Poor Servants reflect on 150 years of ministry

The new General Team….  (l to r):

Sisters Mumbi Mutwii,  Mary Whelan,  Margaret Cashman ( Leader) Mary Holmes, Munanie Syengo

By Sister Rosarii O’Connor:

The 22nd Chapter of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God has just taken place at the Kairos Centre, Roehampton, the headquarters of the Congregation.  Earlier this year, the Poor Servants of the Mother of God celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding.  It was with gratitude we marvelled at what has been achieved by our Sisters and our collaborators. 

The Theme of the Chapter was Strengthened and United, we go forward to love, serve and witness.  

Delegates from six countries, Kenya, Tanzania, England, Ireland, Italy, and USA represented their communities.  The three-week event included a three-day retreat, and a discerning process led by Fr Michael Holman SJ.  

The process and conversations were centered around the Synodal Pathway.  Our facilitator was Sr Brid Long SSL. As this Chapter ends the responsibility of each SMG Sister is to respond to call of the Chapter and discern how to live out the Mandates individually and collectively. 

Religious at the Lambeth 2022 Conference

By Sr Sue Berry CSF:

I was privileged to be present when more than 650 bishops, and around 500 spouses from across the 165 countries of the world-wide Anglican communion met at the University of Kent in Canterbury from 26th July to 8th August 2022 for the fifteenth Lambeth Conference.  In addition to oblates and tertiaries of different Orders among the bishops and spouses, and among the staff and volunteers of the various support teams, there were also Religious participating in a variety of ways.   My colleague Christopher John, Minister General SSF, led an international  Pastoral Team, composed of Anglican Religious of different Orders, fluent in a range of languages, who were available to bishops, spouses, and everyone present.   My main role, with the Secretary of ARCiE (Anglican Religious Communities in England), and a few other Religious, was to staff a stall providing information about Religious Life throughout the Anglican Communion, and a contact point for those wanting to explore further.  

Some bishops wanted advice and information about starting a community in their diocese,  or about their role with an existing community.  Others particularly sought guidance over the role of a Bishop Visitor.  A fringe meeting held one evening towards the end of the conference for bishops interested in exploring these issues further was led by Bishop Philip North CMP, chair of the Church of England’s Bishops’ Advisory Council on  Religious Communities, with over 40 bishops from around the world attending.   Several Religious spoke briefly about their experience of Religious Life,  there were questions, small group discussions, and the meeting welcomed  news from Christopher John about the formation of an Anglican Religious Life Network, as one of the official Networks of the world-wide Anglican Communion.  The ARLYB (Anglican Religious Life Yearbook) website https://arlyb.org.uk giving details of all the Anglican Communities world-wide  was also welcomed. 

We had worthwhile contacts with bishops who had never encountered a Religious Community before.  We also had important conversations with some of the conference stewards, young adults from around the world, many of whom were on a vocational journey, and in some cases had not previously had an opportunity to consider Religious Life.   The Society of St Francis, and some other international congregations seized the opportunity to gather their Bishop Visitors from around the world to meet together.  The Community of St Anselm, founded by the Archbishop of Canterbury and normally based at Lambeth Palace, is an international ecumenical group of young adults, committed to living as a religious community for one or two years.  They  led Morning and Night Prayer, and were involved in the Conference in other ways also. 

The Conference Opening Eucharist in Canterbury Cathedral was beautiful and diverse, including many different languages,  musical traditions, and dance, with a brilliant and moving sermon on hospitality and generosity by The Right Rev’d Dr Vicentia Kgabe, Bishop of Lesotho,  one of around 100 female bishops participating in the Conference. The Bishops considered many important issues including  mission and evangelism,  safeguarding, peace and reconciliation, environment and sustainable development, discipleship, Christian unity and interfaith relationships, Anglican identity, human dignity, and the decade ahead.  They engaged in daily bible study in small groups, and regular corporate worship.  We experienced a friendly, open, collegial and often joyful atmosphere in such a large and diverse group of people,  with most extending respectful and prayerful attention to those whose life experience, and approach to various issues, not only questions of sexuality,  differs from their own.  Led by Archbishop Justin, most bishops were increasingly modelling what is to be in communion, to disagree well, and to find deeper points of union. 

Sue Berry, Minister General CSF.  Anglican Representative at the CoR Executive                                                                    

Climate, Covid and Conflict: Can Catholic Social Teaching show the way through the storm?

CAFOD afternoon of reflection for Religious, September 22nd:

Reagan's story:

Reagan (pictured above) is a beekeeper in his home county of Isiolo, Kenya. His work and livelihood are threatened by multiple climate-induced shocks such as drought, flood, and locusts. Paired with the setbacks of Covid and the war in Ukraine disrupting global food markets, it is becoming increasingly difficult for communities like his to meet their minimum food needs, causing community rifts and conflict.

Our sisters and brothers overseas are facing the perfect storm - the effects of climate change, Covid and conflict. These shocks reveal the underlying injustices in our food system and global economy. How are we called to respond?

We warmly invite members of religious orders to come together to reflect on this question. We will be joined by Gareth Rowe, research fellow with CAFOD and Durham University, who will share his reflections and lead the discussion.

Register now:

https://cafod.org.uk/News/Events/Reflection-for-religious

Once registered, a Zoom link will be shared with you nearer to the time of the event.

Building Hope for People & Planet : JPIC September meeting

Building hope for people and planet

Listening to the voice of creation

Led by Ellen Teague

                Saturday 24th September 2022

      10.00 am – 4.00 pm

Concluding with a Eucharist at 4.00pm

This will be a hybrid conference, on zoom and in person: at FCJ Spirituality Centre, Saint Aloysius Convent, 32 Phoenix Rd, London NW1 1TA

Ellen Teague is a London-based freelance Catholic journalist who writes and campaigns on Justice, Peace and Ecology issues. She has been a member of the JPIC team of the Columban Missionary Society in Britain for three decades and edits their newsletter, Vocation for Justice.

She also writes regularly for The Tablet, Messenger of St. Anthony International Edition and Redemptorist Publications, collaborating closely with organisations involved in the National Justice and Peace Network of England and Wales (NJPN). She is a member of the NJPN Environment Working Group and regularly speaks at diocesan days in England on  Laudato Si’.

Queries: Margaret Healy: margarethealyssl@gmail.com

All are welcome – Please bring family and friends

(Voluntary contribution of £10 (payable at the door)

For those on zoom a donation would be welcome

Tea and coffee provided (please bring your own lunch)

Carrying the torch: Presentation Sisters celebrate decades of service

Sr Susan Richert PBVM reflects on her congregation’s first Assembly since the pandemic:

Recalling the lantern of Foundress, Nano Nagle

As we gathered for our opening ritual, at our Assembly in June, we were invited to “Remember Our Call”.  To listen again to the call to us in the seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter and to get in touch with what was stirring in our hearts as we gathered together as Province for the first time since 2019. These stirrings we shared with those at the table we had gathered with. We then prayed as we looked forward to thinking about our life with Christ, our commitment to life, dedication to ministry and supporting each other. We called each other to enter into ourselves, our experiences, our dreams and questions so that together we shape our future walking our journey and reminding each other that God asks us to act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with God.

Jubilarians renewed their vows

Morning Prayer was led by different communities and gave us the opportunity to delve deeper and listen more acutely to what God is calling us to…

We celebrated Jubilarians, who renewed their vows at a joyful Mass celebrated by Fr Chris Thomas.

We took time to remember our sisters, family and friends who had died during the past 3 years – we had been unable to gather together to celebrate their lives. We were joined via zoom with those of our Sisters who were unable to be present with us.

Our prayer was one of blessing – for those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.

As part of our ritual, we were given large paper oak leaves and invited to write the names of anyone we wished to remember  on the back. These were placed around the oak sapling and we picked up forget me not seeds for future planting.

We ended with lines from John O’Donoghue

They will never be forgotten

While there is one of us left to remember

And when there is no one left to remember

We will all be together.

Recalling the skill of a Benedictine sculptor

An annual service of devotion to ‘Our Lady of Pew’ took place at Westminster Abbey in July. The Chapel of ‘Our Lady of Pew’ features a beautiful statue created by a Benedictine nun of Minster Abbey in Kent.

The late Sister Concordia Scott OSB

(Copyright:Dean and Chapter of Westminster)

Sister Concordia Scott OSB sculpted the fine alabaster statue of the Virgin and Child in the niche of the Chapel. It took 14 months to complete and was placed there in May 1971.

The original statue that was there disappeared centuries ago. The design of the 20th-century piece was inspired by a 15th-century English alabaster Madonna at Westminster Cathedral.

Sister Concordia Scott (1924 – 2014) was Prioress of the Minster Abbey community from 1984-1999.

Her commissioned works included statues for Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral, Coventry Cathedral and the National Shrine of Wales as well as numerous sculptures currently in Europe and the United States of America.

The Society of Our Lady of Pew venerates the Blessed Virgin Mary and regularly holds services and retreats in Westminster Abbey.

This small chapel hollowed out of the thickness of the wall between two chapels off the north ambulatory was originally a self-contained 14th-century rectangular recessed chapel, but it now forms part of the entrance to the Chapel of St John the Baptist. The term 'Pew' refers to a small enclosure or chapel.

