World Day for Consecrated Life

2^ndFebruary, which is the feast of the Purification or Candlemas as we used to call it, is a special day set apart to thank God for the gift of the Consecrated life.  That is the gift to the Church and the world of those people who vow to live their lives as Religious priests, brothers or sisters.
 

It was the late Pope John Paul II who started this special day of prayer, to celebrate the witness of those who have chosen to follow Christ by living a vowed life of poverty, chastity and obedience for the sake of Christ and his Church.

He wanted it to be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for what he called “this gift which enriches and gladdens the Christian community with its multiplicity of charisms and by the witness of so many lives given wholly to the cause of the kingdom of God.”

He goes on to say that this gift is at the heart of the Church, and it is that unselfish giving of their lives which gives that Church its vitality and richness. 

We are reminded by those words of the desire of St. Therese of Lisieux, a young Carmelite nun of the last century who wanted to be “the love at the heart of the Church.” It is that love that we are celebrating on February 2^nd.

February 14^th is of course, traditionally celebrated throughout the world as the day we put love at the centre of our thinking, but February 2^nd comes first, although few will recognise it as the celebration of love also.

To be a religious is to have answered the call to love.  I remember well the time I first got the call to do just that.  I was dancing at a formal ball, dressed in my first long evening gown – that is, not counting a bridesmaid’s dress – and feeling on top of the world.   Everything was all right in a wonderful world for me.  The music was superb, the partners charming, the feeling of being for once well-dressed and looking good put a smile on my face. I managed all the difficult steps too (bite the dust Strictly!).

And then it came -  that feeling that this wasn’t enough. It wasn’t for me.  I had experienced that kind of doubt before, and always managed to put it away from me, but this time I knew. It was, unmistakably, my call to leave one kind of love to follow another one.  I wasn’t ready, or equipped or holy enough, but I knew I had at least to try. So that is what I did, eventually.

I belong to a Congregation called the Poor Servants of the Mother of God – SMG’s for short.  Our Founder was Frances Taylor, who later became Mother Magdalen.  She was an Anglican convert who found her own vocation while nursing the soldiers in the Crimea. It was there that she became a Catholic after witnessing the faith and trust of the young Irish soldiers who died far from home, in inexpressible agony, yet with the trust that somehow this would be all right, and, as she looked at their cracked lips trying to articulate a prayer, she knew that her faith wasn’t enough, it was no longer for her.  What they had she needed.  The rest, as they say, is history.

She founded us, like St. Therese, to put love at the heart of the Church and of the world.  She wanted us to reach out in love to the poor, the lonely, the disenfranchised, the marginalised and to show them love, to respect their dignity, to make them feel better about themselves.  I loved that – it seemed to me to be what I had wanted that evening on the dance floor, although I couldn’t express it.

Now I know what drew me to this particular Congregation, and my years in it have been happy and fulfilled ones, thank God.

If you were to ask me nowadays why I answered that insistent call to love, and why I am still here, struggling of course, but still reaching out to that wonderful love which is still drawing me on, I would put it in the words of that lovely hymn “Will you come and follow me?” which of course wasn’t around when I entered religious life.  I can only quote the first verse here, as space is limited, but look it up and pray it.  It is a marvellous hymn:

 

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known.

Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

 

Put like that, I’d have to answer with a resounding “Yes” wouldn’t I? To do that, is to say “Yes” to putting love at the heart of the world.  That is what the Pope was talking about.  That is what I, with thousands and thousands of others, have found.

Please pray for all those wonderful Religious -  men and women who are carrying the Gospel message with so much love to the furthest corners of our world.  They are the real A-teams, the genuine stars.   They deserve our thanks and our prayers.  Let’s give them generously.
 

God bless each of you, and have a lovely Candlemas Day.

 

 

The thirst for power!

I once taught a girl who told me about her first, terrifying, day at school. She was in the playground, huddled against the wall, trying to get used to the noise of the hordes of children rushing about everywhere and screaming with delight at the freedom of the playground, when a little boy came up to her. "How old are you?" he asked her. "Five," she answered, thinking she had made a friend among all these unfamiliar children. "Then you watch it, I'm six!" the young gallant answered sternly before whizzing off to join his pals in the Second Class Infants.

