Last week, a truly historic event took place, with the formal erection, solemn profession and monastic consecration of the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the former convent of another Marian order, the Little Sisters of the Assumption. A year ago, after the sisters’ reception into the Catholic Church, and their formal recognition, on New Years day 2013, as a new religious association within the Catholic Church (but not yet as a full-fledged religious community) by the Ordinary of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Mgr Keith Newton, I wrote the following: “The lives of the SBVM will now be uncertain. They have nothing: but they are full of confidence that all will be well, in God’s way, not theirs. They will be spending [some time] with a Benedictine community, to acclimatise themselves to Benedictine ways. Then, they will be homeless and penniless: in the words of their splendid superior, Mother Winsome: 'We’ve got an uncertain future. But we are doing this because we truly believe this is God’s call. The Bible is full of people called to step out in faith not knowing where they were going or how they will be provided for and that truly is the situation we are following.'” Well, they have had, as they thought, an uncertain year, for much of which it did seem as though their prospects of finding a suitable home were really not looking good: they lived for the first eight months after their reception into the Church as guests at an enclosed Benedictine abbey on the Isle of Wight. This seems to have been an important learning experience; but not one that could have gone on indefinitely. “The abbess and the community there shared their Benedictine life with us and welcomed us into their hearts in the most wonderfully generous way”, Mother Winsome said on hearing the news that they were indeed to have a new home. “It has been a life of complete harmony and joy and it will be a wrench to leave. But we are pleased beyond measure that our journey of faith has taken this new direction.” Their new buildings, at 99 Old Oscottt Hill, Kingstanding, a stone’s throw from the Maryvale insititute in Birmingham, are not, it has to be said, picturesque. Going from beautiful Gothic architecture to something that looks like an airport lounge or an NHS hospital is a common (some, but not me, would say salutary) experience for Anglican converts. The sisters’ new monastery, after the architectural beauties of Wantage, might have been depressing: but clearly they are not to them. For, truly, once you have been welcomed into their new home by the sisters, you hardly notice the architectural privations of the place, so glowing is their faith. All of the sisters had already, as Anglicans, made their final vows, at different times, widely separated, something which was acknowledged in the ceremony in the fact that after Mother Winsome herself made her Profession of Solemn Vows, the rest of the sisters followed in order, “according to their years in religion”: a recognition of the reality of their vocations as Anglican sisters (which once the Catholic Church would have denied, simply — and absurdly — considering their former Community of Saint Mary the Virgin to have been an association of pious protestant laywomen). What we witnessed last week was the final vows of all the sisters TOGETHER but one after the other: this led to a tenfold repetition of the same words, a truly awesome thing to witness, for the repetition brought home to those of us who were NOT making these vows what a profoundly solemn total commitment was being entered into. The sisters began by replying in the affirmative, together, to each of the following questions, put by the Ordinary: