when we will be loved on earth as it is in heaven. May God sustain our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Well, greetings to everyone. In this final address, we shall reflect upon the challenging of God and others as we consider the story of the sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I will share something of our unfolding story. I've already spoken at the beginning of our retreat about how 12 Anglican sisters became Catholic nuns. Today, I need to explain something about how our journey has continued, how our physical journey of trying to find a building to live in impacted upon our spiritual journey of building a spiritual home for a new community, and how the corporate journey has affected each sister'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. Shortly before we were received as Catholics, I warned to the whole community that each person wanting to be received as a Catholic had to be prepared to walk down a drive with such what you can carry in a vague inner hand, leaving anything else behind, without any guarantee for the future, just going forward in blind faith, ill-courted and unconscious.

[01:16]

both those who wanted it, went forward and were received into the Catholic Church on the 1st of January 2013. The morning after our reception, we made our beginning as Catholics, for the first and last time, to accommodate, to come to our dens, and be our spiritual home. After that, the twelve of us, with our essential personal possessions, ordered a coach and set off. We had no money, no home, we left with no financial settlement from our previous clergy, no damage, just the firm conviction that becoming Catholic, with our response to our Lord's considering call, could follow need. We arrived at 16 years and we arrived on the island of White. The island of White is a little island, close to the mainland of England. It's part of England, but you have to go on a ferry, or what's it called, a hovercraft? We used to make a hovercraft to get there. So we went on the ferry, and we arrived at 16 years. We were supposedly there for six weeks, but it turned into eight months. Basically, after we left, we were told we couldn't come back, so we were stuck there until we could find a new home. There were times when we wondered whether we were being forced to remain with our sisters. We loved them and felt they were only love for us, and it's our corporate determinants for us that got us to co-ordinate and continue our journey elsewhere.

[02:20]

But where and how would it be possible? Despite the fact that we had no money, the British were priority to the property. In fact, I and another sister found the estate agent's particulars and visited his promising possibilities. We and others traced perfectly to our homes. The undertow on our affairs came in a worrying way. An American Dominican sister from the National Dominican down in Tennessee was offered to go to the Institute of Learning at Birmingham, the first home of St. John's in St. Helens. She was studying there doing a PhD which was about distance learning, and was fun to know her and her community. So she came to visit us on the Isle of Wight for a couple of nights, staying outside the enclosure, because on the Isle of Wight they have paper enclosure, so even for other religions they couldn't come into the enclosure. as soon as you get to Maryville, go to the chapel, get on your knees, and beg Blessed Joy Henry Newman to join us at home." 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 she said, "'Where have you been?' and she says, "'I've been finishing to clean this lounge on the Isle of Wight.'"

[03:21]

And this supervisor said, Don't they know that convents are allowed to be properly hailed up the road? So she gave me the details. I tracked down the First Bishop of Superior. This was Wednesday evening. And by Friday evening, I'd spoken to the First Bishop of Superior on the phone. She told me that they had already moved into the Presbytery of Gotham Road, because the community was growing smaller. So there were just three of them that were gated there. The rest stepped on back to their main convent in Ireland, because they were Irish nuns. Or they were sorted around the country, but it was just three left there in the convent. So they'd moved into the Presbytery of Gotham Road, and that's why they were gated up there, the convent. But she promised there would be no interpretery, and so I was about to remove all the furniture and fakes as 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. Professor Cleary showed us around and explained that the convent had been privately built for them 15 years before, but they now needed to fill it because their figures are too old to carry on there, and the elders needed to bring care homes, so they just didn't need it anyway.

[04:21]

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 times of the tide and 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 of arriving, we knew it was the right place. It's perfect, we said to a clearly delighted Sister Superior. Very good, she said. She's beaming. Well, we haven't done much to it, we've been acting up there, haven't we? She? I said up. But let's invent things. The Lord wants us here. He will provide what we need. Her expression didn't change. This mighty woman of faith agreed. I don't think she meant it at all. As Sister Superior opened the cleaning cupboard full of mops, bags, and cleaning equipment, she said, Oh, I'll get rid of all that before you come. And we said, Stop. Leave everything. If you don't have anything, everything you don't need, just leave. I mean everything. No one will deal with it. And that's exactly what happened. They left us a fully furnished convent, because they didn't need anything, and so we didn't have to worry about rent, sheets, anything. It was all there. This is a video explained, this was on a Friday, no it's Saturday.

