50: Walking in the footsteps of the generations before us

Episode 50: For Thomas, 'Our faith isn't a dusty old thing. It's a living faith which has been passed down from generation to generation.' His grandmother helped to shape the way he puts his faith into action, working in the criminal justice system where 'we have something really important to bring as Catholics and as Christians.' 

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Transcript

You're 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. I'm grateful for Pope Francis, who used the image of a caravan, a diverse group of people travelling together on a sometimes chaotic journey together. And that image that Pope Francis gave us 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. And if you're enjoying these conversations, it helps if you rate and review them on the platform where you're listening. Thank you. 

I look forward, listeners,  to making a new introduction to the podcast, referring to some words or imagery from our new Pope Leo XIV. But for now, here's a conversation that was recorded before our new pope was elected. 

Listeners, thanks for joining today. I'm joined by Thomas and we're gonna have a really good conversation. We're gonna start actually with Thomas's grandmother but first welcome Thomas. 

Thank you. Good to be here. 

So you said to me when we had our little conversation beforehand that your grandmother was very important as a kind of centre point for faith in your family. Tell us a bit about that.

Yeah. I'd love to. So I'm a cradle Catholic, and my faith really came from my grandmother. So she was born into the rich heritage of the Catholic faith in Glasgow. And then in the late sixties moved to Immingham, which is my hometown. And she was a founding member of our parish. So our church, Our Lady Star of the Sea, is quite modest looking. I think it was destined to be the parish hall, but as so often happens, it ended up being our permanent church. And I suppose my gran had such a profound impact on my life because she was a person who really put her faith into action. She was a humble person, a modest person, and it's difficult to understand the true extent of her work or the impact that she had. She certainly wouldn't describe what she did as work. It was her way of living the gospel message. But she was the cleaner, and she was the gardener, and she'd do the painting. And she would set up the ecumenical prayer groups and the rosary groups. She was the Eucharistic Minister. She'd run eucharistic services. She would take the Blessed Sacrament to the sick. And even now over ten years since she died, I still meet people who tell me stories about things that she did for them, and I just had no idea. So for me that's a real example of putting faith into action. She led a life of prayer. People knew that she was a person of faith. A real example, a really good model, I think. 

There'll be lots of listeners for whom that really resonates, you know, who've got somebody in their life. I know for lots of people, we can look back to one particular family member and think because of what they did, I'm a Catholic today, you know. If it hadn't been for their example, keeping the whole family engaged in faith by that example, I might not even have been a cradle Catholic. And it's really lovely to hear. I think the parish community - I often ask guests about this because the parish community can be so important to so many of us, so many ways in which we can be involved. Sometimes it is that one person who's doing all of those things and it's amazing to think of their energy and like you say the fruits still being born from their work. So tell us a bit about your own faith then. So have you been someone who, your faith has always been important to you? Have there been little wobbles along the way? What does your own faith journey look like? 

Yeah. So I think about this in almost in terms of stages, but I've always felt fortunate to have a strong faith, firm foundation. So in Immingham, in my parish, church was always a central part of our lives. The Sunday service, Sunday Mass was where we met granny. We met the rest of the family. So it was a kind of a focal point in the week as is the case with so many Catholics. When I went to university, I suppose that was the first time where I had to think, Do I want to carry on doing this? Am I going to go of my own accord? Which Mass do I go to? Do I go to the 9am one or the 6pm one and all of those kinds of things? But there was never really any doubt in my mind. And within a week or two of joining a wonderful parish, Saint Werburg's in Chester, I was completely embraced by the parish community there. There's a wonderful parish priest who had supported a CathSoc, a Catholic society for university students. So there was a community of other Catholics my age, but also parishioners. There was a wonderful couple who really took me under their wing. They would take me out in the week. We'd go to M&S Cafe. We'd go for lunch in places. They'd invite me around to their homes. And I think that was really important for me, to feel part of that parish community, to be able to contribute something too. And I think it was really reassuring for my family back home to know that there were good people looking out for me. So throughout my four years of university, that was really formative. And then shortly after leaving university, I did a bit of work in a few different places for a couple of years, then I needed to move to London to start a new job. I spent a couple of days wandering around London trying to look for a house share, trying to look for accommodation, and it was a total nightmare. I remember after one very unsuccessful day, I thought, I'm going to go to church. I've got to be honest here. I really just wanted a quiet place to sit down and rest my feet. I was close to Westminster, so I opened my phone, and I was looking at nearby churches. I'd already been to Westminster Cathedral several times, so I thought I might look to see if there are any churches I'd not been to. And I saw that there was a church not too far away called Farm Street church in Mayfair. And so I wandered over to Farm Street. And as I walked into this glorious church, I remember muttering to myself or to the Lord, Come on then. Now is the time. I need some kind of miracle. And the situation felt as though it was getting a bit desperate. Of course, I was half joking. Happily, there was a Mass, so I sat through the Mass. Upon leaving, I thought, Well, no. There was no miracle to be had. No flats or keys or anything fell from the sky. So I walked out. I got on the train back to Cardiff. The train was just passing through Bristol, and I felt something in my pocket. And I thought, What was that? And I realised I’d picked up a newsletter and folded it into my back pocket. So I was slightly bored, so I thought I'd have a quick look at this newsletter and see what goes on at Farm Street in Mayfair. And as I unfolded this newsletter, I saw in quite large text a sentence which read, Are you Catholic? Age 18 to 35? Looking for accommodation in London? 

