to the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Well, greetings to everyone. In this final address, we shall reflect upon the charity of God and others, as we consider the story of the armistice of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I'm going to share something of our unfolding story. I want to just focus on the beginning of our retreat, about how strong and inconsistent became Catholic nuns. Today, I'm going to describe how our journey has continued, how our physical journey of trying to find a building to live in impacted upon our spiritual journey of creating a spiritual home for a new community, and how the corporate journey has affected each person's personal story. Finally, I shall seek to draw out of this all our experience of God's charitable grace and blessings through the charitable fellowship of others.

[01:05]

Shortly before we were seen to the Catholic, I warned to the whole community that each sister wanting to be received at a Catholic had to be prepared to walk down a drive with just what she could carry in a bag in her hand, leaving anything else behind, without any guarantee for the future, just going forward in blind faith, ill-coiled with her conscience. both those who want it, get forward and will be freed into the Catholic Church on the 1st of January 2013. The morning after our reception, we made our reunion as Catholics, for the first and last time, during the Convent, we came to a bend at the Our Spiritual Home. After that, the 12 of us, with our essential personal possessions, ordered a coach and set off. We had no money, no clothes, we left in their financial settlement from our previous community, no diamonds, to confirm the conviction that becoming Catholic was our response to our mortally chilling call to follow me. We arrived at 16th as we arrived on the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight is a small island, so it's not the mainland of England, it's part of England, that you have to go on a ferry, or what's called a hovercraft, and use the name of a hovercraft to get there. So we went on the ferry, and we arrived at 16th. We were supposed to be there for six weeks, but it turned into eight months.

[02:10]

Basically, after we left, we were told we can't come back. So we were stuck there, and we couldn't find any new homes. There were times when we wondered whether we were being called to remain with those sisters. We loved them, and felt they were only love for us. It's our corporate discernment for us that got us co-ordinated to continue our journey elsewhere. But where and how would it be possible? Despite the fact that we have no money, with which to acquire sensible quality, in faith, I am a nun's sister, found a stake agent's particulars, and visited prompting possibilities. We and others trace perfectly our homes. The answer to all our prayers came in a worrying way. An American division officer from the National Division down in Tennessee was on route to the Gloucester Institute in Birmingham, the first home of Sir John Stanley Newman. She was studying there during her PhD, which was about distance learning, and was fun to know her and her community. So she came to do a job on the Isle of Wight for a couple of nights, staying outside the enclosure, because on the Isle of Wight they had paper enclosure. They didn't go out of the village if they couldn't come into the enclosure. Um, but she came to stay in their guesthouse and her husband liked. As I waved her off, my last words to her were, as soon as you get to Maryville, go to the chapel, get on your knees, and beg the Lesser Joy of Henry Newman to join us at home.

[03:15]

She eagerly requested. That same night, she emailed me to say that as she left the chapel, she bumped into one of her supervisors, and he said, where have you been? And she says, well, I've been visiting the Holy of Holies on the Isle of Wight. And this old supervisor said, don't they know? There's a convict about to be brought to jail up the road. So she emailed me with the details. I chatted down with Sister Superior. This was Wednesday evening. And by Friday evening, I'd spoken to Sister Superior on the phone. She told me that they had already moved into the Patriot Lot of Rhodes, because the community was growing smaller. To reassure them, that would lead to their arrest at once, back to their main convent in Ireland, where they were Irish nuns. Or they would sort it out with the country, but it would just be left there, in a convent. So they moved them to the Presbytery of Gothenburg, and that's why they were ready to sell the convent. But she told me that when we emerged the presentry, I stumbled about to remove all the furniture and fakers items that they could not take with them. How soon do we need to view, I asked, and she said, as soon as possible. So, the next morning, I was on the first hovercraft that left the Isle of Wight accompanied by another sister, and we raced to Birmingham to do the condoms. Two priests of Tyria showed it around and explained that the convent had been privately sold to them 50 years before, but they now needed to sell it because their figures were too old to carry on there, and the elders needed to bring care home, so they just didn't need it anyway.