That's power! We start young, don't we? In fact, long before we reach the age of six. Have you ever seen a baby having a rattle taken from him (or her)? If it's another baby who wants it, watch out for the squalls, the red faces, the screaming! That's the exercise of power!

In my misspent youth, I was the proud owner of a brand new bicycle, complete with gears, a bell with a beautiful ringing tone, and all the latest accoutrements. We hadn't heard of mountain bikes at that time, but I was satisfied with what I had. I was the only one of my friends who owned such a machine - and did I make the most of it! It occurred to me that I had a business opportunity right under my nose - rides for a penny each or some such daring entrepreneurism! But of course, it didn't work - my parents found out! But I remember the feeling of power it gave me - heady stuff! Power is seductive isn't it? It goes to the head and makes us feel giddy - even a little bit of it.

We live in a world that puts power at the top of the agenda. There is always someone who is jostling for your position, trying to pull one over on you by fair means or foul, so that he (or she) can put you down. We see it in schools - the bullying that goes on is widespread, and can have very serious consequences in later life. I was bullied at school, now I come to think of it, and it made me very miserable for a long time. "You are so stupid, you even look stupid!" I used to hear that every day. I got into the habit of looking in the mirror to see why I looked stupid! All I could see was a woebegone face and two long plaits. I longed to have my long hair cut, so that I would look clever. I blamed the plaits. But, even after I had them cut off I still looked stupid. So my tormentor told me. What a waste of money having the hair trimmed! The woes of youth!!

We might laugh at that sort of thing now - after all, what does it matter if you look stupid! But that's a grown-up way of looking at it, the hurt goes deep when you are young and not very confident. It is a very common experience - no doubt most of you reading this can look back on similar trials at school or even much later. We need to teach young people how to use power wisely. That is where the teaching of the Church, if understood properly, comes in.

Christianity is based on humility, on sensitivity to the other's point of view, on love. Jesus built up the confidence of those with whom he came in contact. He made the blustering know-it-all Simon of Bethsaida into the gentle, wise leader of post-Resurrection times - he encouraged the shy and reclusive Nathaniel to go to the ends of the earth with the Gospel message - he even accepted Judas as a member of the apostolic group and treated him as a friend. His dealings with women, particularly, were ground-breaking. Mary of Magdala, the reputed sinner, becomes the one who draws all of us into the love and forgiveness of Christ. Our Founder, Mother Magdalen wrote a lovely hymn to her. The last verse has always entranced me. In it she says:

"There are thousands in all ages come to Christ because of you."

It was Jesus who encouraged her to understand the true meaning of love and forgiveness, and now we too, come to him because of what she teaches us.

He made the Samaritan woman an apostle just by talking to her at the well in a non-judgemental way. He gave us his mother, and we have never looked back. She was one of the anawhim, the little ones who put their trust in God and did not seek power for themselves.

 

 

The power we have now is the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the power of love. Pope Francis is teaching us that nowadays. He said:

"Only when the thirst for power is replaced by love, will true transformation take place."

Our world will never be changed by power-hungry people, or by those who seek to overthrow restrictive regimes by force. The only real transformation is brought about by love. The Pope of the poor knows that. We need to learn it too.

So we pray:

Glory to him, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. Amen.

Enjoy the rest of July. We'll be in touch next month.

 

 

 

The month of Love

June is not only known as the month of the roses.  It is also kept in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church as the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart.

You may have been put off in the past by the poor quality of the pictures and statues of the Sacred Heart you may have seen in shops and piety stalls.  Many of them are crude and off-putting, but don't let things like that take away from the reality of what they represent.

June is enshrined in our hearts because it is all about the celebration of love.  Not in the commercial sense of course.  When have you seen a day celebrated in the commercial world which depicts  the heart of the man God broken for love of us?  Of course you haven't.  That wouldn't be a money- spinner.  But, nonetheless, it is true.

