Monastery of Our Lady and St. Bernard
Brownshill
Stroud GL6 8AL
tel: 01453 883084
website: http://www.bernardine.org/brownshill
Christmas Newsletter 2024
The year began with storms and towards the end of the year, the COP 29 is closing and storm Bert is causing chaos and distress across the UK. As we reflect on our experiences of the year, we do not forget the many, many people living in poverty and fear, aware too of our own fragility, and yet entrusting all to the One who came to be God with us. We pray for all our guests and friends and celebrate Masses each month for the intentions of our benefactors, guests, past and present Oblates, students and staff, as well as for those who have died – may they rest in peace.
For the community of Our Lady and St. Bernard, 2024 has been a year of formation and celebration, of comings and goings.
Our Order is looking forward in hope and looking back with gratitude for almost 200 years of existence. As part of our spiritual preparation for the bicentenary of the Bernardines of Esquermes in 2027, each community is following a common programme of formation, especially devised to help us to live our monastic life more fully. The programme for 2023-24 was about seeking God in prayer, reflecting on i) the prologue of the Rule of St. Benedict, ii) our celebration of the Divine Office, iii) Lectio Divina and iv) Contemplative Prayer. In September we began the second year’s programme on our vows of conversion, stability and obedience. Conversion is the starting point, in more ways than one, and this unit was prepared by Sr. Mary Philippa for the Order.
For many years we have talked about having an Open Day, and on 15th June it came to pass. Local people, and some from as far away as Bristol and Slough, came to find out what goes on at the Monastery now, and about the fascinating history of the place we live in. Local historian Camilla Boon explained the development of this site as a House of Mercy in the mid-nineteenth century, and gave some insight into the lives of the “inmates/students/residents” who lived and worked here. There were tours of the guesthouse, tea and homemade cakes in the dining room and the invitation to join us for Midday Office or Vespers. A team of generous volunteers helped us to set up, serve tea and organize car parking.
On 20th February Sr. Maria gave a talk in the series “Lord Teach us to Pray” offered by Clifton Diocese at the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Bath. Her title was “The Prayer of Jesus”, which gave her an opportunity to introduce Lectio Divina and the Divine Office, which are traditional in monastic life.
In addition to our long-standing pattern of offering weekend retreats in Advent and Lent, and receiving guests for the Easter Triduum and Christmas, there has been a range of events in our guesthouse: Study Days for the Young Catholic Adults’ Network (YouCAN), monthly Quiet Days, a Beginners’ Retreat, a themed retreat during the Season of Creation, and another one for All Saints and All Souls, both facilitated and led by generous friends of the community. Groups which have had a time of retreat in the guesthouse include members of an RCIA team from Clifton diocese, seminarians from St. Mary’s College at Oscott, Teams of Our Lady, students for the permanent diaconate, a priests’ retreat group, local Christian groups and Reading Buddhists’ Priory.
Our Chaplain Fr. Ted, continues to serve us generously, and offer a welcome to our guests. We are grateful to him, and to all who support our monastic life by their generous gifts of time and skill and prayer.
Sr. Audrey set off in July for formation sessions, first at our Generalate House in Lille, France, and then in Rome. In September she joined her new community at the Monastery of Our Lady of Hyning in Lancashire. We are grateful for all that she contributed to our life in her four years at Brownshill, and we are pleased that she is not so very far away!
One unwelcome departure was that of our electricity supply on the 2nd January, when a large tree fell, bringing down the electric cable supplying a few dozen properties. Take-away chips by candlelight helped to keep up morale, as did the sound of chainsaws, as the tree was cleared and the electric cable repaired. It was a huge relief, when the electricity was restored in the morning to give us light for Lauds, and hot water for the tea! All this made for an unusual welcome to Sister Mary Stella and Sr. Pauline from our community at Hyning. This was a chance to say goodbye to Sr. Pauline, who had decided after much discernment to leave our Order and try her vocation with a different Religious Congregation. We keep her in our prayers and wish her well on her future path.
Sr. Maria visited her parents, who are less able to travel now, and her siblings visited her at Brownshill. Sr. Hilda visited her parents several times. Her mother, Susan, died on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 14th September, not long after her 90th birthday. We pray that she and all our friends and loved ones, who have died, will be rejoicing now in heaven and interceding for us all.
Sr. Reina joined our community on 3rd October. Many of you will recognize her from her 2-years at Brownshill, before and during the pandemic. She got straight to work in the guests’ dining room and sewing room, as well as participating on the panel of an on-line vocation meeting for those discerning a vocation to Religious Life.
