Around our Religious Houses

Holy Cross Priory, Leicester

During the summer of 2020 the Leicester Dominican community elected a new prior, Fr John-Patrick Kenrick who has worked in London, Cambridge, Oxford, and for 6 years in Russia and Ukraine as the Order’s Vicar General. He has also been novice master and then Dean of St Edmund’s college, Cambridge. He, Fr Anthony Rattigan, former prior, and Fr Luke Doherty are kept busy with the ordinary round of parish life, the chaplaincy to the two universities and visiting the hospital, schools and prison. In 2020 we were joined by Fr John Farrell, former provincial, and then Fr Richard Ounsworth, former provincial bursar. Fr John keeps busy with talks on zoom and retreat work, although that has been reduced as a result of Covid restrictions. In his spare time he has given our garden a complete makeover. Plants long lost in the former jungle have been uncovered and nurtured and new plants have also been judiciously introduced to create a harmonious integration of several smaller spaces with their own distinct shape and character.

Fr Richard has also been using zoom to give lectures on the New Testament and to give tutorials to students as far away as the USA. He has also given study days for lay Dominicans and day retreats to Dominican sisters. On Tuesdays Fr Richard guides and inspires the keen members of the Leicester scripture group. Thanks to his remarkable culinary skills the brethren now regularly enjoy home baked bread.

Although the rhythm of priory life has changed more than once due to the Covid crisis, the work we do has not changed that much. We still celebrate mass at the usual times and hear confessions. The Covid lockdown has produced some new opportunities. The need for livestreamed mass led to requests for an improved system and that has resulted in vastly improved quality of transmission on YouTube. Fr Luke divides his time between Leicester prison, a handsome building which some innocent tourists use as a backdrop to selfies, and his very demanding role as bursar, which at present includes overseeing the repairs to the parish centre now called The Frassati centre after St Pier Giorgio Frassati. As prison chaplain Fr Luke regularly visits the prisoners who are most vulnerable. Sometimes the intervention of chaplains can help the inmates open up more about either their own experiences and hopes for the future, or their interest in religion as part of their rehabilitation. Prison chaplaincy is both a preaching opportunity and also a chance to answer questions which the inmates may have about God, religion, or scripture. Some inmates will find a great deal of consolation in their faith, at a time where they may be isolated and off from their families. Normally, Mass is said in the prison every week and the chaplains will put on classes to increase knowledge of the Bible, or classes on how to pray the Rosary”.

Poor Clare Colettines, Bulwell

The Poor Clare Colettines belong to a religious family of Sisters which Saint Clare of Assisi founded eight hundred years ago, inspired by Saint Francis. Like her they aim to live in close community according to the gospel, in a spirit of joyful trust in God and thanksgiving for His love and mercy. Their daily life at the heart of the Church is focussed on praise and intercession, bringing before God the joys and sorrows of His children throughout the world.It is expressed chiefly in daily Mass, the Divine Office, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

In the 14th century Saint Colette reformed the Poor Clares in France and Belgium, calling them back to their original poverty and simplicity of life. She is often invoked by couples expecting a child or longing to be blessed with a family.

In 1857, Mother Dominique of the Poor Clare Colettines at Bruges, Belgium, sent Sisters to London, and in 1863 to Manchester. In 1928 the London community made a foundation in Wales.

In 1927 the Manchester community in its turn made a foundation to Nottingham, with the Sisters eventually moving to our monastery here in Bulwell. Over the 90 years of its existence our Poor Clare Community has become an integral part of parish life, while maintaining its enclosed contemplative role.

In 2018 the Sisters in Wales joined the Sisters in Bullwell to form one Community. We number fourteen Sisters in all.

Sisters of Providence, Ruillé-sur-Loire, Lincoln

Because this is an Anniversary Year for the Diocesan Year Book we have decided to start with the early History of our Sisters in the Diocese of Nottingham.

In February 1902 two sisters of the French Order of the Sisters of Providence arrived in Woodhall Spa where some of them had been staying since 1901 helping the Belgian Parish Priest. They came to St Hugh’s Lincoln at the invitation of Bishop Brindle and Canon Croft and rented a house on Greestone Stairs ,where they set up a school. The number of pupils grew and in June 1908 the sisters bought the premises in Upper Lindum Street, formerly occupied by the Lincoln Grammar School. A flourishing girls’ school, Saint Joseph’s Convent, developed over the years, the premises being enlarged by the acquisition of nearby property and later by the building of new classrooms blocks. The Convent Chapel was built in 1923.

