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On Monday 23rd September, the vigil of the First National Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, early in the morning during morning prayer, Valentina (originally from the mountainous regions of northern Italy) was accepted into novitiate in our little chapel.On this occassion she also received the community medal which shows Our Lady of Walsingham on one side and the scene of the Annunciation on the reverse side.

Religious Life begins officially in the Novitiate. ‘The purpose of the novitiate…is to give the novices a greater understanding of their divine vocation. At the same time their resolution and suitability are to be tested (Code of Canon Law, 641-645).’  The novices need to be properly prepared for religious profession according to the exigency of religious life and the charism of their community.

The whole day was one of immense joy as we also welcomed Mairead’s family, friends and guests for her first profession of vows after evening prayer. This happened during Mass, celebrated n the local parish Church in Dereham by Fr Mark Hackeson (an old friend of Mairead’s and now based in Swaffham). It was so good that many of the local parishioners were also able to attend, many for the first time, a religious profession.

In Sr Mairead’s own words: ‘How can I speak of the day: amazing, never thought the day of my first vows could be filled with so many graces and blessings.  It was wonderful to share the day with some of my family from Ireland and France and friends from different parts of my life in the UK and of course with my sisters in COLW. All have been part of the journey to this every special day. I really feel that I am answering a call from God and I trust Him in the path He is leading me on. It is hard to pinpoint one moment in the past when I first thought, “Is God really calling me to religious life? No, He can’t be, so I’ll ignore it!” God had other ideas, in particular over the last 7 years and gradually an ever deepening desire to know more about my faith and COLW, helped me overcome fears and gain the courage to take the steps leading to first vows’.

After Mass we all went back to our convent for a special and plenteous meal and an amazing cake (photo below right). It was made by Sr Gabi & decorated by our postulant Kate – even the primrose flowers were homemade. As you can see from the dove, Sr Mairead is a great lover of the Holy Spirit :-). The celebrations went on for a while and could not have gone better.

Photo below left: Sr Mairead with (from left) her sister Fiona, mother (Josie) and brother (Anton)

The vows of consecrated life are means by which a sister seeks to be more closely configured to the One she loves. Living these vows draws her into the Paschal Mystery of Jesus. She embraces a transforming love who gives meaning to all suffering and sacrifice.

Please keep Valentina and Sr Mairead in your prayers as they start this new stage of their vocational journey

Enjoy a few photos of recent happenings

Clockwise:

Attending the Word on Fire Conference

Welcoming Dom Robert Igbo, Abbot of Ampleforth, who led our annual retreat

Complementing a popular advert on the London underground

Celebrating Sr Catherine’s birthday during a parish mission we ran recently in Norwich

Friday 30th April – Sunday 2nd May 2021

We are called to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength (cf. Mark 12:30). Every part of our being needs to be transformed so that we can have the sentiments of Christ and so that our heavenly Father can see His Son in us.

This weekend is open to anyone who wishes to go deeper in living an increasingly authentic Christian life.

“Today we have “great brains” and “universities that teach concepts and ideas,”
and “are the heirs of liberalism and the Enlightenment,”
but “we have lost the three languages :
the language of the head – thinking
the language of the heart – feeling
and the language of the hands – doing” 

Pope Francis continued to explain that
“we do not carry forward this harmony in which
one thinks what one feels and does,
feels what one thinks and does,
and does what one thinks and feels.”
He labelled this as the “harmony of wisdom.”

Booking a Place

We are very grateful for any donation you can give to help support our work at Dowry House Retreat. We suggest the following rates per person.

Usual donation range: £40 – £60

18 – 25 year olds: £20 – £30

To register for this retreat, please complete this form. 

Your details will come through to us and we will send you the donation link. Please register by Wednesday 28th April 2021.

If you have already registered and have not heard back by 10.30am on Friday 30th April please email us directly at dowryhouse@walsingham.org.uk

A ‘Come and See’ on Zoom!

Saturday 27^th June 3 – 4pm

For men and women aged 16 to 34

Curious about our life? – We’d love to meet you on Zoom!

Learn about consecrated life and the life of a Colwelian.

Opportunity for questions.

Meet and share with others who are also discerning.

If you’re interested please email Sr Theresa at office@walsinghamcommunity.org

Four ZOOM MEETINGS on Thursdays 30th April, 7th, 14th and 21st May at 8pm

Please note that this retreat is now FULLY BOOKED

Looking looking at how the journey into a deeper prayer life enables us to love  the people in our lives, even the most difficult!