[05:22]

This video explains that the property was due to go on the open market in two days' time, on a Monday. Well, that's staying on two mornings. But I asked her to contact the estate agent, and she told him not to put it on the open market. I said, just give us time to raise the purchase price. This wonderful place-built sister agreed to do just that. She told me substantively. The night we spoke on the phone that Friday, I told the other sisters you were coming to view tomorrow morning, but I said to them, it's only Claire that says she's going to head out, but I'm going to keep an all-night prayer vigil, you're welcome to join me. And the other sisters were too exhausted, so this little period stayed up most of the night, praying that we would agree to buy their concert. Eventually, after learning her mind up without sleep, when she got too tired to carry on, she told the Lord, Jesus, I'm going now, did what you do, and she went off to bed. And she now described the whole thing as a miracle of fate. The next day when we arrived, 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. But she cancelled the house for the accompany, stopped the intake engine, and we waited. Within a couple of days, we had confirmed that a benefactor who wanted to remain anonymous had heard of our plight and decided to buy the convent, allowing us to make their paying rent.

[06:29]

And it was in Liverpool. And that's the first example of charitable friendship. We had told them to appreciate the meaning of charitable friendship through God's grace and blessings, and they'd experienced it through their own bride sisters, allowing us to come and live with them for eight months. But now it was time for us to depart. But our then-brother's sisters take up the story of our departure from Rice. The reality of our departure gradually grew, as did the pile of luggage that we had to carry at the bottom of the lake's edge. While the day performed, it was perhaps a good thing that the coach arrived earlier than expected, as the practicalities of loading, deloading antiques, and rounding up systems took charge of those very final minutes. The coach driver was our old friend, who was brought up to the Isle of Wight, but 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 was kept independent up the Abbey Drive. Thankfully this time all was well, as the coach had been brought to the right entrance and loaded there. The two communities gathered together for the last time, to face their will, aware as in God, who were now united forever, by the bond 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 our new home," end of quote.

[07:34]

Seven or so hours after our boarding the coach, we arrived at our new home, and the first thing we did was to go to chapel to repeat our prayer and thanksgiving to God for his provision in bringing us to this place. This holy land had been created for fifty years, and it seemed that trouble at all had never been empty. In recent years, it has been adapted for elderly religion, so there are hand-held and walk-in showers suitable for the needs of our more elderly sisters already in faith. The sisters are dressed up in beds, sheets and furniture, so we have a fully-functioning cupboard, and our kind sisters on the Isle of Wight have arranged for a delivery of food so that we would not need to worry about the first few meals. We truly felt God's goodness and charitable fellowship, which was demonstrated once again. Over the next few months, we started the project of putting down physical and spiritual roofs. There were then 12 of us, and our only regular income was 8 basic old age pensions that the Lords provided. Members... I'm going to stop there, when I say the Lords provided, it's a little more complicated than how we provided. What actually happened was, um... In England, if you pay your national insurance contributions, you may come to an old age and be entitled to a paid pension. So, as Anglicans, we've always done that, so that the aid workers who were of that age were eligible for their pensions.

[08:36]

And the idea was that we would pull our pensions, and we thought we could start with our Ministry of Profit and Talent, pay for death, our grip and retreat, etc., so we could prepare for our livings. But the problem was, there was a hold-up between our pension and our pensions. pensions from our Anglican community. So, initially, we were literally left without any money. So, we'd been thinking about actually borrowing it from our Anglican friends in Cornwall, and we said to them, when we left, they were actually going to leave us to leave without a penny, and I said, if I'm going to live to die, I don't actually have any money to pay for coffins. Can we have a little bit of what is now entitled to our pensions? Anyway, so they were going to give us £3,000 to do 12 of us, without the cost of covering the bottom of the coffin, etc. We had £3,000 initially, that was eight months ago. After that, for some reason, they couldn't seem to shop out any of our money. It went on and on and on. The land we were living on was getting smaller and smaller. I overheard some of the elder sisters one day comparing how much weight they were losing, explaining our maid's food for the elderly sisters. At that point, a lot of those young kids pretended to be loud to our elderly and said, dear father, the sisters were hungry.