Message from His Holiness Pope Francis for the World Day of Prayer for the Season of Creation, September 1st, 2022:

Dear brothers and sisters!

“Listen to the voice of creation” is the theme and invitation of this year’s Season of Creation. The ecumenical phase begins on 1 September with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and concludes on 4 October with the feast of Saint Francis. It is a special time for all Christians to pray and work together to care for our common home. Originally inspired by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, this Season is an opportunity to cultivate our “ecological conversion”, a conversion encouraged by Saing John Paul 11 as a response to the “ecological catastrophe” predicted by Saint Paul v1 back in 1970. [1]

If we learn how to listen, we can hear in the voice of creation a kind of dissonance. On the one hand, we can hear a sweet song in praise of our beloved Creator; on the other, an anguished plea, lamenting our mistreatment of this our common home.

The sweet song of creation invites us to practise an “ecological spirituality” ( Laudato Si’, 216), attentive to God’s presence in the natural world. It is a summons to base our spirituality on the “loving awareness that we are not disconnected from the rest of creatures, but joined in a splendid universal communion” ( ibid., 220). For the followers of Christ in particular, this luminous experience reinforces our awareness that “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” ( Jn 1:3). In this Season of Creation, we pray once more in the great cathedral of creation, and revel in the “grandiose cosmic choir” [2] made up of countless creatures, all singing the praises of God. Let us join Saint Francis of Assisi in singing: “Praise be to you, my Lord, for all your creatures” (cf. Canticle of Brother Sun). Let us join the psalmist in singing, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!” ( Ps 150:6).

Tragically, that sweet song is accompanied by a cry of anguish. Or even better: a chorus of cries of anguish. In the first place, it is our sister, mother earth, who cries out. Prey to our consumerist excesses, she weeps and implores us to put an end to our abuses and to her destruction. Then too, there are all those different creatures who cry out. At the mercy of a “tyrannical anthropocentrism” (Laudato Si’, 68), completely at odds with Christ’s centrality in the work of creation, countless species are dying out and their hymns of praise silenced. There are also the poorest among us who are crying out. Exposed to the climate crisis, the poor feel even more gravely the impact of the drought, flooding, hurricanes and heat waves that are becoming ever more intense and frequent. Likewise, our brothers and sisters of the native peoples are crying out. As a result of predatory economic interests, their ancestral lands are being invaded and devastated on all sides, “provoking a cry that rises up to heaven” (Querida Amazonia, 9). Finally, there is the plea of our children. Feeling menaced by shortsighted and selfish actions, today’s young people are crying out, anxiously asking us adults to do everything possible to prevent, or at least limit, the collapse of our planet’s ecosystems.

Listening to these anguished cries, we must repent and modify our lifestyles and destructive systems. From its very first pages, the Gospel calls us to “repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt 3:2); it summons us to a new relationship with God, and also entails a different relationship with others and with creation. The present state of decay of our common home merits the same attention as other global challenges such as grave health crises and wars. “Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience” (Laudato Si’, 217).

As persons of faith, we feel ourselves even more responsible for acting each day in accordance with the summons to conversion. Nor is that summons simply individual: “the ecological conversion needed to bring about lasting change is also a community conversion” (ibid., 219). In this regard, commitment and action, in a spirit of maximum cooperation, is likewise demanded of the community of nations, especially in the meetings of the United Nations devoted to the environmental question.

The COP27 conference on climate change, to be held in Egypt in November 2022 represents the next opportunity for all to join in promoting the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement. For this reason too, I recently authorized the Holy See, in the name of and on behalf of the Vatican City State, to accede to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, in the hope that the humanity of the 21st century “will be remembered for having generously shouldered its grave responsibilities” ( ibid., 65). The effort to achieve the Paris goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C is quite demanding; it calls for responsible cooperation between all nations in presenting climate plans or more ambitious nationally determined contributions in order to reduce to zero, as quickly as possible, net greenhouse gas emissions. This means “converting” models of consumption and production, as well as lifestyles, in a way more respectful of creation and the integral human development of all peoples, present and future, a development grounded in responsibility, prudence/precaution, solidarity, concern for the poor and for future generations. Underlying all this, there is need for a covenant between human beings and the environment, which, for us believers, is a mirror reflecting “the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”. [3] The transition brought about by this conversion cannot neglect the demands of justice, especially for those workers who are most affected by the impact of climate change.

For its part, the COP15 summit on biodiversity, to be held in Canada in December, will offer to the goodwill of governments a significant opportunity to adopt a new multilateral agreement to halt the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species. According to the ancient wisdom of the Jubilee, we need to “remember, return, rest and restore”. [4] In order to halt the further collapse of biodiversity, our God-given “network of life”, let us pray and urge nations to reach agreement on four key principles: 1. to construct a clear ethical basis for the changes needed to save biodiversity; 2. to combat the loss of biodiversity, to support conservation and cooperation, and to satisfy people’s needs in a sustainable way; 3. to promote global solidarity in light of the fact that biodiversity is a global common good demanding a shared commitment; and 4. to give priority to people in situations of vulnerability, including those most affected by the loss of biodiversity, such as indigenous peoples, the elderly and the young.

Let me repeat: “In the name of God, I ask the great extractive industries – mining, oil, forestry, real estate, agribusiness – to stop destroying forests, wetlands, and mountains, to stop polluting rivers and seas, to stop poisoning food and people”. [5]

How can we fail to acknowledge the existence of an “ecological debt” (Laudato Si’, 51) incurred by the economically richer countries, who have polluted most in the last two centuries; this demands that they take more ambitious steps at COP27 and at COP15. In addition to determined action within their borders, this means keeping their promises of financial and technical support for the economically poorer nations, which are already experiencing most of the burden of the climate crisis. It would also be fitting to give urgent consideration to further financial support for the conservation of biodiversity. Even the economically less wealthy countries have significant albeit “diversified” responsibilities (cf. ibid., 52) in this regard; delay on the part of others can never justify our own failure to act. It is necessary for all of us to act decisively. For we are reaching “a breaking point” (cf. ibid., 61).

During this Season of Creation, let us pray that COP27 and COP15 can serve to unite the human family (cf. ibid., 13) in effectively confronting the double crisis of climate change and the reduction of biodiversity. Mindful of the exhortation of Saint Paul to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep (cf. Rom 12:15), let us weep with the anguished plea of creation. Let us hear that plea and respond to it with deeds, so that we and future generations can continue to rejoice in creation’s sweet song of life and hope.

____________________________________________________________

[1] Address to F.A.O., 16 November 1970.

[2] SAINT JOHN PAUL II, General Audience, 10 July 2002.

[3] Address to the Meeting “Faith and Science towards COP26”, 4 October 2021,

[4] Message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, 1 September 2020.

[5] Video Message to Popular Movements, 16 October 2021.

Key new role for FCJ Sister in Liverpool Archdiocese

The Archdiocese of Liverpool has appointed Sr Lynne Baron, FCJ as Archbishop Malcolm McMahon’s delegate for Catholic social action.

Sr Lynne will be a key member of the new Archbishop’s Advisory Body and will ensure that the voice of a woman will be heard as the archbishop makes important decisions.

The appointment comes almost 12 months after the archdiocese met for the Synod 2020 (20 June 2021). Since then, the pastoral plan has been written, promulgated and implementation is ongoing.

A key call from the Synod was to renew our Church by reaching out, by being welcoming and inclusive.

The Pastoral Plan called for a new role to “place at the forefront of life of the Church inclusivity, justice and peace, the poor, marginalised and the environment, recognising that concern for the environment is a core dimension of our evangelising mission in the world.”

Archbishop Malcolm McMahon OP, said: “I truly believe that Sr Lynne is the best person to help develop this important area of our life as a Church and to guide us as we implement the direction set by the Synod.

“The Synod clearly called us to reach out to those who feel on the edges of both Church and society and it is clear to me that only if we look outward will we renew ourselves.”

Sr Lynne said of the role: “I am delighted to be able to take up this appointment as Archbishop’s Delegate and to contribute to the mission of the Archdiocese in this new way as the Church seeks to include the voice of women in its decision-making bodies. My area of responsibility, Catholic social action, is far reaching in these challenging times, but the archdiocese and its people have a strong history of social action, welcome and inclusion. I am excited to further enable this work to flourish, to ensure it is rooted in Catholic social teaching, and that it remains a significant aspect of the archdiocesan agenda.”

Sr Lynne’s appointment is the first step in changing the governance structures of the Archdiocese. The Synod called for the voice of women to be heard and acknowledged – this appointment shows the commitment to what was asked.

The Archbishop’s Council and College of Consultors has been revised. The Chapter of Canons will, from 6 June 2022, take on the role as College of Consultors and the Archbishop’s Council, from the same date, will become the Archbishop’s Advisory Body and so enable it to be made up of people who are not ordained.

A life lived to the full: Sr Pat Robb CJ

The following was taken from Sr Pat's personal memoirs by Sr Gemma Simmonds:

Pat was born in 1936 in Penang of a Scottish father and an English mother both of whom had served in World War I. Her father died in Malaya when Pat was only two, leaving her mother to move to a family farm in Somerset, where little Pat was soon in her element, riding horses and tractors and learning to love all things green and growing.