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbour as yourself.” Lk 10:27

Why is it so difficult to love the people closest to us? To bring our real thoughts and feelings to God in prayer? To be honest in relationships? To enter into intimacy with God and with others? These are some of the questions we will look at over the course of the retreat.

As one of four talks looking at the journey into a mystical life of union with God, to which all of us are called, we will wait on God to reveal himself to us and reveal us to ourselves through others. Prayer is the route to purification of the ego, of the innate will to control the world, to control people in order to serve our own ends. And yet our relationships are the privileged field in which beginners in the spiritual life must learn to turn our innate selfishness into the selflessness of the Crucified. “Nothing so reduces the ego as the realities of living with others and not demanding that they change so as to suit ourselves.’ (Burrows in ‘Ascent to Love’ 40)

Email us to register your interest in this course

Participants are asked to make a donation to the community via this page

In early 2021, priests and lay people joined us from around the country for a triple celebration of the Epiphany (our founding day) of the New Year and of our first such gathering of the COLW Family. We were hoping to have an annual winter and an annual summer meetings but Covid put that on hold this past year. With the COLW Book of Life (explaining our spirituality) being published this year, a rule of life for lay members and diocesan priest associates is being worked on.

Once lockdown finishes in June we will have a meeting at Dereham of the core group to finalise the Rule of Life.At the same time, we are looking forward to starting our local family days again, when we have Mass in the barn, games for the children and space for the adults to spend quiet time in Eucharistic Adoration.

We will soon email people with options of dates for meeting up.

2020 – The great year of the Rededication of England to Jesus through Mary has dawned. This is a very important year in the life of the Catholic Church here in England as our Bishops will be rededicating England as Mary’s Dowry, an ancient title, on Sunday 29th March 2020.

To discover how Mary’s YES to God is linked to our own YES to God as people of her land, visit this page.

Listen in to Mgr. John Armitage explains the importance of the spiritual preparation for this great and historic spiritual event to take place on Sunday March 29th 2020.

A dedicated website has been set up by the Shrine for this initiative.  If you’d like to follow it, visit www.behold2020.com.

33 DAYS TO MORNING GLORY: STARTING TODAY. 

Sign up here to receive the daily reflections for to consecrate yourself to Jesus Through Mary. It starts on 21st February and ends with the consecration itself on Wednesday 25th March. This will be followed by a Tiduum of Prayer and the Prayer of Rededication on Sunday 29th March.

Let us pray that many graces will be poured on our country in the coming months,

At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? As we marked the season of Advent by loving and serving others with God’s own love and concern, let us spend some time in immediate preparation by listening and waiting with Our Lady at her shrine. Fr John Armitage, rector of the National Catholic Shrine of Our Lady, will lead the reflections over the weekend of 14th – 16th December 2018

The retreat will be at Dowry House in Walsingham and will include a pre-festive Christmas meal and the annual Advent Carol Service in the Chapel of Reconcilaition.

Costs: £138 ensuite room; £110 standard room. This includes all meals from Friday supper until Sunday lunch

Please book by emailing dowryhouse@walsingham.org.uk or calling the sisters on 01328 801018 to check availability.

We were blessed to have our first family day at the House of the Divine Will in Dereham. Seven couples with some 29 children between them recently graced the house and grounds on one of these amazing summer days.

We started with a picnic lunch in the only shaded part of the grounds – one of the reasons we really need to plant some tress this autumn! Then Sr Camilla gave a talk on Ecclesial Families of Consecrated lIfe that wetted the appetite of some couples. The thought of being part of a larger community, having spiritual formation and living in the Fiat is certainly something our society needs. One of the strongest and most attractive elements of communities like ours is the ‘spirituality of communion’ – something we tangibly experienced on this beautiful days.

The children in the meantime were entertained by Sr Theresa and Sr Johanna who kept them busy with a variety of activities. Once the talk was over everyone joined in the various conversations, games that spontaneously sprung up in various parts of the house and grounds. Our volunteers made everything go smoothly by keeping people hydrated and clearing up things. The children riding in the trailer driven by Sr Camilla was one of the highlights of the afternoon. The day ended with some families swelling the numbers of the Sunday vigil Mass in the local parish in Dereham and everyone left happy, looking forward to the next one.

On Saturday 7th April, at the midday Mass in the Chapel of Reconciliation, Sr Theresa made her final vows in COLW. After eight years of formation she took this definitive step, consecrating herself to God’s service for the rest of her life. Surrounded by family and friends she looked radiant as she said her ‘YES’ to God’s love for her, a God who has chosen her to be all His – warts and all as we so often remind each other. On the vigil of the Feast of Divine Mercy we thank God for the gift that Sr Theresa is to us and to so many people. Now the real work starts!

