INTERVIEW: Stories from Catholics in Lockdown

In this 8th CV Connect webinar we heard stories from our spiritual fathers and mothers in the faith, the clergy and consecrated. All our guests are men and women who have generously given their life in service to the Lord and and His Church. We want to know how, in theses extraordinary circumstances, a Seminarian, a Deacon, Religious Sisters, Priests, a Consecrated Virgin and a Bishop, have responded to the challenges and opportunities of lockdown. 

CV: We want to find out how our clergy and consecrated have been dealing with lockdown to get some perspective from our spiritual mothers and fathers in the faith. We will be hearing from: a candidate for the priesthood, Michael Barwick; Deacon Paschal Uche; Dominican religious sisters of St Joseph; priest Fr Marcus Holden; consecrated virgin Hannah Vaughan-Spruce; and Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth Diocese. 

 This pandemic will raise and has already raised lots of questions for the Church. It's not the place of Catholic voices to suggest that we have the answers, but I know one of the answers at least: it's calling us within her own state of life – within our own vocation – to holiness, to respond to this crisis with holiness.

There's a lovely phrase I often think of from Pope Benedict, that says the Church in every age grows due to holiness, not management. Our management is important – I'm not knocking the institutions or the structures of the Church – but it's holiness ultimately that wins the day. I want to find out from different people in different states of life and different vocations – we'll be doing lay people next week, but this week from clergy and consecrated – how this has given them a vocational focus, and what has it taught them about the spiritual life: how have they been handling lockdown, responding to its challenges and opportunities? 

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Our first two speakers are Paschal Uche, who is a deacon ordained for the Diocese of Brentwood and is due to be ordained a priest on 20 June, and we have Michael Barwick, who is a fifth-year seminarian which means he's not quite clergy, but he has received candidacy, which is how the Church recognises a seminarian as worthy of being ordained. He's due to be ordained a deacon on 27 June.

Paschal, you are a deacon and are due to be ordained on 20 June. Is that still the plan?

Paschal Uche: God willing, I'm still going to be ordained on the 20th. I had a lovely chat with the bishop in Holy Week and he said, ‘Pascal it's up to yourself – that's the date that's there, have a pray about it,’ and I've a real sense of peace that we should still  Go on with the date, that would be a good thing to do. 

CV: Michael, you're due to be ordained as deacon on 27 June – is that still going ahead?

Michael Barwick: Yes well, please God that will happen. I'm at Oscott Seminary, so the staff are meeting this week to make that decision, of whether it's possible for us to be in the seminary and be ordained, depending on government guidelines. But if not, then please God I could be ordained in the diocese by Bishop Alan. But yes. those conversations have started, and please God it'll happen in June.

CV: Michael, just tell us a little bit about how lockdown is going for you – what kind of challenges and opportunities has it thrown up?

Michael: Like for so many of us this is not our usual routine. It's sort of taking a bit of getting used to, actually. I'm at home so I'm not in a presbytery, and I'm obviously not in the seminary, so like a lot of you I tune into mass online, I'm finding new ways to pray, and I’m making use of daily exercise to find time to pray, because that's a time when I can find a bit of peace and quiet for myself. I think that's been the hardest thing, really, just not being able to get into a church – and that's for so many of us.

With that there is also a real sense of joy and hope, because people have come together and prayer has just erupted really – it's been beautiful to see. Seeing people coming from all over different places of the world and joining together just shows how strong we are as a catholic Church. It's been really blessed but it's also been quite difficult; there are days when you're feeling great and there are days when you just think: I've had enough now of this. But we have to keep going, because God is there with us in the good and also sometimes in the suffering as well. 

CV: Paschal, how have you been finding it? What challenges and opportunities has lockdown brought for you?

 

Paschal: I've been very fortunate, because my local parish priest asked me if I wanted to be involved from Easter weekend, and I still have been able to be present in the parish and exercise ministry as a deacon at cremations and burials. So that's been quite powerful.

One of the things about lockdown, as I've said before – and I love what you've said about growing in holiness – is really returning to who am I, what are the things that don't change, what's my vocation? Like you've said, it's about holiness, and I've been fortunate in being able to express that by being there for the people of God in funerals, at food bank once a week in Redbridge in my diocese, and there've been different creative ways in which I've been able to serve, which I've been very grateful to be able to do. And it’s helped me to focus for ministry as well.