Her mother was called up for nursing service in WWII, so Pat was sent off to boarding school aged six. The end of war brought a further move to Cambridge, where an angry, sulking, rebellious young teenager (Pat's own description) was taken on in Paston House (now St Mary's School) by the then headmistress, Sr Christopher Angell, who is still alive and on mission in Zimbabwe aged 106. Sr Christopher saw Pat as a challenge, and she was not the only person to share this view of Pat in her lifetime! Paston House was Pat's eighth school, but she knew at once that a Mary Ward school was different from the 'survival of the fittest' culture she had met elsewhere.

Renouncing her original ambition to become a stable girl to the racing trainer in Royston, she followed her mother and chose nursing at the Middlesex Hospital in London. Pat loved nursing and the independent life of London with its smoke-filled coffee bars, skiffle music and mixed hockey played with young doctors. There were tensions around her interest in Catholicism both with her staunch Anglican mother and with a young farmer boyfriend who asked her to choose between him or becoming a Catholic. But neither mother nor boyfriend persuaded her, and Pat was received into the Catholic Church, making her First Holy Communion in the Cambridge Convent Chapel with Mrs Hawke, mother of Sr Anna and Nonie Hawke, who taught Maths at St Mary's, as her godmother.

Pat became a staff nurse, but further adventures called, and she sold her Lambretta scooter and boarded a ship bound for Australia, where she found a job in the mountains of New South Wales, covering everything from children's ward, A & E, maternity and the operating theatre, treating horrific accidents among men digging roads and dams out of the side of the mountains. She went on to South Africa in 1960, at a time of appalling violence and racial segregation, often finding herself sitting with the black Africans in church being glared at by white people.

Deciding to do a midwifery training in order to work in a bush mission hospital, she boarded a ship home, where she was pestered by two Irish nuns to visit their convent to see 'what it's like to be a nun'. Pat shuddered at the thought and avoided them for the rest of the journey, but to get them off her back, and thinking that a teaching order was a greater sacrifice, she said she was entering the sisters from her old school. True to her upbringing, she then felt she had to keep her word. Mrs Robb was distraught when she broke the news, but the Cambridge community were so good to her that in later years she was to say that she hadn't lost a daughter but had gained several. As anyone who knew her would understand, Pat found novitiate life very constricting, so she was delighted when she was sent to St Mary's School in Shaftesbury after her vows, heading for the open country and the wildlife with alacrity. As Sr Camillus she spent 18 years there as school nurse, starting the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, running the Scottish reels club with the help of its star dancer, now the abbess of a Benedictine monastery, and being chiefly remembered by the alumnae who have paid tribute to her on Facebook for riding their horses round the hockey pitch, roaring round in a tractor and teaching them to play rugger touch, despite the disapproval of many parents.

But her missionary vocation never left her, and she returned to midwifery in London, finally landing in Zimbabwe, in a hospital with over 200 beds, serving an enormous outlying rural area. Reverting to her baptismal name, Pat moved on to the municipal clinic in the desperate poverty of Amaveni township where her interests in justice and peace were roused by the torture and bullying she witnessed by Robert Mugabe's supporters. A call came from Mozambique, to Chimoio, on the border with Zimbabwe. Built for 25,000 people, Chimoio now held 250,000, mostly refugees from the civil war, squatting on the edge of the town without sewerage or shelter. She concentrated on Mother/Child health but was also dealing with high numbers of mutilated victims of violence and people dying of HIV/AIDS. In one of many stand-offs with authority in her life, she was deported from Mozambique after denouncing corruption within the local charity and government sectors but was asked to go to Angola with the charity CONCERN.

She flew there to find that the CONCERN office had been bombed during the night and all documents had been destroyed. Nothing daunted, she set up some feeding centres with Médecins sans Frontières. 100 people a week were dying of starvation and related diseases there under terrible living conditions and she was very busy, with shelling all night and drunk and drugged soldiers manning the many roadblocks as she and her companions drove through the mine fields. Asked if she would do similar work in the camps surrounding Rwanda, she became the camp administrator in Tanzania in 1993, moving on to Goma in the Congo and on into Rwanda and then Burundi to a camp which they had to evacuate five times in the six months she was there. Years later she and I went to see the film Hotel Rwanda. She was very silent on the way home, later weeping as she spoke of the horrors she had witnessed during the genocide.

Pat moved to yet another war zone in Sierra Leone, organising logistics to turn a disused university into homes for hundreds of people, helped by a Muslim cook called Alfred and a Christian guard called Mohammed. Her career in African war zones ended with brutal suddenness when a bout of cerebral malaria necessitated her repatriation to England. Here she found a volunteering role in the Cardinal Hume Homeless Centre, with one day a week in a legal aid firm involved with Human Rights for the Traveller community. It was the beginning of her life as a tireless campaigner for justice and peace that is acknowledged in Professor Anna Rowlands' recent book on Catholic Social Teaching which carries a dedication to Pat. It says: 'She represented the persistent widow, the virtuous and difficult woman who faithfully believes in a truth beyond mere power and witnesses to it until justice is rendered. She stands for a generation of women, written out of the magisterial pages of the tradition, but who have led and inspired social renewal.'

Conventional community life was not for Pat after her long years under fire and in May 1999 she moved to a flat in Cambridge, working first at Whitemoor High Security Prison and then in chaplaincy at the Oakington Immigration Detention Centre until its closure in 2010. Well into advanced old age she involved herself with Justice and Peace work through CAFOD and other NGOs, campaigning on behalf of refugees, several of whom became part of her extended family, as well as keeping up the care of her beloved allotment.

At the end of her memoirs Pat writes, "God has been VERY good to me". She, in her turn, fought the good fight on behalf of so many in need of a doughty champion. We can imagine her welcome in Heaven, "Well done, good and faithful servant - there are horses, motorbikes and gardens galore, just waiting for you to enjoy them…" May she rest in peace at last after her extraordinary life and rise in glory.

Tributes paid to Bruce Kent

By Ellen Teague:

I wonder how many people hearing Bruce Kent speak about peace activism in a Tablet webinar on 12 May and then seeing him attend the annual Conscientious Objectors service in Tavistock Square on 15 May marvelled at his continuing inspirational commitment to peacemaking in his 93rd year. Of course, he was partly able to manage it with his wife of 34 years - companion peace campaigner, Valerie Flessati - alongside him. But by the end of May Bruce was struck down by illness and died on 8 June. The strongest Catholic voice for peace and nonviolence in the UK was silenced. Or was it?

He was a great orator and his words at Pax Christi AGMs, Justice and Peace events, protests at places from Trafalgar Square to Faslane and literally thousands of events over the years will continue to inspire the millions who heard him speak live. Indeed, many talks and interviews can be accessed on the internet. He reached one million people at just one event - the Hyde Park march and rally in London against the Iraq War on 15 February 2003. "Wave your banners" he said, "what a beautiful sight you are" and engaged the crowd probably better than anyone else that day.

But speaking out was never linked to the size of an event. In early March he felt compelled to join a small CND delegation delivering a letter to the Russian Embassy in London, which said: "For the sake of Ukrainian children taking shelter from Russian missiles; for the sake of all those who will die if the situation escalates and for the sake of the millions of us who will perish if the heightened risk of nuclear war turns into a nuclear conflict, we urge your government to halt the attacks, withdraw the troops and withdraw the nuclear threats."

He lent support to many campaigns. Earlier this year when Campaign against the Arms Trade highlighted the seventh anniversary of the Saudi-led coalition's entry into the war in Yemen, where the Coalition's bombing campaign caused around 9,000 civilian deaths with many more injured, he said, "I am so glad that you have drawn attention to the barbarism of the war in Yemen in which Britain, as an arms supplier, is very responsible." His last blog for the National Justice and Peace Network called for Catholics to support the Peace agenda of Pope Francis - eight years younger than himself. And in it he deplored that at COP26, the recent UN meeting on Climate Change held in Glasgow, the massive contribution to CO2 output by the world's military hardly got a mention despite all the efforts of peace activists outside the official meeting.

The most prominent Catholic peace activist in Britain for more than half a century, Bruce Kent has served in management of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the International Peace Bureau, the Movement for the Abolition of War, as well as Pax Christi, the Catholic Movement for Peace. He has been vice president of both CND and Pax Christi UK.

But where did his focus on peace come from? Much is told in his autobiography 'Undiscovered Ends' which was produced in 1992 with only two-thirds of his life lived!

His compassion for people facing hardship or trouble, and victims of conflict, goes back to his youth. During schooldays at the Jesuit's Stonyhurst College "where I became an orthodox, right wing young Catholic" he remembers making a fuss about the situation of a cleaner who had a two mile walk to work and he thought transport should be provided. All his life he was quietly attentive to people on the margins. After a period of national service in the British Army, where he served in Northern Ireland, and reading law at Oxford University, he entered a seminary to train as a Catholic priest. The seminary encouraged outreach and he paid weekly visits to a TB sanatorium. He reflected that, "being a Catholic was more than reciting prayers and saying Mass."

In 1969 he was in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War and saw the victims of the embargo imposed there. He used to point out that one and a half million people starved to death and the blockade was made possible by British weapons. "Biafra taught me the importance of fighting injustice's causes - not just its symptoms" he said, and he has felt the same about the many wars since that time. To ignore the causes of injustice and war "is to short-change the poor of this world". He felt that war and militarism could not be treated as separate issues by any aid agency dealing seriously with poverty.

