36: Getting out of the boat

Episode 36: Sister Gabrielle tells how her extraordinary family history 'has really been the strong push for me in my own faith journey.' She explains the big, perhaps counter-intuitive, decisions she has made, led entirely by what she has felt the Lord is calling her to do.

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Transcript

 You are listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways, we're living our faith today. Pope Francis has used the image of a caravan. A diverse group of people travelling together. On a sometimes chaotic journey together. That's an image that has helped to shape this podcast. I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed and maybe challenged at times. I am too in these conversations. 

So listeners, we're gonna have a really good conversation today with Sister Gabrielle, who has got an interesting story to tell. Well, let's find out. Welcome, Sister Gabrielle. 

Thank you. 

Often, I start conversations with people with when they were born, but actually, the Catholic faith in your family goes back long time. 

Yes. I think really you can say that my own faith journey started, right back into my family history. My family originate from the Forest of Bowland up in Lancashire, which is really at the heart of the faith during the Reformation period. But my family goes back further than that. I can actually trace back to round about 1170. My family lived in a place called Chaigley Manor on the top of Long Ridge Fell which overlooks the Ribble Valley, very beautiful part of the world, and looks right out across to Pendle Hill. My father's family were recusant Catholics right down through the Reformation. We are actually related to a number of the martyrs of that time. My own family had a priest called Father Philip Holden. His mother was a Holden living at Chaigley Manor. He was found saying Mass in the family home of Chaigley. A servant told the Cromwell soldiers about him. They interrupted the Mass. They stormed in and just went straight up and cut his head off. His mother cried out because they just grabbed the head and put it on a pike, And she begged for her son's head to be returned to her. So they just took it off and threw it at her. She caught the head in her apron. Now, the bloodstained apron and his bloodstained vestments and his little pewter chalice and his prayer book, including the skull, are still in existence to this day. My father was very keen for the family to know about the history because from the time of the Reformation, everything had to be kept hidden. And those vestments and the skull were kept in a wooden chest. And every year, they were taken down to the banks of the river Hodder and they were aired. But it was only the eldest son who ever knew about them.

If I may, Sister Gabrielle, that is amazing. And for listeners, last week's guest, Nigel, was talking about how the Catholic church has got a 1000 year history before the Reformation in these isles. 

Absolutely. 

And, you know, you're bringing that to life with your family story there. I feel we should have had some sort of a warning at the beginning about the gruesomeness of some of that. And, you know, we can smile about the gruesomeness now, but at the same time, I'm thinking about people who today, you know, risk harm coming to them - 

That's right. 

Practising their faith in some parts of the world. Hard to believe that that was the case here too, but it was. 

Yes. I mentioned as well about having links with other martyrs. One of the family married into the Southworth family, so Saint John Southworth. Yes. Another married into the Clitheroe family, Margaret Clitheroe. Also, the Gerard family. We have links with, especially the Northern martyrs. 

Real powerhouse of the faith.

And I think because it was, you know, so far north from London and you've got the Pennines, they were basically protected in some respects. The family history actually has been very strong in my family. My own parents were very, very strong Catholics. We were always taught that we had a wonderful history behind us. We had a duty and a responsibility to love what we had been handed down - Catholic faith - which has really been the strong push for me in my own faith journey. 

That's a good lead in, isn't it, Sister Gabrielle? So tell us then where your faith journey took you. 