The school from strength to strength until 1983, when the sisters discerned that on account of fewer Teaching Religious the school was becoming too expensive to run and so was becoming out of the reach of the local people. The parents were reluctant to let it close and so formed a committee to keep it going . St Joseph’s continued with a new lay head and staff. The headmistress Sister Stephanie then went to Our Lady’s,at the request of Father Forde, as parish sister. Some years later, the Church Schools Association approached the sisters with a view to buying the premises and initiating a new coeducational Christian school, which would include the Lincoln Cathedral Choir School and one or two other small Independent schools.

Pleased that the new venture would still be providing Christian education, the sisters agreed and the new school became the Lincoln Minister School which is still exercising an important

impact on the City

The Sisters of Providence were founded in Ruillé-sur-Loir France in 1806, just after the devastation of the French Revolution, by a zealous parish priest, Jacques Dujari, who was concerned for the physical and spiritual welfare of his parishioners. The Institute developed rapidly and spread to America, England, Belgium, Holland, Sri Lanka and Madagascar.

Our charism is to bring the Gospel to the people with whom we come into contact, approaching them with simplicity and concern to make tangible for each one the great love of the Father. In community and as individuals we try to express this mission by our life of prayer and in various ministries :involvement in Education, pastoral work, spiritual accompaniment, youth work, nursing and ecumenical activities.

In fact we attempt to respond to any need that arises taking into account the abilities, strength and interest of the individual sisters and of the community as a whole.

Since leaving the school we have had a closer relationship with the three Parishes and have contributed as much as possible.

Two of the sisters Pauline Waldron and Ann Heaney, who began their Religious in Lincoln many years ago and who have been away in other parts of the country, have now retired back to Lincoln.

They were happy to meet old and new friends at Bishop Patrick’s gathering for the Religious of the Diocese at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey and to renew relationships with the Lincoln Parishioners after the recent lockdown.

Sister Gillian Murphy is now our Assistant General in France and visits us whenever she can.

The Congregation has initiated a new project in Étables, Britanny, the birthplace of Saint Mother Theodore, who was sent out with six other sisters to found the Sisters of Providence in the United States 1840.

Our England Group’s youngest sister Gilles Quigley has been sent there, as part of an international community to launch a Spiritual Centre and a place of Pilgrimage in honour of our American Saint ! “Deus Providebit !”

Any Jubilee is a cause of excitement and celebration and this is certainly true for the 2022 Yearbook. One is particularly aware that a Jubilee is a time of great graces and blessings as well as a time for remembering. The birth of Sion Community and later Céilí Community was a gradual evolution where a vision was birthed from within the Nottingham Diocese.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception 1984 is the Founding Feast Day of Sion Community. It marks the time when Fr Pat Lynch met with some lay people at Coalville, Leicestershire. Having obtained the blessing of Bishop McGuinness, Fr Pat shared the vision of Sion Community which was to be a community of Priests, Religious and Lay people working collaboratively in evangelisation at the heart of the Church.

In August 1985 Fr Pat was joined by Sr Agnes Anglim, A Franciscan Minoress from Belper, Derbyshire and three married couples. They set out to do their first Parish Mission in Melbourne, Derbyshire. So, after more than three and half decades of prayer, commitment and sacrifice they are able to briefly tell their stories in this Celebratory Yearbook. The Lord was faithful in leading them onwards, from Parish Missions onto Youth Ministry then Primary and Family Ministry as well as teaching and training in evangelisation. Sion bases were opened in Nelson, Lancashire, Birmingham, Oldham, Brentwood and Coventry. In 1999 Episcopal approval was obtained from Nottingham and the Irish Dioceses for the community to open up a new Irish branch, called Céilí Community.

To date the community has worked in over 500 parishes throughout, England Scotland, Wales and Ireland not to mention all the primary and secondary schools within these countries. A great part of the community’s vision was to empower others to cooperate in this great commission of evangelisation. The work of the community has been strongly sustained by a hidden army of friends and benefactors, who pray for the work and offer financial support.

Prayer, especially community prayer and the sacraments have remained central to the community. In this way the Holy Spirit continues to be a source which permeates and keeps open this ministry of service. The future of any community depends upon fidelity to its origins and to the particular founding charism. God blesses faithfulness. Any rupture with the past or with the Church, goes against the nature of a community and in essence leads to fragmentation.

In today culture of individualism, the mystery of the Trinity offers a vital insight into community. In God there are three persons, each different from the other and yet all three marvellously one God. “Being together” has a prophetic value in itself. Living and working together as community is vital as it provides the emotional support as well as presenting a challenge to present day society.

The longing and a passion to illuminate people’s lives with the light of Christ must never be extinguished. Sion and Céilí communities together with many others are privileged to be of continued service to the church. The proclamation of the Gospel must continue to be the church’s mission and our apostolic priority.

Let us all give glory to God and look forward to the next 100 years of our Yearbook.