CV: Michael, what is life like for seminarians? You can obviously only speak on behalf of people studying at St Mary's, Oscott in Birmingham, but how has your life changed as seminarians? You're doing online studies... what does that look like?

Michael: Usually we would meet each morning for morning prayer, we'd have our lectures together, and then we'd have Mass together and eat together and socialise, but sadly that's not possible at the moment. So now I’m having to find time to pray the Divine Office with my own routine, obviously living in a family home has its joys and has its struggles, but to try and find that time for prayer is important. Also meditation as well: I've mentioned going on a walk, and for me that's been really helpful, that's been the time I've had a bit of quiet for myself. Mass, and going to Mass online: thank God for all our priests who have been able to do that for us. That's been a real blessing, with spiritual communion. 

And yes, having lectures online has been a new experience. I think it's probably very hard for our lecturer, as it's hard for us as well. I have exams in three weeks, and I have essays due in and assignments, so actually the work didn't stop: it continues and I have to find a new way to get it done, without the distraction of the television!

CV: It sounds like the pandemic hasn't changed some things, then. There are still exams for seminarians! Paschal, walk us through your feelings as you're about to be ordained a priest, and while it's presumably still going on, it's going to be very different to how you imagined it, with you not knowing how many people will be there and so on. So talk us through what's in your heart and your mind and your prayer as you think about your ordination.

Paschal: I can only speak for myself, but I wasn't even thinking about seminary when I was thinking about priesthood. In terms of ordination that's been something that's been on my mind and in my heart for years and years and years – what it might be like, what it might feel like? So there is a sadness there, especially when I think about those who I'd love to be present there. But it provides a focus for me, and Bishop Alan wisely and really gently reminded me that the Curé of Ars, who is the patron of parish priests, because of the French Revolution wasn't allowed be ordained with anybody there: it was just him, the bishop, and an MC. And the same was true for JPII – he was ordained underground, so to speak.

So I received a real grace and a peace that this is about focusing on an intimate moment with the Lord, though it might be livestreamed as a way of saying the Church still goes on. The Church has faced everything that has ever happened, and still survived, so hopefully an ordination in the middle of a pandemic might be a sign of hope and a sign that actually the Church continues and we still go on. If I can be a sign for that I am happy to begin my priesthood as I hope to live it out, making sacrifices where needs be.

CV: Michael, any things you're trying to remember or keep close to your heart or that you would recommend other people to remember as lockdown goes on?

Michael: I think it's been remarkable to see the amount of charity work that has gone on, particularly with Captain Tom – that's been incredible – but also just parishioners being there for one another. There's been a lovely parish email thread that's going on in my Parish, and I think people are talking to each other about how they wouldn't have done that before. That's been really beautiful, and I think it's really important to remember that as we leave lockdown, please God, that that continues, that all these wonderful acts of charity and of love that have been happening continue. Our parishes really need people – we need to build up the parish so that the mission of the Church and of God can happen. Without that it falls flat, because the people are the heart of the Church and I think we need to remember that as we – please God – do step out of this lockdown.

Also, I think it's been lovely to see people stepping up as well. I think there's been a wonderful amount of prayer and I know that Mass attendance online has gone up. It's great watching it on the screen but I think we need to remember that we are people who need to be with other people; yes we've been joined together virtually, but we really need to be joined physically when it's safe to do so. I'd really encourage people who might have reconnected again to come back, because the Church wants you and needs you, and God loves you and wants you to be there.

CV: And finally, Paschal, really quickly – any final thoughts?

Paschal: Just Brendan as you began: our vocation is to be saints, and times like this can help us to maybe ask ourselves again how Am I Supposed to Live that out? And it might reveal to us in the simple things, like in my family, how do I leave it out because it's not going to be the Spectacular things, but it will be the everyday things, which a lot of Us Now are forced to live out. I'd want to encourage everybody that the church is still alive because the lord Jesus is in your heart and wants to express himself through the little acts that you will do even today. 

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CV: Our next guests are Dominican Sisters of St Joseph, Sr Carino and Sr Lucy. How is everything in the New Forest and how are you getting on in lockdown?

