Rev Emily Bowser, Artist and Committee Member

The Mandorla Committee grieves the sudden death of The Reverend Emily Bowser on 22 July 2025. Emily was a committee member in 2024-2025, and is remembered for her cheerful willingness to serve.

Emily was a person of deep faith, an active and engaged priest whose life was filled with Christ-encounters. Speaking at her funeral in St George’s Cathedral, Emily’s friend and colleague The Reverend Peregrin Campbell-Osgood recalled how Emily saw Christ in loving and caring for her family, in her community of peers, in the wider church, and in the local parishes she served. Notably, Emily “saw and held and loved the wounded body of Christ as she ministered to the shocked and grieving Floreat community in response to the eruption of violence there last year.”

Emily also found inspiration and encountered the Body of Christ through art. She was a practising artist herself, with a variety of talents including the writing of icons. Emily shared this sacred experience with an enthusiastic parish group during Lent 2025, thus leading them into a new way of praying and encountering Christ.

Revd Peregrin offered the following words of comfort: “Because Emily saw and is seen by God, we can be assured that she will continue to see God more and more as she unfolds in her journey towards the dwelling made ready for her. [As she enters this dwelling place] the presence of her absence is also real for us, and enters our hearts, alongside the comfort of Christ… Emily, though her life has ended, will now find her completion within that never-ending circle of love which is God.”

Our hearts go out to Emily’s loved ones, especially her husband Simon, and children Sophia and Hamish. May their pain at Emily’s absence be lessened by the comfort of Christ and the love of friends and family.