ST PAUL’S POST St Paul’s Province Weekly Newsletter: 135 8 July 2019

Our birthday girls this

week are:

Damian Coleman 11 July

Helena McCamphill 11 July

1 C

ori

nth

ian

s 1

3:1

2 For now we see in a

mirror dimly,

But then face to face.

Relatives/friends of Sisters:

Marguerita’s brother, Pat;

Damian’s brother, Brendan, now seriously ill;

Anna Hainey’s brothers, Danny & Jim;

Eily May’s brothers, Tade & Jack, and her sister, Mary Philomena White;

Lorraine’s Mum, Mary;

Francis’ niece-in-law, Val McCartan;

Kathleen Doran’s niece-in-law, Kerry;

Mary Curtin’s niece, Breed;

Julie Thompson, the Briery Cook;

Alex Kelly, Cecilia Wilkinson’s nephew;

Nicky Allan, Co-Manager of Elmleigh;

Francine’s brother-in-law, Bill Knowles, & her

sister, Rita;

Michael Clyne, Brigid Murphy’s brother-in-law;

Michelle Reid, Rita McStay’s niece-in-law;

Elaine Plunkett, Keighley Associate;

Carmel Comerford’s sister, Clare;

Barbara Sexton’s brother, Denis, and his

wife, Breda, and Barbara’s sister-in-law,

Angela;

Mary McLean, Margaret Travers’ sister;

Anna Kearns, grandniece of Sr Annie McCambridge;

Maria Somers, wife of Paschal.

Our Sisters:

Cephas Wearden

Margaret Collins

Nora Horan

Regina Boland

Carmel Comerford

Mary Sloan

Maire Murphy

Marie Antonine

Kathleen Kinane

Kathleen Shelly

Rita McStay

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

IN THE LIVES OF OTHERS

On Friday, June 28th we had the great joy of

welcoming three new Associates into our

community. Gerry Grabowski and Betty &

Tom Cotter made their initial covenant in the

context of the Liturgy for the Feast of the Sacred

Heart. The Ceremony was held at St Bernard’s

Church in North Kingstown with a beautiful

reception at One Wright Lane. Several of the

worshiping community from St Bernard’s joined

us for the festivities.

Congratulations to each of them.

The addresses for our three new

Associates are as follows:

Gerry Grabowski

169 Georgia Avenue

North Kingstown, RI 02852

email: gerrygrabowski7000@gmail.com

Betty & Tom Cotter

30 Laurel Ridge Lane

North Kingstown, RI 02852

email: bcotter@ox.net

Some of our other Associates & Sisters

who were present at the ceremony.

From Bernadette Hughes, Our Lady of Dolors community

One day last week I was reading R Rohr’s Daily Meditation and it came home to me just what

‘God comes to us in our daily life’ means, so I thought I’d share it!

Brie Stoner, at the time of writing this, is the mother of a toddler and a 9 month old baby doing a

course at the Centre for Action and Contemplation. She writes:

I was so excited to have been admitted to the first class of the Living School and determined to

somehow make it work, even with a toddler and a nine-month-old at home. But as each day

proceeded, the more uncertain I became: sure, I could have uninterrupted prayer sits

here....where everything was provided for me, with no one needing me, ever; where I had

access to these wisdom teachers...

Finally, during one of James Finley’s sessions, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Jim, can we talk about how much harder all of this is when I’m

back home? Because I get up sometimes at 5:00 am, desperate to

have one prayer sit, and it’s like my kids have radar and

inevitably one of them wakes up ten minutes later. I mean,

where is the icon of the mystic with one baby on the hip, a toddler

crying at their feet, cooking dinner with one hand, trying to finish

work on a laptop with the other? Because that’s my real life.”

Jim said, “Ok, you be you and I’ll be God. And since I’m God, I’m

watching you get up exhausted every morning, and I’m so touched that you want

to spend this time with me. Really, I am! It just means the world to me. The thing is, I just

can’t bear how much I love you. It’s too much! And so at a certain point I rush into the bodies

of your children and wake them up because…..”

Jim paused. “Because I want to know what it feels like to be held by you.”

Yes, the interruption is the presence of God that I was so desperately trying to access in

moments of stillness and silence. With or without the luxury of stillness and silence, God

comes to us disguised as our very lives. In my case, Jim helped me to discover how my

path, as an exhausted young parent, was the monastery of my own transformation. If I

learned to let my heart open enough, I just might begin to recognize each cry, each diaper

change, every play time request…..all of it, as the startlingly stunning, diaphanous infusion, of

infinite love colliding into the small shape of my very finite and ordinary reality. There, at the

intersection of everything, is God with us….. wanting to be touched, noticed, nurtured….held

by us. All we have to do is behold.