[09:38]

I've got to reply three weeks later. Very much forward to getting the system up and running. But right then, I've taken action. I'll go to the parish priest and tell him, sorry, I'm being asked to say something. Our money hasn't come through yet, and I'm having a bit of problems looking after the churchgoers. What do you call the parish? But what have they taught? various people brought up food, and that coming up managed the first few weeks. Both on Thursday, they were all provided, that time provided. Members of the parish brought a thick of food, and it clearly became a regular practice, that after a lunch club on a Tuesday, they had a fresh club for the elderly in the parish on Tuesdays. They let those families come to us for our Tuesday supper, and they always brought it up in more than one way of supper, et cetera. And members of the parish kindly decided to provide us with a retreat coffee and sugar every week, and another one generously brought up the ingredients every week for our main Sunday dinner. and that's what happens when we've got our own money coming through the parish they can take care of us. In other words, the Lord looks after us through the local parish. My spiritual priorities have been confirmed with how we might have a daily mass. Before we came, I discovered that although the parish church was only two doors long, the cost of a day at a non-intersectionally inclusive daily parish mass was held in our convent chapel.

[10:43]

But I sent a message that we would be very glad to continue that custom. The parish then continued to keep light and organized developing the parish church building during the week. And we would actually have a daily mass, so it worked out beautifully. And that was a great blessing, but there were other challenges. But in two months of our arrival, two of the younger, physically fit sisters separately discerned a call to other communities. One of the sisters that got was calling her passionate community on the Isle of Wight, which only lived for a month. The other was one who had originally come to a different Anglican community. Remember, it was a Catholic community, she was the one who joined us, which she felt drawn to a more active Catholic community. For we discerned that it was right to let both sisters test their sense of calling, but eventually there were serious implications. It meant that we were a community of ten sisters, with only myself and another sister in those days' tension age. We did not have the trust that God would somehow take care of the future. A confirmation for us in only a few days came that, almost immediately, we heard from them that they were ready to be baptized properly as a holy, autonomous, monastery of Benedictine spirituality within the Paschal Delirium. The usual process takes years, but they've actually done it all in exactly one year.

[11:47]

One year on, from the day we were received into the church as Catholics, we were treating the electors, and we were the electors' community in the church. Brilliant. So, on the 3rd of January, exactly one year after we were received, we were doing a fit-up, and we re-insured our vows. Our vows had been recognised by those, so we re-pronounced those publicly as Catholics, in very strict formulary, so that everybody would be able to see us and hear us doing that. And that was the next stage of our life. Now, Rosa's sister, at that point 184, when she'd been in the military for 16 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 a wise old sister in our infirmary, and I asked her what advice would she give someone of my age about preparing for death. She paused for a moment and then said, Have to let him go. In living waters, 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 the interesting works and many personal contacts. For all of us, the condoms that did our homes, for some of us, including myself, were more rigidly geared, which was only through letting go of the old life that a new life became possible for us.

[12:52]

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 feeling to being. In fact, it was not gradual for me. There was a sudden and lasting loss of mobility, bringing with it the loss of independence. It was a case of one challenge after another, and of learning in ways Not immediately, God is working in my life and asking me to trust Him. So I find myself thinking that if this is indeed the will of God for each stage of my life and for all to come, then it is not enough to accept it. I must learn to embrace it. And that in itself is the next challenge." Truth is not the only sister who had to embrace the challenges that faced us in those months. 24 Christmas that year, that first year, a sister in her 80s 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, with heart failure. Another sister was hospitalised with a drugged-in tick. And these three sisters were all in their 80s, but they still all felt they were living in great old days, as one of them exclaimed, I quote,

[13:54]

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 when you have lost everything, you have been as well as I have. Such a wonderful new life comes into you. I think about her work and admire and hope that it grows to passion. We said all is patiently unknown, there's no guarantee for the future. Do we regret it? No. No sister has regretted reception in Kilkenny. We gave up at the beautiful historic convent where the 24-hour staff did sermonry, and we have given it a purpose-built convent. We look on to each other for the generous support from the National Health. We have to leave behind our Anglican 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 are all God's friends. We deserve it, though 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.

[14:58]

By the right hands, providing us to our strangers when they're home for eight months, by the honourable benefactor who purchased our monastery and now wish to rent it, by the local parish providing us with food and donations to keep us going, But we are living in challenging times. Some people could live much stricter. We were told by our landlord that the tribes of Waddington Southern Land had been joining our convent. But our landlord is not moving us out, but warned us that as the adjacent Amnesty and Kilts have been elevated for a smaller extension of state, which will come right up to the boundaries of our property, we're likely to be in for a complicated and mighty building work. Further, the very nature of property is quite against us, but tremendously and quietly, perhaps, so far, we'll be no longer. But on the other side, that said, now is the time to move. But while we haven't found the right property to move to, and there's a new 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 charitable grace available for every challenge, and that even our challenges can bear upon us as a shard of blessings. But sister, one of the two sisters who left, if you remember the two of the other ones, one did transfer to right, she transferred to the left, and she had to go to the end of the ship and start all over again, but she came from the bowels, and she's very happy there.