Wow.

Clearly, I was. So I straightaway emailed the contact, Father Jim. And shortly after that, I moved into a young adult community, which was run by the Jesuits in Britain. And so I spent four years in a couple of houses with other young Catholics with spiritual formation from the Jesuits. So I think that was really nice because the impression that I get from other Catholic friends is that when you leave university, Catholic Societies, Christian Unions, those kinds of things, there isn't always a network of support or a community that people feel able to go to for their age range. So I felt really fortunate to be a working professional, but also to live as part of this young adult Catholic community. 

What an amazing thing to have happened. 

Absolutely. 

That's just wonderful. The Lord was looking out for you and brought you in. I had a guest recently who had lived in community as a young adult, and he described it - listeners might remember - he described it as a crucible of virtue. How did you find living in community? I mean, I'm guessing that that would be Ignatian spirituality then that you were getting some formation in, which I'm sure is something to support your faith for the rest of your life. But what about the living amongst the other young people? Was it a mixed blessing or was it just a complete blessing?

It was definitely a mixed blessing. So it was the most wonderful experience. I met some great people who I'm sure will be lifelong friends. But, of course, it's not some kind of utopia. Of course, there are those frustrations when you start to get annoyed that people aren't clearing up the bread crumbs and all of those kinds of - the realities of living together. And discerning together, What does living in a young adult Catholic community look like? What are our commitments to each other? Some people were working. Some people were studying. And so it was important that we came together regularly to eat, to pray. But also, we've all got busy jobs and other things to do. So we had to grapple with all of that sort of stuff. Before moving into the community, I didn't really have any understanding of Ignatian spirituality. Didn't really know what it was all about. And so that was a real blessing, being able to learn about the richness of Ignatian spirituality. So every Wednesday for four years, we would have one of the Jesuit priests, usually Father Duchenne or Father Jim, who would come to the house, and they would provide a little bit of input. We would maybe do an examen to explore where God might be working in our lives. And, of course, sometimes that felt easier to do than at other times. I must admit there were times when I probably, after a long day's work, nodded off for five or ten minutes. But, no, a really important experience, and I learned lots about Ignatian spirituality, which I hope will serve me well in the years to come, probably in two particular areas. One is thinking about where God might be working or where and how God might be working in our lives, especially when things might seem a bit tough or difficult. And then there was a lot of input about discernment and what does good discernment look like. When might be a good time to discern things, and when should we say, actually, No. I'm not going to take any big decisions at this point. So we had, in addition to the regular input, we had a number of retreats. We went to Saint Bueno’s. I think we went to Worth Abbey, a really wonderful experience. And, initially, I joined just for one year, but then I think we experienced COVID and then a range of other things happened. So I think I was the longest serving member or resident, and I thought if I don't get out quickly, I'm probably gonna have an SJ at the end of my name, so I better leave. 

Okay. You mentioned discernment there and what good discernment looks like. I wonder if you might just dig into that a little bit and tell us what you think discernment -what that does look and feel like for people who -.  I think lots of people do know what discernment means, but just see if it resonates with listeners. 

So the Jesuits spoke to us about being able to recognise whether we're in a sort of state of consolation or desolation, and that might help us to understand when would be a good time to really grapple with key decisions that we might want to make. One of the things that was really helpful for me was to think about where we might trip up. So most of us, I think and hope, are good people. We're not going to choose to do really bad things. That's generally not how we're tempted. Sometimes we're tempted by what might seem like really good things. It might be taking on additional things when we just don't have the time to do it. There can be times when it's useful to go beyond the kind of, Is this a good thing to do? And really think about where God is in our lives. To think about the range of implications. It provided a helpful framework to think about making key decisions. 

Thank you. That's great. When we were talking before, you said that history, history of the church, is really important to you, or something that you spend time studying. Tell us a bit about what interests you about history then, particularly the church's history.