To watch the Mass again and hear Fr John’s superb homily visit the  Shrine live stream page and go to the Mass of the 7th April.

Please visit this link to see photos and share in the joy of the day.

We thank God for all our family, friends, benefactors and supporters who made Sr Theresa’s final profession a day to remember. God bless you all!

On the 8th December 2017, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, after 8 months of fundraising and thanks to the generosity of many benefactors, we acquired our first convent. This amazing gift, rendered even more heartwarming by the kindness of the sellers (two brothers who built the property by converting old barns) couldn’t have come at a better time.

With its simplicity and spaciousness, a central cloister area, eco-friendly wood chip boiler, a large outdoor barn and surrounded by 4 acres of land, it is perfectly monastic in style and miraculously suited to our needs. So much better than all the other properties visited it seemed to be made for us!. Please join us in thanking God for this amazing gift and Our Lady for obtaining it for us. For further information visit this page.

6th-8th May 2022

This weekend is the second in a series of weekends designed to help people enter in depth into the Spirituality of Walsingham. Through a series of talks, lectio divina, silence, spiritual accompaniment and liturgical prayer moments, the sisters will enable individuals to apply this rich spirituality in the reality of their own lives.

Walsingham exists to remind us of the mystery of Mary’s silent surrender, her self-sacrificing love, her joy and humility in bearing and believing the Word of God. The Spirit is ultimate freedom, total unpredictability. God lives not in a ‘house made with hands’ but in hearts that are, with Mary, ready for anything – ‘Be it done unto me according to your word.’ At the heart of Walsingham lies the mystery of the Annunciation.

The house symbolises stability. It was the house that made Nazareth permanently present in Walsingham, standing firm and strong, guaranteeing the future of the village and the Shrine. But this is balanced by the theme of the Annunciation which implies a radical openness to change and growth. Everyone of us carries within ourselves an element of unpredictability.

As she is presented to us in Luke’s gospel, Mary stands for the perfect disciple. Like Israel of old she is chosen and called simply out of love. She has not chosen God; rather God has chosen her. She is a child of grace, of choice, and so she is able to respond to God’s initiative with the words ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word.’

But that is not the end of the story. Mary had to be open to human growth and development, just as Jesus had to grow physically, spiritually, socially. She had to make choices, accept responsibility, and ultimately let her Son go his own way even when she did not understand.

Mary is our vocational model as one who responded totally, allowed God to do with her all that he wanted. When Jesus says that his mother, brothers and sisters are those who do the will of his Father in heaven we have a glimpse into the wholeness of Mary’s self-giving. It was not bearing Christ in the flesh that made her blessed. Her real motherhood lay in her surrender to the Father’s will; her ‘Be it done unto me (her ‘Fiat’, ‘Amen’, ‘Alleluia’) in sorrow and in joy, in diminishment and fullness.

Members of the Community of Our Lady of Walsingham will guide participants, through a series of talks and lectio divina, into what it means to imitate Mary’s FIAT, her YES to God’s love and will for her life.

This second weekend will look especially at what it means to ACCEPT God’s will in the difficult times of one’s life and what it means to fulfil his will.

Date: Friday 6th – Sunday 8th May 2020

Location: Walsingham

Venue: Dowry House Retreat (www.dowryhouse,org.uk)

To book a place email: dowryhouse@walsingham.org.uk

At last we are all together at Walsingham. Having spent the last five years commuting to and fro from Brentwood to work at the shrine at Walsingham, we recognise the toll it has taken on us as individuals and as a community. With gratitude we recognise the gift that it has been to spend our first 13 years at Abbotswick – there couldn’t have been a better place for a founding group to consolidate and grow in self-undertsanidng of the charism given.

As you all know, our spiritual home is in Walsingham and we are overjoyed to be now living and serving the shrine as a community – providing together hospitality and a sung liturgy to those using Dowry House Retreat (www.dowryhouse.org.uk) and partaking in the many events the expanding shrine is hosting. Being together as a community also means that we will be able to give more time to study, developing the charism and forming our lay associates now that we are on the road to becoming an Ecclesial Family of Consecrated life – open to people from every walk of life.

We celebrated this milestone with a community day out in Norwich as you can see from the photos – one taken on top of the tower of St John the Baptist’s Catholic Cathedral, one whilst walking through the cloister of the amazing Anglican cathedral where we also attended evensong and one at the Julian shrine. What a welcome we have been given in all these holy sites!