Sr. Reina arrived in time for the October meeting of our Oblates, when Catherin Egan made her first promise. The Oblates keep Sr. Catherine busy, organising the two annual Oblate days and staying in touch with them all.
Those who visited the community included Sr. Mildred OSB of Minster Abbey in January, who was preparing for her solemn profession; Mother Anne OSB of Malling Abbey; and the priests who have celebrated Mass for us when Fr. Ted was with his own community in London. We are very grateful to the priests who support us in this way, and we appreciate the variety of riches they bring to the celebration of the Eucharist.
We were very happy to welcome our Sisters from Hyning in Eastertide for our annual retreat, preceded by a day of prayerful reflection together about how we are experiencing the realities of life in our two English monasteries today. Three of our Sisters from Hyning made the long journey from Lancashire to Gloucestershire so that we could be all together. They returned the next day to look after the monastery at Hyning, while the rest of us were on retreat at Brownshill.
Fr. Kevin McGinnell of Northampton Diocese led the retreat; an inspired and inspiring series of conferences on the Eucharistic Prayer, which has enhanced our appreciation of and participation in the Mass. Fr. Kevin is an old friend of the Bernardines, who knows us well, and clearly enjoyed sharing our liturgy and meals. It was a pleasure to have Sr. Christine Marie, a French Bernardine, with us for the retreat also, a contemporary of Sr. Mary Lucy with wide experience of the Order, most recently of our community in VietNam.
In May, Sr. Elizabeth Mary, our Prioress General, came to conduct our Regular Visitation, accompanied by the Prioress of our Bernardine community in Lille, Sr. Marie Nicole, who felt at home at Brownshill, having lived here for 6 months in 2007. We appreciated her wisdom and sympathetic presence among us. Sr. Elizabeth Mary knows us extremely well, of course, and community benefitted from her listening ear, insight and encouragement.
We were delighted to welcome Bernardine Sisters from the continents of Africa and Asia in the course of 2024. In May Soeur Godelieve arrived from Burkina Faso to spend six weeks in England. Sr. Maria met her from Heathrow airport in driving rain and even thunder – not the best welcome to the UK! Undeterred, S Godelieve made the most of her weeks at Brownshill to rest and to explore, including a beautiful summer’s day in the historic city of Bath, accompanied by Sr. Michelle Marie and Sr. Hilda. In November, Soeur Christine, superior of our community in VietNam, spent five days at Brownshill with Sr. Elizabeth Mary en-route to Lancashire for the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Monastery of Our Lady of Hyning. It was the second golden jubilee of the year for S. Christine, who had celebrated her own golden jubilee of profession with S. Marie Nicole in March in France. Sr. Mary Philippa had the pleasure of sharing in that celebration on St. Patrick’s Day (which fell on a Sunday in Lent)!
Sr. Michelle Marie, as one of the very first Sisters to form a Bernardine community at Hyning, was a guest of honour at celebrations of the ruby jubilee of Hyning’s Church in September and the golden jubilee of the Monastery in November.
There were more milestones to mark in 2024, with significant birthdays in the community, resulting in a combined age of 170 years for our three Sisters! Sr. Catherine’s family made a weekend of pre-birthday celebrations for her in October, and her youngest nephew and his wife, came to stay in September on a brief visit to the UK from their home in Jerusalem.
There was a significant change in our Diocese of Clifton. We have a new Bishop, Bosco McDonald, whose episcopal ordination was attended by Sr. Elizabeth Mary, Sr. Maria and Sr. Mary Philippa. Like many in the diocese, we were a little sad at the news of Bishop Declan Lang’s retirement. He has been a generous friend to our community even before its foundation, and we are very grateful for his support and interest in our life. We wish Bp Declan a long and happy retirement, and Bp Bosco a long and fruitful ministry.
We also have a new vicar for religious, Fr. Thomas Kulandaisamy, whose first major task was a Day for the Religious of the Diocese at Brownshill on 22nd October. Sr. Maria continues as assistant to the VR, and she organized the day, which was expertly facilitated by Vron Smith of the Jesuit Institute, to encourage us to take up the theme of the Jubilee Year and Pope Francis’ call to be Pilgrims of Hope.
Hope is a good note on which to end, so let us consider the hope to which the Lord calls us, holding in prayer so many situations of war and violence, sickness and injustice, and trusting in God’s plans for each one of us….
We wish you all a joyful Christmas. May the Christ Child bless you and your families throughout 2025.
