2007 Eastertide Clareshare
Greetings from the wettest Wales in recorded history.
Whilst the rain still rationed itself to alternate days, we alternated between bean netting and shunting the library round. This inspired Sr Elizabeth to draw a series of cartoons of life in a Poor Clare Monastery. Life mostly consists of epics in which everyone is needed to turn to and lend a hand. Picture two nuns on ladders in the Chapter room, the first standing on one foot, inadequately balancing twenty books, while the sister on the neighbouring ladder tosses her a twenty first volume casually, “Catch!”
Sr Elizabeth gave a talk to prelude her epidiascope show. She said that that was Poor Clare life; everyone turned to and got on with it. She said there could be few human groups where people set to in cheerful concert to tie down netting in a gale, with rapid switches to furniture removing, and no one said, “Oh no! Not again!” She said she thought we belonged to a wonderful community and we [thinking of everyone else] humbly agreed. She said she thought this ability to set-to without complaint, bearing every adversity and inconvenience was the essence of our life. She laid it on with a pallet knife [she’s an artist]. Then she turned on the epidiascope to begin her show and true to all she had said, the light bulb went phutt! and died....!
Not without parables
Life has been like that in the past five years - and some of our friends have noticed it. Suffering has come our way. However it has been a wonderful opportunity for growth, individually and as a family, and for prayer, like we’ve never prayed before. We knew the Lord was with us and he protected us and saved us. But it has been at a price: Archbishop Ward, who had known the community since infancy, and greatly helped and supported us, died three days after returning from Rome on our behalf.
In the cloister garden is a small pool with a waterlily. The first lily was about to burst into flower when the rains descended and the cloister garden flooded, engulfing the bud. But the bud did not die, it just grew a longer stem, triumphed over the high water level and flowered anew
No life resembles a 1950’s Hollywood movie where the hero and heroine fade blissfully into the sunset. All of us have to live with the challenges to growth that the Lord permits to come our way. Most of you came to know us because you asked for prayer in your own sufferings. Prayer is not one of yesterdays answers! It is the great reply.
St Anthony the finder!
In June we had a two part retreat and Father Herbert Schneider OFM, a dear friend and former Delegate General of the Order, came with another friend, Father Jones, Archbishop Ward’s former secretary and our newly appointed Religious Advisor, to preside at our elections.
On the 13th June [Anthony’s feast] we elected Mother Damian as abbess and Sr Elizabeth as vicaress. We do not use the word abbess in any but the most official documents. Our mother is simply called “Dear Mother”. Dear Mother Damian expressed her profound thanks to our Mother Francesca who, as our Foundress, retains the title “Mother” and is now known as “Beloved Mother”. Yes, you are quite right; this place does have a warm and friendly atmosphere....! Her workroom has been renamed “The Cradle” since she was either Novice Mistress or Abbess to all of us. And one of the first things we did after the day, was move workplaces and redecorate the mothers’ rooms, (another mass effort) to the gratification of all concerned.
Apostle of everyone else
Meanwhile, in June it was announced that the Holy Father was going to have a “Year of St Paul”.
Well, it figures! As the Lord has had His Great Jubilee, St Paul and all the other Apostles will have their millenniums of birth coming up.
We took the announcement at face value, and artists sketched feverishly to produce a banner of St Paul striding purposely along with scrolls tucked in his belt and an avalanche of flame falling down from heaven.
The artists were living like II Corinthians - sleepless and dinnerless - to get it finished for the feast of St Peter and Paul, 29th June. They were still feverishly sewing the lining fifteen minutes before the opening of Vespers.
Our celebration began in that room in our house called Ephesus and we processed to choir, banner unfurled, singing a new St Paul hymn [slightly rap!].
The banner was run up the choir wall to a fanfare of flutes. We were sublimely conscious that at that very moment our father, Benedict XVI, in the Basilica of St Paul-Outside-the-Walls in Rome, was announcing the Year of St Paul.... Well. He was. He announced that it will begin next year, 2008, on this day!
The following Monday we hauled our banner down, amid muffled laughter, and put it away for twelve months!
Clareway - a completely new form of occasional sharing
The word blog lacks elegance. In this country, the phrase ‘Joe Bloggs’ is meant to be disparaging. Many people have asked why we don’t have a blog-by-any-other-name. Well, now we have
http://www.poorclarestmd.org/Clarelog.htm
[It’s entry is on the Home Page of the website].
We don’t plan to contribute regularly. Unlike the majority of monasteries, we are not good at regularity [as is obvious] but you can see some of Sr Elizabeth’s cartoons and the banner of St Paul. Plus! We have extracted, or are trying to extract, a meditation a week out of Beloved Mother!
Of late, she has been doing workshops with us on the writings of St Anthony and on the exotic Franciscan forefather of the computer, the mathematician and mystic, Blessed Raymond Llull, who was also an expert Arabic speaker and a very unique missionary to Islam.
Watch this spot, as they say.
Meanwhile the rain continues to descend and the noticeboard is full of optimistic inner city canoeists and heartbreaking stories of exploiters who buy up drinking water to sell to the stranded at exorbitant cost, may the Lord have mercy on them.
