On the feast of St Thomas Aquinas, on January 28, 1941, my entry into God’s yet unknown and mysterious world began. I was baptised in St David’s Episcopal Church, Glasgow, by the Reverend Ashley Longbottom, a missionary with the Church of England. Sadly, I never got to know him, but he, together with my godmothers, Mabel and Lily, must have had a special prayerful Christian influence over me. As the baptismal water was poured over my head and penetrated my being, so my Christian journey and knowledge and love of God took root. I have often wondered if it was this baptismal water that opened up the spiritual fascination – and the spiritual mysteries together with their breadth, depths and dangers – that I have for flowing water to this day.
In 1942 my father had a dreadful accident and lost his sight. As an infant, I found my father rather a stranger to me while he spent many years in Moorfield’s Eye Hospital in London. In those days there were no social services, so my mother had to return to work to keep my brother and two sisters at fee-paying schools, care for the home, and look after me as a baby – and sadly she could not even travel to London to see her husband because of World War II.
Eventually my father returned home, partially sighted in one eye, and was registered blind, so he was never able to work again. Eventually, Dad became the Verger and groundsman for St David’s Church. Dad’s father had been a Vicar in the Church of England, and his grandfather a Suffragan Bishop, so I came from sound Christian stock!
Family life was never the same after Dad’s accident, but Sunday church attendance remained unaltered: Early Morning Communion Service, followed by Sunday School for me, then Evensong. My mother played the organ, for which I got sixpence a week to pump the air into it! From behind the organ, I looked straight onto the altar, my own little secret spiritual world! This was so “special” being directly side on to the altar, so I could see all the actions of the priest. At this early stage of Christian life, the “specialness” experienced was an inward mystery, as yet not understood, nor could it be expressed in words. It was just something only I knew, which was that “My soul [was] thirsting for God, the God of my life” (Psalm 41). My brother was an altar server and sang in the choir along with one of my sisters, while my eldest sister took charge of the Sunday School. We always had fish on Fridays. I can remember there being a picture of Holman Hunt’s Light of the World in the bedroom which, as a child, fascinated me and seemed to pull me close towards this gentle and loving figure of Jesus.
When I was about eight years old, my godmother Mabel, now living in St Andrews in Fife, took me on a journey to Perth Cathedral. Sitting in the front pew on the lectern side were some ladies in a garb I had never seen before. I leaned over to my godmother and asked who those “special ladies” were. “They are nuns,” she told me. “That is what I am going to be when I grow up,” I told her, without the faintest knowledge of how a nun lived or what she did all day!
Eventually my brother joined the RAF and ended up working for the BBC in London; one sister became a nurse; and my eldest sister, after training as a teacher, became a Missionary for four years in Basutoland (now Lesotho), after which she joined an enclosed contemplative Church of England religious order in Maseru, The Society of the Most Precious Blood. Now alone at home, mostly with my mother, while my father stayed with his sister “down south”, there began a very difficult time for me. “Why are you cast down, my soul, why groan within me? Hope in God…”, but I was so confused and lonely I couldn’t.
When I was about fifteen, I started questioning my faith and stopped going to church. Where was God? Why had he abandoned me? Then something quite extraordinary happened! Every Friday a mysterious large brown envelope, addressed to my mother, arrived and was quickly taken up to her bedroom. As a curious teenager, I felt this had to be explored! Inside the brown envelope was a course for would-be Catholics by the Catholic Truth Society. This became regular reading for me, too, but unbeknown to my mother, of course! Glasgow being a Protestant city, and VERY anti-Catholic, meant caution had to be adhered to, especially at school. My mother was received into the Holy Roman Catholic Church by Fr Riordan, SJ, at St Aloysius Church, Garnethill. He also become my instructor in the Catholic faith sometime later. I was still a long way away from my journey towards Carmel; but God, in His mysterious ways, was drawing me ever closer to Him.
I was sixteen when my Catholic instruction began, but it was two very long years in my life before I received the Lord in Holy Communion once more. Staying at a Protestant school proved very difficult, so I asked my mother if I could change to Notre Dame High School. The headmistress kindly told my mother she had enough Catholic girls to educate, so I had to remain at Jordanhill College School while keeping my Catholic instruction tightly under wraps! God had the last laugh, though, as Sr Mary Anthony, SND retired. Fr Riordan arranged for me to have a female input into my instruction, and this turned out to be…? Yes! You have guessed it… The retired headmistress! You see, in the end I did get my education from her, but not in the form expected!
One day my mother took me to a Benediction service at St Aloysius Church, something I had never experienced before. It had a profound effect on me. All the ladies were wearing mantillas. Everyone was so still, quiet, and totally focused on the very beautiful golden monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament exposed. What was everyone doing? What were the people praying about and for so long? It was so mysterious. Whatever it was I wanted to be a part of it, learn all about it, and so that deep inner pull towards deeper commitment to Him began. Something new and very different was being stirred in the depths of my teenage soul. Yes! My soul was thirsting for God! The seed of spiritual growth was becoming more and more apparent.
O God, you are my God, for you I long;
Psalm 62
for you my soul is thirsting.
My body pines for you
like a dry, weary land without water.
So I gaze on you in the sanctuary
to see your strength and your glory.
Back to Fr Riordan: while I was speaking with him one September evening in 1959, he unexpectedly asked me: “Would you like to be received into the Church? I think you are ready.” I was taken aback with surprise and was so overjoyed for I thought this day was never going to come. As a result, I burst into tears with joy and happiness, soaking Father’s soutane in the process! On the evening of October 6, Feast of St Bruno the Carthusian, I made my confession and was received into Holy Mother Church, followed by Holy Mass and my first Holy Communion as a Roman Catholic. This homecoming was an inexplicable joy with “cries of gladness and thanksgiving” (Psalm 41) ringing in my soul.