Jesus himself revealed to St. Margaret Mary the most astounding truth that he longs for our love;  he so wants a return for the love he has constantly poured out on us  that he came to beg us to make a response of love in return. He just asked for a small return, a sign, an acknowledgment that we are grateful, that we love him too.  It wasn't much to ask was it, yet he felt the lack of it even in the glory of Heaven. 

His heart was broken on Calvary,  pierced by a lance, if you remember.  When that great heart broke at last, it opened and left room for all of us,  sinners that we are, to creep close and to be warmed and comforted in that heart which is always ready to receive us. Haven't we all experienced that wonderful, warm, enveloping love at times, especially when we are in pain, or suffering loss or rejection.  Those are the times we notice his love, even though we feel lonely and afraid,, hurt and vulnerable.  He comes closer to us then, and reaches out his wounded hands to heal us. He invites us to rest awhile close to his heart while we lick our wounds as the expression goes.

Our Founder, who died on the 9th of June 1900, urged us with her dying breath, to "invoke the Sacred Heart."  We cannot ignore the last words of a dying person.  The testament of a saintly person is even more important.  So we do just that, in our prayer and, hopefully, with our lives.  We place our lives into the wounded hands of the one we call the Sacred Heart.  Since 1873 our Congregation has been consecrated to the Sacred Heart, and we renew this in our communities each year, in a way that is appropriate to us today.

Mother Magdalen didn't go in for what she called pious practices that seemed to point inwards.  She said that the love of the Sacred Heart was "a real, practical love for our Lord, and a realisation of his love for us." She also said that it must lead on to a spreading of that love around us stating:

"If you want to taste the love of Jesus, and to know the secrets of his heart, you must go by the gate of love for others."  

 Love and evangelisation go hand in hand. Otherwise it  is in danger of becoming mawkish or introspective. 

Remember that great French Romantic poet's words on this score:

"To have loved another is to have touched the face of God!"   Victor Hugo.

That is what the Sacred Heart also teaches us.

We wish everyone a very happy Feast of the Sacred Heart tomorrow and during the rest of this month, especially the members of Orders and Congregations dedicated to him under this title.  Our long-time friends and neighbours in Roehampton, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, have a very special day on this feast. May we all meet in the love and forgiveness of the great heart of Jesus tomorrow and always.

The healing power of God

February 11th is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.  That was the date of the first apparition to Bernadette in that little market town at the foot of the Pyrenees  in 1858. It is now renowned for its pilgrimages and for its many healings, not all of them, of course, physical ones.  It is a place of prayer, of much love and of a tangible presence of the compassionate love of our God, passed on to us by his mother.

 

It is also a place which attracts people of all ages, all faiths or none, from all over the world. And it began with a young girl who suffered from asthma seeing "a beautiful lady" perched high up on a rock beside the nearby river Gave. That smiling lady, who so attracted little Bernadette and her companions on that raw day in February a hundred and fifty five years ago, was the Mother of God.  The rest, as they say, is history.

In this Year of Faith, the anniversary of that momentous meeting, draws all of us into that loving embrace of God.  Lourdes is about  living our faith. Like all shrines, particularly those dedicated to the Mother of God, it calls us to express our faith in pilgrimage, to share with others our belief in the healing and loving response of God to the needs of our beautiful, but fragmented world.   As one young pilgrim once said while kneeling at the grotto: "This place is awesome!"  That just about describes it.

Yet it started in simplicity, and, in spite of the somewhat tatty shops that have sprung up around the shrine, it remains simple, loving and awesome.  We cannot all go to Lourdes on pilgrimage, but we can all partake in its blessings.  On Monday, let's  pray fervently to  this "beautiful lady" of the Pyrenees, and ask her to heal us of the smallness of our minds, our greed, our attachment to money and success. If those things are taken singly, they are manageable, but, taken as a whole, they can be great blocks to our spiritual life.  Our Lady knows this, and she so wants to reach out to us with that gentle love that is so evident in Lourdes itself.