I'm neither an historian or a theologian. But just as I spoke about the importance of my grandmother on my faith, that has been the way in which our faith has been passed down to us for generations and generations. So behind me, I have a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, but that statue is well over a hundred years old. That, I think, came from my grandmother's father. There's that kind of passing down that rich tradition, which I just think is incredible. When I go and spend time in in Rome, for example, I like to go to the catacombs. I think the catacombs just are some of the holiest places you can go to, and I've been to a range of catacombs. I've been to some in Paris. I think I've been to some in the Netherlands. There can be a bit of a macabre, a slightly morbid, curiosity. I think it's the Paris catacombs when you go in, there's a sign saying, ‘Ici, l’empire de la mort’. Welcome to the empire of death, and skulls and crossbones and all of those kinds of things. But in Rome, just I think, it's along the Appian Way. There's the - I might be getting this wrong - but I think it's the catacombs of Pope Callixtus. It feels a little bit different to some of the other catacombs to me. So there are no remains on display. Photography isn't allowed, so it doesn't feel quite so touristy. But I think it's really moving to go and look at the tomb or the place in the wall where bodies or the remains of very early Christians were buried. People within a century or two of Our Lord. And to see those early Christian symbols, that we're so familiar with now, of the bread and the wine, the fish symbol. To see that really up close, I think, is such an important reminder that our faith isn't a dusty old thing. It's a living faith, which has been passed down from generation to generation, And I think that's so important for us to remember.

Yeah. You speak about that really movingly. I've sometimes thought that too that there's a line of people, not just the popes, but there's a line of people we can trace back to people who were there with Jesus who have handed on their faith all this time to us now. So I know we were talking before, and I've said this before on the podcast for listeners. I used to work for Pact, the prison charity, and I know that you now work supporting prisoners or people on probation. It'd be nice to hear about your work, but also how your faith has brought you into this area of work and how that affects the way you do your work. 

So I'm a civil servant working for His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service. I would like to say that it was my faith which drew me to the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS, the prison and probation service. But it was actually a bit of an accident that I arrived here. I was on a program where I was moved around different government departments and was posted here. Of course, I was delighted to be posted to the Ministry of Justice. That posting was for one year. I think I've now been here for about five years or so. So it wasn't my choice to come here, but it's absolutely been my choice to stay. I just think that this department does some of the most important, purposeful work of any government department or public sector organisation. There are well over 80,000 people in prison. There are over 240,000 people on probation. So the scale of the challenge is significant. But I do think we have something really important to bring as Catholics and as Christians. I know that religion has always played a really important role in shaping the criminal justice system. Many of my friends and colleagues like to remind me that the origins of the modern probation service was in the police court missionaries of the late nineteenth century, and that resulted in the Probation of Offenders Act, I think, in 1908. So Catholic organisations continue to play a really significant role in in the criminal justice system. The likes of Pact, which I know you know very well, supporting families and friends of prisoners to maintain links within the prison and doing so much more. The sheer number of chaplains and volunteers, prison visitors, but also our faith, our understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, I think, should mean that our approach should bring real value. It can be quite easy as Catholics to think about those phrases which we hear a lot about human dignity and the common good and take them for granted. But I think we have to grapple with, What does human dignity look like in the context of prisons and probation? When people have harmed others? When people have transgressed against communities? What does it mean to work towards the common good in in this context? So in my own role, I suppose my great passion is local communities and the role that they can play in keeping communities safe, in protecting the public and reducing reoffending. And so I am responsible for, I call it, community justice. So in one part of Cardiff, we have a project where a team of probation practitioners supervise people on probation. But we've been thinking about how we really work closely and engage closely with the local community so that they can play their part in supporting that rehabilitative journey. So in this project, we've moved probation out of the city centre office into warm welcoming community hubs. So they see their probation practitioners there, but they also have a range of support which they're able to access. The kinds of things that you might expect, support with finance and with housing and with education and all of those kinds of things. But what's really important to us is that we are also able to support them to think about how they can meaningfully contribute to the local community, how they can become active citizens. When people on probation speak to me about the impact of this project, they tend to talk about the ways in which they're able to give back to the community. They tend to say things to me like, Six months ago, people just knew me for all of the wrong things I've done, for all of the bad things I've done. But now people stop me in the street, and they say, We've listened to your podcast. Or, We've seen the work that you've done down at the community allotment. Or, we tried some of your food at the pop-up kitchen that you're now running. So it's creating and reinforcing that other non-criminogenic identity. That identity of being a dad, of being a son, of being a good neighbour, of being a resident in a local community. I think the church has a really important part to play. So some of the venues which we use for this are churches. Usually, whenever we begin working and thinking about these sorts of approaches in any community, our strongest allies are often the churches who are really committed to these ways of working and to supporting people. So I think it's important work, and I hope that my faith has an impact on the work that I do and the way in which I do it. 

I think there's something about understanding that relationships matter in what you're saying. I think, again, a previous guest was talking about supporting people who are homeless, and he was saying sometimes it's not that there aren't services for people in those situations, but it's that they just don't have any good relationships with others to build on and to support themselves and to feel part of a community. And so I can hear in what you're saying a similar thing about helping people find a network of support that they can be part of and contribute to as well as, you know. Not just taking from something that's offered like a crumb from a table, but actually they're part of a community of people working together to support each other. I can hear that in what you're saying, I think, about encounter and connection and we're built for relationship. As you say, more than just the kind of headlines of Catholic Social Teaching, human dignity, solidarity, the common good. These are the kind of, what's the word, that this is the meat of it. And I also appreciate you not shying away from the fact that, you know, people have done, in some cases, really terrible things and have done harm. It's not helpful to have a shallow view of how people might return to life after prison, but to think about what's really going to help and bring people together to help people, to be reassured by that, I hope. So in the way you're speaking about your work, I can hear the values of faith there, and I can hear in some ways, you know, the way you spoke about your grandmother at the beginning and how she contributed to the community. I can kinda see that example being expressed still in your life and your work. I just would like to get a little closer into the things that really nourish you. I wonder if there is a prayer that you return to or a spiritual practice apart from the Ignatian things that we mentioned, a type of liturgy that feeds you that you return to that you find really helpful?

I'm an introvert. I think that also has a bit of an impact on my faith. I think my faith is one which I hope is strong and which nourishes me, but I suppose it can also be a quiet faith at times. So I'm always happy to talk to people about my faith. My Zoom background behind me has a statue of Our Lady, so my colleagues, my friends absolutely know that I'm Catholic. Though I perhaps do have a bit of a tendency to comment on some of the outward appearances, the more external aspects of our faith. Commenting or uploading a picture, reminding people that it's Palm Sunday, and this is what we're doing and, talking more about church history and bits about theology. I suppose I'm more comfortable doing that, or more likely to do that than to talk about the more interior aspects of my faith. That's perhaps why those four years living in the Jesuit young adult community were really helpful and formative because it's a safe space in which you can begin to talk about some of those types of things. Our faith is so rich. I'm really struggling to think about a particular prayer or a particular liturgy. I, again, from my grandmother, would have, quite a strong devotion to Our Lady. 

Would that stretch to saying the rosary yourself? 

Oh, absolutely. Yes. I would say the rosary, one of the things which came from my grandmother was saying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. I don't want to describe the richness of our faith as a kind of pick and mix, but I think there is something about knowing, understanding, what you might need at any given point to provide some sort of nourishment. When it's been possible to go to daily Mass, that's been really important, of course. The realities of working life mean that that's sometimes harder. Reading the daily Mass readings has been a really helpful practice for me. Doing lectio divina, meditating on the day's readings, I find helpful. I absolutely don't want to present my faith as a kind of, I've got it all together all of the time, and there are absolutely times when I've maybe thought I'm neglecting this a little bit. Over the past couple of years, I've developed a bit of an interest in pilgrimage. A few years ago for the first time, I started the Camino just over in Saint Jean Pied de Port on the French side of the Pyrenees. I've been walking the Camino in stages, so I think I'm about two thirds of the way there. I need to go back either this year or next year to continue that. And that's been a really helpful exercise for me to provide the headspace to think about one's faith. I think pilgrimage is becoming a really important spiritual practice for me, literally walking in the footsteps of the generations who've gone before us. Meeting others, especially as an introvert, it's quite an interesting experience to meet someone, and within two or three minutes, they're telling you their life story and the very best and the worst things that have happened in their life. People speaking so openly about their faith. Going into all of those small chapels, experiencing many moments of grace. 

Thank you, Thomas. It is hard sometimes to put into words what we're experiencing, and there is a great deal happening interiorly. I was thinking while you were speaking, in some ways, we just see the tip of the iceberg, don't we? The person who has a holy picture on the wall behind them or carrying their rosary in their hand. And, actually, there's a huge amount going on inside us that is like the iceberg under the water that people don't see. So it's a privilege when people are able to bring some of that out into the open and share it with others. Listen, thank you, Thomas, for sharing your thoughts and your experiences. There's lots there that listeners will find really interesting, I'm sure, and that will resonate with people. So thank you ever so much for giving some time today to talk. 

Thank you. It's been good to talk with you.

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 X, Twitter, and Facebook accounts @kindsofCatholic. 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. Until the next time.