The alternative is worse
Pulcini, Theodore
TY MAM DUW COMMUNITY THE BUCK STOPS HERE Ty Mam Duw is the home of the Poor Clare Colettine Community in Hawarden, North Wales, Great Britain. Poor Clares are Franciscan women religious who...
...Dear Mother, John shot himself up on the moors...
...We also came to a friendly, mutual arrangement about visitors— we would put up studying nuns for them, and they would look after exalted ecclesiastical gentlemen for us...
...It has a shrine chapel of Our Lady of Schonstatt, Mother of Fair Love, and is also a center for pilgrimage and retreat...
...On the crest of this wave of goodwill, we sent a member of our community designated to the "external work" to call on our "separated brethren" whilst out shopping...
...fear of the high price that one must now pay in our Western society to be a Christian...
...The scrubbed face, the rope cord, and the patched habit behind the wrought iron grilles which separate the parlors and the choir are a safe place to leave your burden...
...Often these were people who had not been inside a church of any denomination since childhood—if at all—and some were fellow Christians of other denominations...
...Friends and mothers arc people who are always there, who provide a loving, receptive continuity in the midst of turmoil...
...It was a Monday morning, and to the sister's surprise, the door of the Church of St...
...I haven't included my name and address...
...It is the assured wisdom that the scandal of our division keeps many would-be Christians from our ranks...
...What keeps many from our ranks is genuine ignorance of what we are, and fear...
...We had more courage than facilities, and the enclosure wall with its two small gratings which at that time divided the public chapel from the sisters' choir did not deter us...
...But all this is, as it were, the foothills of our objective...
...Francis composed...
...Many people came and brought their cards (and jam jars...
...We are all desperate...
...We heard with amazement that they had not got round to a joint ecumenical service in Hawarden, and we decided when Christmas came to hold a carol service...
...There is not a lot to see in Hawarden beyond the castle, the library, and the statue of Mr...
...Alongside the new dining hall we lodged the craft room where the community's handiwork is on sale: including cards, jams, icons, knitwear, woodwork, toys, and "nearly new" jumble...
...Desperation is completely ecumenical, we can all understand it...
...Nothing abashed, sister swept meekly down the stairs, assuring them lovingly that we prayed for them all, and were united with them in prayer...
...Commonweal 17 January 1992: 17...
...Clare called charity "the bond of perfection, it is the thing that ties us together...
...and Canon Davies showed her round the church and introduced her to a generous member of his flock who showed her round the village...
...I am desperate...
...When we arrived in Hawarden on the high tide of Pope John Paul Il's visit to Britain in 1982, interchurch courtesy was the stuff of headlines...
...Bringing groups for Vespers has also been a way of sharing, along with welcoming people who wish to pray in the great simplicity and beauty of our chapel...
...Dear Friends, I am fifteen and pregnant, I am still at school...
...Amen...
...In 1986 we rebuilt the church and choir area so that we now have an L-shaped chapel with an open wrought iron grille, and use the old chapel, now completely separate, as a dining room for the increasing number of groups, Catholic and otherwise, who wished to come for a day of prayer...
...We welcomed them, gave them a newsletter, thanked them for their kindness, and showed them the shop—where they generally bought a pot of marmalade...
...With actively committed Christians of any denomination it 16: 17 January 1992 Commonweal will not be difficult to reach unity...
...But they appeared more electrified than edified, and leaped in the air and fell back a pace or two...
...We had an area about twenty feet by nine feet in which we offered about a hundred people tea, not without difficulty...
...Gladstone which was cast for O'Connell Street but never arrived, so many visitors to St...
...now all our sisters walk quietly, so naturally she made no racket as she approached...
...A lot of love can be shared by needing Christmas cards and selling jam...
...The buck stops here...
...We send out an annual Christmas newsletter to all our benefactors, sharing our news and asking for their continued support...
...On this occasion, the Reverend Jagger, the warden of the library, welcomed sister, gave her coffee, and a guided tour of the precincts...
...Most of the food that we eat, that is not home-grown, is begged...
...Even more wrote and continue to write...
...This carol service on the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent has become a permanent feature in our life...
...One visiting group was an ecumenical pilgrimage from Albi in France—as they said, they were Albigensians...
...We are in the Decade of Evangelization, preparing for the second millennium...
...In addition it gives courses and summer schools which attract visitors from different parts of the world...
...She wandered around till she heard voices...
...They were by no means all Catholics, but their unity is often that of desperate need: Dear Mother, My wife left me on Thursday, we have three children under seven, one with advanced Down's syndrome...
...Deiniol's do read the "Visitors Welcome" notice and walk over to see us...
...Deiniol's Church is adjacent to St...
...Dear Friends of Ty Mam Duw, I heard about you...
...It was her first day serving the community in the external work, and as she silently glided down the vestry steps she really meant to say "Good morning," but from force of conventual habit she exclaimed "Praised be Jesus Christ...
...It did, however, impede us, since our singing was virtually inaudible...
...Deiniol's Church, that sister learned that they had (Continued on page 16) 12: 17 January 1992 Commonweal (Continued from page 12) momentarily mistaken her for a pre-Reformation ghost...
...The house of our community had been in Hawarden for fifty years before we arrived from the London community to swell the ranks...
...fear that the sacrifices that must be made to cross the bridge are not worth it...
...She is a part of the truce of God...
...That is our gift: complete love casts out fear...
...This, if put to the test, will be found untrue...
...What holds back the reunion of the Christian churches is the great majority of their people who combine apathy with fear...
...We have used dance and drama in our liturgy and at the annual carol service as a noncontroversial form of sharing...
...Poor Clares are Franciscan women religious who lead an enclosed, contemplative life...
...To this the three clergy, deep in discussion, ought to have answered "Now and forever...
...My parents demand that I have an abortion...
...We survive on the little we can earn by the work of our hands and on the alms people generously give us...
...We mentioned our need for old Christmas cards and kind friends notified the Liverpool Post and some other papers...
...Most of them did not speak English, so instead of Vespers or a shared service we performed mime, the "Call of St...
...The consecrated woman is a state of neutrality, a most literal no-man's-land where the contending forces can meet in safety...
...We are always at home, we cannot go off for the weekend or the week...
...But all this only scratched the surface...
...This is a research center and also a seminary for mature students for the Church in Wales...
...We came into our own with old and used Christmas cards...
...Like all Franciscans, we have no financial basis...
...The mountain beyond is a life of love lived in community together, in adoration of the Trinity, and intercession for the needs of all the people of God—Gentile and Jew, slave and free, men and women....Charity is the fruit of prayer, prayer is one of the greatest means by which we may obtain the grace to fulfill Christ's command to love one another...
...Gladstone...
...I am desperate— where did I fail him...
...We are here to show by our love and acceptance, and above all by our joy, that it is supremely worth it...
...Deiniol's Library, the creation of W.E...
...There the Methodist minister, a lady, administered five chapels under many difficulties on her own...
...Clare" (our foundress), on the origins of our way of life, and danced the "Canticle of the Creatures" that our holy father St...
...She arrived first at the parish church (Church in Wales—the Welsh branch of the Anglican church...
...On the way home sister dropped in at the Manse...
...Ty Mam Duw" is Welsh for "House of the Mother of God...
...We are like that...
...We put a small poster advertising this in the entrance hall of St Deiniol's Library...
...I borrowed a lot of money from my father and my sister to start the business, and it failed completely...
...I am desperate...
...Deiniol was open...
...The three grinned rather sheepishly, and it was only when our acquaintance had advanced somewhat with Canon Davies, the rector of St...
Vol. 119 • January 1992 • No. 1