Another thing we need to ask her to heal within us are the memories of long ago traumas, rejections, absence of love, injustices and  the  painful relationships in the past, which cause residual anger and depression. She will do it, there is nothing more sure. But we have to believe that a transformation can take place.  Ask her for help.  She is, after all   "health of the sick, refuge of sinners, comforter of the afflicted" as her litany points out.  We sing fervently enough the words which snake around the grotto on Summer evenings in Lourdes:

"For poor, sick, afflicted thy mercy we crave and comfort the dying thou light of the grave! Ave, Ave, Ave Maria... " 

She loves to hear words like that, as we place all our hope in her who is the mediatrix of all graces.   Have a good remembrance day on Monday!

The 12th February used to be the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  In our Congregation this feast has special significance as it was the day when we became officially a Religious Congregation way back in 1872.  Our Founder, Mother Magdalen Taylor, made her Vows for life on that day, so we too hold it in great veneration, and offer our lives once again for the Church and the world.  Pray for us won't you, and we will remember you too.  We shall meet in that loving heart of Mary in our prayer. 

 

We'll talk again on Valentine's Day!! Until then, take care.

 

 

 

 

Brave New Year!

I wish each of you a very happy, hopeful and brave New Year!  Why do I add the word 'brave' to the list?  Well, it seems to me that we are on a new journey, and for that we need most of all, courage!  They say that even the longest journey starts with the first step, and it is that first, tentative step into the unknown that requires courage.  The second thing we need for our journey into 2013 is support - people around us whom we can trust, companions who will be there for us and see us through the bad times and laugh with us in the good times.  Together we can do great things.  I believe that, don't you? 

To be an optimist is not usually to be naive, although of course it may be, but essentially it is to look at the reality of our situation and find a path through it that is possible to traverse safely.  Optimists look at possibilities and take risks. Pessimists see only the negative side and are afraid to risk being wrong!

We need role models don't we, leaders who have the courage to take the first step on a new, untried road, and beckon us to follow. 

There are many role models we can take through this New Year, many saints, many people in our own lives, perhaps.  I'm going to ask you to take a fictional character, a figment of a gifted writer's imagination, if you like. And when I tell you who he is, don't say "But he isn't a real person!"  He is an intrinsic part of an allegory, and allegories are very important in showing us something about ourselves.  Jesus used that device in his teaching - we call them parables.



JRR Tolkien



Have you seen "The Hobbit"?  If you haven't, do try to do so  The film version of Tolkien's "Unexpected Journey" is really three stories intertwined and focuses on one character in its title, a hobbit.  Let me tell you how a genius's mind works.  This genius was a lecturer at Oxford.  He was correcting some student's essays. When he got to the last one in the pile, he found that  there was a blank page at the end of the examination paper, which this particular student had not filled in.  Absent-mindedly, Tolkien scribbled something on the paper.  When he looked at it, he realised that it had nothing whatever to do with the essay he was supposed to be marking.  He had written:

In the earth was a hole and a hobbit lived in it...

He looked at it,  bemused.  But, being Tolkien, he wondered "Hole?" "Where is it?"  And he proceeded to find out what a hobbit was, and where he lived. He peopled his world with amazing characters - dwarves, wizards, magicians, the stuff of fantasy.  But he gave us Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings, and now this Unexpected Journey we call The Hobbit for screen purposes. You may not like fantasy films, I don't think I like them usually, but this one, like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series, says something important, especially for us facing a new beginning, an adventure if you like.

The Hobbit

The main character is called Bilbo Baggins, who is the hobbit.  He lives in Bag End, and he loves nothing more than to sit by his fire quietly enjoying his solitude or entertaining his friends. He was shy and not very charismatic, if you know what I mean.  Then one night, he is visited by thirteen noisy and demanding dwarves, and Gandalf, who asks him to go on a journey with the dwarves to regain their lost kingdom.  He is an unexpected hero, yet the story is about his finding in himself the ability to lead and to find the lost home of the dwarves, and also to fight the dragon who guards it.  He is a hopeless fighter, and in the beginning has no confidence in himself. Yet he succeeds. One might say that he was naive.  Yes he was, but what he had was a sense of adventure and a growing belief in his mission. As well as that, he had unselfishness. After all, he had a home which he loved, and didn't want to leave, but he felt sorry for the dwarves who had lost theirs, and he wanted to help them to regain it. 