Pat Carney

Although from 1920 there were a few Religious Sisters of different

Congregations who stayed in St Gabriel’s while they studied in Manchester,

it was not until 1929 that a Sister of the Cross and Passion arrived to take a

Degree at the University. She was Sister Eugenius (Margaret Scullion).

Born in Portglenone, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland on 28 February 1907, she already held a

Queen’s Scholarship as a pupil-teacher before she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of the Cross

and Passion at Mt St Joseph Convent, Bolton, Lancashire in 1926. Having made her Vows in 1929

she arrived in St Gabriel’s Hall on 5 October that year to attend the Arts Department of

Manchester University, specialising in Latin, English and History. On 19 March 1932 she made her

Final Vows in the Chapel of St Gabriel’s Hall. Then on 9 July that year she was awarded the

Degree of Bachelor of Arts, the first Sister of the Cross and Passion as such to attend and qualify

at the University of Manchester. She then studied for her Teacher’s Diploma at the University of

Leeds. In 1933 she was appointed to the Primary Department of St Michael’s College, Irvine,

Ayrshire, Scotland. From Easter 1951 she taught in the Secondary Department as Special

Assistant in Religious, History, English and Latin. In 1971, however, she became seriously ill and

died in Ballochmyle hospital on 21 May that year.

The second Sister of the Cross and Passion to study at the University of Manchester was Sister

Fidelia Glover. Born on 10 October 1912, she arrived in St Gabriel’s Hall on 7 October 1933 to

begin her first term. She seems to have taken a Degree in French for in August 1934 she spent

time in Paris, returning to St Gabriel’s on 1 September. She was in Paris again from May to the

end of July 1935, presumably learning and studying the language, history and customs of France.

On 30 September 1935 Sister Olivia Curran joined her in St Gabriel’s Hall to attend the Classics

Department of the University. Sister Fidelia made her Final Vows on 25 March 1936 and then, on

3 July, was awarded her Degree. On 31 August that year Sister Consolata Shields arrived in St

Gabriel’s to accompany Sister Fidelia to the Catholic Teacher Training College at Sedgley Park at

the other side of Manchester. On 15 September 1936 Sister Pauline Loughrey arrived in St

Gabriel’s to join Sister Olivia in the Classics Department and on 1 October 1937 Sister Concetta

Sloan also joined that Department. Sister Gabrielle Marie O’Hagan arrived on the following day

to specialise in History. In 1936, therefore, there were four Sisters of the Cross and Passion

reading for Degrees in the University of Manchester and two others studying at Sedgley Park and

returning to St Gabriel’s at the end of each term. Sister Olivia made her Final Vows as a Sister of

the Cross and Passion on 3 May 1938, graduated BA Honours in Classics on 9 July 1938 and

returned to the University first to study for an MA and then, from 30 September 1940, for a PhD.

In the meantime, on 13 September 1938, Sister Anna Maria Reynolds had arrived to take an

Honours Degree in English and on 9 October 1938 Sister Marie De Montfort Shanahan. On 28

April and 12 May 1939 respectively Sister Pauline and Sister Gabrielle Marie made their Final

Vows and then completed their studies for their Honours Degrees in Classics and History

respectively, before proceeding to a teacher-training college.

Part Four: — St Gabriel’s Hall,

A Home for Sisters of the Cross and Passion

All these seven Sisters did sterling work in the future, particularly in teaching in the secondary

schools run by the Sisters of the Cross and Passion in Ballycastle, St Michael’s, Irvine, Mt St

Joseph, Bolton, St Joseph’s, Bradford, the Cross and Passion Convent

School, Kilcullen and Maryfield, Dublin but also in other capacities.

Several were headmistresses, even opening new schools, some were

elected to be members of General or Provincial Councils, some

mistresses of novices. Sister Anna Maria, who later went on to become

a PhD, was the first vice-principal of Trinity and All Saints Training

College, Leeds and after her retiral went out to Botswana to assist the

budding University of Gaberone; and Sister Olivia played an important

role in establishing St Gemma’s Hospice, Leeds. The University of

Manchester could be proud of such former students. St Gabriel’s Hall

Sister Dominic Savio Hamer CP (copyright)

This close up does not do justice to this wonderful image. The detail is amazing and we can only imagine the time and patience taken to produce it. The Sisters are very touched and grateful to the novices for this gift.

Máire O’Sullivan

Sr Eileen presented this beautiful framed picture of Our Lady, done in exquisite quilling, by our novices in Vietnam, for the Sensory Room in Villa Pacis. Pictured are:

Back row: Srs John Vianney, Helena, Eileen and Magella.

Front row: Srs Therese, Rose, Marie Antonine and Lawrence.

Below left: In the Sensory Room.