Bruce was first introduced to the Catholic peace movement in the 1960s. He had met and greatly admired US Archbishop Thomas Roberts SJ at that time, who played a significant role in promoting recognition of conscientious objection to war, using the example of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian Catholic who was beheaded in 1943 for his refusal to serve in Hitler's army. People like Jägerstätter, Roberts argued, should know they have the clear support of Church teaching. He also took the view that nuclear weapons involve immoral actions: the destruction of innocent people and a willingness to perform such acts in given circumstances. Bruce had witnessed 'Ban the Bomb' demonstrations in London and developed an affinity with peace campaigners and conscientious objectors. It was a decade that saw him working for Cardinal John Heenan in Archbishop's House, being made a 'monsignor', and clearly being earmarked as a rising star in the Church. He heard remarks about damaging his career if he remained active with CND, but peacemaking had become his primary vocation.

In the 1970s Bruce was juggling chaplaincy work, parish work and peace commitments, including working in the CND office. He was inspired by the great encyclical Peace on Earth in 1963 and in 1971 by the "remarkable" document on the Church and Justice produced by the Bishops' Synod in Rome. Called Our World and You it focused on poverty, peace, education for justice and the Church's duty to practice what it preaches. In 1980 he became the General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, at a time when Britain announced it would be hosting American cruise missiles and build new Trident nuclear submarines with American missiles and British warheads. Membership of CND mushroomed throughout the 1980s. Bruce spoke at huge rallies, wrote articles, did interviews, debates, and visited local groups. He often returned on a late-night train from meetings round the country and rose to say early Mass in his parish before heading to the office for another hectic day. There was also a growth in heated attacks on himself and on CND. On 6 August 1986, for example, as he completed a long walk from the nuclear submarine base at Faslane in Scotland to Burghfield, the nuclear bomb factory in Berkshire, the minutes' silence for the dead of Hiroshima and all wars was drowned out by the loud music of opponents.

His greatest sadness was that the Catholic Church "kept the peace movement at arm's length," although a CND survey in the early 1980s found that 25 percent of members were also Christians active in their churches. However, there were exceptions - the late Bishop Victor Guazzelli, former President of Pax Christi, and Bishop Thomas McMahon of Brentwood who broke ranks to call for Britain to take first steps to de-escalate nuclear build up. Bruce praised Cardinal Basil Hume "who gave me generous support" despite mounting personal criticism of Bruce's role in CND by prominent Catholics. These were years when nuclear disarmament was a hot political issue, constantly in the news. For Bruce, things came to a head with the prospect of a 1987 general election promising another bitter contest over the nuclear issue, and further personal attacks on his leadership role in CND.

He felt he was in an impossible position. "Many of my fellow Catholics, and other Christians, told me that what I was doing as a priest gave them hope", he says, "though I knew that most of my bishops did not think my work was priestly". In February 1987 he took the decision to retire from active ministry, saying "I no longer find it possible to cope with the strain resulting from the tension between my pastoral role which means so much to me and what is thought to be an unacceptable political role". In the 30 years since that time Bruce has continued his peace activism. Since 1988, his wife and peace activist Valerie Flessati has been by his side.

Bruce felt an affinity with all peacemakers and all would testify to his generosity and kindness in affirming others. At the 60th anniversary of Christian CND last year, Bruce and Valerie gave highlights of CCND campaigning. One participant said, "I will never forget Bruce turning up at Greenham Common - the site of cruise missiles - to bring chocolates and some warming Scottish 'water of life' during the biblical 40 days of rain after the caravans were evicted in September 1982, and many times after that!" He loved social gatherings and at his birthday parties he would have an array of party games ready for young nieces and nephews and others. My own family received cards from him regularly, whether praising articles or encouraging artistic endeavours. He gave time to sitting for son Luke and the resulting painting is today in the Bradford Peace Museum.

Bruce had endless positive energy, creativity and insight into important issues. The National Justice and Peace Network has called him a "modern prophet" and praised him for understanding "that all justice issues are connected, although his own focus was on ending war and building a culture of peace". He was behind the DVD, Conflict and Climate Change, produced in 2009 which made links between militarism and human-induced global warming. In his speech at Coventry University last November, where he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate, he urged the student audience: "Please think for yourselves. Don't be swept along by whatever happens to be the propaganda of the day. Ask your own critical questions. For example, why are people risking their lives trying to cross the Channel in small boats?" It was interesting when Pax Christi friends had occasional outings to the cinema to view some worthy film, that Bruce would loudly lament the adverts for violent films which preceeded it and which he felt should not masquerade as entertainment. He had an allergy to violence of any kind.

Bruce was an outspoken opponent of the British Government planning to spend more than £200 million on building and maintaining another generation of nuclear weapons to replace Britain's current Trident system. He felt it makes nonsense of any British commitment to rid ourselves and the world of nuclear weapons. "If you have these weapons, you intend to use them" he would say, "and that is immoral". He urged support of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Bruce educated young people about citizenship and the work of the United Nations. "I go into schools of all sorts" he said, "and ignorance of the good work of United Nations and of its sub agencies, of the International Court of Justice, or the International Criminal Court is massive". It grieved him that, "the miracle which brought the UN to life in on 26 June 1945 remains so small a priority in the Church, and in public life generally".

Bruce admired Pope Francis and supported his work on any action related to peace, justice, equality and the global trusteeship of our world. Bruce felt that peace on Earth is going to depend on joined up education and campaigning on overcoming poverty, militarism and climate chaos, and that Pope Francis understands these connections. "I believe in nonviolent solutions to problems" he said and was delighted that Pope Francis chose to focus on 'nonviolence as a political choice' for his World Peace Day message for 1 January 2017. He was full of admiration for people like Pat Gaffney, former general secretary of Pax Christi, who work quietly and constantly for the common good.

In fact, he was always anxious to recognise women. He applauded his own mother for the strong influence of her Catholic faith in his early years growing up in Hampstead, London, and also being "very generous and outgoing", and Valerie for her peace publications and wisdom on strategising for peacework. Bruce and Valerie knew Franzisza, the widow of Franz Jägerstätter, personally and admired her support of her husband's stance despite being left to raise their three children on her own, harassment from the local community and widowhood of seven decades. He commended Jo Siedlecka of Independent Catholic News for her interest in publishing peace events and stories, and women religious for their loyal support of Pax Christi.

Bruce engaged with groups outside church circles, wherever he found kindred spirits. In 1988 he walked 1000 miles from Warsaw to Brussels (NATO) calling for a united peaceful nuclear-free Europe. In 1999 he was British co-ordinator for the Hague Appeal for Peace, a 10,000-strong international conference in The Hague, which initiated some major campaigns (e.g. against small arms, the use of child soldiers, and to promote peace education). It was this, along with his friend, Professor Joseph Rotblat's Nobel acceptance speech calling for an end to war itself, that inspired Bruce to establish in the UK the Movement for the Abolition of War. In 2019 the International Peace Bureau awarded Bruce the Sean MacBride Prize in recognition of his life's work for peace and disarmament. Bruce also engaged with refugees, visited prisoners and campaigned for prison reform. He was a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Bruce said once: "I have always been a glass half full not half empty person and in terms of peace and social justice the Catholic glass is very much half full". He felt it was amongst groups of visionary people such as Justice and Peace groups and Pax Christi, "that I find my own sources of life and inspiration". He was, "a comfortable member of my own parish but it is with its Justice and Peace Group that I am really at home and of one mind."

I was always surprised that Bruce was sometimes seen as a contentious figure by some Catholics. He spoke such good sense with eloquence and vast background knowledge, always ready to listen to others and to engage with differing opinions. In private, the hospitality of Bruce and Valerie was legendary, surrounded in their flat by books, posters and memorabilia testifying to their faithfulness to their vocation as Catholic peacemakers. They were strongly ecumenical too. Just over a year ago, Bruce and Valerie were jointly awarded the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism, "for exceptional, tireless and lifelong dedication to the Christian ecumenical search for peace, both individually and together." He was widely admired. At the London service for conscientious objectors in Central London five years ago, there was great excitement that Sir Mark Rylance was speaking, but the award-winning actor himself said his highlight of the day was meeting his "hero", Bruce Kent.

The media was buzzing with tributes as soon as his death was announced. From around the UK and internationally Bruce was described as "a true man of peace", "one of the greatest peace campaigners the world has ever known" and "a great human being and a prophet". I found particularly moving, "our society is weakened by his passing".

Bruce's favourite quote from Catholic Social Teaching was from Pope Paul VI's 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio: 'Peace is the fruit of anxious daily care to see that each person lives in justice as God intends'. He gave faithful "anxious daily care" to his mission for peace for as long his health permitted and he will long continue to inspire.

Second webinar on dementia : June 9th

Following a very well attended webinar on dementia earlier in the year, organised by the Health & Care group, a second zoom session with expert speakers has been organised for June 9th, 1.30pm to 3pm.