He also held on to his beliefs.  He arrived at the end, battered and bruised, almost dead, but he held on to the ring.  Maybe Tolkien saw that ring as not good.  I don't know.  But if we are looking for an allegorical meaning, then we can say that, to be faithful to what we believe in is good, and to hold on to what we have been given to guard is life-giving for us.  Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and he too believed that faith is very important, and without it we live a half-life.  Little Bilbo Baggins believed that someone was helping him to keep going on a journey that was well-nigh impossible, and he clutched the ring as a talisman. 

In our Congregation we have what we call our charism which is the spirit and values which our Founder, Mother Magdalen lived by and passed on to us.  We try to pass them on to others as Good News.  To be faithful to them is our challenge. We are Christ-bearers to the people of our time, being asked to bring Christ to every situation, especially where there is conflict or lack of forgiveness.  In his own way, little Bilbo did the same, although he would not realise what he was doing.

The Hobbit is also something of an allegory of leadership.  Perhaps we are reading too much into it, but I can see what people mean when they say that.  No one with any judgement would choose Bilbo Baggins as a leader, still less would they have confidence in his ability to lead others through hard times, and show them the way forward.  Yet he did it where others failed. 

So this New Year is about facing whatever comes with courage, even with a spirit of adventure, like Bilbo.  It is about helping others on the journey and finding enough courage within ourselves to pick ourselves up when things go wrong, and start again.  Those are New Year challenges!

I wish each of you once more a lovely 2013 and a special Year of Faith.  Think of Bilbo. He set out on a journey of adventure, probably found it terribly hard, but kept on, didn't turn back and came to the end of his journey stronger, more in tune with himself and others, and more at peace!  I wish the same for each one of you and for myself and each member of my Congregation.  See you next year!

(Photos courtesy of http://thehobbit.sqpn.com/, http://biographyonline.net)

(Photos/Graphics courtesy of Sr. Agnes Kavanagh and BMJL)

Mary, cause of our joy, take and bless our holiday!

It's pouring outside, and if the weather forecasters are to be believed, we are in for a deluge in the next few days!  Lovely Summer weather over this side of the world.  If you are thinking of taking a break here don't forget your umbrella.  

What a prophet of doom and gloom I'm becoming!   Forgive me, in some parts of the world, this news could be good. We need water, life-giving refreshing water, what a gift that is, but we'd like a bit of dry weather in between.  My mother used to say that we must thank God for each day's weather, even if we don't like it to be cold or wet.  It is God's provision.  That's wisdom. So we thank God for today, when the rain is washing the sky clean and bright, the grass is green and the flowers are blooming.  There's another bonus to this rain - we haven't got to water the garden! 

Around these parts, July is  holiday month. The children are home from school and families are together more.  The streets re-echo with the sound of children playing, the shops are crowded with excited youngsters buying brightly-coloured holiday wear, some even clutching buckets and spades! Obviously we are a nation of optimists.

What do you think of when the word 'holiday' comes up in conversation? Waving palms, a turquoise sea, white flecked waves, a deck chair, the latest Jilly Cooper or whatever you fancy in reading material, a glass of iced tequila if such a thing exists or walking on the sand with the wind blowing in your face, the smell of seaweed, cricket on the beach, sand encrusted sandwiches?  Whatever it is, even if it's sitting in our own gardens or back yards, it is wonderful. We are on holiday!

Many children used to put up a tent in the garden when school broke up. You could do that then.  It was a child's idea of living independently, being in a magic place where they were in charge and anything might happen.  Those who did that - can you still taste the black sausages you cooked outside -- why do they taste so wonderful in the open air?  Personally I don't like barbecues much, but they are the more up market version of the Scouts' supper around the bonfire, without the sing songs and the nightly rituals – Taps, the lowering of the flag as the sun goes down, the putting out of the fire, and the inspection of tents of the Scoutmaster or Chief Guide as the case may be.  Happy memories!  If you have never belonged to  the Scouts or the Girl Guides, even for a short time, you have missed a treat!

