The Rev. Andrew Teal was once touring on holiday in northern England on Saturday when he realized of the dying of his expensive good friend, President Jeffrey R. Holland.
The Anglican priest was once stunned and selfishly unhappy, he mentioned, over the lack of a pacesetter he in the past had known as “a pastoral genius” for his carrier as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The 2 males spent the previous seven years running in combination to construct higher interfaith relationships.
The Rev. Teal venerated President Holland in an e-mail to the Deseret Information written from a carrier station in North Yorkshire, the place he was once vacationing together with his spouse Rachel at Fountains Abbey, which has no telephone protection or Wi-Fi.
“I’m weeping into my drink right here on the carrier station, however they’re tears of gratitude in addition to sorrow,” the Rev. Teal wrote.
“The day prior to this we realized of President Holland’s passing while we had been in Pateley Bridge,” he added. “Each Rachel and I had been stunned and, in all probability selfishly, unhappy.
“Then we considered the relaxation from ache and loneliness that’s the Lord’s present to him; and of the consideration of the Lord’s guarantees to our expensive good friend who proclaimed him in paintings and deed and was once certainly devoted to the Covenant of the Lord.”
He additionally mentioned their ideas in an instant grew to become to a reunion of President Holland together with his spouse, Sister Patricia Holland, who died in 2023.
“Maximum in particular we considered the unspeakable pleasure that he and Sister Pat now know, and we have a good time in that — mindful that the lack of his cherished Pat was once a profound wound all the way through his mortal lifestyles over the past two years.
“However he persisted to serve right here the place he was once wanted, till the Excellent Shepherd scooped him to his center to be reunited with Sister Pat.”
The Rev. Teal was pals with President Holland’s son, Elder Matthew S. Holland all the way through the more youthful Holland’s sabbatical at Oxford in 2017.
President Holland traveled to Oxford’s Pembroke Faculty for an interfaith dialog with the Rev. Teal in 2018.
At the moment, the Rev. Teal mentioned this of President Holland:
“I in finding him a healthy, devoted and provoking guy, certainly ‘nice’ however missing all pomposity of grandeur — I like his humor and in reality reply to the ‘present of tears’ which he so steadily receives and unashamedly stocks. I … hope that that is the beginning of a fruitful friendship.”
It was greater than that.
The Rev. Teal spent a semester as a visiting student at Brigham Younger College’s Maxwell Institute in 2021 and the 2 males spoke continuously as their courting deepened. The Rev. Teal delivered a BYU discussion board meeting deal with that fall.
“My closest pals,” he mentioned, “have observed that my love for the Lord Jesus has grown exponentially as a result of my friendship with you, and I need to deliver that to the superbly numerous households of Christians and peoples of different faiths, in order that we would possibly shuttle in combination, even throughout steep mountains, which is able to result in our being blessed in combination.”
2110-04 Rev. Andrew Teal Discussion board and Q and A
Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal – Chaplain, Fellow, & Lecturer in Theology, Pembroke Faculty at Oxford
October 26, 2021
Picture through Jaren Wilkey/BYU
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The Rev. Teal mentioned in his e-mail after President Holland’s dying that his tears on the information had been tears of each gratitude and sorrow.
He mentioned he and his spouse recalled the 2018 evening President Holland delivered a Christmas message on the Pembroke Faculty Chapel about being summoned on Christmas Eve 1976 to a health center the place his father, Frank Holland, was once death. He spoke about how his grief grew to become in a juxtaposition with the birthday party of the delivery of Jesus Christ.
“In his sorrow he heard the cry of a new-born,” the Rev. Teal wrote in his e-mail remembrance of President Holland. “That new-born wept for us simply as now he weeps with pleasure as Jeff and Pat are reunited. The veil between us and celestial lifestyles may be very skinny, and their radiance enlightens us nonetheless.
“We can for ever be pleased about all they dropped at us, now not least the promise of a dawning glory so glorious that eye has now not observed — nor thoughts imagined — its glory.”
The Rev. Teal and President Holland had been devoted intellectuals inquisitive about actual discussion about their religion. The Rev. Teal had mentioned their objective was once to turn that it’s conceivable for other folks of various faiths to grow to be pals who “concentrate sparsely, attentively and respectfully, to invite questions with integrity and highbrow honesty of each other, with out defensiveness or tribalism.”
The Rev. Teal closed his e-mail about studying of President Holland’s dying with an instantaneous message for his good friend.
“Thanks my gentle good friend,” he wrote. “We can at all times love you. Till we meet once more, pray for us nonetheless as we can take into accout and love you.”