[16:03]

The second sister, who's come from the North Sea, she entered to it, and watched it diminishing, and started off with intent, and then thought she'd made the biggest mistake of her life, and I'll never come back. So, she has come back, and we've got her to her back, and we've got her to her arms, and she's fully one of us again, et cetera, and life carries on. We do feel that Dr. Spann is in front of us, we feel that Dr. Henry has been looking after us, I got a letter from the administration, which little did I know was going to be alright. Shortly after we arrived, I mean we hadn't got on very much nightly, except we were being very careful. One of the patients said to me, he said, Mother, we don't actually have enough bread to go with tomorrow morning's breakfast. I didn't know quite 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 by the U.R.I. We'll go out and get us some bread. We'll be shocked if they don't come. During the supper, the doorbell sounded. It was a parishioner, for we didn't know, who brought us a carry bag for the shopping that she thought we might need. And in the bag, had two loaves of bread. And that one alone, I thought, you know what? The Lord has a hand upon us. We have every single bite. When we need something, He will send it. And we truly felt at that moment that we were experiencing once again charity fellowship with these fine parishioners.

[17:08]

We have continuity in the future because we have continuity in our loving God, whose charity towards his children disarms us. The topic of this retreat has been the quest for the benefiting understanding of peace. To do this, we have looked attentively at five specific areas, using the rules and benedicts of the Framework, the Life and Writings of St John Henry Newman as our guide. And those areas were, 1. Rhymes of energy, at the beginning. 2. Holiness, Harkin's Liturgy and Prayer, Lord Vaughan, the Love of God, and Dr. Weber, and charity scholarships, the charity of course, and others. I have nothing for the Saints about me, as anyone knows, and it is a severe and solitary mortification to be called Saint's daughter one. I may have a high view of many things, But it is the consequence of ancient tradition, and all the peculiar parts of the internet, that things look a very different thing from being what I admire.

[18:13]

I have no tendency to be a saint. It is a sad thing to say. Saints are not literally, literally, literally made. They do not look like a Catholic. They do not look like a Taoist. I may be well enough in my own way, but it is not a high line. It is an ugly thing to blacken a saint's shoes, to think that it is a saintly thing. Music dragging in heaven. The aim of our first journey has been to draw closer to God, so let me invite you for the last time to clear your distinctions in Him, and in a way these words sum up the whole retreat retreat. Put yourself then, my dear child, into the hands of your loving Father and your King, who loves 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 going way and hour, 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 expects and makes note of your prayers, even before you make them.

[19:14]

He will never fail you, and He will give you what is best for you. and that he tries you and pleads to withdraw himself from you and afflicts you, build trust in him. 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. I'm fine, thanks. Oh, cool. Maybe we'll find a red light, and it... We'll find a red light, and someone will leave. Oh, that's great. That's certainly great. Yes, yes. No. No, no, [...]

[20:18]

I couldn't help but think that if he's going to go off and look at the games, the person probably shouldn't be hanging their head up like this. I wanted a better word. Not a problem, I liked it. I couldn't move out of the way of the words, so I gave her a next word. Well, all I could think of was, he'd read it, the games, let him go. When you think about school kids, listen, they can't listen unless you let them go. I was thinking the whole time I was telling this whole story to you, let him go. I didn't even start to think about my anger over it anyway. The other thing I was wondering, and I hope this is not embarrassing, but there's a walk-in shower. Oh, right. No, Seb, basically, the shower is actually tucked away in the attic. You pull the door open and you just walk through to it. There's no step or anything. It's brilliant for people who suffer from diabetes or whatever. They don't have to step over anything. You just walk in and then you can pull the door. I've never described something that you know what it's describing before.

[21:21]

No, I don't. In fact, when we first talked to Nixon, I gave her a handcuff. Now it's one of these books which fans have to be reading a book. It was Peter, in his column, where he goes into himself, and he mentions, uh, apparently the same master, you know, the transitional line, haven't caught anything, and they have to speak. It was a lot to do for him. So, it's a circumstance. In other ways, kind of, a similar scenario. Going out but not fishing. I haven't fished in the last three years. We're going out at noon, the worst time to go. Abundance to point out. There's a bell for people to learn. I'm not going to be amazing. That's just the way I am.

[22:20]

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