It has taken me really from, you know, a young teenager like any other normal teenager. A little bit of questioning, you know, is this really real? Why do I have to come to Mass each week? Did Jesus really exist? But I would think in in my late teens, I had this hankering almost for knowing Jesus more. This person of Jesus, who he was. And I'd always, from being very little, had this idea that I would one day become a religious sister. From being 4 years of age, I announced to everybody that I was going to live in God's house one day. So that was at the back there, but I went through periods where I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I wanted to fly aeroplanes. I fancied being a pilot in the Red Arrows. But when I went to teacher training college - of course, it was a Catholic college. Again, the influence of the faith was all around me. It was at that time that I started to fall in love with this person, Jesus, and I fell more and more in love with my faith. So I'd sort of set my heart then that, yes, one day, I would become a Sister, but I would finish my teacher training. My eldest brother became a Franciscan priest, and that's when I discovered Saint Clare, the life of Poor Clares. And I always had that feeling that, well, okay then. If I'm going to be a Sister, I'm going to do it properly, and I'll become a Poor Clare. But, of course, as I finished my teacher training, my father died, and I then went home, and I began to look after my mother. So I ended up getting a teaching job. I just put myself into the heart of those children that I had to teach, and then eventually I became an RE coordinator in the schools where I was teaching. For me, it was the children who taught me. I taught the very young children who were the most amazing little creatures. They come in so full of life, and they're open to everything. Praying with them really taught me about praying because they were in touch with God much quicker than any adult could become in touch with God. They were just amazing. All through that time, I was teaching for about 22 years before, eventually, I could make the move to go into a religious community. 

You were very patient.

God was too. He hangs on to us, and he waits and he waits, and he gives us time to think it through. I had it in my mind, but, of course, I was looking after my mother. So, eventually, I did make a move to enter with the Poor Clares. The first attempt wasn't successful, so that was fine. I came back to look after my mother. And then another 3 years passed, I then entered. And she came with me into the convent. She didn't actually join but she lived in the hermitage for the last two years of her life. And that was through my novitiate years, which was quite hard because your novitiate time should be a time to get in touch with the inner person within yourself. Some people think that when you enter, it's going to be very smooth, and it isn't because you suddenly face yourself as you really are. We're in an enclosure so you're not going out to any distractions. You're working in silence, eating in silence. You have the great silence from the end of Compline right through to after Mass in the morning. So the person you're with all the time is you, before God. I was trying to go through that and yet having to look after my mother at the same time. But then God called her home. She saw me make my first profession, which she was delighted with, and then not long after, she passed away. I ended up leaving, not because I wanted to, but because God told me he wanted me out after 14 years. I loved the life, and it was a battle. I did not want to leave. All I kept hearing inside me was, For goodness sake, will you get out of the boat and walk on the waters of life with me? And that went on for a few years. In the meantime, quite a lot of my family members, including 3 of my siblings, died all very quickly within just over 12 months. That was a very hard period in my journey. And at the same time, I had this constant thing, Get out of the boat. And I couldn't really work out what the Lord wanted, and I kept saying to him, For goodness sake, will you tell me what it is you want me to do? You brought me here. After all those years of waiting. 

You'd be thinking, It can't be that I need to leave now, and now I've gone to all this trouble to get here. 

Exactly. And, you know, my mother, bringing her you know, because we sold the house and everything. She came with me. She left everything behind too. You know, she surrendered as much as I surrendered, and I couldn't work out what it was. There was this rumbling all the time until it came to Holy Week, one Easter, a few years ago. Every time I went to bed, I had the same dream the whole of that week, and I was inside the tomb where our Lord had been placed. There were the cloths, the grave clothes left there. The stone had been rolled back and there was light coming through that door. And a hand came through and a voice said, Come out of the tomb. Come out of the enclosure and walk on the waters of life with me. And it still didn't twig. The whole of that week, I got up every morning quite disturbed by it, but then we had the joy of the Easter celebration. Then I pushed it to one side until about 2 or 3 weeks later. And I just stopped in the corridor. I thought, that's it. I've got to leave. It was a shock to me. It was a shock to everybody else as well. 

To make that decision from something to do with what you feel the Lord is saying in your prayer and in your dreams seems courageous, I suppose, would be one way of looking at it or perhaps a little bit mad. 

