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.

 

 

Lady Day

In Medieval England the 25^th March was called “Lady Day”. It was a special day when the people celebrated the happiness of Mary on saying ‘yes’ to becoming the Mother of God.  It was kept as a special holiday, because, of course, this was the England that was called the Dowry of Mary.  Her special place.  Children brought nosegays of flowers and placed them before her statue on wayside shrines; there were special Masses and afterwards games and dancing in her honour. 

It is no coincidence that today we keep Mother’s Day very close to what used to be called Lady Day.  It too is a celebration of motherhood, a day of thanksgiving, fun and laughter.  A day when we remember with a smile all that our mothers and grandmothers did for us.   A day of happiness and a celebration of the gift of life.

The feast that we call the Annunciation is the greatest feast of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God.  Mother Magdalen always celebrated it as the moment when the hearts of Jesus and Mary became one.  From her earliest years she was captivated by the wonder of the moment when the young Mary of Nazareth was left alone after the visit of the Angel Gabriel. This was the moment which has changed our world for ever – the moment when our little planet received into its fold the God who had made the heavens and the earth and all they contained, as a tiny, pulsating embryo in the womb of a young teenage girl.  The moment when time and eternity became one – “the still point of the turning world” as later theologians were to call it.

Mother Magdalen wanted us to reach out to that stillness of eternity as we contemplate this special moment, and try to think about what was happening – God himself breaking into our world to share our pain and loneliness and vulnerability, but also to be part of our joys and laughter.  She wanted us to see it as the greatest act of love this world of ours has ever seen, or will see. The Incarnation is all about love.  This stupendous act of love brought with it light and life and beauty to a world grown dark and despairing and sinful.  She wanted us to experience the wrapping round of the Holy Spirit on Mary after her ‘yes’.  In the Old Testament, if you remember, the Holy Spirit journeyed with those weary pilgrims of Moses and Aaron in the form of a cloud by day and a flame of fire by night.  In the daytime, the Israelites wandering in the desert, were also enveloped or wrapped around by the presence of the Holy Spirit to comfort them and to give them new life and hope.  This time, the enveloping literally brought new life as the unawakened womb of Mary received the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity into its depths.

Mary, at the age of fifteen or so, was the first woman ever to be totally overshadowed by the “power of the Most High” as the Angel Gabriel put it.  She allowed the Holy Spirit to come close to her when she said “Be it done to me according to your word” – words that we say often in the Angelus. But we forget that they were uttered first by a young girl from a despised Jewish village, a girl who was to face the censure of the people of Nazareth for what they judged to be a scandalous happening – a well-brought up girl becoming pregnant when she was unmarried, and as a result, facing the public humiliation of being sent away in disgrace or worse.  

Mother Magdalen always talked of the Incarnation in terms of love, and of course that is what it is. She loved to think of the hearts of Jesus and Mary joined together in the womb: “Let us ponder what it means” she would say. 

So we ask the Holy Spirit at this special time to help us to understand this mystery and to experience its warming, comforting love for each of us. We pray that we will make a response to “that love which first loved us” in the way we treat one another.

Have a happy feast on Monday – Lady’s Day.  We will pray for each of you on our special day.

The end of our 140th year is a celebration of thanksgiving!



This is the official end of the year-long celebrations to mark the 140^th year of our foundation.  On Saturday we are celebrating a special Mass to gather together the riches of the year. 

Frances Taylor
(Mother Magdalen)

Mother Magdalen made her Vows for life on February 12^th, 1872, and so we became a recognised Religious Congregation in the Church.  Soho was one of the places that we started in.  The Sisters used to visit the poor there, especially the women, many of whom were prostitutes.  It was then a violent place, where few ventured out alone, especially after dark.  Even the police went in threes, and the doctor, frequently called out to the dens and crumbling tenements of the area, also made sure that he never went alone.  Only the Sisters were allowed the freedom of going about without escort, as they were respected for the work they did among the poor, and were generally received with friendliness. 

Every Saturday night, Mother Magdalen assembled as many of her Sisters from around London as she could to pray for the people in Soho, especially for those who were violent and abusive.  Outside, as these young women prayed, they could hear the shouts, the ribald comments, the screams and fights that were commonplace especially on Saturday nights, the effects of drunkenness and obscenity. This is what they offered to the Lord for his forgiveness and blessing.  It became a custom to have a Holy Hour there amid such scenes of hopelessness and depravity, and it is in some way,  still carried on today. 

On Saturday, we will have a special Mass in which we shall remember everyone.  As there is limited room, we cannot have an open invitation, and places are already booked. But please pray with us and for us from 2 o’clock onwards on Saturday, 11^th February.  We will tell you all about it in our next blog, so watch this space!  Thank you for taking the time to read this. Let's say a short prayer together:

Father, we thank you for the wonderful blessings you have given to us since our foundation in 1872.  Today, we ask that our prayer may reach out to all those who are lonely, unhealed, frightened, abused.  May they find friends who will help them in the same way as those who sought healing and wholeness in this place so long ago, found support, friendship and love.  May your peace come down on this celebration, to bind all of us, those present, and those who are part of our large family of friends, supporters and  co-workers, in a circle of love which no one can break.  We ask Mary, our Mother and our best friend to protect us, console us, heal us and make us better people.  We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.

Bless you all, and again, thank you for the great strength of your prayers and friendship.  We appreciate it more than you can imagine.

I leave you with some inspirational words from Mother Magdalen. Click on the picture for more animations every 12 seconds.

Let the praise of God always be on our lips (Psalm 34)

Let the praise of God be always on our lips!  So says Psalm 34. On first reading that opening phrase, it seems a tall order doesn’t it. No?  Then you praise God all the time?  Your lips never utter any less exalted sentiments? Join the heavenly band now – you have earned it.

Fortunately for most of us, the psalm goes on to say “my soul glories in my God... I do try to seek Yahweh, and I find that he answers me... so will you help me to proclaim him? Let us together extol his praise! ”  Now that’s more like it, we think, as we feel the attractiveness of that God our soul is always seeking – who doesn’t feel that pull towards him at times?  That soul-stirring joy that makes us say: “it’s good to be here!” Of course we do – that is what we were made for. As the next stanza says: “he frees us from our fears so that every face turned to him grows brighter” – what a lovely image. Praising God, and thanking him for all he does for us, frees us from the things that keep us away from him, and even our everyday faces become beautiful – it really happens.  You don’t need beauty aids then – you need God.

Frances Taylor realised this very early on in her life.  She loved this psalm and often prayed it during her sleepless nights in her later years.  She believed we should really try to live lives of praise – “Give thanks to God in everything you do” she advised those young women who thronged to join her new Congregation.  Not so easy, but possible if we really try?  The benefits are astounding.  And in any case we want to look beautiful, don’t we!!  Everyone loves a person who looks on the bright side, someone who really tries to find the good in people, in situations, in the lovely things around us. I know I feel a whole lot better when someone says to me “Thank you, that was great!”  It brings a glow, doesn’t it? On this lovely day in late November, we are inspired by the beginnings of Thanksgiving Day, and how the people of America still remember with gratitude, those early North American Indian tribes who reached out to the newcomers, and shared their love, their food, the little they had.  What a gift, and what a response of love this day is.  St. Paul echoes Psalm 34 when he reminds the people of Corinth how much we will be like God himself when we live in that way:

                We, with our unveiled faces reflect like a mirror the brightness of the Lord.

                All of us will grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image we reflect.

                This is the work of the Lord, who is Spirit.                              1 Corinthians 3: 18.

A habit of saying thanks will do that for us.  We will be surrounded by beauty! Have a lovely thanksgiving.