Prayer of the heart

We are encouraged to pray during the 13 months leading up to our General Chapter with a different text for each month. The mantra for August is

“Spirit, come and transform us.”

Holy Spirit, Stained glass window
St Peter's Cathedral, Lancaster

For information about using a mantra in Christian meditation click here At the bottom of the basic description on meditation is a link to an article entitled "Why do Christian Meditators call the prayer word a ‘mantra’" by Fr Lawrence Freeman OSB

Provincial Chapter

The Biblical text that we have chosen as the theme for our Provincial Chapter is taken from Luke 5.4 

“Go out into deep water and lower

your nets for a catch.” 

We need to pray for courage and wisdom to do so. 

Fishing nets

General Chapters

 

St Angela encourages us to visit each other regularly and to rejoice together.The sisters of the North West Cluster meet  about every month. Our last meeting was a special one that occurs only once every six years: the Local Chapter. At it we evaluate how we have tried to live the message that came out of our last General Chapter.The message was:

Thank you ... Comments welcome

Thank you to those readers who have been in touch about this blog. In response to feedback, I've created a contact form which can be used to send messages for those who may wish to offer a comment, or ask a question, but don't want to send me a message to my email.

A link to the comments form will be available on the contact me page, and is in the links section on the right hand side of this home page.  

Image of the comments form

I look forward to hearing from you.  

Visit to Bideford

 

I was recently in  Bideford, north Devon, a town with an Ursuline link. At the beginning of the last century anti-religious laws in France drove many  to England seeking refuge; among them were Ursuline sisters from Avallon. They established a school and were soon receiving local vocations.When the situation in France improved some returned to Avallon but others joined our community in Westgate-on-Sea. I visited their one time convent, now converted into sheltered accommodation.Several of the sisters are buried in Bideford cemetry so I was able to visit their graves, pray for them and ask their support in the vocations ministry. 

Ursulines of the English Province

The launch of this blog coincided significantly, not only with the feast of the Cumbrian martyrs, but also with the advent of a new provincial for the Ursulines of the English Province: Sr Ann-Marie Gardiner. Our prayers and good wishes are with her.We remember too with gratitude the six years of generous service given by our out-going provincial, Sr Maureen Moloney, now recharging her batteries in St Angela's homeland on the shores of Lake Garda.

Recently there was a joint meeting in France of our out-going and in-coming leadership teams during which we visited Lisieux. It happened to be the feast day of Blessed Zelie and Louis Martin so there was a splendid concelebrated Mass in the basilica with crowds of pilgrims from far and wide including England - the Union Jack featured among the flags carried in at the beginning of Mass. At the time of their beatification in 2008, Lancaster Cathedral blog featured an entry about this couple, if you are interested in reading more click here. 

After mass, we continued our celebration at a local tavern!

Leadership team at Lisieux