[04:27]

They had desperately not wanted it to be sold to developers, but could not imagine that any other religious community would come forward to buy it. Because of the prices that's high in the Isle of Wight, even when they got back that night, they had just over an hour to view the convent and to set off on their own journey. When a minute was arriving, we knew it was the right place. It's perfect, we said to a clearly delighted Mrs. Superior. Very good, she says. She's beaming. But we have no knowledge to prove it, was the next day after. She, I said, I've got the consent, says the Lord wants us here. He will provide what we need. Her expression didn't change. This mighty woman of faith agreed, very contingent at all. As this little kid here opens a cleaning cupboard full of mops, rags and cleaning equipment, she's like, oh, I'll get rid of all that before you come. And we're like, stop. Leave everything. We don't have anything. Everything you don't need, just leave. I mean everything. No one will deal with it. And I think that they challenged their next life of fully furnished content, because they didn't need anything. And so we didn't have to worry about things, sheets, anything. It was all there. This year the carrier explained this was on a Friday, not Saturday.

[05:28]

This week the carrier explained that the property was due to go on the open market in two days' time, on a Monday. Well, that's the same month it always is. But I asked her to contact the estate agent and to tell him not to put it on the open market. I said, don't give us time to raise the tax price. This wonderful Facebook sister agreed to do just that. She told me substantively, the night we spoke on the phone that Friday, and told the other sisters we were coming to view tomorrow morning, and I said to them, it's only fair that they should go and hang out, but I'm going to keep an all-night prayer vigil, you're welcome to join me. When the other sisters were pure exhausted, the business period stayed up most of the night, praise that we would agree to buy their content. Eventually, after learning to make up without sleep, when she got two times to carry on, she told the Lord, Jesus, I'm going now, take up to you, and she went off to bed. And she now described the whole thing as a miracle of faith. The next day, on the other hand, we were uncritical in our desire to purchase it, although we didn't have any money. But I told her the Lord was the right, it was the Lord's will, and she agreed. So she cancelled the house for their economy, stopped the estate agent, and we waited. Within a couple of days, he had confirmed that the benefactor, who wanted to remain anonymous, had heard of our plight, and decided to buy the convent, allowing us to live there, paying rent.

[06:35]

And it was indeed a miracle. That was the first problem of charitable fellowship. We had come to appreciate the meaning of charitable fellowship, through God's grace and blessings, and we had experienced it through those bride sisters, allowing us to come and live with them for eight months. But now, it was time for us to depart. But I'll let one of the sisters take up the story of our departure from Rye. I quote, The reality of our departure gradually grew, as did the pile of luggage that we had to carry at the bottom of the main stairs. While the day performed, it was perhaps a good thing that it was punctualised earlier than expected, as the practicalities of loading, deliverance, and technique, and rounding up systems, took charge of those very final minutes. The coach driver was our old friend and was fortunate to be around the White, for he wanted all those ones to go. Did you remember us? He certainly did. And he also had serious memories of getting the coach stuck and attempting to bring us up the Abbey Drive. Thankfully this time all was well, as the coach had been brought to the back entrance and loaded there. The two committed themselves together for the last time to face their will, aware as in God, who were now united forever by the bonds of love and prayer that had been forged between us. Once again, we were asked on a journey of faith across the water to what was to become Cumberland's home."

[07:39]

Seven or so hours after I was in the coach, we arrived at our student home, and the first thing we did was go to chapel, complete our prayer and thanksgiving to God for his permission in bringing us to this place. This school has been crazy for 50 years, and it seems the church level has never been empty. In recent years it has been adapted for elderly religious. There were hand-held and walk-in showers, suitable for the needs of our more elderly sisters already in faith. The sisters attested to bed, sheets and furniture, so we had a fully functioning apartment, and our kind sisters on the Isle of Wight, and arranged for a delivery of food, so that we would not need to worry about thirsty meals. We truly felt God's goodness and charitable fellowship, which was demonstrated once again. Over the next few months, we started the process of putting down physical and spiritual groups. There were then 12 of us, and our only regular income was 8 basic old age pensions that the Lords provided. Notice I've been stopped there, when I say the Lords provided, it was the Lords competently and thoroughly provided. What actually happened was, in England, if you pay your national insurance contributions, when you come to your old age, you're entitled to a great pension. So, as Anglicans, we've always done that, so the 8 Christians who were of that age were eligible for their pensions.