Speakers:   

Sharon Johnston:

Specialist Admiral Nurse

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust

Sarah Hodges:

Specialist Dementia Occupational Therapist

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust

Lis Burgess Jones:

Previously Director of Nursing at Camden & NW London Mental Health Trust

Now Chair of North London Hospice - https://northlondonhospice.org/about-us/meet-the-team/

To get the zoom link, email: communications@corew.org

Together along the digital highway

By Sr Jessica OSB of Mucknell Abbey

A group of Religious sisters and brothers, all involved in social media in different ways, met together for a day conference in early May, to share insights and discuss in depth how we, as Religious, share ourselves, our lives and our faith online. All together, there were 20 attendees, 12 in person at the Sisters of Mercy Convent in Bermondsey and a further 8 online. There were 13 different congregations and communities represented, both apostolic and monastic, Roman Catholic and Anglican.

The conference was organised by a group of Religious who have been meeting monthly on Zoom for the last two years. These meetings have given opportunities to share good practice and resources in our online work, and have also become a source of friendship and support. They originally started because of a cancelled ‘in person’ conference at the start of the pandemic; meeting together in this hybrid format gave a sense of coming full circle.

In the morning, we had some time for introductions and then Sr. Jessica spoke about her journey with using twitter, both as a primary school teacher and latterly as a Religious. She talked about the reflection she had undertaken on what constituted a monastic and Benedictine use of twitter, and then shared some of the questions she was now asking herself about the ongoing purpose of her use of twitter.

After lunch, we reconvened to hear from Sr. Judith and Sr. Silvana, both of whom reflected on how the particular charism of their communities (Turvey Abbey and Society of the Sacred Heart respectively), informed their writing and sharing online. Sr. Judith spoke about her ongoing use of Facebook, and how she looked for inspiration in the daily liturgy when writing her posts. She shared her aim to encourage love, kindness, prayer and peace in her posts and in her responses, drawing on the Vita et Pax foundation made by Dom. Constantine.

Sr. Silvana then shared her journey with blogging, again reflecting on the way in which her engagement online flows out of her life as a religious sister. She quoted from her first blog post, saying, “This [being a religious sister] is who, what and how I am, and what I want to share with others. So in this blog I hope to bring together my different loves - of words, photography, creativity - and place them at the service of my central love, the Love that will not let me go.”.

The day was full of rich conversation, reflective and at times challenging discussion, and plenty of laughter. At its conclusion, we affirmed the support we continue to provide to one another, and were unanimous in our desire to meet again next year

If anyone is involved in digital communication for their congregation and would be interested in joining the group please email Cathy Edge RSM: cathy.edge@iolmercy.org.uk

Well known retreat giver, Fr Tom Shufflebotham SJ, has died

Fr Tom Shufflebotham SJ passed away on May 4th. He was 87.

Tom was born on 14th July 1934 in Newton-le-Willows in Merseyside and was educated at St Francis Xavier College in Liverpool and then at Mount St Mary’s. He joined the novitiate at Harlaxton in 1952 at the age of 18, and after taking First Vows and making a two-year juniorate in Roehampton, studied for a licentiate in philosophy in Heythrop, Oxfordshire. Between 1958 and 1961 he read for a Master’s degree in modern history at Campion Hall in Oxford, followed by a three-year regency at St George’s College in Salisbury, Rhodesia, teaching history and Latin. A licentiate in theology at Heythrop followed, during which he was ordained in 1967. After a fourth year of theology post-ordination he made his tertianship at St Beuno’s under Paul Kennedy. Between 1969 and 1980 Tom taught history, first at St Ignatius College, Enfield and then, from 1973, at Stonyhurst.

In 1980 he moved to Loyola Hall as a member of the retreat house team and Superior of the community. In 1985 he was appointed as Rector of the Jesuit community in Wimbledon, combining this with the job of vocations’ promoter the following year. After a brief sabbatical, he joined the team at St Beuno’s in 1993, staying there for the next two decades and becoming Superior in 2003. His final move was to St Wilfrid’s Preston in 2014, where he continued to direct the Spiritual Exercises until his final illness.

His Requiem Mass will take place on Wednesday 1st June at 12.15pm at St Wilfrid’s church in Preston.

An invitation from Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald M.Afr

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In my capacity as Patron of the Catholic charity, Fellowship and Aid to the Christians of the East (FACE), I am very happy to commend to you the International Day of Prayer for Eastern Christians, which takes place each year on the Sixth Sunday of Easter (22nd May, 2022).

The Day of Prayer for Eastern Christians was launched by l’Oeuvre d’Orient, a French charitable body which has been actively supporting Eastern Christians for over 160 years. From its inception, in 2016, the Day of Prayer has been supported by the Congregation for Oriental Churches. Over the past three years, thanks to the initiative and organisation of the British charity, Fellowship and Aid to the Christians of the East (FACE), the Day of Prayer has been observed by dioceses across England, Wales and Scotland.

This Day of Prayer brings Eastern and Western Christians together and offers an opportunity to give thanks to God for all that we owe the Oriental Churches: the first preaching of the Gospel, the origins of the monastic tradition, many of the early Church Fathers, and, above all, the witness of the Eastern Christians down the centuries which has been, and still is, an inspiration to our faith.

Today, Eastern Christians are a diminishing presence in the Middle East. Maintaining their presence in those lands is essential for stability in the wider region, as well as for guaranteeing Western Christians an unbroken heritage and tradition from the source of our faith. Our Catholic charity, Fellowship and Aid to the Christians of the East (FACE), devotes itself exclusively to supporting the Eastern Catholic Churches in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and India, through long-term projects in education, healthcare, pastoral support and interreligious dialogue, so that Eastern Christians may remain in their homelands.

As we come to rejoice with renewed faith in the power of the Risen Lord during this season of Easter, please pray for Eastern Christians, many of whom are suffering from the effects of war and discrimination, especially those in Ukraine who are dispossessed and displaced. May the joy and blessings of Easter fill their hearts – and ours – with hope, so that together we may all come to rejoice with renewed faith in the power of the Risen Lord.

Accordingly, I would plead that this Day of Prayer for Eastern Christians be observed in your parishes on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, and that an opportunity be given to the faithful not only to pray in union with these Christians but also to show their solidarity with them through an optional collection in aid of FACE’s projects under the patronage of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

With the assurance of my prayers and warmest wishes,

Yours in Christ,

Michael Cardinal Fitzgerald M.Afr.

Ears to Listen: Response of Religious to synodal consultation

By Sr Margaret Donovan HC

The three webinars on Communion, Participation and Mission were well attended  (between 200-300 each time).

Each started with a time of prayer and a reflection, given by a speaker on the theme.  Then there were break out groups to discuss the following:

a)      The reflections and thoughts of Religious with respect to their experience of Communion/Participation/Mission in the life of the church in England and Wales.

b)     Things Religious identify as the church needing to let go of in England and Wales to allow new or deeper experiences of Communion/Participation/Mission to come.

c)      Things Religious identify as the church needing to develop or learn to do in England and Wales, to allow new or deeper experiences of Communion/Participation/Mission to come.

After the session there was an opportunity for Religious to submit further reflections on each of the questions.  Overall there was an enormous response, for which we are very grateful. The feedback has been submitted to CICLSAL.

Thank you to everyone who took contributed in any way to the Religious Synodal process.  We hope for a positive outcome.

The Road To A Synodal Church: Insights & Experiences, Campion Hall, Oxford 24-26 March 2022

A personal reflection by Fr John McGowan OCD, who attended the Symposium on behalf of the Corew Executive:

About forty five delegates from all over England and Wales came together for this Symposium. There were also invited speakers including Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops. He is easy to relate to, a humble man, unfussy. Everyone was involved in some way with the process of the Synod on Synodality. The meetings took place in Campion Hall, in the Jesuit Chaplaincy. We were accommodated in Pembroke College.

The Symposium began with a eucharist at 18.00. The chief celebrant: Cardinal Mario Grech. Then a welcome from Fr Nicholas Austin SJ, Master of Campion Hall. This was followed by dinner. At 20.15 there was a synodal Plenary led by Danny Curtin.

Friday 25th March. A busy day; lots to listen to.

8.45 We were welcomed by both Fr Nicholas Austin and Austen Ivereigh. I believe it was Austen who got everyone together. There was ‘disappointment’ that he didn’t manage to get the Pope!

The keynote address:  

Card. Grech: “A Synodal Church is a listening Church.”

Cardinal Grech & Dr Austen Ivereigh

He began by asking the question: Is the Synodal Church a listening one? He referred to examples in Sacred Scripture, old and new Testaments, that showed how important listening was. He went on to say that the Church was of its nature, was constitutionally, a listening Church. He referred us to Dei Verbum; how God through the Holy Spirit gives a person a desire to listen. He referred to Lumen Gentium. An important text: 1 John 2: Knowledge comes from anointing by the Holy One. This anointing teaches the anointed about everything.  1 John also refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit we are introduced into the very mystery of God.

The Gospels are the Word of Life.

The Church is then born of listening. First listening to Christ, then after Easter to the Holy Spirit.

But why should we listen to one another? Pope Francis has asked us to do this very thing. Cf. Jeremiah.

In the early church, before doctrine came to be written down, there was the certainty that the church cold not err.

John Henry Newman, in The Rambler, took up this theme of listening to the People of God; to all the baptized. In the second millennium this synodal practise has been waning. Yet, Pope Pius IX was synodal: to people’s surprise. The Immaculate Conception, 1850, was established due to the ‘sensus fidelium’. The Doctrine of the Assumption, 1950, the same.

