Some people run away to join the circus. But when life all gets a bit much, I dream of running away to join Sr Camilla and her merry band of nuns, deep in the heart of Norfolk.
I have, in fact, escaped my own particular circus — the exhausting juggle of work and raising a young family with never enough childcare — to spend a few days with the sisters of the Community of Our Lady of Walsingham. There, in one of the two shepherd’s huts in their grounds, I crashed out for several hours, then rose to join in with whichever of the offices of the day took my fancy, before returning to my hermitage to write.
They are always on hand with spiritual advice, too. When Sr Camilla asked if I’d like to come to Adoration in their chapel, I replied, somewhat embarrassed, that, as a convert, I’d never been and wasn’t quite sure what I would get out of it.
“Oh,” she replied, with a broad, beatific smile, “it’s like sitting in the sun in a hot country, absorbing that intense warmth.” And she was absolutely right.
On another occasion, horribly stressed from marshalling one of my tricky sons out of the house to his First Holy Communion class (run by the then-novice, Sr Catherine), I practically threw him out of the car at the church, then drove on to the sisters in tears. There I collapsed in an armchair begging for help with what felt like my pathetic parenting skills and impossible children. Mairead (now Sr Mairead), a wonderfully calm, wise woman who had worked as a teacher, made me tea, sat and listened, imparted a little of that wisdom and sent me back out into the world calmer.
Perhaps the sisters’ secret is that they manage to be both apart from the world but very much in it. As Sr Mairead says, what helped with her discernment was “the bright, cheerful blue habit and no veil... And these were women that I could talk to.”
When I visit the sisters at the House of the Divine Will at Dereham to talk about plans to buy a mission house in Walsingham, their spiritual home, the younger nuns take Gus, my nine-year-old son, off to play table tennis while Sr Camilla and I chat. Kate is about to take her first vows, Valentina, who is Italian and used to work in racing in Newmarket, is working towards her first vows in the autumn. Then there is a young postulant, who has a striking tattoo sleeve on one arm.
“Now I’ve got one arm that will never be done,” she says, a little wistfully, but laughs when I suggest that perhaps her tattoos are being drawn on the inside.
“There are eight of us now,” says Sr Camilla, “so we are nearly full.” This includes Sr Gabi, who has been with COLW since Sr Camilla was inspired to form the order in 2004, to live the spirituality of Walsingham in the fiat of Mary (the name came to her while praying in the Slipper Chapel there).
The sisters did have a presence in Walsingham for a few years, running a retreat house, but their tiny cottage prevented any expansion — “and poor Sr Theresa, who is six foot, kept hitting her head on the steel beams!” Property prices in Walsingham prohibited buying their own house there. But now a marvellous opportunity has come up to buy what they hope will be their mission house in Walsingham — and the sisters are fundraising in earnest.
The new house would accommodate a small number of retreatants and be “a service of the locals and the parish”. As a community they hope to “expand the heart of Mary” in Walsingham and “build bridges between the different communities. I think only the heart of a mother can do that,” adds Sr Camilla.
Though please don’t describe her as Mother Superior: “I don’t use ‘mother’ because it facilitates infantile behaviour!” she laughs. I remind her that when my sons were having FHC sessions, Sr Catherine told them to think of Sr Camilla as “a sort of Obi-Wan Kenobi”, and they got it immediately. “That’s wonderful,” she replies, “it’s so lovely to lighten it a little.”
The new house will give the sisters the space to welcome new postulants; several young women are keen to discern their vocations. There are also thriving lay and youth branches, and the sisters are booked up for missions for the rest of the year, in Britain and the US. Why is there a thirst for what they do?
“Oh my,” says Sr Camilla, “I think because we’re just so normal.” “And fun?” I venture. She nods, stressing that they are about “making the faith relevant to everyday life. It’s not about being up there,” she gestures, “it’s about allowing Christ to live in you where you are now, in the mess of everyday life.”
As I am getting up to leave, Gus bursts in, boasting that he has beaten all the sisters at table tennis. Sr Camilla narrows her eyes slightly, takes him back to the games room and swiftly thrashes him in a final game. She jokes that when one of the younger sisters can beat her — she is 64 — she’ll know it’s time to go. The many friends of COLW will hope that day is a long way off.
To support the community in establishing a house of prayer and service in Walsingham please visit: maryshouseappeal.org
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