So please keep us in your prayers as we settle down to life in this beautiful village of Walsingham and as we continue to fundraise for our first convent. For updates on how that is going please subscribe to our newsletters on this page https://walsinghamcommunity.org/contact-us/subscribe-to-newsletters

Friday 1st – Sunday 3rd September 2017

Join us for this first weekend in Walsingham, exploring the beauty of consecrated life in the 21st Century.

‘Consecrated life ought to promote growth in the church by way of attraction. The church must be attractive. Wake up the world! Be witnesses of a different way of doing things, of acting, of living! … It is this witness that I expect of you. Religious should be men and women who are able to wake the world up.’  Pope Francis, meeting with the Union of Superiors General, November 29, 2013 

There are many ways in which people can choose to consecrate their lives to God in the service of the Church and the World. This weekend will explore some of the general themes related to consecrated life and look at the various ways in which men and women can offer their lives in service of God, the Church and their neighbour e.g. apostolic religious life, enclosed contemplative life, ecclesial families of consecrated life, hermits and consecrated virginity to name a few.

There will also be a Q&A panel on the Saturday afternoon …. so prepare already your questions for those who live the consecrated life in some of these forms.

‘God calls you to make definitive choices, and He has a plan for each of you: To discover that plan and to respond to your vocation is to move toward personal fulfilment.’ Pope Francis, 2013 World Youth Day 

Time: Any time from 3pm on the Friday until the afternoon of the Sunday. If you cannot make the whole weekend how about meeting up with us on the Saturday at Walsingham?  Please call us for any clarification needed.

Please download and display this poster in your parish:

Location: Dowry House Retreat Centre, 47-49 High St, Walsingham NR22 6BZ

What to bring: Personal items, writing materials, Bible, walking shoes/boots.
Donation: £40 (Students) £80 (wage earners) – includes full board

For further information call or phone Sr Carina on 01328 801013.

To book a place on this weekend fill out the booking form and send a £20 deposit (cheques payable to ‘RC National Shrine’) to Dowry House Retreat, 47-49 High St, Walsingham NR22 6BZ

Please can you help us to purchase our very own house in Walsingham?

Please visit the appeals page for more information on this exciting adventure as we push out into the deep and trust in God’s Providence to provide the first house for the community 🙂

Friday 11th – Sunday 13th March 2022

The first of a series of weekends to enable retreatants enter more deeply into the spirituality of Walsingham, learning in particular what it means to accept God’s Will in one’s life.

One of the greatest obstacles to living in the Divine Will is the lack of acceptance of God’s Will in the reality of our daily lives. Over the weekend we will look at what in means in practical terms to accept his will as it manifests itself to us from moment to moment, especially in who we are as the beloved children of the Father and in our neighbour.

Time
: Any time from 3pm on the Friday until the afternoon of the Sunday.

What to bring: Personal items, writing materials, Bible.

Directions: 
Dowry House Retreat Centre, 47-49 High St, Walsingham NR22 6BZ

See here for details of costs. Call 01328 801018 for booking information.

Our return from the conference in Rome took us via Assisi where we stayed with a friend whose generosity made the visit possible. The graces received in praying at the sites related to St Francis, St Clare and Carlo Acutisl, whose cause for beatification has already started was palpable to say the least.

Carlo was born in London in 1991 and died after a sudden and short illness in Milan in 2006. This teenager is a model for all young people and is certainly interceding for England. Please visit this site http://www.carloacutis.com/en/association and be inspired by this holy teenager.

Sr Camilla and Carina were able to attend the concluding conference in Rome for the Year of Consecrated Life from the 28th Jan until the 2nd Jan 2016. On the theme “Consecrated life in communion. The common foundation in the variety of forms”, on these days there were meetings, prayer vigils, times for regrouping and examining in greater depth the specifics of each form, looking prophetically towards the future”.

The aims of the meeting were to get to know better the great mosaic of consecrated life, to live communion rediscovering the single call uniting the variety of forms (Ordo Virginum, monastic life, apostolic institutes, secular institutes, new institutes and new forms of consecrated life), starting out together on the path of the great Jubilee of Mercy that once more gives all consecrated people the specific mandate of their vocation: to be guided by the Father’s mercy, witnesses and builders of an authentically lived fraternity.

it was an unforgettable experience during which we met many friends and one that affirmed the way ahead for COLW. For those of you who can speak Italian enjoy the audience we all had with Pope Francis:

Four of us managed to go to Rome for the recent World Meeting of Young Consecrated men and women. Organised by the Vatican dicastery as one of the events for the Year of Consecrated life, t turned out to be an amazingly fruitful and graced time at so many levels.

