I have been richly blessed with a wide circle of stimulating friends whose company I enjoy and have much for which I am truly thankful. When once asked by a reporter as to what I felt about being twice pipped at the post for election as Archbishop of Sydney, I replied: ‘Providence was merciful: merciful to the diocese and merciful to me!’

I await my end, not with fear or foreboding, but with joy and serenity. C.S. Lewis rightly says that joy is the serious business of heaven. Eadem, the biographer of Anselm, declares that, in the hereafter, the joy of the blessed will be magnified a million millionfold, as each shares and reflects and multiplies the joy of all the others, and there will be joy within and joy without, joy above and joy below, joy around and joy everywhere, the joy that God has prepared for them that love him.

Thanks be to God.”

An exerpt from “Memoirs of a Loose Canon” by Dr Stuart Barton Babbage, published by Acorn Press.