The Spiritants, Holy Ghost Fathers, Hassop

The Spiritans (Holy Ghost Fathers) presence in the diocese of Nottingham goes back to 1944. That was the year Edward Ellis was appointed Bishop and was consecrated in May. The Spiritans arrived later on in that year and opened their Senior Seminary at Saint Joseph’s Upton Hall near Newark. Bishop Ellis ordained many of the Spiritan members to the various minor and major orders from 1944 to 1969. At the celebration of his Silver Jubilee as Bishop on 1st May 1969, there were no diocesan deacons that year and a Spiritan deacon served at that Solemn Mass in Saint Barnabas Cathedral.

In 1964, the Senior Seminary was transferred to Wellesborough near Market Bosworth and thus it remained in the Diocese. Saint Joseph’s Upton Hall became the Province’s novitiate for a few years and the Senior Seminary was eventually amalgamated with the Missionary Institute in London in 1969. The Spiritan teaching staff and the community members were many during the years 1944 through to 1969, and many of the Diocesan priests along with Bishop Ellis formed a close friendship with the Spiritan Community.

After the Vatican Council, there was a great interest in missionary work overseas especially in Africa and Asia. The Spiritans, of course, have had a long history of serving the needs of the young churches and the British Province had a particular mission to the Diocese of Makurdi in Nigeria. During the Vatican Council, Bishop Ellis befriended a Nigerian bishop John Cross Anyogu, of Enugu Diocese and Bishop Ellis visited Nigeria in 1966 to have a first-hand experience of a “different” Church. About the time of this visit, there was a movement in dioceses and missionary communities to work together with the sharing of personnel. Nottingham Diocese provided Makurdi Diocese with two Fidei Donum priests - priests who remain members of their home diocese but were released for some years of missionary work overseas. Fathers Joe McGovern and Brian Finnerty were early members of this Fidei Donum group and ministered in Makurdi Diocese.

With the closure of our houses of formation, the Spiritans and Bishop Ellis discussed a continuing presence of the Spiritans in the Diocese and eventually Hassop parish was entrusted to the Order in the summer of 1972. Father Peter Devins CSSp was the first parish priest under the new arrangement and he remained in post for nine

years. There were many other members of the Province who came and went over the years but only four Spiritan priests have been appointed as ‘parish priest’ viz. Fathers Devins, William O’Neill, Vincent Griffin and Hugh Davoren. Between them they have served the Diocese of Nottingham for almost 50 years in this parish ministry and will mark this special anniversary in the summer of 2022. Two Spiritan priests are buried in the parish cemetery; Fathers O’Neill and Anthony Kenny, who lived in residence with Father O’Neill. Both Fathers O’Neill and Kenny died in the same year 2005.

The Vocation Sisters

The Vocation Sisters, known formally as The Daughters of Our Lady of Good Counsel and St Paul of the Cross, were founded in 1945 by Edna John and Doris Andrews (Mother M. Joseph and Sister Therese), working at The Catholic Truth Society in London before and after the Second World War.

The Congregation’s purpose and charism was the fostering and nurturing of priestly and religious vocations. In 1950 the small community moved to Hallaton Hall near Market Harborough with the approval of Bishop Ellis, the then Bishop of Nottingham. The community was established as a Congregation in 1962.

The Sisters provided accommodation at Hallaton Hall to help young women, in an atmosphere of prayer, to discern whether they had a vocation to religious life, and if so, to which congregation. Hallaton was also the Vocation Sisters’ novitiate. In time, the Sisters were in correspondence and contact with some 500 inquirers annually. Many, after seeking their help, entered into religious life and men inquirers into the priesthood. Other pursued a range of other callings.

By 1975 Hallaton Hall was no longer suitable for our many ministries and was a great financial strain and so we moved. The steady work and outreach of the Congregation had encouraged other communities, religious congregations and orders to produce vocation directed literature to help inquirers in their search to find their future in God’s work. The Sisters built up a strong resource of information of different congregations and the lives of their founders and foundresses. In the early years of the congregation, the Vocation Sisters were instrumental in establishing vocations directors, Vocations Sunday and the first Vocations Exhibition and they toured the country giving talks.

The Sisters increasingly provided counselling over a range of personal, emotional and religious issues. Vocation discernment included a specialist facility at Angmering in West Sussex, bringing skilled help through individual and group work in a safe, supportive and religious setting to assist many in finding their healthy selves after particular stress.

The Congregation has had houses in various parts of the country and also worked for several years in the Diocese of Arlington in the USA. Over the years every religious community has recognised the importance of vocation work and has its own vocations director.

We are now a very small community. Continuing to pray for vocations remains at the heart of what we do and who we are.