A holiday from everyday routine is meant to be a celebration of friendship, family togetherness and much laughter.  In the evening, if circumstances permit, find a quiet place, light a candle or an incense stick, and take time to be calm in the presence of God.  You can do that walking by the sea or in the country of course, but it is good to end each day with thankfulness.

When we were at school we used to sing a holiday hymn before we broke up.  It went:

Mother of all that is pure and good, all that is bright and blest,

As we have taken our toil to thee, so we will take our rest.

Take thou and bless our holiday, O Causa nostrae laetitiae!  (Cause of our joy)

Magdalen Taylor would add:  Have a right down good time!  

 We wish you that too.  Enjoy your rest!   

Love was her reason

We have opened June with an explosion of love and respect for the Queen who has just celebrated 60 years on the throne. Sixty years of fidelity, hard work and steadfast devotion to the Christian principles which have guided her all her life.  What a witness!

This month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart: it is wrapped up in love.  Perhaps the weather lets us down a bit, but through the rain and the mist we can sense the bright, warming light of love that is the ongoing Incarnation in our world. 

Our Founder, Mother Magdalen Taylor, loved this month because it is all about love.  The love of God for us, the love we have for one another. The sort of love that makes us smile, that helps us to reach out  to those who lack it, so that they can feel better about themselves.

She didn’t believe in some of the pious practices which were popular in her time.  She had a very real and trenchant attitude to prayer.

“Love of the Sacred Heart does not consist in pious practices, but in a real practical love for the Sacred Heart and a realisation of his love for us!” she said.  She added that it must lead to a devotion to those in need.  If it doesn’t it remains merely a pious practice.  There you are.

She  believed that the Sacred Heart always pleads for us. In fact she commissioned a statue of it.

She died on the 9^th June 1900. “Invoke the Sacred Heart” were her last words to us.

So let’s remember that love grows as we exercise it.   Sometime this month, remember Victor Hugo’s words :

To love another is to touch the face of God.

What a wonderful thought for the month of the Sacred Heart: and it is realisable.  Happy loving! 

 

The Call of Christ - Vocations Sunday

"Thank God for the blessings of your callling, and let it become more and more precious to you each day."

Mother Magdalen

We are all called by Christ to follow him.  Let us ponder on the way that Christ is leading us even though we each have a unique path they all have the same destination - to Christ.

God will lead us. Pray that we will respond to God's call in our own lives.  Lord, wherever you go I am willing to follow. 

"God is calling all of us to follow him, and to do our best in his service.  The kingdom of God is so close, it is within us. Let us give him a heart wholly his."

Mother Magdalen

For today Pope Benedict XVI has written a letter on vocations:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/vocations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20111018_xlix-vocations_en.html

"Every specific vocation is in fact born of the initiative of God; it is a gift of the Love of God! He is the One who takes the “first step”, and not because he has found something good in us, but because of the presence of his own love “poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5)."

PP Benedict XVI

Take a leap of faith. Dive in! Let us allow ourselves to be swept away by the grace of God.

Listen to Steven Curtis Chapman song "Dive" on letting go and jumping in with a leap of faith.

Let us conclude with a prayer:

God created me to do Him some definite service.

He has committed some work to me,

which He has not committed to another.

I have a mission.

I am a link in a chain,

a bond of connection between persons.

Therefore I will trust Him.

Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.

If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him;

if I am perplexed, my perplexity may serve Him;

if I am in joy, my joy may serve Him;

if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him.

He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.

Amen.

 (Prayer of Blessed John Henry Newman on Life's Vocations)

Lord Jesus, we entrust to you the young women and men of the world, with all their hopes and aspirations.  Fill them with a love and desire to follow you with a generosity and readiness to respond to the call.

Jesus is beckoning... will you go?  Will you leave "the nets" and follow him?

Lord, give us the courage to say Yes to follow you

and to renew that Yes every day!