SELLY PARK January 26th 2013
Bing Crosby’s “Dreaming of a White Christmas” made him famous, but this year, as our Congregational Feast drew near, the Sisters of St. Paul who had set their hearts on coming to Selly Park to celebrate it with the Congregation were dreaming of green fields and clear motorways.Alas! for some, their dreams did not materialise.However, a good number did manage to travel even from as far away as Ireland, Leeds and London and felt it worth the effort.
The picturesque views from the cloister windows and elsewhere were matched by the warmth and hospitality indoors as always.Before Mass one could hear a happy buzz as the Sisters chatted over their coffee in the cloister.Afterwards all proceeded to the chapel where the organ was playing the rousing chorus:
“Let us build the city of God.
May our tears be turned into dancing!
For the Lord, our light and our love,
Has turned the night into day!
Then the four concelebrants processed up the aisle.The main celebrant was Monsignor Menezes who was assisted by Fathers Denis McGillicuddy, Seamus Hetherton and Chris Handforth, our new Chaplain.After the concluding lines of the opening hymn:
“O city of gladness, now lift up your voice!Proclaim the good tidings that all may rejoice!” Sister Kathleen went to the lectern to welcome everybody to what is, perhaps, the most important gathering of the year commemorating the conversion of our Patron, St. Paul, and the feast day of our Mother Foundress, the second centenary of whose birth we honour this year.Sister Kathleen used the occasion also to welcome our Chaplain who had to battle with the inclement weather and icy roads to reach Selly Park on two successive days after his appointment.
Normally, this being the year of faith, one would expect Sister Kathleen to link our consecration as Religious Sisters to a deepening of our faith, and this she did by citing a living example of it.On a recent visit to the Infirmary she was edified by seeing a Sister reading the booklet with reflections for the year of faith and finding her cross-referencing in the C.C.C. with the help of her magnifying glass.This Sister is just six months off her hundredth birthday!
Relevant to our life also, Sister Kathleen quoted the short reflection of Geneviève’s in our centenary calendar for 26th January:
Whatever we do, let us do it as perfectly as we can for Jesus’ sake.Then if we do not succeed in “providing good things in the sight of others” we shall always do so in the sight of God.
In conclusion Sister Kathleen said:“Let us rejoice today in the faith we share in the company of one another”.
In his homily Monsignor Menezes spoke of conversion, faith and evangelisation as exemplified in the life of St. Paul.That dramatic life-changing event in Scripture which we had just heard in the reading had taken on a new meaning, he said, namely the real joy Paul felt in his mission of evangelisation.To Timothy he says: “I am reminding you to fan into a flame the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you… and never be ashamed of witnessing to the Lord or ashamed of me for being his prisoner”. It is our closeness to God, Father Menezes said, our own faith-journey that rejoices in seeing conversion in others.So too, in this year of faith we rejoice in the life of Geneviève – the energy and zeal that inspired her to be an evangeliser and continues to inspire her Sisters to be people of welcome and love in Selly Park or wherever they are.In conclusion he asked each of us to hold before God in our memory and prayer one who inspired us to witness and testify to what we have seen and never to lose heart.
As the Mass continued the inspirational hymns chosen for the day lifted our thoughts heavenward to realise that “we hold a treasure not made of gold, in earthen vessels… the Christ, the Lord.In the Recessional Hymn we turned to our great Patron once more as we sang:
“O Great St. Paul be at our side, whene’er our eyes are blind;
Be thou our teacher and our guide, with truth instil our mind”
It was now time for “table fellowship” and all adjourned to the refectory where we partook of an appetising meal.Later that afternoon as we wished our visiting Sisters God-speed we recalled once again the thought for that day as put before us in our Community Calendar:
Whatever we do, let us do it as perfectly as we can for Jesus’ sake.Then if we do not succeed in “providing good things in the sight of others” we shall always do so in the sight of God.