Sr Carino: We're getting on really well actually. We're quite unusual for a Dominican community in that we're not based in a city or a very built-up area near a university – we're in quite a rural area, so life is often quite secluded for us. The thing we do really miss is having a large congregation, a physical congregation at least, at our services, at our Mass and at our Divine Office. Also in some ways, although kind of everything has changed in our lives like it has for most people really – we're not going out on mission to parishes, we're not going out to other places – but nevertheless all our sung prayer and our community life of just living with each other is just continuing as normal, so there's this weird mixture where everything is different but the fundamental stuff has stayed completely the same. It's an interesting sort of contrast.

Sr Lucy: It is. And it's been interesting for me because people keep on saying to us, ‘Oh gosh how are you finding the lockdown, all not going anywhere?’ and I'm like, ‘Well I'm a novice.’ In our congregation in the first year of your novitiate you don't go out, you stay at the convent and your focus is on prayer and discernment, spending more time with God and with the community. I think that my routine has probably changed the least out of everybody's, so instead it's more like I have more company all of the time. ‘Hello everyone, you're all now novices with me!’

CV: Sr Carino and Sr Lucy, do you want to share briefly what brought you to the convent and what attracted you particularly to the Dominican charism?

Sr Lucy: My discernment really began with a deeper sense of God's love for me and wanting to give more to him, and when I started thinking about what I was drawn towards. It was that sense of wanting to witness to his love. I wanted everyone else to have a deep and as real a sense of his love for them as I did.

And also the thing that struck me in terms of there being a need, was that people needed to understand their faith, they needed to understand the ‘why?’ behind the Church's teaching because so often people fall away from the Faith because they think it doesn't make any sense, or people are saying to them ‘we have science so all the Church's teachings are really archaic,’ but really when you look, faith and reason work together – the Church has always taught this.  And when you are able to engage people's reason and say that can actually strengthen your faith, that can make all of the difference in someone's journey.

So I wanted to be part of an order that would be doing something about that, about teaching people, and obviously the Dominicans are the Order of Preachers, so this is what we do, and we're looking to do it in dynamic ways and new ways.

Sr Carino: For me I think my journey to religious life started when I was in my early twenties. I was living in London, and I had my own flat and a job I loved and I had some wonderful friends, and a very fulfilling life. I remember asking myself one morning: ‘I have everything I want so why am I not happy? Like what more is there to have?’

That thought then became: ‘Well, who are the happiest people that I know?’ And they were all religious, consecrated religious that I knew: priests and the sisters. To me that made no sense, because they hadn't got anything more than I had. In fact, they had less. They'd vowed never to get married, they'd vowed not to have material possessions of their own, they'd vowed to be obedient, so to order their free will to something beyond themselves.

I was quite intrigued by this, and I went about spending some more time with religious communities. I spent my second ever Easter – because I'm a convert – at this very convent, and I remember being at the Good Friday service, at the veneration of the cross, watching all these sisters in total silence line up before the crucifix and just kneel and prostrate and kiss the crucifix.

I remember thinking, ‘What I'm seeing going on here is very mysterious, it's beyond my understanding all these women who have devoted their lives to God, giving this act of devotion to the cross of Christ. I don't quite understand what's going on here, but I know that this is important, this is really at the heart of what it means to be a Christian, and to be a fulfilled and happy person who lives in friendship with God.’

So having watched that sight, I then thought to myself, well I need to look into this further. I spent more and more time with the sisters and eventually joined the community myself. But I still look back on that Good Friday when I watched them venerating the cross and think, well actually, everything I needed to know about religious life and everything I needed to understand about religious life kind of came to me in that one moment, because that's what their life is all about: it's joyful but it doesn't forget the reality of the cross and how we find ourselves in giving ourselves in love to others. 

 CV: One of the things I'm really conscious of in lockdown is that – for different vocations – some of the non-essential things have been stripped away. What is left in your life as consecrated, and what has it taught you about your vocation and the Christian life? What kinds of challenges and opportunities are being presented by lockdown?

Sr Carino: Well, even before lockdown started, because as I mentioned earlier we're fairly isolated already – we're quite secluded in a rural area – we've been thinking for a few years about how to reach people by the internet; you know, it costs money to drive out to our nearest big cities where are cathedrals and universities to talk at, and it costs people money to get the train or to drive over to us.

So we've been using a webinar platform to give regular Bible study and regular prayer with scripture, and also we have a livestream camera installed in our chapel so that all of our services are available for people to participate in remotely. And we'd set that up before the pandemic hit, because we needed it anyway to reach people.

