nuns

Self-Doubt

by

Yesterday I wrote a blistering piece about the role of women in Church and society but decided to sleep on it before publishing it in iBenedictines. I’m under no illusions about the reach of this blog, so it wasn’t exactly an exercise in ‘damage limitation’, more a ‘do I want a permanent record of my anger?’ self-questioning. Anger is a fleeting emotion (for me, at any rate) but can be destructive, especially when it achieves a kind of permanence in the written word. Self-questioning in such contexts is good and valuable, and I often wish some bloggers would think more and write less. (That applies to me, too, but I do try to be constructive and polite, wimper, wimper.)

There is a point, however, where self-questioning passes into self-doubt and I’m not so sure about the wisdom or advisability of that. When one feels entirely alone in perceiving an injustice, self-doubt can cripple one’s ability to act. One is not going to change the way in which the institutional Church overlooks or undervalues the contribution of women (despite many fine statements to the contrary) but perhaps quietly upsetting a few ‘apostolic apple-carts’ will ultimately achieve more.

So, I leave you with the question that prompted my anger yesterday, though I won’t tell you why the question arose. Would anyone really care (and I do mean really) if contemplative communities like ours no longer existed? And before anyone gives the stock answers about ‘hidden witness’ and all that, please ask yourselves the even bigger question: what do I really believe? The answer might surprise you.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

The Good, the True and the Beautiful

by

Yesterday we had our own mini-WikiLeaks experience. I posted what I thought was a fairly measured and, I hope, charitable, comment on the news from the Priory of Our Lady of Walsingham, drawing attention to the absence, as I saw it, of any concrete provision for religious in what we know of the plans for the Ordinariate.

Within an hour of posting we were besieged. Emails, telephone calls and Twitter DMs flooded in, all offering to put us right on this detail or that, urging us to take sides, telling us “what really happened” (the accounts don’t tally), and so on and so forth. I was left wondering whether anyone had read what I actually wrote, so anxious were some of our correspondents to urge their own view.

Debate is a very good thing , and when it is conducted in the open with civility and good humour, can add greatly to understanding; but I don’t much care for attempts to apply pressure behind the scenes, nor will I tolerate attempts to blacken the reputation of others. As I said yesterday, we don’t know any of the people concerned but “they deserve our prayers and at least a suspension of judgement”. I mean that. I don’t think anyone outside the community, not in possession of the full facts, is in a position to judge either those who have gone or those who have remained. You may disagree, but we can surely agree to disagree agreeably?

If you are inclined to argue the point, please look at the title of this post again. It is there to remind others as well as myself why the community bothers to blog. The good, the true and the beautiful reflect more of God than do rivalry, contention and point-scoring. Yes, of course, we fly a few kites in our blog posts and I daresay the imp of mischievous humour will never be entirely absent, but our aim is to build up rather than knock down, to stimulate thought rather than temper. I should be very sorry if anyone were to think that the the views expressed in iBenedictines were anything other than what they are: the world seen from the cloister, sometimes a little quirkily, often imperfectly, but always, I hope, with compassion. It is not a bad ideal for a blog, is it?

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

News from Walsingham

by

Yesterday a press release announced that Sr Wendy Renate, Sr Jane Louise and Sr Carolyne Joseph had left the (Anglican) Priory of Our Lady of Walsingham “for a period of discernment with the intention of joining the Ordinariate when established”. Except to those who know the community concerned (we don’t), the announcement probably meant little. Indeed, if you look at the comments on certain blogs, you will find the matter treated with a levity and lack of charity that gets blogging a bad name.

It is worth thinking about the story behind this announcement. Both those who have left and those who remain deserve our prayers and at least a suspension of judgement. It is not easy for anyone to abandon that which is familiar, still less that which is greatly loved and has been the subject of a vow. The first Cistercians were abused as renegades and vow-breakers because they saw fidelity to what they had professed as obliging them to move away from the monastery of their profession. Their doing so greatly enriched the Church, but it was not obvious at the time. I’m sure many of their old community felt the loss of their brethren deeply; and in a curious way, their going does seem to have had a beneficial effect on Molesmes which was shaken out its complacency into a reform of its own.

Can we hope for the same at Walsingham? I don’t know, but I admit to feeling uneasy. As far as I can see, none of the provisions announced for the Ordinariate concerns religious. If you look at the Ordinariate web site, there is a link for clergy and a mention of future details for the laity. That reflects pretty accurately the “invisibility” of religious in most people’s thinking and the fact that there are comparatively few religious in the Church of England. There is no suggestion that the three Sisters who have left are thinking of applying to join an existing Catholic community so the path ahead is far from clear.

We have discussed the Ordinariate  in community many times and it is interesting that whatever our personal background, Catholic or Anglican, we are having difficulty in seeing what the Ordinariate offers that the Church as a whole does not. So, prayers for the Sisters who have left Walsingham, prayers for the Sisters who remain; and prayers for all of us, Catholic and Anglican, who must get to grips with what the Ordinariate is meant to be.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail