18/06/2024
“With my wife Natalie’s support and several guide dogs at my side, I hope that I have managed to bring something of God’s Kingdom to people of all ages and abilities.
"I believe that being a blind priest has not detracted from my ministry but added a unique and personal dimension to it.
"I cannot hide my blindness. It is a place and experience of vulnerability from which I have been able to connect with the vulnerability of others in what I hope they have found to be valuable and transformative ways.
"Often it has been when as a blind priest I bring my vulnerability into the vulnerable places and experiences of others that there is a sense of God turning up and our human encounter becoming a divine and holy encounter.
"Aspects of human embodiment that our society have chosen to label as ‘disability’ and view as somehow diminishing of a person’s status and worth are in fact viewed completely differently within the Kingdom that Jesus came to bring into being.
"In the Kingdom, all people are of ultimate worth because our worth is not rooted in ourselves or others but in Jesus Christ.
"Every person, regardless of their physical, sensory or cognitive shape, brings gifts into the church and every person adds to us becoming a more complete representation of the Body of Christ in the world today.”
Rev Preb Beauchamp was ordained in 1994 and worked in parish ministry in Suffolk and Islington for 28 years. He has been the Disability Ministry Enabler in the Diocese of London for the past two years.
A longer version of this article is in this summer's Disability Matters.