Oh, yes. Absolutely. People around me thought, are you, you know, are you really sure about this? You've made your commitment. You solemnly professed. You know, you've been, seem to have been, happy, settled. Why do this now? There was something you know, those words that kept coming to me those nights, and I just felt I had to respond, but I didn't know what it was he was going to lead me into. And so after a couple of weeks, I packed up. I had to try and find somewhere to go. Fortunately, a nephew of mine said, Look. I will try and help you to find a place because I literally was homeless. And the day I actually left the convent, I can remember walking away from the door and away from the Sisters that I'd known and loved for many, many years and getting into this van with my few belongings in the back. And I can remember saying to the Lord, it's just you and me now. I'm totally lost. Thankfully, this wonderful nephew of mine brought me into the Nottingham diocese, where I'm now living. He found me a wonderful almshouse where I have a little flat, much bigger than my little cell that I'd had in the monastery. There was still something missing, and I knew that God hadn't really revealed to me what it was he wanted me to do, and that troubled me. But COVID came, and, of course, we were all in lockdown. Here, where I'm living, we couldn't meet each other in the corridors even. We had to stay in our flats and just go for a walk, perhaps once or twice a day. So for 23 hours a day, I was literally on my own in an enclosure.

Yes. Even more enclosed. 

More enclosed than ever before, and I'd had the experience of my life as a Poor Clare, the life of prayer, because that's what I turned to. I looked at the breviary and I thought, well, that's my plan of action. Just follow the same pattern as I'd done for the 14 years that I was in the monastery. I also attempted to find Mass online. One of the days, I was tinkering away and up came the Pope's Mass. And so for the whole of COVID, I was attending the Pope's Mass. It was during that time of prayer that it became clear to me what the Lord was calling me to do. It was almost as if he was actually in the flat living with me, and I could talk to him. It wasn't prayers like the Our Father, the Hail Mary. I had a conversation. If anybody had been at my front door listening in, they would have thought I'd gone crazy. 

So you spoke out loud?

I spoke out loud. Yes. And I had the conversation with him. Look. You got me out. You got me in this mess. What do you mean by walking on the waters? 

You sound like one of the apostles now. What does this mean, Lord? 

And it really was. But, actually, the story was in the gospel today, and I was only thinking about that this morning. And I thought I could actually imagine it happening to the apostles in the boat. So it slowly but surely came to me that he wanted me to walk to Calvary, which is what all Christians are called to do. But to walk in the way that he walked with me, I had to walk with the people around me, the people I live amongst, the people who are struggling with their faith, the people who have no faith, and just to be there with them, not preaching at them, not necessarily talking about God, but just walking with them side by side and helping them along their journey. We all have our struggles. Life is not easy. 

Sorry. I was gonna interrupt you there, but I realise it's too soon. I was gonna ask you about, you know, what walking with others looks like, but there's another little step you made yourself there that we might talk about first. 

What I really had been upset with with leaving the convent was the fact that I had to be dispensed from my vows because of leaving the enclosure. I asked Rome for a dispensation basically on health grounds because my health had broken down in the process of all what I'd gone through with losing family members. And I got the dispensation through very, very quickly, but it broke my heart. For me, when I made my vows as a Poor Clare, God entered into a covenant with me and I entered into a covenant with him. And I knew in my heart that he had not broken his side of the bargain. But I felt almost by leaving, I'd broken my side. But yet in my heart, those vows still meant a lot to me, even the vow of enclosure. And so I tried to think of a way that I could continue to live my religious life in vows, keeping true to the vows as much as I could, but in a different way. So I prayed about it. I was in touch with another Sister who had been a Poor Clare, and she had left - again for her own reasons - and she had become a Consecrated Virgin. 

Tell us a bit about what that is then. 

