When two or three are gathered together

We met, just the three of us, at the beautiful Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Northampton yesterday.  We are putting heart and soul into establishing a new Secular Carmelite group there.  We don’t know for sure what God will do with us, but we are offering ourselves in that place in prayer and opening ourselves to the possibility that He will do a work there.  It is God’s group, as all our groups are, and we are in His hands.  It was cold in our meeting room yesterday and we laughed about that little pinprick of suffering; I thought that our thirty minutes of silent prayer together in that cold room would be a real trial, but I got through it … There are other new groups elsewhere in Coventry and Lincoln and Romsey and we are working on one in Cardiff.  Shoots of new life while at the same time established groups (and monastic communities) are ageing.  Last night we talked about the mystery of life: it’s not just the religious view of life to talk about this mystery, because most of life is a mystery – what is that person thinking? Why did that thing happen to me today? Why was I born into this family and not another? Why did the Pandemic happen? What caused the election result?  People kid themselves about the extent of their understanding of what goes on around them, and in this sense our deep-rooted Carmelite belief in a mysterious Providence (which of course is just the Catholic belief) is perfectly rational.

Intercessions:

Bernard – cancer

Siena – infant with severe medical issues

Rosemarie – multiple afflictions