Sunday, July 26, 2015

Because I love rain...

...I relished our final day with the Dominican Sisters in the New Forest...everything cool and fresh with heavenly views. The chapel is beautiful: built in a medieval style, its strong wide wooden beams held firmly in place with wooden pegs instead of nails, it has full-length clear glass windows that seem to invite all the beauty of the surrounding meadows to be part of our worship too. The sisters will soon need some more choir-stalls as the community is growing steadily.  The singing is lovely. The sisters are extraordinarily busy, organising youth events, running catechetical programmes across the Poirtsmouth diocese, and active at every major Catholuc gathering for young people in Britain...but their lives centre around the call of the bell that summons them to prayer.

We were given hearty meals, had long and wonderful talks - and much laughter - with the sisters, enjoyed books, walks, the garden, prayer, and silence. It was a weekend to cherish.

If you want to meet the Sisters, one of the best ways would be to join them - and some 30 or more cheerful pilgrims - on the John Paul II Walk for the New Evangelisation, which takes place in a couple of weeks time. Info from that link I've given.

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