Sister Gemma Simmonds is a sister of the Congregation of Jesus. After a career in teaching she worked as a university chaplain. She has also worked among street children in Brazil. She currently teaches theology and spirituality at Heythrop College, London. She also works as a spiritual director and retreat giver and as a volunteer chaplain at Holloway Prison.

 

Q. When were the seeds of your vocation sown?

A. Initially, in the faith, goodness and generosity of my Protestant father and Catholic mother. They did good in many ways without ever caring what people would think or say. I knew I wanted to be a religious when I was four. I was at school with the Mary Ward sisters of the Congregation of Jesus. They were kind, funny, clever and great characters – completely their own people - and they were always interested in us and took us seriously. That had a great effect on me, as did the spirit behind the education they gave me. I only recognized it later as the spirit of Mary Ward: independent, passionate, and ready for anything.

Q. Why did you choose this particular order?

A. Because it felt like home in so many ways. I loved Mary Ward because I saw her spirit lived out in the people in front of me. They made holiness look very human and very attractive.

Q. What aspect of religious life has you found most rewarding?

A. The freedom to do so many different ministries with a whole heart, and the freedom to give my life to God without needing to hold back and count the cost.  The wonderful relationships I’ve been able to have inside and outside community.  The confidence that it’s normal and okay to desire holiness and closeness to God.

Q. What have you found most difficult?

A. The pressure of work, community life, prayer. The same things that can make it most rewarding can sometimes make it most challenging. It can also be hard being a public face of the Church when its leaders say and do things which are hard to justify, and which shock & distress many good-hearted and sincere people. Being a woman in a structural Church that has yet to deliver on many of its utterances about women.

Q. How do you see the work you are currently involved in? 

A. I lecture in theology at Heythrop, I’m a chaplaincy volunteer in Holloway prison, and I also work in spiritual direction and retreat work and in both initial and continuing formation among religious. I love every bit of it, which is why I find it so hard to consider giving any of it up, but the harvest is great and the labourers are getting fewer and older – including this one!

Q. What skills do you need?

A. Better time management (bilocation would come in handy), more patience and calm, and a more contemplative attitude to it all.

Q. Have you a tip on how to pray?

A. Prayer is not something we do for God – it is something God does for us. So pray as you can, not as you can’t. Let God give you what prayer God gives, even if it feels a pretty poor show, and be faithful to it. Practise ‘the sacrament of the present moment’.

Q. What’s your favourite movie?

A. Whistle Down the Wind. It’s the first film I ever remember seeing and it captures so much of the fantasy world of my childhood

Q. If you were hosting a dinner party, which person from history would you invite?

A. Mary Ward, Jane Austen, Ignatius Loyola and Molière