[08:42]

So the idea was that we must pool our pensions, so we could start our Ministry of Public Health and Human Services, taking debt, doing retreats, etc., to earn our livings. But the problem was, there was a hold-up between our pension and our pensions. pensions from our Anglican community. So, traditionally, we were literally left without any money. So, actually four of us, from our Anglican family, said to them, where are you left? Where are you left? They were actually going to leave us to leave without a penny. And I said, do you want to just go die? I don't actually have any money to pay for coffins. Can we have a little ask of what is our entitlement, our pension? Anyway, so I paid them to give us £3,000, between £12,000 and that was the cost to cover the cost of the coffin, etc. But we had £3,000 initially. That was eight months ago. But after that, for some reason, it couldn't seem to short out any of our money. It went on and on and on. So the amount we were living on was getting smaller and smaller. I overheard two of the other sisters one day comparing how much weight they were losing. But we were trading our leg spoons for the elderly sisters. At that point, I got a message from them, pretending to be loud to our elderly, and said, dear father, the sisters are hungry.

[09:44]

I got their reply. I got a reply three weeks later, saying, I'm sorry to hear the sisters are hungry. But right then, I took action. I'm going to the parish streets and to the praetory. I'm being asked to say something. I've only had to come here yet, and I'm having a bit of a problem. They're looking after the fish boats. I need to go to the parish. So what happened to us? Very simple bunch of food, and that coming up as it vanished in the first few weeks. So, for a sake that was provided, that time provided, members of the parish bought a thick of food, and it could only become a regular practice, but after a lunch club on a Tuesday, they had a fish club for the elderly of the parish on Tuesdays. They let their families come to us for our Tuesday supper, and they always supported us with more than one night's supper, etc. And members of the parish kindly decided to provide us with a retreat coffee and sugar every week, and another one generally bought the ingredients every week for our main Sunday dinner. And that's what helped ensure we got our own money coming through, because the parish rarely took care of us. In other words, the Lord looked after us through the local parish. My spiritual priority has been to discern how we might have a daily mass. Before we came, I discovered that although the parish church was only two doors along, the custom of these, that non-intercessory day inclusive, the daily parish mass was held in our convent chapel.

[10:49]

But I sent a message that we would be very glad to continue that custom. The parish then didn't think it would be like an ordinary opening of the parish church building during the week, and we would actually have a daily mass, so it worked out beautifully. And that has been a great blessing, but there were other challenges. But in two months of our arrival, two of the younger, physically fit citizens, separately dispersed and poured to other communities. One of the citizens that Scott was calling her passionate community on the Isle of Wight, was only there for a month. The other was the one who had originally come from a different and different community. Remember when I came from a sensitive agency, she was the one who joined us, where she felt drawn to a more active, catholic community. For it is found that it is right to let most listeners test their senses accordingly, but it meant to me that there were serious implications. It meant that we were a community of ten listeners, with only myself and another listener in those days, tension age. We didn't have the trust that God would somehow take care of the future. A confirmation for us that only we needed came that, almost immediately, we heard from them that they were ready to be baptized properly as a fully autonomous, monastery of Benedictine spirituality within the Paschal Delirium. These usual processes take years, but they actually came on in exactly one year.

[11:53]

One year on, from the day we were received into the church as Catholics, we were treated with elections and we were the next community in the church. Brilliant. So, on the 3rd of January, exactly one year after we were received, we were set up and we reaffirmed our vows, our vows to be recognised by those, that we would re-pronounce them cognitively as Catholics, in Ben 16's formulary, so that everybody would be able to see us and hear us doing that, and that would be the next stage of our lives. Now, Rosa's sister, at that point she was 84, and she'd been living there for 5-6 years, wrote an article at the time to explain how it had been for her, and this is what she said, and wrote, When I was in my mid-fifties, I visited the wife of a sister in our infirmary, and I asked her, what advice would you give someone of my age about preparing for death? She paused for a moment and then said, practice letting go. In viewing watches, we've all had to let go of so much that belonged to our personal as well as our shared past. I certainly had to let go of things in work and many personal contacts. For all of us, the condoms that did our homes, for some of us, including myself, were more than 50 years, but it was only from letting go of the old life that a new life became possible for us.