That's been really good because using a new type of software or a new type of technology always has teething problems, as we discovered, and it was really useful that we got all of our teething problems with using the webinar platform for our preaching and using the livestream camera to broadcast our Mass and Divine Office out of the way before actually it became really urgent for people.

Before we were reaching maybe 30 or 40 people we knew who were housebound and couldn't get to Mass, whereas now barely anybody in the country unless they're in religious life with a live-in chaplain can participate physically in the Eucharist, which is an absolute tragedy. We are very blessed and privileged to be in a position to allow people to make a spiritual communion through our livestream camera.

Sr Lucy: It's been wonderful actually, because while it's awful the people are in this situation, we've had so many emails and messages and phone calls from people who found us online, who have been so touched by our prayers and who are so grateful that they are able to be with us not physically but spiritually and also with that visual connection and being able to hear us and to pray along with us means so much during this time.

We actually had a phone call this afternoon from a pensioner who said that he is a lapsed Catholic – he stopped going to church about five years ago – and when the pandemic hit he started looking at what Pope Francis was saying. He was aware that the churches had closed, but then he thought maybe there are some English churches that are online, and then he found Churchservices TV, and ended up stumbling across our community. He was just telling me on the phone, ‘Oh my gosh, your singing is so beautiful, and you have adoration every evening,’ and I was like, ‘Yes, I know, I live here,’ but he was just so grateful and he wanted to let us know that personally he's been touched and he's going to be praying with us every day. That just was wonderful.

Sr Carino: I think it's really hit home that our prayer that we celebrate in common is a service to the Church. We pray it as the body of Christ, we pray it as the Church; it's not our own little personal act: ‘Oh, I fancy going to morning prayer this morning.’ It is our service it is our work that we do for the Church, that we continue to offer these prayers even if no-one was tuning in, even if no one was there apart from us we would still be offering these prayers on behalf of the church because it's what we're for. We're religious!

Sr Lucy: I don't know exactly how to phrase this but I think I have felt a heightened sense of responsibility in a way, because that sense of how we are so privileged here, where we have a chaplain who lives on the premises – in his own little cottage – so we have Mass every day, we have the sacraments. Since we have access to these things it's even more important than before, if that's possible, to pray with our whole hearts and souls because we can be here when so many people are longing to and when we come to the Mass, when we come to the Office, we're carrying all those people with us who can't be there physically, because we're all united in the body of Christ. They're there with us in a very, very real way, and we're helping to strengthen them.

CV: Could you give us any final thoughts that you would love Catholics to remember during lockdown?

Sr Carino: I think for me I'd want everyone to remember that even though we can't be physically together in our parish churches, we'll always be united in our Sacrament of Communion in the body of Christ that is the Church. No matter how long it is until we can all get to celebrate Mass together again, the pandemic can't erase your baptism: we're still united in Christ and we can all still pray for each other and be in communion with each other in that way. 

Sr Lucy: I suppose the fact that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, that God exists and he is working even in the very difficult – and for some people quite scary – circumstances he's with us, and if we have him then we have everything that we need. 

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CV: Our next guest is Fr Marcus Holden. How is lockdown for you, Fr Marcus?

Fr Marcus: Very unusual, as probably for everybody tuning in – and I should say it's a remarkable gathering on this webinar, congratulations for dragging these things together, it's amazing.

I've realised more than ever the bond that a priest has with the people of the parish, and the absence of that has been really difficult, so we've been trying to find lots of ways to connect and to evangelize and catechize during this period.

 

CV: Fr Marcus is the episcopal vicar for evangelisation and catechesis for the Archdiocese of Southwark, and a prolific author and speaker, who has started lots of apostolates I've admired for many years, like Evangelium, and has taught apologetics at Maryvale. One of the ways he's responded to this is through digital creativity – there are lots of little videos from this new initiative called Divinitas – so let's talk a little bit about responding with digital creativity. How has that been for you? 

 

Fr Marcus: Well, it's something I've been interested in for a long time, but I've been given the impetus by this lockdown to do more, and I think there's a real catechetical and evangelistic revolution going on because of this: we're being forced to use the technologies that are out there, and I think this is going to stay with us.

Obviously it can't be a substitute for the personal, but it's something that's going to run parallel with it and it's going to provide all sorts of new opportunities for people in all sorts of areas, in very efficient ways and in very clever ways. 