It's really actually the oldest Order founded. It was founded during the time of the early Christians when people were coming forward to be baptised. And, of course, in those days, there was no infant baptism. They came as adults. And quite a few of them made an additional promise, a vow, really, to remain chaste, to remain a virgin, both men and women, and they would live their life in the community, helping the community wherever they lived. That went on for many years until the monastic orders began with the Desert Fathers. They started then building monasteries. That life grew. The whole thing of the Consecrated Virgin died out for a long, long time until Vatican II. Pope Paul VI reinstated it. I can remember, it's going back many, many years. I'd heard of this new Order, in inverted commas, new, taking shape in some of the dioceses in England and Wales. I was quite curious at the time about it and the fact that they were ordinary women living in the community but giving their life completely to God and making the vow of chastity and living fairly simple lives too. I'd pushed that because I'd wanted to be a Poor Clare, so I headed down that road instead. But maybe the Lord had intended me in the first place to become a Consecrated Virgin, so he had the last laugh. But, yes, I decided I would become a Consecrated Virgin, and I discovered that Pope Francis, I think in about 2018, he actually made it a legitimate contemplative Order. The Order is growing very, very fast. There's about 200 in the United Kingdom. There's about 5,000 across Europe. They're in America. They're all over the world, Asia. 

There a process to go through, Sister? 

You have to go through it, although I was released from it because I'd already gone through a novitiate. Yeah. You go through a period of postulancy. You go through the period of novitiate. Gradually, you then come towards making your consecration. I approached Bishop Patrick McKinney here in Nottingham to ask him, would he consecrate me? And my reasoning was that I felt called to walk with others on their journey to the cross as Christ walked with me, and so he was very happy to consecrate me. The actual consecration ceremony itself is very, very similar to the solemn profession that I undertook when I was solemnly professed as a Poor Clare. You know, you make that vow of chastity, and I made the vow to live simply and to live in total obedience to God. So I don't actually have a Superior except the Lord himself. 

And so you're freed from the enclosure element now, but I think you think about that differently now. 

I think yes, I always had a little question about the enclosure because Saint Clare herself, when she followed Saint Francis, she didn't actually live in enclosure, just like Francis. Francis would go with his brothers down to the male leprosarium in the valley, and they would tend the lepers. And Clare and her followers used to go to the women's leprosarium. It's been handed down that Clare was not in an enclosure in those early days, and it was only because the Pope at the time felt that women couldn't be let loose on their own, so he pushed for them all to be in strict enclosure. And, actually, reading the old rules of St Clare, you know, the early times, it was quite an amazing thing how many bolts had to be, you know, and chains put on the doors. And, of course, you had the grilles, which were dreadful because you couldn't see through them, just see a shadow at the other side. And in the old Poor Clare monasteries, even the floor level on the side where the sisters were in the parlour was lower than where the visitors would be. So it was almost like they were being buried.

A very physical - it was very physical not just symbolic.

 Absolutely. I felt that that was a little bit strange really because the Lord says, Honour your father and your mother, and yet suddenly you're thrust into this enclosure, and you're not even allowed to go to see them. My siblings, two of my siblings, I couldn't go to their funeral. It was exceedingly strict. I always had that little query about it. I can remember talking to Bishop Patrick about this thing with enclosure, and he actually said, Well, of course, the enclosure is also in the enclosure of your heart and you in the heart of God. That struck quite a chord with me because actually before I entered the Poor Clares, I can remember visiting the monastery down in London. I had got up in the middle of the night to join them for the Matins at midnight. I got there before any of the Sisters, and I didn't bother to put a light on. I was just sitting in the darkness. And I can remember gazing towards the tabernacle, and the red light was there. And it began to pulse, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger. And, eventually, the light filled up the cavernous chapel. I just concentrated on that pulsating flame, and it just felt to me -because it was red as well - I felt like I was inside the heart of God. And for me, that's what enclosure was about. It wasn't about the bricks and mortar. For me, even as a Consecrated Virgin, although I'm going out and I sometimes nip to garden centres and lovely places to visit for a cup of coffee with a friend, I still feel I'm living in enclosure, but in a very different way.