[12:57]

I knew that having to let go was an unavoidable aspect of getting old. I used to think that with the onset of old age, there would be a gradual progression from tooing to being. In fact, it was not gradual for me. There was a struggle and loss of mobility, bringing with it the loss of independence. It was a case of one challenge after another, and of learning in ways that Not immediately, casually, God is working in my life and asking me to trust Him. So I find myself thinking that if this image of God is the real state of my life, and what would it become, then it is not enough to accept it. I must learn to embrace it. And that, in itself, is the next challenge." She is not the only sister who had to embrace the challenges that faced us in those months. Traumatised for Christmas that year, that first year, a sister in her eighties was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy, followed by a course of daily radiotherapy for weeks. Another sister spent three weeks in hospital over Christmas that year, the carpet failure. Another sister was hospitalised with a broken hip. And these three sisters were all in their eighties, but they still all felt they were living in great old days. As one of them exclaimed, I quote,

[14:00]

I read recently about a founder of a religious community in the 19th century who, after a wonderfully strenuous and interesting life, found herself an old age, a nobody, petrified and forgotten. She confided to a priest who visited her, I think that you have lost everything you have in the world as I have. Such a wonderful new life comes into you. I think about her work and admire and hope her consultation. We said all is patently unknown, there's no guarantee for the future. Do we regret it? No. No sister has regretted the steps she has taken. We gave up at the useful historic conference with a 24-hour staff discernment, and we have given it a perfect world conference. We looked after each other with the generous support from the National Health. We have to leave behind our ancestors and sisters. We have been given Catholic sisters and brothers who have, by their love and affection, shown us what it means to be part of a Catholic worldwide family. We have truly come home in the Church. We have all lost friends. It is furthered who our true friends really are. We have been shown the most extraordinary charity by God in calling us into his church, and by providing us with all our spiritual and temporal needs, by the bride's aunt providing us twelve strangers in the home for eight months, by the illiterate benefactor who purchased our monastery and allowed us to rent it, by the local parish providing us with food and donations to keep us going,

[15:16]

But we are living in challenging times. Just before Crickliffe, last Crickliffe, we were told by our landlord that there's a scientist wanting to sell the land for joining our convent. But our landlord is not moving us out, but warned us that as the adjacent land is being sold to developers for a small residential estate, which will come right up to the boundaries of our property, we're likely to be in for a couple of years of noisy building work. Further, the very nature of property is worse against us. The privacy and quiet we've had so far will be no longer. The owner is right that now is the time to move. First of all, we haven't found the right property to move to, and there's a legal issue about land and funds, and we're just getting on with trying to find where we're supposed to be. But we feel that there is a challengeable place available for any challenge, and that even our challenges can down upon us a shower of blessings. But sister, one of the two sisters who left, if you remember the two of the other ones, wanted to transfer to Rite. She transferred to Rite and then she had to go to the end of this year and start all over again, but she picked up some vowels and she's very happy there. The same sister who comes from another community, she went to a more active community and started off with them and then started to make the biggest mistake of her life and asked to come back.

[16:18]

So she did come back and we got to go back and look at our arms and she'd fallen in one of us again, etc., and life carries on. We do feel that God is kinder than us. We feel that in John Henry and everything after that. And let me just give you a little illustration of that, which little did I know would be all right. Shortly after we arrived, I mean, we hadn't got very much money, etc., and we were being very careful. One of the sisters came to me and said, Mother, we don't actually have enough bread to go with tomorrow morning's breakfast. I didn't quite know what we were going to do, so I thought we were just going to have to go out on our own and buy some bread. So I said to her, I'll pick up her, either you or I will go out and get us some bread. She was shocked because it opened. During the supper, the doorbell sounded. It was a parishioner, who we didn't know, who brought us a carrier bag for the shopping that she brought with white news, and in the bag, had two loaves of bread. And that was the moment I thought, you know what? The Lord has his hands upon us, we are going to be all right. When we leave from here, he will send us. And we truly felt at that moment that we were experiencing once again, charity fellowship with this kind parishioner. We have confidence in the future, because we have confidence in our loving God, whose charity towards His children is boundless.

