A few weeks ago, I had awoken with a real sense of unease. Having so far coped with lockdown reasonably well, for some reason this day felt especially difficult; I felt lost in my thoughts and direction; like something was missing from the everyday that had thus far kept me grounded and optimistic through this pandemic. I remember thinking as I was out walking, how detached I felt from certain things; the comfort of different friends, the everyday attachments that usually come about in one’s working life; chores and tasks that make each day different to the next. I felt so sad at not being able to see my Dad in his care home; so sorry that my friend was slowly losing her brother to cancer; despairing of the low level anxiety about Covid 19 that invaded my thoughts from time to time. In short I just felt so very, very sad.
I don’t know whether it was because of, or as well as, but I’d also realised how much I missed ‘seeing’ our Mother Mary Potter. Being away from the Heritage Centre, I’d not been amongst her belongings, her words and pictures, and all the little things that kept me spiritually ‘on the straight and narrow’. She is my living faith symbol I suppose, though only writing about it now have I come to that realisation. I admire her strength and conviction against such adversity and ill health, her spiritual guidance and close relationship to Our Lady. You see for me as a person, I never doubt my faith and my belief in God, it’s always there embedded in the background of my mind, but I’m not so good at the ‘practising part’, in the sense of attending Mass; the discipline of following, acknowledging and celebrating feast days and all the other events that constitute the life of the ‘practising Catholic’. I could pretend that these things carry great prominence for me, but I have to admit that where this is concerned, I’m not up to scratch and still a work in progress.
So back to my story, and on this particular day after my walk, I returned home and found an envelope on the kitchen table. Handwritten address, so I knew it wasn’t a circular, medical appointment or a bill. I opened it and out first fell a little card with a depiction of Jesus on and the words ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’ (Jeremiah 31:3). On the reverse was the following:
Quiet Time
Through the world’s mounting problems, pain and perversity
God speaks again to His people
‘No matter what happens keep the faith.
Keep watching and waiting.
Keep your eyes on Me.
Keep telling My truth.
Keep living My love.
Keep remembering that before the foundation of the world
I already spoke the Final Word.
His name is Jesus’
He is coming again
With shouts of victory!
I read this prayer and immediately felt a sort of light-bulb moment. ‘Ah – I’m losing faith a little, but faith is not losing me!’ Of all the days, this was the day that this had come through the post from my local parish priest. With it was also a book of Family Prayers, and for the last two weeks I’ve used this book. It’s a five minute task each evening; some prayers and some words from the Good News and it’s been lovely; I feel like I’m back ‘in the fold’ and that someone somewhere knew that at that moment this was what I needed. I’m not saying it’ll last but it’s been a great tonic which has recharged my spiritual battery. Now they do say God works in mysterious ways… I wonder if any of you reading this have received this booklet and prayer? Or perhaps had a phone call or heard from someone just at a time when you really felt you needed a bit of support? If so, I hope it has lifted you, as it lifted me that day.
And so to the future, as we move into December we shall begin celebrating the season of Advent. That special festive time, of waiting and preparation for the Nativity of Jesus and His second coming, brings us hope especially at this particular time of struggle and anguish for so many. As per my festive tradition I shall be digging out my copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and focusing on a different sort of text, albeit one that still manages to remind me of Mother Mary Potter, and the hope that Christmas-time brings. This Victorian tale of greed, poverty, selfishness and loneliness that ends with salvation, kindness and love is not a religious story in itself, but nevertheless one that highlights the importance of goodness, deliverance and redemption, showing the struggle between good and evil.
Charles Dickens was born in Victorian England in 1812, 35 years before the birth of Mary Potter. He would have witnessed the industrial revolution and also seen first-hand the extreme poverty and slum living that it brought about in Victorian London. I find it quite incredible that Charles and Mother Mary were both alive at the same time; Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, written in 1943, seems a much more romanticised version of how the poor and needy lived in comparison to Mary Potter’s descriptions. In the book Place of Springs by Mary Campion, we are reminded of this:
By the day of the opening on Easter Monday 1877 there was a chapel on the first floor and in the kitchen of this first Convent of the Maternal Heart, a pot of soup bubbled on the kitchen stove 24 hours a day, to feed the hungry who came unceasingly to the door. Mary Potter observed, “Tea is no use to them” and she was to write later, “We strove always to make the poor welcome. We worked and we begged for them.”
The Catholic faith and its many different orders of nuns are not ones by nature to advertise their good works in care for the poor, ill and needy. This is especially true of the Little Company of Mary Sisters who in this day and age would be described as very ‘hands-on’ (an understatement), combining both prayer and nursing skills to help in a society where any sort of National Health Service was unheard of until many years later when it was established in 1948. Until the late 19th Century nursing in itself was seen as a very ‘lowly’ occupation but gained a better reputation through the likes of that well-known nurse called Florence Nightingale. However it’s fair to say that during the Victorian era the Little Company of Mary Sisters were instrumental in improving, educating and gaining an expertise in modern nursing, which they later shared throughout the world. We see the Little Company of Mary and Mary Potter’s legacy continue to this day throughout the hospitals and missions that remain in service.
Back to Dickens, and though he disapproved of Roman Catholicism he did advocate equal rights for Catholics, and A Christmas Carol very much represents Christian belief; he challenged people to look inwards and reflect on whether they were living a moral Christian life, or whether they were abandoning their faith like our protagonist Scrooge. I think had Mary Potter met old Charles Dickens she may have respectfully suggested that all this writing about poverty was fair and well, but actions speak louder than words and God’s work was out there in the slums and poor dwellings for all the Sisters to be getting on with. Perhaps, in this angst ridden time of Covid, Mary Potter would tell us that “prayer and praise stops for no man” – or woman!
So whilst lots of people are worrying about how they’ll get their turkey and Christmas presents this year, others will feel the effects of not being able to go to Mass in person. And yet in reality, because God is within us, and Our Lady lives in us, our faith is always available to us isn’t it? This is easy for me to say, being an irregular Mass attendee, but I hope that those who give their lives to their church every day can find consolation in the fact that a vaccine is nearly here; we are on the cusp of turning a corner, perhaps not back to normal, but significantly better than the past eight plus months. Whilst Christmas Mass may have to be enjoyed via a computer screen, faith does not lessen in our hearts.
And as Charles Dickens would say: “God bless us, every one!”
Teresa Pacey-Devlin
Little Company of Mary Affiliate, Nottingham