Some of the things we've been doing, we've been producing little videos about the Catholic faith, bite-sized chunks that someone could take a crash course in the Catholic faith in in this period, [00:38:47 can't figure out what he's saying here] prayer, a series called The Art of Faith, but we've also been doing livestream Masses as many priests have and as others have said tonight.

I've been amazed at the number of people who are tuning into that – far beyond my normal weekday congregation. I've well over a hundred people tuning in every day, and on Sundays over 500; the Mass attendance in the parish is only 450, so it's above and beyond that.

Many people are tuning in who also aren't our regulars, maybe people who are – and I have heard from them – curious about Christ, curious about the Faith, and they're listening as if they're stepping in at the back door of the church just to listen. Maybe it's easier for them to do that through the livestreamed Masses.

But I know from the research that one in four people from the entire country have been watching these religious services, throughout the country and in various other faiths as well, and that's massively up from the 6% who normally practice or go to religious services in person. Something is happening: there's a religious curiosity, and I think it's partly owing to the time people have for reflection, and maybe some of the suffering that's around that's allowing this religiosity to emerge; it's something we have to meet.

There are a few other things that we've been doing. We've done a live Rosary with families joining in, and all the voices together praying in honour of Our Lady, especially in this month of May. We've had also spiritual Direction online with various people; the new opportunities for that make it very easy. I've been doing conferences as well, and family gatherings where families of the parish come together and little children show something at the screen to everybody or want to read something out or dress as a saint, and we've had different themes regarding that.

The technology is making all that possible. It's not a substitute for the reality, for the grounded reality, but it's opening new avenues which I think will remain open, and we should continue to exploit them.

CV: And what does the non-digital side of your priestly life look like now? What challenges and opportunities have you had? Presumably many of the usual pastoral ministerial activities are no longer going on...

Fr Marcus: Well, I think many of us have realised our extrovert side in this period and the desire to be out and meet people, but I think the lockdown has also grounded people in both senses of that word, and for me as a priest as well, so I live a more monastic life that I led before: every day is very similar, and we have to create a timetable for that.

Every day there is adoration with the priests – I am lucky to live with a group of priests, we have lunch at the same time, and prayers and Mass at the same time, so it's a more grounded reality than usual. Usually I have all sorts of things to go to and people to meet, and I go out of the parish, but this has made me very much more local, and I had a whole reflection on that, I think we've somehow lost our connection with the local and with the immediate and with the people around us. We go out – I see people on the street when I am walking, and they're more friendly than ever before, people are open to one another, and that's something very beautiful.

I've been doing a traditional practice that I've never done before in my priestly life, which is called 'beating the bounds', where you actually walk around the boundary of your parish – I can do that in an hour because it's in London in Clapham Park and it's easy to do an hour walk; you go round the boundary of the parish, I pray my rosary and this is an ancient practice that was particularly popular in old Catholic England.

Have you heard of the idea of the rogation procession? It's from the Latin rogare - to beseech – where the parish priest with a whole procession would beseech the Lord to take away any pestilence, and pray for blessings on the parish, and for conversions, and that's what I've been doing as well. I've never done it before. Ironically the lockdown has made me more local and grounded and ordinary, which is really I think quite healthy as well and it's giving more time for prayer and contemplation.

CV: And in all of these conversations that we are having with clergy and consecrated in different spaces, different walks of life, we’ve asked, ‘What has it taught you about your vocation?’ What lessons have you taken particularly and personally from this lockdown time about the nature of the priesthood and the Church in general?

I think one lesson that really emerges for me is the centrality of the Mass. I thought that people would be wanting to tune in to other things that we produce, and all sorts of new ways of spreading the Gospel, new ways of being Church – I've heard that phrase a lot – but time and time again what people are hungering for is the Mass.

I don't think it's just because that's the familiar; people are very inventive at finding all sorts of new things, but they return to the Mass, I think, because it is the source and the summit of Christian life. They return to it because it is the Redemption, Christ's redemption being presented to us, and it is him in his body, blood, soul, and divinity in Holy Communion, who is there for us to receive. And people – even though at a distance – have been warming themselves on the fire of the Mass even at a distance, and in increasing numbers; it's the Mass to which people have turned, and I think they've returned to great eucharistic longing.