Vatican II recovered this sense of a synodal Church that was already there in the early church.

Cf. Lumen Gentium. Notice how the chapter on the People of God (2) came before the chapter one hierarchy (3). Lumen Gentium no longer understands the Church in terms of differences (priests, laity) but in terms of the equality of all the baptised.

Centuries before, following the Council of Trent, the ministerial priesthood was considered superior to the common priesthood of the people;  different in essence and degree. We now understand that the common priesthood of all the baptised in interrelated: common and ministerial.

Listening works in this context: this relationship between the lay and ministerial priesthood. We have seen division. There are two forms of participation in the one priesthood of Christ, which are mutually ordered to one another. They compliment each other. The emphasis must be on service not on power. All the baptised are called to share in the priestly, prophetic and kingly role of Christ.

The Church must uphold the deposit of faith; everyone must do this: bishops as well as the faithful. The Church-Teaching and the Church-Taught are one, and not to be divided. The bishop is the principle of unity.

The principle of listening does not exempt anyone from participation; from Bishops to the least of the faithful, saints as well as sinners. All have a right to speak, but also a duty to listen. When there is prophesy there must be discernment.

To answer the question he posed at the beginning: the synodal church is a listening church. Because a listening church is a synodal church. At the beginning St John Chrysostom said: “The Church and Synod are synonymous.”

There followed a period of questions and answers. Here are Card. Grech’s replies:

We all need synodal conversion. We need to help one another

This synod is putting Vat II into the present

The synod is not purely introspective but it is also missionary and evangelical

The importance in this process of listening to what is not being said.

We all need to undergo training in listening. To hear the fears and interpret the silence of those who don’t speak up.

Pope Francis is constantly trying to translate Vatican II into the life of the Church. 

Session I : Synodality In the Religious Tradition

Fr. Nicholas Austin SJ: ‘Not Knowing What We Will Find’: the Art of Discernment.

Pope Francis’s pastoral approach highlights the importance of mercy.  However, for some this is controversial and leads to confusion: canon law is much easier to follow.

We are to be a discerning church. In Acts 15 we read: ‘…the whole church kept silence and listened.’

There is a transition in the Church to listening to the Holy Spirit: stop broadcasting, start listening.

St Ignatius is famous for his discernment. After his injury a new life began to arise in him. God touched him but then he spiralled into desolation. Later he let go and his eyes opened a little.

Detachment: God is at work, in the world, bringing about his kingdom.

Detachment is ultimately for others.

Detachment is about letting go and letting ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit.

Detachment in common: this leads to unanimity.

Cf. Evangeli Gaudium: Inner freedom.

Detachment is not a method, rather it is a prayer.

It transforms, is life changing, and in the end bears fruit.

Detachment is second nature to us all; it’s not just for the Jesuits.  

Christopher Jamison OSB

‘All should be called for counsel’: origins and current

Practise of monastic governance.

Monks and nuns already live synodality. Cf. Chapter 3 of Benedict’s Rule: which refers to listening to the community, especially when something concerns the whole community.

We must listen with “the ear of your heart.”

2018 Synod of Youth. Pope Francis highlighted the voice of the Spirit in what others said.

1225 IV Lateran Council decreed that monasteries were to be autonomous with an Abbot President.  He made decision but not without consultation and discernment.

The importance of a culture of discernment in monasteries.

When monks began to use facilitators it got us to start talking and helped us to discern. There is a great value in facilitation.

Among the Benedictines there has been two developments:

The practise of discernment by the Abbot

Selection of the Abbot charismatically.

The more voices that are heard the clearer it will be to hear the voice of the Spirit. At first this can be like the tower of Babel but later on it becomes more like Pentecost.

Panel: Sr Jane Livesey CJ (by zoom); Fr John McGowan OCD.

I spoke about our experience as Carmelites, that of St Teresa of Avila, who was by nature synodal. But a more clerical model replaced her, which remained till recent times. Since Vatican II we dialogue and discern more. We don’t use facilitators for our General Chapter: in this regard we are about 30 years behind. However, in spite of this we produced a wonderfully charismatic document which was the fruit of several years consultation.

In order to keep as many as possible on board we should move forward slowly. The Holy Spirit will set the pace. St. Teresa of Avila believed that if God wanted her to do something then not only did she obey but she believed that nothing would stop this. If the Synod is the work of the Spirit, then nothing can stop it.

Session II: Synodality in Continents, Nations & Dioceses

Mr. Mauricio Lopez:

The Latin-American experience: an ongoing journey of synodal conversion. A most impressive man, with huge experience of methodology and working with the Synod on the Amazon. 

Pope Francis wanted the periphery to help the centre of the Church with the Synod on the Amazon.

Begin by recognizing our brokenness. Cf. the story of Blind Bartimaeus: his blindness is ours.

We can become blind. But we can want to see again.

When we see the brokenness in others then we see my own blindness.

We need to hear their voices (the broken). Their voices help us to hear our own voice.

We need to name our disease: Jesus asks Bartimaeus to name what he wants: “what do you want?”

Bartimaeus followed Jesus along the way. In the Synod we need to go out, to be missionary. Bartimaeus could have stayed behind, but chose to follow Jesus, to become a disciple, to be missionary.

 Fr Philip Inch & Fr Matthew Nunes

Liverpool Synod 2020: Reflections

 I must say I thought these two were excellent. The way they shared their experiences of the Synod in their archdiocese over a period of four years. The end result: a pastoral plan. They pointed out that by listening to people it changed the people, but it also changed them.

There is an anxiety about raising peoples’ expectations.

Panel: Fr. Eamon Conway on reform of synod of Bishops; Gerry O’Hanlon SJ on the Irish Synod. Ms. Virginia Bourke on the Australian plenary council.

Eamon began by saying how much he was moved by listening to Frs. Inch and Nunes. He spoke of the experience of being listened to and listening. He pointed out that we have come a long way already, especially when you look back at the way Synods were so controlled. He was an observer at the 2012 Synod in Rome. He was delighted to be invited but found the overall experience of listening without any chance to dialogue or discuss rather difficult. Not even the Bishops engaged in dialogue.

 Virginia Bourke spoke from Australia on a pre-recoded video. She said that it was not always good being a woman.  She was surprised and disturbed by the reactions to courageous women who spoke about the promotion of women in the Church. There was a lack of openness at the plenary. There wasn’t sufficient time. But there were reasons for hope and encouragement.

Session III: Synod on Synodality 2021-2023

 Dr. Austen Ivereigh:

Pope Francis’s dream of a ‘wholly synodal church.’ Austen asked the question why Pope Francis wanted a synodal church; what were the influences behind this decision.  The following are some of the reasons:

His concern for unity and reconciliation.

As a Jesuit he was familiar with the Spiritual exercises: the importance of discernment.

He is a man of the people and upholds the theology of the people. “Salvation, he says, will come from the people.”

His time as an Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He asked the question of his people: “What is the Holy Spirit saying to us?” He was impressed by the people’s openness.  He felt the Church had left the people, rather than, the people left the Church!

The disjuncture between the synodal experience of the meeting in Aparecida (Colombia) and the other Synods he had attended. In the former there was much more debate and listening.

Fr. Giacomo Costa SJ: Between responsibility and participation: the method of Synod 2021-23  

The purpose of the synod: to foster a culture of synodality.

It is not to produce documents, but to ‘plant dreams etc..’ awaken us to a new dawn of hope.

Pope Francis said, “Everyone has a part to play. The Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests are not more important than the others (the laity). No, all of us have a part to play and no one can be considered simply and extra”.

 The key to the synod is the ability to listen: not to shut up those we find it hard to listen to.

We discern together (common discernment): cf. Evangeli Gaudium 51. Recognizing, interpreting, choosing: with the eyes of a disciple.

Cf. Laudato si 19: See, judge act.

In spiritual conversation each one was personally invited to :

Recognize their experiences

Interpret those experiences

Act/Choose what to do

 At the end of the synodal process it might be useful to spend some time in prayer to re-read the entire synodal process.

Panel: Experience in England and Wales.

Sarah Adams (Clifton): We have to start to imagine who we are as Church.

Dr. Mark Nash (Southwark): Some of the faithful don’t feel part of the Church

Fr Jan Nowotnik: Cf. Pope Paul VI, Ecclesiam Suam. We grow together, we learn together. The importance of dialogue. It is a privilege to listen to what God is saying to the Church.

Sr. Gemma Simmonds: Times have changed for women religious.

We then had a second plenary session facilitated again by Danny Curtin. We broke into small groups to discuss what we had heard.

The Eucharist at 18.00 was presided by Bishop Nicholas Hudson. Fr Nick Austin SJ gave the homily. The eucharist incorporated the Act of Consecration to Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Session IV: Synodal Conversion

Fr. Alphonse Borras: The Call to synodal conversion

 The concept of Reform (cf. Evangeli Gaudium): leading to conversion.

            Apparecida 2007: S. American Conference. It’s importance and influence on  participants include Archbishop Bergoglio.

            There is pastoral conversion: of the priests and of the Church: the latter being   ‘institutional conversion.’ Each one is personally involved.

