Live-streaming the sisters at prayer during lockdown has literally been a godsend for my autistic daughter and I. My daughter loves routine and once her Day Service closed on March 23rd I was fearful that a lack of routine would impact her mental health.
We started immediately to access the Angelus, Midday Prayer and Mass, followed by the Rosary and Evening Prayer and then before bed Adoration and Compline. It punctuated her day and gave her a set of friends with whom to pray and a much needed sense of church community when our churches were closed and we were deprived of the Holy Mass. If she wakes early enough she also joins in with Morning Prayer.
Jo, Southampton
During lockdown I have been trying to keep to my usual routine of prayer morning and evening with Magnificat. I pray the Rosary before I get out of bed in the morning. When the weather is good, which it has been, I make tea and sit in the garden to say Morning Prayer. It is beautiful and peaceful and I can hear the birds singing and smell the roses! I pray when I am ironing or out walking, sometimes when I am cooking or gardening.
I have been joining you all for Mass most days, occasionally joining Fr George on live-stream at Our Lady of Lourdes. I read the second reading from the Office of Readings which is usually thought provoking.
I am enjoying the Psalm-a-Day and have been listening to the talks on the sisters' YouTube channel.
We all come together in the lounge on a Sunday morning for your live-streamed Mass which we follow with coffee and chocolate biscuits! That is a very special time. We might not be in church but God is definitely present with us. I have managed Adoration and Compline twice!
Clare, New Milton
Finally, we have a slightly different take from Margaret, on how her Carmelite spirituality has helped her during lockdown. Margaret is a Lay Carmelite attached to the Priory at Boar's Hill, Oxford.
Fr James McCaffrey in his book The Fire of Love describes Carmel (in Hebrew ‘karem’) as a vineyard or garden - more accurately, a kind of woodland adorned with a rich variety of shrubs, wild flowers and small trees, much like Mount Carmel Is today. Carmel is also a Biblical symbol for beauty and fruitfulness.
The Carmelite Way is a journey of the heart. Only God can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. For me the only way that I can begin to open my heart to God is to withdraw into a quiet place in my mind and be still. I often don’t think of anything - I just allow the silence to surround and fill me with a feeling of well-being. I guess that is the essence of contemplation: to be still and therefore open, to listen to the voice that speaks in the silence.
The lockdown has been a beautiful opportunity to be still because everything in my life that I thought was important was removed and I was left with myself and God. The forest has become my own Carmel, a place of quiet beauty.
Margaret, Lymington
Next month Sr Lucy will be asking the sisters about their favourite Marian apparition sites. If you've got a Quodlibet for the sisters, please let us know and we'll include it in a future Quarterly!
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