I keep hearing from people in telephone calls and on the internet, people desiring a greater union with the Lord. That's a eucharistic longing. And there's been a return of certain traditional practices that had always been there, but had been slightly lost, like the spiritual communion, the way we can unite ourselves at a distance with the Lord in the Mass, with practices like the gaining of indulgences or making a good act of contrition, a perfect act of contrition, because we can't get to Confession.

These things have really emerged and it's convinced me as a priest of the centrality of the sacraments, once again. There is no substitute for that. We're doing our best to connect but that's where the action is, and that's what the numbers tell us as well. I think we should continue a both/and in the future with the Mass and also with these livestreaming opportunities for those around us. 

 

CV: And finally, any last bits of wisdom or things you are telling lay people who are struggling, I guess starving from lack of the sacraments, about what ways we can keep ourselves spiritually healthy and in good standing with the Lord even at these times when there isn't Mass to attend and Confession isn't available? How are you counselling people?

Fr Marcus: Well I think the idea of a regular life, of having set times with set times for prayers is really important – I find it really helpful to keep a structure to the day. But on the spiritual level, I think praying with the season is important: pray with Our Lady because it's the month of May, the Rosary is a great prayer for this time, and also use this time to discover the Lord again, to revisit the Gospels, to read them again – haven't you got the time, the opportunity?

And that's what the apostles were doing at this time after the Resurrection, they were pondering all that had happened in the life of Christ, and they were meeting him again. And I'd suggest perhaps really – this is what I'm asking parishioners to do here and I hope many people can do it throughout the Church – the first ever Novena, meaning nine days, from novem in Latin, was the novena between Ascension and Pentecost. Let's make those nine days really, really focused on the coming of the Holy Spirit again, because we're in lockdown at the moment and the apostles were in lockdown during that time in the upper room. They were with our lady and they were praying for this outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that when the Holy Spirit came down upon them at Pentecost there was a newness and a new beginning, a new opportunity.

I think that after this lockdown, and I hope it will coincide a little bit with Pentecost as our restrictions are lifted, we can go out renewed from this period, and there can be a great evangelisation, a sharing of the treasures of our faith. 

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CV: Our next guest is Hannah Vaughan-Spruce. How are you doing, Hannah? Where are you self-isolating, and where is lockdown for you?

Hannah: I'm good thank you. I've actually gone back to my parents for lockdown, so me and my brother and one of my sisters have all kind of moved back. Apparently there's a name for it – the Covid boomerangers – where you just move back with your parents, even though you're kind of an adult and have your own place and everything. We've been doing lockdown together for the last few weeks, and it's been good. 

CV: You're now a consecrated virgin – that happened last year? 

Hannah: Yeah, it was last year on 1 November, so six months ago now. 

CV: Consecrated virginity is one of those vocations in the Church, which, even though it's one of the oldest it's arguably one of the most misunderstood, so can you tell us a bit about your journey to consecrated virginity? How did that happen?

Hannah: I hadn't even heard of it myself for a long time. During my twenties, over time I think I just gradually experienced the Lord calling me to a celibate way of life, and lots of things were converging which was bringing great peace in my heart about this idea of being completely for God, to give myself completely to Christ.

I just spent a lot of time in my twenties searching for what that would be.  I knew I wasn't called to religious life; I really felt called to stay in the world, and I think that's one of the beautiful things about consecrated virginity, that you're treading a fine line between the lay and the consecrated worlds. I was probably in my late twenties, maybe around 30 when I heard about consecrated virginity.

I actually read an article in Cosmopolitan magazine, of all places. There was an article about a girl who had become a consecrated virgin in America, and it really struck my heart. It really spoke to me quite deeply, and it just spoke of a way that I could live what I felt God was calling me to forever.  I contacted my diocese – I'm in the archdiocese of Southwark normally – and went through a period of discernment and formation, and was consecrated by the bishop back in November.

CV: In many ways your life will be much like a lay person in so much as you're without access to the sacraments. What has this time taught you about that singular-ness you were speaking of, this consecration of self: what kind of personal challenges and opportunities within your vocation has it brought about?