There are three factors that create resistance: 

Fear of change

The mindset: The difficulty of changing a mindset. It is hard for many to embrace the concept of ‘the common priesthood’. There is a fragmented vision of the People of God: a division between clergy and laity. Also the problem of a sacralised concept of the clergy.

Institutional. Particularly financial reasons.

All the faithful have to observe communion: the rights of the faithful, as baptised Christians. The role of canon law is to protect this communion. The importance of taking part in this communion. But this is difficult. Take the  eample of a parish council meeting. There needs to be:

 Freedom

An agenda

The provision of the necessary information, about the meeting (often a weak point)

It should concern ecclesial life and the mission of the parish; ie., not just about nuts and bolts, the maintenance of the building.

The material that is to be debated. Everyone should be given access to the information.

There should be a facilitator: The parish priest isn’t always good at facilitating.

In the role of the presiding minister, it is important to take advice. This can and should involve the assembly; we can speak of a dynamic debate. This gives space to the Holy Spirit who speaks through the assembly, the Church, the People of God.

There is a distinction between a consultative vote and a deliberative vote. In other   words: decision making and decision taking. Cf. Canon Law 127.

It is not good to have a minimalist understanding of the purely consultative vote:    (“canon law doesn’t require us to have a parish council”).  because all the members are inspired by the Holy Spirit. We have to rediscover the place of the Holy Spirit.      Cf. n.b., Lumen Gentium 4 & 13. The role of the priest is to be the shepherd of the faithful and to recognise their services and charisms. So that all may cooperate in this undertaking with one mind.

Collaborative Ministry. This has been spoken about but it needs time for the People of God to digest; maybe several generations.

The Pastoral council should be where all are involved in the life of the community.

Prof Myriam Wijlens (by Zoom)

 How canonical institutes can implement synodality: examples of best practice

 It is a major challenge for canon lawyers and theologians to adapt to synodality.

Canonical reforms take a long time: decades. However, we don’t have to wait. Canon Law need not stop theological or pastoral development.

 1917 code of canon law was in place during Vatican II. But post Vatican II the understanding of Church had changed in spite of the ancient code.

The issue of hermeneutics. Local law v universal law.

Pope Paul VI. Vatican II: take a fresh look at canon law, because of the change in doctrines (Vatican II saw doctrinal change).  We all need to move: bishops, priests, theologians, canon lawyers and laity.

 The importance of listening and consulting. To find out. To discern before making a decision. A bishop or parish priest does not have a monopoly of knowledge.

The importance of an internal disposition/conversion. Laws and rules and documents are not enough to change people. Vatican II is a reality but some have not internalized it.

 There is need for development. Synodality and canon law. The importance of Lumen Gentium. Note the positioning of the chapters, how Chapter two on the People of God, comes before the chapter on the Hierarchy. Pope Francis has internalised this.  

 There needs to be more dialogue between canon lawyers and theologians. It takes “new-lenses”. Vatican II has called for a transformative process in the church, in local diocese, in religious orders and in congregations.

We learn about doctrine by putting it into practise.

Cf. Evangelii Gaudium 37: Canon lawyers need to be bold and creative.

Panel: Raymond Friel OBE & Gerry O’Hanlon SJ. Synodal conversion in practice.

Raymond summarised what he wanted to say by telling us to read Gaudium et spes.

He spoke of transformation of relationships and transformation of the human heart. These require personal conversation. He spoke about the injustices in society; the Chancellor’s budget was not good for the poor.

Plenary Session (III), led by Danny Curtin.

 We broke into small groups again and discussed three areas:  

Begin with the insight you have had during these few days.

What next step might the Holy Spirit be inviting you to?

What concrete suggestions do you have to help the Church in England and Wales to move towards a synodal Church.

There was a suggestion that we meet again, or at least, stay in touch online. This final session was followed by a closing mass in the chapel at Campion Hall, presided over by Dom Christopher Jamison OSB. It was testimony to the Cardinal Grech’s humility that he concelebrated without any show of being a Cardinal.

We then had lunch before departing at 14.30. Overall it was a good and worthwhile experience. It will inform and encourage us to go on with the process.

Looking for signs of hope in a troubled world

A new book by Sr Teresa White fcj, ‘Hope and the Nearness of God’ has been published by Bloomsbury as their 2022 Lent Book.

Sr Rachel, fcJ writes:

“Hope and the Nearness of God” by Teresa White fcJ is offered as a companion on the journey of Lent in this year of 2022.  When Teresa was asked by the publishers if she had any suggestion for marketing her book, the fcJ website came to mind, whereupon they asked if she would find someone to write a book review. I was glad to accept the task, attracted by the title and the anticipation of the inspiration awaiting me.

It feels like a book that could only have been written by someone rich in years, someone who has read widely in literature and life, reflecting prayerfully the while and companioning with many amidst life’s joys and sorrows.  I recall the disciple of the kingdom of heaven Jesus speaks of in Matthew 13:52, who brings out of his storeroom things both new and old. And what a storeroom, indeed, is here opened before us, with its feast of stories, poems, reflections and experiences, showing how the energy of hope has blessed, empowered and transformed so many people.

I love that the book has been designed to bring people together in small, informal shared-reading groups. If anything, these have proliferated since the covid pandemic drove us to Zoom, and in my experience have been powerful in deepening bonds of friendship and faith. Each chapter offers some suggestions to help us continue the conversation which each chapter has opened up. The book almost cries out to be used in this way. I look forward to using it with a weekly group, and will not be surprised if we continue to explore its riches through the six weeks of Easter as well as Lent.  Even to share the journey of reading the book with just one or two other people would be immensely rewarding.

How appropriate it is to focus on hope at this time when it is so needed! In her Introduction, Teresa shares one of her favourite lines from Blaise Pascal: “In difficult times, carry something beautiful in your heart”. Writing as she did in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, it became clear to Teresa that this “something beautiful” could be hope, the hope we saw being longed for in the many rainbows that children coloured and placed in their windows. Yet, one of the strong points of the book is the unflinching and realistic admission that it is not hope but bad news that so often predominates, and with reason enough: “a threatened environment and deeply troubled human communities – a world where an existential anguish seems to float in the air we breathe.”  Church and world are in such disarray:

We find ourselves questioning not just the Church but our faith in God …… Against this background, an injection of hope is surely needed.

Teresa White fcJ

The message of the book is that hope is a gift, but not a passive one, as we strive with God’s help to face life’s problems and do what we can to obtain the things we hope for, but in the context of hope, for hope brings transformation. The opening prayer which ends the Introduction gives us the ground plan of the whole book. We pray, “Oh God, remind us of your nearness, teach us to discern signs of hope in the reality of today. Open our eyes to see bridges of hope … open our ears to hear the melody of hope … Open our hearts to the energy of your Spirit, that we may begin each day confident of your care for us and for the whole of creation. Lord, be with us, in your love”.

Throughout the book, the challenge of holding to faith and hope is never downplayed. In the chapter on the providence of God we read: “It is sometimes said that in today’s world God is missing but not missed – and there is some truth in this. In this atmosphere, the gift of hope has an important role to play. Hope does miss God, seek God, long for God. Indeed that is the very essence of hope: to feel the lack, the absence, the distance, and in spite of these things, to place our confidence in God.” Story upon story shows how people like us embody hope, and forgiveness too, in the hardest of situations, demonstrating that love is stronger than evil, which is the heart of the good news of Jesus. The devotion of the Stations of the Cross is sensitively presented, with an extended reflection on the experience of Julian of Norwich, who through her contemplation of the Passion of Jesus came to know that God does not abandon us in suffering but shares it with us in solidarity, though like us Julian constantly questions why suffering should be permitted at all in a universe loved by God. Her 14th century was every bit as challenging as ours, with the Hundred Years’ War still going on and the Black Death sweeping through Norwich three times in her lifetime, and no vaccinations back then!

The chapter on Hope and Courage offers us as companions – among others – Anne Frank, Therese of Lisieux, Rowan Williams, poetry from Charles Peguy, the sad story of one of Teresa’s own young pupils who died tragically, and a moving reflection on the devotion of daily Mass as a desire to feel the touch of God, and of prayer as that which enables us to pass on the touch of God to others.

The chapter on signs and symbols shares surprising signs – surprising given the apparently faithless times in which we live – of a sense of the nearness of God: stories heard, words and actions witnessed, giving expression to hope and courage, and showing the kingdom of God already present in anticipatory and partial ways in our world. For example, the solidarity in caring for others which emerged during the pandemic, or the observed greater readiness to greet strangers and so become living signs of God’s presence.  The ancient symbols of the cross and the anchor are featured, and the heaven-pointing spire of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, destroyed by fire yet within days promised to be restored. And the sobering reminder that hope is not the optimism that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

The chapter on Discerning Hope gives a beautiful account of spiritual discernment – taking on God’s perspective, seeing with God’s heart, and from within God’s heart. As the previous chapter said, most of us will be unable to do this if we are always busy, without some inwardness and stillness. Discernment leads us to see that the darkness of God may not signify absence but unseen and unknowable activity. There are no simple answers to suffering and the radical and disturbing mystery of death. Yet those who have hope can find the spiritual energy to face it without being totally crushed and embittered. Many real-life stories witnessing to this hope are shared.

