beginning, because we will live something we have never fully lived before: eternity."
Eternal rest grant unto Fr Aidan, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