Hannah: This is the thing- my life is pretty much the same as everybody watching this in many ways. We have all the same kind of things going on at home, we're all working from home, there's all the struggle for Wi-Fi and bandwidth and all that kind of stuff going on. A lot of people have said the same thing, that there's a lot more time for prayer, given the space that we all have. I'm normally commuting into London, and so I worked out that I have about eight to ten hours a week of extra time which is amazing, so I think what Father Marcus said earlier really struck me: it's giving a sense of grounded-ness, of having a regular rhythm of prayer that you kind of can't keep to every single day because you're not going out. So it's really taught me that. 

And then just also just that sense of – consecrated virgins pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and just have a real sense of praying that and offering that prayer on behalf of the Church, there's a real sense of holding up the Church and the world in that. I have a job in addition but I see my primary vocation as prayer for the Church and for the world. I felt that in a really deep way and I think, you know, like everyone the absence of the sacraments especially Confession and the Eucharist is so painful to each one of us, and to have that for so long, none of us would ever have imagined we be experiencing something like this.

But I've just found something very deep in how – you know, Jesus is with us so, so closely. I felt that so strongly over the Triduum, and I think just discovering the different ways that Jesus is present to us. You know we have the Scriptures, and lectio divina has taken on a whole new role in my life. There’s silent prayer, and all the different presences of Christ that we have still available to us, and the Holy Spirit is important to our hearts. We'll celebrate Pentecost in a few weeks, and the Holy Spirit is real and alive within us, so I cling to those things during this time. 

CV: One of the ways you serve the Church is not only praying for the Church as a consecrated virgin, but also you are the UK director for a ministry called Divine Renovation, helping parishes move as they say ‘from maintenance to mission’. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, about how that influences your vocation and about the desire to see parishes raised up?

Hannah: The last weeks and months have been a crazy time for parishes, haven't they? Huge uncertainty – we just plunged into this crisis just before Easter. In Divine Renovation we want to inspire and equip parishes to be missional, and to be really outward facing, and we have a big thing about leadership within parishes as well.

It was just wonderful to see some of the parishes that have been coached: I think parishes have develop a kind of missionary muscle, you know – people working together, how to lead well, how to really reach out – and just seeing in response to the crisis some of the parishes just really getting into gear very, very quickly, just thinking, ‘Ok how are we going to do this? How are we going to keep parishioners connected? How are we going to lead well during this season? And how are we still going to continue to evangelize? Because the churches might be closed, but the Church is not closed – we are the body of Christ, and we're still in business.’

Over the last couple of months we've been just offering a lot of support for parishes trying to support them in whatever ways we can with webinars and coaching and all kinds of things, to really help them navigate this new normal. I just think of priests where it's almost like: ‘What's your identity? You don't have your parishioners anymore, so what does your day look like?’ We're really focusing on how can the parish still live out its identity in the midst of the world, still be evangelizing, still be reaching out. It's been a joy to be walking alongside parishes at the same time that we're all carrying the pain of this current separation from each other. 

CV: Of course on one of our CV connects recently we had Fiona O'Reilly who is a great friend of Hannah's and who works closely with Hannah, and we have all of our resources on the CV Connect link of the website to their toolkit for helping parishes to begin to address some of the challenges and opportunities being raised by Covid. 

So just finally Hannah any kinds of words of wisdom or encouragement, things that people should be keeping in mind as Catholics facing lock down?

 

 Hannah: I think one of the things that struck me is lots of the parishes we've worked with are doing Alpha online. One of the big things you do in Alpha is you pray that people will receive the Holy Spirit, and we've just discovered that works even when people aren't together physically: you know the Holy Spirit is still poured into people's hearts. So just as we come to Pentecost, I think there's that ancient prayer ‘Come Holy Spirit,’ and we don't have to be in a church to pray that prayer. You can pray that whenever you want. I would just encourage everyone to just be praying that prayer, ‘Come Holy Spirit,’ because he really does come when we ask him to.

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CV: Last but certainly not least, we're talking to Bishop Philip Egan. Hello Bishop Philip. Thank you so much for your patience, and thank you for joining us. How is lockdown from the perspective of a bishop? 

Bishop Philip Egan: In the early days of it, it was very strange because a lot of things started emptying out of my diary, and I began to feel I was on a bit of a retreat. Also, I started taking up a bit of exercise in the afternoons as well, and had time for prayer and reading, but at the same time I also became increasingly sort of busy. I've been phoning all our priests offering support and just hearing how they're kind of getting on.