During my twenty-first birthday party, my friend became ill. She was rushed into hospital and diagnosed, aged nineteen, with bowel cancer. When her life was in the balance, her mother, who had been one of my sponsors when I was received into the Church, invited me to accompany her to Kirkintilloch Carmel, situated a few miles north-east of Glasgow, to ask the Carmelite Sisters for their prayers. This was my first direct contact with Carmel. It left a deep and lasting impression on me. I had taken St Teresa of Avilla’s name for my confirmation name, so slowly God was leading me towards the intimacy of the Carmelite Order without my realising how, when, or where it would lead.
Originally, I trained as a secretary. One of my first jobs was at Notre Dame Teaching College in Glasgow, working for the Principal. There I could pop into the little Chapel to pray before going to the office. At lunchtime I would run down the road to catch the bus into Sauchiehall Street in order to get to St Aloysius Church in time for Mass. Before I went home, another visit to the little Chapel was made. By now, prayer life had taken on a definite daily prayer routine and shape while I listened to the Word of the Lord and entered into the depths of His peace.
For a brief spell I went to the Isle of Arran. It was a very lonely experience. Sunday Mass was in a dingy hall and was led by a priest who came over specially from the mainland. Fr Riordan had been moved up to Shetland, so I wrote of my feelings to him. His advice was to hire a bicycle and go up into the Goatfell Mountains, having explained in his letter that what I was experiencing for the first time in my Catholic life was not being lonely, but learning how to be alone with God, a lesson I have never forgotten. High up in those mountains I had my very first experience of pure contemplation and sense of infinity. I now knew that I wanted to be a nun and give myself totally to Him. Yes! My soul was now thirsting for God at an even deeper level.
This desire grew stronger and stronger. I was turned down by the Sisters of Marie Reparatrice, a semi-contemplative Order, but was accepted by the Sisters of Notre Dame. However, this did not happen. My mother sadly could not bear the fact that her youngest daughter was cutting herself from her apron strings and so she tried, unsuccessfully, to commit suicide to prevent me from entering religious life, just as my eldest sister had done. My brother took me into his home in Yorkshire until I found a residential secretarial position in a girls’ boarding school. All this time my staying power, sanity and sanctity with life and living, which kept me going, was with God and the Church. Without Him and the sacraments I was helpless, and so my faith grew stronger. My dependence on God was total as I forged my way through stormy waters, and even stormier ones to come….
For twenty-five years and two days I was in a disastrous marriage. Because of his mental state, my ex-husband cut me off from my family; we moved house every three to four years, so making lasting friends was nigh impossible. He did eventually become a Catholic of sorts… But the pull to explore new faiths fascinated him, resulting in our attending the Society of Pius X Association Lefebvre groups for Latin Mass. I soon realised this was sheer arrogance, and wrong, so for the second time in my life I stopped going to church. However, God was not going to let me go Scot-free!
A friend who had spent six years studying for the priesthood with the Jesuits, left, later married, and then became a Buddhist. One day he asked me about my spiritual life. I was taken aback! At that time, we were living in Wincanton, Somerset, where the Church of St Luke and St Teresa was run by the Carmelite Fathers. After a long discussion my friend made me promise that before the end of that week, I make contact with the Carmelite Fathers. I did, and so began my journey back into the faith, not knowing that a completely new spiritual journey within the Carmelite family was about to be fostered and nourished! It was there in the early 1980s that I joined the Carmelite Secular Order. This new “family” made me so welcome! It provided me with the commitment, stability, spiritual growth and support that had been missing.
The Carmelite life was now deeply embedded in me, so when we moved to Bath, I set up a new Carmelite Secular Order Group, Flos Carmeli. Shortly after this, the Church annulled my marriage. The call to the interior Carmelite life grew stronger and stronger. I eventually entered as a postulant the Carmelite Monastery in Dolgellau, Wales, aged fifty-six, on the feast of St John of the Cross, and I made my First Vow on the feast of St Teresa of Avila. My wish at the age of eight to become a nun became a reality!
Four years of community life was not the easiest at this age, as having held down a responsible teaching post in midwifery before entering, I had become fiercely independent. There was much to learn about community life and living, solitude, obedience, humility, submissiveness, keeping silence and very many other things. However, they were four greatly blessed years, in all of which God was preparing me for the next stage of my spiritual journey. Many of the important things learnt from the enclosed life have been carried forward to the life I live today. Unfortunately, ill health took its toll so before Final Vows I found myself back in the big wide world, having to fend for myself. What I have now could be described as a semi-eremitical life, with more silence than I ever had in the enclosed life, but with all the lessons learnt from it. Carmel is my life.
During the past twenty years, I have had the privilege to serve the Carmelite Fathers in various capacities, which has further helped to grow and deepen my Carmelite spirituality. With this ongoing commitment I returned as a Carmelite Secular Order Member in 2002. Now, as President of the St Joseph’s Secular Order Group, I endeavour to develop the charism and teachings of Carmel, together with the help of the Carmelite Fathers, for its members, knowing how fortunate I am to be blessed by this wonderful Carmelite family with all its riches, traditions and legacy. It has indeed been a roundabout vocational journey to get to this point in time! Where the living streams of water will lead next, only God knows! However, what is important to know is that by water and the Holy Spirit, I was adopted as a child of God, and by His grace pray to remain steadfast in His love within the family of Carmel: Fathers, Sisters and Seculars.
