In the Footsteps of St. Louis Marie de Montfort
"Footsteps Online"
Winter 1999 (Volume 4, Issue 4)
New Life
We all know the truth of the saying that new life must replace the old. It is after all the central statement of the Christian faith: through death we reach new life. It is also a truism in the lived experience of our daily existence.
At every moment we are changing, becoming. We are called to leave the old behind in order to live more deeply our new life. I would describe this as a universal invitation into a process of transformation. In this regard religious are not special because it is a call to all humanity, all creation. But we are and must be a part of it. Surely this is our sign value, our witness, to contemporary society, and to one another in our communities. 'To live is to change and to have changed often is to have lived perfectly' (Newman)
I would like to share with you an example of how the above has been applied over the last eighteen months at St. Joseph's, Ashurst. Over that period a lot has happened! The house had run very well over the previous sixteen years as a retreat centre. This was a collaboration between the Montfort Missionaries and the Dominican Sisters. Then at Easter 1998 the Sisters decided to leave us and strike out on their own. This left the Montfort Missionaries with something of a headache: what to do with such a big house? Could we keep running as a retreat centre? Did we want to? All of this against the background of shrinking numbers and ageing communities, which we are all experiencing these days.
The dilemma of the future of St. Joseph's was given top billing at the next Assembly of the Province. Discussion, reflection, and discernment followed and over a few months it was decided that we only wanted to keep St. Joseph's if it could somehow renew itself for the service of God's people in a more contemporary context, and not just for nostalgic reasons.
Was it coincidence that 1997 had been the fiftieth anniversary of the canonisation of our founder, St. Louis Marie de Montfort? On this occasion the Holy Father wrote to the three superiors general of the Montfortian family: Montfort Missionaries, Daughters of Wisdom and the Brothers of St. Gabriel. The letter was typically congratulatory, but there was no mistaking the challenge it contained either: what the church asks of Montfortian religious today is that you be renewed in your community life and your love for the poor (the poor being so precious to Montfort himself).The next step was to see how we could respond to this kind of invitation. The first thing was to assemble a community. This is where our sister congregation entered the frame. The Daughters of Wisdom, founded by Montfort, were also interested in the possibility of coming together with Fathers and Brothers to find a new way of expressing our charism.
A new community of seven (five men and two women) was brought together at St Joseph's. We were given the time we needed to allow the group to bond and also to discern together the direction we wanted to move in. In other words to choose a focus group for our outreach. This took quite some time, and with the help of an outside facilitator, a good start was made to becoming a community as opposed to a group of individuals. The next step was to invite experienced people along to present the needs to us. The poor are with us always, but which 'poor' was the Lord preparing us for? We discussed being a refuge for prostitutes trying to reform, for teenage boys, who fall through all the nets of the Social Services and who end up homeless and vulnerable.
Perhaps we could be a place for prisoners making their return to the community, or for mental health cases in transition from care units back into the community. We could have been a refuge for single teenage mums in difficulty. Or we could be a refuge for displaced persons? We took some weeks discussing and praying about every one of these possibilities, for each of them was a valid response to the call of the church to be renewed in our love for the poor.
Finally we decided that it should be displaced persons (refugees) that should be our particular response. To walk humbly, act justly, and to love tenderly was our desire. For us the issue of displaced persons was an issue of justice not charity. The decision made, the hardest part was to make it a reality.
The house would have to made ready and this was surprisingly time-consuming and expensive. All sorts of red tape and safety regulations had to be gone through. We had to register as a refugee centre with the local council, who showed great interest in the new moves. We were visited by fire brigade officials and planners and builders and all the other mandarins of officialdom that make life so complicated but are essential in the real world. Fire doors appeared, heat and smoke sensitive alarms were installed and disturbed the peaceful sleep of the community on a few nights while they settled down (the alarms not the community). New fire resistant beds replaced all the generous donations of beds that we had received from good helpful people. A new external fire escape began to grow out of one of the walls. But little by little things began to take shape.
The British Refugee Council had heard of us by this time, and kept asking us when we would be opening our doors to our new guests. It was then that the situation in the Balkans began to appear on the news and very soon we all knew where Kosovo was, even if we had only the slightest awareness of why there were problems there. The need was becoming pressing and so we decided to start off now.
Over the first few weeks we were full. We welcomed five from Kosovo, one from Albania, two from the Congo and three from Iraq. St Joseph's has changed in a relatively short period from classic hospitality to a more radical form. Our new guests do not share our faith. We do not know exactly what has brought them to this country, and we cannot judge. We simply offer them acceptance and care when they are most vulnerable. We have called our new project A.R.C. (Ashurst Refugee Centre).
What seemed like the kiss of death eighteen months ago is already showing signs of new life. Everything has changed: our home, our careers, our ministry, our life.