It was Carina’s first visit to Rome and Sr Camilla’s first time to act as one of two simultaneously Italian to English translators. Having hired a chalet we managed to self-cater for the week and survive the 32C temperatures by downing plenty of the famous roman ice-cream. The audience with Pope Francis for the 5,000 plus participants was one of the highlights and this together with all the other presentations can be listened to in several languages on this link: http://giovaniconsacrati.chemin-neuf.fr

We were so happy when Pope Francis last year appointed Father Alan Williams SM, the last Director of the National Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, as the seventh Bishop of Brentwood. Now we have two dioceses, that of Brentwood and that of East Anglia, headed by men who have a deep love for Our Lady of Walsingham.

That couldn’t be better news for our little community. Mary is really moving things in England, her dowry. It also confirms our hunch that God is truly at work on the bigger picture (COLW being only a small part of this) and slowly but surely we will get more glimpses of the many graces he has destined for our land and beyond.

His episcopal ordination took place at Brentwood Cathedral on 1st July 2014 at 12 noon. You will find some highlights on this page.

Fr Alan says he thrives on working with people. “That brings out the best in me – we can learn together and go forward together.” He added: “I presume on the goodness of people. If you are open to people, they are open to you.”

Take a listen to a recent interview that Sr Theresa and Jim (our first brother to be) recently had in Chicago on the Winds of Change Radio Show.

A Reflection from Sr Ruth Burrows for the Easter Tridiium

• Download the article in PDF format by clicking here.

We are currently celebrating the Year of Consecrated Life, which began on 30th November 2014 and will end on the 2nd February 2016. The theme given it by the Vatican is ‘Wake up the World’.

The year has a three-pronged focus

• renewal for men and women in consecrated life,
• thanksgiving among the faithful for the service of sisters, brothers, priests, and nuns,
• invitation to young Catholics to consider a religious vocation.

As a community we will be offering some events before and during this year in order in order to highlight this three-pronged focus.

A piece on Abbotswick in The Tablet, 23 November 2013.

• Download the article in PDF format by clicking here.

We recently went with several discerners to a Year of Faith pilgrimage to Rome for novices, seminarians and those on a vocational journey. Pope Francis joined the 6000 people on this pilgrimage for a meeting in the Pope Paul VI audience hall. Before his arrival we were entertained by musicians (including The Priests) and heard several testimonies (including that of Fr Robert Barron). Go to the 1 hr 9 mins point of the video to see him arriving in the hall. Look out for Sr Theresa who managed to shake his hand!

Download the full text of Pope Francis’s address (translated into English) and read what he shared with the everyone during this meeting).

Echo – January 16, 2012

It’s hard not to be in awe of the dedication of modern-day nuns, whether or not you have faith. Unflinching in their quest to tackle difficult issues head on, a nun’s life is anything but sheltered. And, it seems, more young women are looking to devote their life to God. Of those choosing to become nuns, the number of women under 40 has risen from 42 per cent in 2006 to 70 per cent in 2010, according to the National Office for Vocation.

LOUISE HOWESON went to the Colchester Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre and Our Lady of Walsingham in Brentwood to find out more…

• Download the article in PDF format by clicking here.

It’s a busy Friday evening at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, and BA air stewardess Katie Colbran, 32, has just stepped off a flight from Milan. In September she’ll hang up her BA uniform for the last time, and in its place she’ll put on a powder-blue scapular and become Sister Katie of the Community of Our Lady of Walsingham…

Please Note: This interview was conducted before our first brother joined the community.

• For the full article click here
• If the link is inactive, you can download the article in PDF format by clicking here.

boloji.com, 2nd June 2007

From oil-field workers to city traders, there has been a blaze of publicity in Britain about the need to bring more women into male-dominated careers. But far less media attention has been devoted to the fact that one of the few all-female callings is under threat. While more and more women are becoming nuns worldwide, the number of novices has fallen in Britain.

• For the full article click here
• If the link is inactive, you can download the article in PDF format by clicking here

The Tablet, 28th April 2007

The new religious Community of Our Lady of Walsingham is the order that likes to say ‘yes’ – obedience, silent prayer,poverty and the rosary are in, but so are chilling out and trips to the movies. A distinctive departure from other orders, its statutes are designed to use the gifts of women more fully.

• You can download the article in PDF format by clicking here.

The Guardian, Friday 23 February 2007

Migrant worshippers are helping to swell Catholic congregations – and yet the ageing population of British nuns is teetering on the verge of extinction. Is there any hope for the religious sisterhood, asks Joanna Moorhead.

• For the full article click here
• If the link is inactive, you can download the article in PDF format by clicking here.