God bless you and love you all for your support and your union in prayer, and for all the love and kindness you have shown us.
Your little sisters of Ty Mam Duw.
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Clareshare, Eastertide
Rejoice heavenly powers,
sing choirs of angels,
exult around God’s throne.
Normally at the great Vigil of Eastertide we sing these words ourselves. This year the Father who was celebrating the vigil with us sang them himself, and we had the added joy of really being able to listen to them.
St Paul said: If Christ has not risen from the dead, we Christians are the biggest fools on earth. And it’s true. Cultures have been prepared to accept reincarnation and/or the shady idea of some half-life after death, but resurrection is what Christianity stands for. Recently one of our sisters did a sharing on the Holy Spirit in the teachings of the philosopher and theologian Romano Guardini, and to illustrate it she used pictures of various mosaics of Fr Ivan Marko Rupnik S.J.and his team.
Fr Ivan Marko is a Slovenian and when he depicts the resurrection he always uses the traditional icon of the Anastasis - the standing up. In various different artistic expressions he shows Christ descending into hell, grasping Adam and Eve by the wrist and yanking them out of death. It is a terrifyingly powerful image. In his death the Son of God gets to the depths of everything - time, space and sin - and pulls it up with him by main force into the light. Impressive. That’s what Easter’s about!
I have risen for you
An event in which we all felt the vivid truth of this was the Month’s Mind Mass held here for the family and friends of Archbishop Ward.
The sanctuary was decorated with white flowers, and the Archbishop’s Coat of Arms done entirely in flowers and leaves [it took nearly a thousand bluebells to do the left half of his shield alone] lay in front of the altar.
It was the Saturday before Good Shepherd Sunday and Sr Pia had made, out of real sheep’s wool, five ewes to go around the feet of the Risen Lord in the Sepulchre Garden on the edge of the Sanctuary. She also did a lamb for round the Lord’s shoulders [this is Wales and the wool was Welsh, but the sheep were Leicestershire Black Face!!]
In the prayers of the faithful we remembered all the Archbishop’s family, especially Margaret and Kevin [his sister and brother] and we also prayed for the forgiveness of all who maligned the Archbishop while he lived. And as it was a resurrection party, those especially who had endured the vindictive and startlingly untruthful obituaries in the media here, were able to get beyond it in prayer and remember him in happiness, as they enjoyed the buffet in the guest dining room - not funeral baked meats but an Agape feast.
After the Mass, the Archbishop’s former secretary took the shield of flowers to LlantarnamAbbey and placed it on the Archbishop’s grave on our behalf.
Colette miracle baby
We have been praying in several successive Clareshares for Joanne and Lee. Married ten years, and having lost several little ones by miscarriage, they came to pray here on St Colette’s feast, though they are not of our faith. They were blessed to conceive a little one and it then became a round the clock prayer job to keep it alive!
Lee and Joanne had gone to relatives in Portsmouth for a short holiday when Joanne developed a kidney infection and the infant developed a strong desire to move out. A little girl was born on 11th April in the 24th week, weighing 0.796 kg. She is progressing miraculously, despite a hole in the heart. She has received the name Freya Rose - but when praying for her the sisters generally allude to her as Rosie. Those who prayed round the clock when Joanne went to hospital, are a little dismayed at the work of their prayer being named after the Norse Goddess of Friday!
Swarm in May - worth a load of hay
We keep bees. These bees never read books about bees, most of which seem to have been composed by persons with more imagination than experience [of bees].
Every time you look out of the window three beekeepers in bee veils, nuns’ veils and once spotless white overalls seem to be staring up trees, over walls and down holes for the latest miscreants! I exaggerate; they caught two beautiful May swarms and hived them successfully - a third got away. The following day a neighbouring beekeeper - she was unknown to us - knocked on the door. She had been chasing her swarm across the park and she felt that they might have come over our wall. Had we found them? The Portress replied gravely that we hadn’t even found our own bees....
Cast your nets on the other side
No, we have not caught anything in our nice pond. In the late autumn winds part of the vegetable garden netting flew over the wall and has had to be remade by Sr Pia, Sr Ruth and Sr Amata sitting in a widespread row across one side of the cloister. With the participation of everyone it is now nearly back up and we can plant our beans in a pigeon free environment.
Baptismal white
A kind and most generous material company recently sent us a box of off cuts of white satin, lace frills, etc. And to use this appropriately, Sr Seraphina had taken to making First Communion dresses. If you have a little girl about to make her First Communion [and live locally] please feel welcome to drop in. Because the material is a gift, the dresses are not expensive - but they are exquisite! [Note: this is an advertisement feature!]
Thought for the day
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
Blessed Mother Teresa.
Overheard in a cloister
Kind Sister: Would you like me to hold that?
Handicapped Florist: No I.m fine. God reward you.
Loud crash
Handicapped Florist: Ah! Sorry! I was just trying the impossible.
Kind sister: Thats right. You don’t want to break with the habits of a lifetime.