The
new religious community of the Personal Ordinariate, the Sisters of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, have a permanent home for the first time since
they were received into the full communion of the Catholic Church on New
Year’s Day. They are to move on Tuesday (August 27) into a convent in
Birmingham which is the former home of the Little Sisters of the
Assumption.
Mother
Winsome, the Superior of the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary, said:
“We are absolutely overjoyed to have been given the opportunity to live
in this convent. We have prayed long and hard and the Lord has opened
up this way for us. It is a gift from God.”
The
community, established as part of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady
of Walsingham adopting the Benedictine rule, includes eleven sisters who
had been part of the Anglican Community of St Mary the Virgin in
Wantage Oxfordshire and one, Sister Carolyne Joseph, who belonged to an
Anglican community in Walsingham.
With
no endowments to keep them afloat financially, the sisters have been
living for the last eight months as guests at an enclosed Benedictine
abbey on the Isle of Wight. “The abbess and the community there shared
their Benedictine life with us and welcomed us into their hearts in the
most wonderfully generous way”, Mother Winsome said. “It has been a life
of complete harmony and joy and it will be a wrench to leave. But we
are pleased beyond measure that our journey of faith has taken this new
direction”.
The
provision of Benedictine hospitality through retreats is central to the
community’s charism. Their intention is to earn a living at their new
home by offering retreats and the ministry of spiritual direction.