In a more spiritual way, I would say. 

It's much more spiritual. Yes. It's not just the physical bricks and mortar. If you just think of enclosure as the bricks and mortar, I think it lessens the value of the life somehow. You don't go to that deeper level. 

Certainly, as an onlooker, you might just see the - you might be distracted by that kind of concrete enclosure and not actually think about what really people are being called to. 

That's right. People find the enclosure a little intimidating. Where I have found, and particularly in the work that I'm doing now, where I am living in a multi-faith situation, People with no faith, people with different faiths, different ideas of God to me. Because I'm walking with them in their day to day existence, I can talk to them in a way they understand me more because they see me as an ordinary human person like themselves, sometimes having to stumble along. Where at first, they were a bit suspicious about me being a religious sister and why would I want to make this vow, especially Consecrated Virgin? 

Medieval!

 Yes. The word virgin, it made them uncomfortable. But now they see the value of that because they know that it's about my personal relationship with God, who I love dearly and who loves me. Occasionally, they'll say to me, Oh, if only I could believe like you, life would be better. And I then try and talk to them, Let's see what you do believe. And very often, you know, you find that they believe more than they realise they do and that they are closer to God than they realise. 

That goes back to my earlier question that I was just holding on to about when you say you're walking with people, what that really looks like. And I suppose it is about being available to have those conversations. 

Exactly. Yes. Just being there for them. Very often, I will go and sit in the lounge with a group, and we get chatting, and they'll ask me questions. And especially with issues that are happening now on television, you know, with the assisted dying bill, they will ask me, what do I feel about those sorts of things? And so it's a way of stepping in and saying, well, this is how I see it. Life is important. Because some of these people are in their nineties, and some of them are in great pain. Some would probably love to end it all. You can use your pain to offer it up to the Lord. 

And giving them a different way to think about the experience that they're having. Where they might have got stuck in a bit of a rut with it. 

Oh, absolutely. 

Now I'm now thinking about the offering up pain to God. That's not an image I've thought about much since I was at school myself probably when we used to do a sort of morning offering. Yes. I mean, I still do my own kind of a morning offering. The idea of offering up your pain, I don't - I'm gonna have to think about that a little bit more, to be honest with you, Sister. But that's the good thing about being able to have a conversation at that level, isn't it? It makes us think about what things mean and what they mean to us and what it means in the light of our faith. 

Pain comes in all sorts of ways, doesn't it? I mean, it's not just physical pain. It can be heartache, and that's a process that has to be got through. You think about our Lord, the betrayal he had. Judas betrayed him. The other disciples betrayed him in many ways, yet he surrendered it all. 

Now the word surrender, I can get behind better. I must give that some thought. 

You've got always got something that you have to face. But I've always found when I've come through it and I've accepted it, I've embraced it. That's another word, I think, embracing that pain, embracing the betrayal. God helps you through it. You become stronger. 

Yes. Absolutely. You grow through those experiences. And I'm really interested in how, for you, it has come back as it so often does with my guests to being of service to others, to that being what the Lord is calling you to in so many different ways for many, many guests. That has been a really big theme. And also, the sustenance that the Lord gives you when you find the right way. We're not walking on our own. Mhmm. I think I can hear that too that the Lord has brought you into a life that is using your gifts and making you feel loved. That's been really lovely to get to the bottom of some of that with you. It has been really interesting talking to you, Sister Gabrielle. I think listeners will find so much there to reflect on and that resonates with their own lives. But thank you very much for joining me. 

You're welcome. You're welcome. God bless. 

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic This Time. I hope today's conversation has resonated with you. A new episode is released each Wednesday. Follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms. Rate and review to help others find it. And follow our ex, Twitter, and Facebook accounts, at kinds of Catholic. You can comment on episodes and be part of the dialogue there. You can also text me if you're listening to the podcast on your phone, although I won't be able to reply to those texts.

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