[17:20]

The subject of this retreat is the quest for the benedictine understanding of peace. To do this, we looked extensively at five specific areas, using the rule of St. Benedict as a framework, and like the writings of St. John of England as our guide. The major areas were, 1. Rhyme and serenity, obedience, Berwick's Transcendency, Humbleness, Harkness and Simplicity, Prayer, Love, Bond, The Love of God, and Love for Labour, and Charity Spirituality, the Charity of God, and others. He used women, but women never saw himself as a saint, perhaps precisely why we can relate to him, because he was ordinary. He struggled with life's challenges as we do. He fell into all these very sainthoods he had followed. I have nothing of a saint about me, as anyone knows, and it is a severe and solitary mortification to be brought next door to one. I may have a high view of many things, but it is the consequence of education, and of a peculiar constant internet, But this is a very different thing from being what I admire. I have no tendency to be a saint. It is a sad thing to say. Saints are not literally, literally, literally men.

[18:25]

They do not love the Catholics. They do not love tales. I may be well enough in my own way, but it is not a high line. It is an ugly thing to wrap the fake shoes. It can fill it with hateful things, usually striking in heaven. The aim of our spiritual journey appears to be to approach it to God, so that we invite him for the last time to clear his own afflictions in you, and in a way it is worth summing up the whole retreat. Put yourself then, my dear child, into the hands of your loving Father and your King, who knows and loves you better than you know or love yourself. He has appointed every action of your life. He created you, has made you, and has marked down the doorway and tower, and He will take you to Himself. He knows all your thoughts, and feels for you in all your sadness, more than any creature can feel, and accepts and makes note of your prayers, even before you make them. He will never fail you, and He will give you what is best for you. and that he tries you, and seems to withdraw himself from you, and afflicts you, still trust in him.

[19:32]

For at length you will see how good and gracious he is, and how well he will provide for you. Be courageous and generous, and give him your heart, and you will never repent of the sacrifice. Amen. and find clinics or schools. Maybe we'll find a red light on the commute. With red lights, it's a lot easier. Oh, that's good. That's good. You know it? Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe I'll come. We have a good time. Very much. I have a purpose. Oh, good. Oh, good. Don't say that about yourself, dude. Ha ha [...] I couldn't help but think that if he's going to go off and look at the games, the first conference he's going to end up with this. Well, I'm not that worried.

[20:34]

And I'm not traveling. I like having to move out of the way to work. I'm a gator, I have stories. Come on, what do you think of this? You agree that the game's letting go? You think about school kids. Listen, they can't listen unless you let go. I was thinking, how can you tell me this whole story of you letting go? I gave the story to me, but it broke anyway. The other thing I was wondering, I don't know if this is the right comparison, but it's a walk-in shower. Ah, right. No, so, basically, the shower itself doesn't touch the way that, um... You pull the door open, and you just walk into it, and there's no step or anything. Oh. Sort of, um, it's brilliant for, um, people who suffer from diabetes or whatever, they don't have to step over anything. You just, um, just walk in, and then you can pull the door. I never described something, can you know what he's describing? No, I don't. It's something I'll point you to. Your first talk mentioned by Gabriel Hancock, now it's one of your most richer fans, happens to be reading a book related to St.

[21:38]

Peter and his poem, where he just goes into himself in a nuisance. Because he's a master, you know, he's a professional, and he hasn't taught anything, and then after he speaks, there's a lot to do for him. So, it's a circumstance. In other words, kind of, not a single thing. Going out but not fishing. I'm a fisherman. I've been doing this for years. We're going out. It's the worst time to go. But we go out anyway. It's great teaching, but we have to go out. Abundance. There's a bell for people to read it. Yeah, tell me if you need me. Yes.

[22:26]

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