After signs and symbols of hope we also have bridges to hope, such as music and poetry, walking, prayer, love and laughter.  And the final chapter presents the Holy Spirit – God’s Indwelling Nearness – as the source of hope, for it is through the Spirit within us that we feel God’s solidarity when we are groping in the dark. All our “concrete petitions – for good weather, for security and employment, for healing, for basic necessities, for peace and reconciliation, for the homeless and the hungry – are simply our way of expressing our confidence in God’s nearness, and our expectation of his providential care for us.” The Spirit can be the force in the straining muscles of an arm, or the film of sweat between pressed cheeks; it can disturb and challenge as well as comfort; and truly comes to us yet does not linger. The Spirit does not work by stepping in to solve disasters, but by opening our wellsprings of compassion to bring hope in times of devastating suffering.

It is good news that Hope and the Nearness of God will be used in the Pray-As-You-Go app to lead many along our Lenten journey in its ten-minutes-a-day of music, reflection and prayer. This kind of step-by-step presentation seems ideal, for Hope and the Nearness of God is not a book to gallop through. At times, it feels like reading poetry: one must take it slowly and give it time to settle. Teresa says on page 1 that hope is one of those sacred words like gentleness and kindness, love and joy that “seem to draw us into the domain of God. Such words are in the truest sense poetic in that they communicate even before they are fully understood or analysed; indeed they lift human communication to a new level. They are a proof if we need one that though we live in time we are constantly being prompted to contemplate eternal realities.” I have no doubt that this book – born out of faith, hope and love – will give great glory to God by the encouragement it will bring to many, opening our hearts to joyful recognition of the Spirit who is ever with us in the energy of hope.

Walking the streets of Twitter

This article first appeared in The Scottish Catholic

Sr Cathy Edge writes: The founder of the Sisters of Mercy, Catherine McAuley, said, ‘The streets will be our cloister’. When founded in 1831, Catherine was adamant she did not want to establish another order of nuns who were hidden behind high convent walls. Instead she wanted the sisters to be able to go out into the streets of Dublin, and wherever foundations called them, to serve where the people needed them. Because they went out to people in need, the early Sisters of Mercy became known as the ‘Walking Nuns’.

Twitter or social media in general is the modern equivalent of the streets of Catherine’s Dublin. Those streets the sisters walked were not always nice places to be, being places of poverty, deprivation and disease. But the sisters stepped out. Many see social media as an unfriendly or unsafe place to be and while this can be true, that is why I am here. Just like any street, it can also be a wonderful, friendly and inspirational place to be. And again, that is why I am here. Do I get it right all the time? No, far from it. But, like the other #NunsofTwitter and #BruvsofTwitter, I try.

In The Guardian 11 Feb 2021, Sirin Kale wrote,

“I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that social media is a very bad

place, a sick place, and it would be better for all of us if we just switched it off.

… And then I take a turn on the promenade of religious Twitter, and I think:

maybe things will work out after all. Until the great unplugging, you’ll find me

on religious Twitter. Pull up a pew – it’s safe here.”

Social media reflects our world, with all facets of society. I have ‘met’ some wonderful people here. Strangers become friends, even though we have never met in person. Over time I have met some on video calls, and one of the greatest joys is when that in-person meeting happens.

I can see people inviting others to join them in prayer or for reflection and retreat opportunities on Twitter. I also see people requesting or offering prayers and support. For some, social media is where they experience Church.

Catherine McAuley was a prolific letter writer. She used this powerful tool to communicate with her sisters in other convents, and motivate others to support the sisters’ ministry. Would Catherine be on Twitter if she were alive today? I do not doubt that the answer would be ‘yes’. She would have loved the instant aspect of social media and how she could use it to reach out, interact and touch people across the world.

In 1837, Catherine ended a letter to Sr Teresa White, ‘Write me a few lines as soon as you can’. To Anna Maria Hartnett in 1837, ‘Write to me soon a poetical letter no matter how long – the more nonsense the better’. I can use social media to foster relationships that can support encourage, inspire, console and offer frivolity, helping to make it a safe and pleasant place to be.

Hospitality was central to Catherine’s spirituality of God’s Mercy, as seen in Jesus’ life and ministry. She encouraged the sisters to see God in everyone they met and welcome all. Pelagius (354-418), a British monk of Celtic origin, said a Christian is someone ‘whose door is closed to no one’.

I love the Island of Iona. A ‘thin place’, where the distinction between heaven and this world is less, and it is easy to encounter the sacred. ‘The Iona Abbey Worship Book’ includes the following ancient Rune of Hospitality that sums up Catherine’s theology of hospitality beautifully:

We saw a stranger yesterday,

We put food in the eating place,

Drink in the drinking place,

Music in the listening place,

And with the sacred name of the Triune God,

he blessed us and our house,

our cattle and our dear ones.

As the lark says in her song,

Often, often, often goes Christ in the stranger’s guise.

And Mary Sullivan RSM, a biographer of Catherine, tells us:

“If we wish to sow the seeds of real hope in our world, I think Catherine

McAuley would say: This is the way we would do it – one person at a time:

one answering of the figurative doorbell, one opening of the figurative door,

one embrace of the stranger, one welcoming of the other, one sharing of our

bread and milk – one person at a time.”

(Mary C. Sullivan, Welcoming the Stranger: The Kenosis of Catherine McAuley)

My prayer is that we see the hidden presence of Christ in everyone we meet on Twitter. And sow seeds of hope by answering the figurative door one tweet at a time.

On 24th February this year Sr Catherine Wybourne OSB, @Digitalnun passed away. She has been on Twitter since 2009 and was an inspiration to me and many others by her sharing and humour. She will be greatly missed.

If you are not already here, why not join me in the online streets of Twitter and together we can sow seeds of hope. And if you are already here, then please do come and say hello.

Sr Cathy Is a Sister of Mercy, originally from Irvine in Galloway Diocese who now lives in Salford Diocese. She is a funeral arranger who in her spare time has special interests in digital media, baking and knitting. You can find her on twitter @KnittingNun

Sr Ann Teresa, Founder of Medaille Trust, has died

The Sisters of Saint Joseph of Annecy (SSJA) have announced :

It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of our Founder and Life President, Sister Ann Teresa, on Monday 7 March 2022, at Llantarnam Abbey.

Sr Ann Teresa was a Sister for 57 years, serving mainly in Newport, where she grew up, and Southampton. She spent many years teaching RE at St Joseph's High School, Newport. In 1997, she settled into a small convent in Southampton and she asked her local Parish Priest what she could do to help the community. Within days she found herself directed towards work with women engaged in street prostitution in the city. For many years, four or five nights a week, she walked the streets offering comfort and practical assistance to this very vulnerable and marginalised group.

Sister Ann Teresa said: "These people had no one to help them, so twice a week we cooked them a big meal. The convent became a second home for some. We celebrated Christmas and birthdays with them, took them to the theatre; anything that gave them a bit of happiness". After hearing stories of human trafficking and investigating prostitution further, Sister Ann Teresa gathered about 50 people together and launched Medaille Trust in 2006. She set up a safe house for victims of Modern Slavery in Southern England and travelled the country soliciting donations from businesses and church congregations. She eventually got support from Comic Relief, and Medaille Trust established five more safe houses.

Today Medaille Trust is one of the UK's largest providers of supported accommodation for victims of modern slavery, with nine safe houses. We have provided shelter and support to more than two thousand people fleeing abuse and exploitation. Our Moving On Project works with survivors of modern slavery, helping them access counselling and support, access education and employment, and integrate into the community. We partner with the police to bring the perpetrators of modern slavery to justice.

Medaille Trust CEO Garry Smith today paid tribute to Sister Ann Teresa, saying: "I remember when I first met Sister Ann Teresa at the convent in Southampton, long before I became CEO of Medaille Trust. She was bright-eyed, engaging and interested in my thoughts but what came across most powerfully was her love for the survivors of modern slavery because she had taken the time to get to know them personally, to understand their stories and to walk alongside them on their journeys.

She was a powerful advocate for survivors and her influence in the anti-trafficking sector, both within the Catholic Church and beyond, was incredible. She has left an amazing legacy through her founding of Medaille Trust, which she named after the founder of her order, and we are privileged to take this forward. On behalf of the Trustees and Management and Staff of Medaille Trust I extend condolences to the family and friends of Sister Ann Teresa. May she be granted eternal rest and may perpetual light shine on her."

Prayer for the suffering people of Ukraine

Loving God,

We pray for the people of Ukraine,

for all those suffering or afraid,

that you will be close to them and protect them.

We pray for world leaders,

for compassion, strength and wisdom to guide their choices.

We pray for the world

that in this moment of crisis,

we may reach out in solidarity

to our brothers and sisters in need.

May we walk in your ways

so that peace and justice

become a reality for the people of Ukraine

and for all the world.

Amen                                                                        CAFOD

Heavenly Father, Your will for your people is peace, not war. Pour out on our world, especially in Eastern Europe, your Spirit of compassion and solidarity. Grant all those who believe in you the strength to be close to those who suffer and the courage to resolve their differences and conflicts in truth and without resort to arms. Be with the widow, the orphan, the refugee and the peacemaker. Bind us all into the peace of your Kingdom. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Fr Damian Howard SJ, Provincial for the Jesuits in Britain