We've been livestreaming the liturgy from the cathedral, but also from my private chapel, and I've also been admiring the way many of our priests have been incredibly creative during this time. You know people hearing confessions in car parks, and all sorts of different things. For myself here at the cathedral, in the afternoons all the clergy have been opening the back door of the cathedral, where we have an altar there and we have the Blessed Sacrament, so we have an hour of prayer for the city and I give Benediction at the end of that.

So suddenly all the days have become very different, and everything's been turned upside down, but there have also been many wonderful things as well to thank God for during all of this.

 

CV: How are you counselling your priests and laity who get in touch to deal with the predictability and monastic nature of our lives in lockdown, and also with the kind of spiritual desolation that's coming from this, the hurt that's coming from being starved of the sacraments? 

Bishop Philip Egan: Of course, as with all our dioceses, I'm following government instructions: we closed all our churches. I've recently been sort of campaigning, in a sense, that we could reopen our churches as soon as we can because I think it sends the wrong message. It's a wrong anthropology, really: human beings are spiritual as well as physical.

Obviously we would have to do this in a safe way, clearly, opening our churches, but I think certainly for people to be able to come and pray in the church, and also of course as Catholics the church is where Christ feeds us with the sacraments, where he gives us the gift of eternal life, and so our churches are really quite central and important. So in terms of I'm trying to encourage people obviously to pray, we pray for the sick and the dying and for those who care for the sick, and all of those important intentions that we have at this time. But I've also started including in Mass that prayer for the reopening of our churches, and the beginning in some safe limited way of celebrating once again the liturgy and the sacraments.

 

CV: I guess we should be made uncomfortable by this fact; in what ways can we continue to respectfully make it known that we do want our churches open at the first available opportunity?

Bishop Philip Egan: I think one of the thoughts there as well is that parishes are going to be very dependent on the faithful to volunteer and to assist, because we've been planning here in the diocese over the last month some of the things we will need in order to be able to reopen our churches. There will be a great need for stewards, there'll be a need for people to volunteer to help with cleaning of churches, and so on. So I think there are many opportunities for us to be of service, because this is a way we can really serve our communities, serve the church, and serve all those who come to our churches.

Just one other thing too: this crisis is a kind of wake-up call, I think, for many people in our society. Here in Britain people have been on an investment holiday for decades, in terms of their spiritual and religious development and so I do think that this crisis has shown the fragility of much of life and the important things in life – health, and wellbeing, our financial security and so on. I think it does raise for many the basic questions, and I think as a Church we've got a great opportunity as we come out of lockdown, in terms of mission and in terms of evangelisation, that we offer the way to true happiness, which is the Gospel of Christ. 

CV: Are there any kind of stories or examples that illustrate the kind of spirit of evangelisation that you're looking for, whether historically, biblically, or something that's happening at the moment?

 

Bishop Philip Egan: It's interesting that you should ask that question because I find myself thinking of St Charles Borromeo during the plague in Milan and some of the wonderful things that he did at that time to serve people, and Father Damien (of Molokai) has always been a favourite saint of mine. But maybe closer to our own day, I think of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who aged 17, a teenager, was a member of his SVP when in 1918 there was that terrible Spanish Flu epidemic, and that affected lots of young people – people would go to work in the morning and perhaps suddenly drop dead at work. Pier Giorgio went amongst the slums and visiting in the hospitals, and so on, caring for, supporting, praying with people affected by that pandemic. Thanks be to God he was preserved at that time – later on as you know he contracted polio, perhaps from similar work which he did, when he was a bit older. I find myself very encouraged by his generosity, and his example.

I think today clearly we know a lot more about the medical science involved in viruses, and epidemics and so we're rightly very cautious. Thank God for those advances. We also have wonderful technology today which a hundred years ago they didn't have, but Pier Giorgio, I think, is a great example for us today of a young man given to serving people in need because in meeting the poor and the sick, we're meeting and serving Christ himself. I'm very inspired by him.

CV: have you got any advice for people, just kind of final remarks or parting words? Lockdown is going to be going on for quite a bit longer so what should we keep in mind and remember as the weeks draw on?

Bishop Philip Egan: I think we should take every opportunity to establish in our lives a structure for each day, which is a balanced structure; I think that's important. But at the heart of that is our prayer life and our relationship with God because we can face anything if we have that union with our Lord Jesus Christ in our lives – we can face anything. And so I would encourage people as well to find opportunities for eucharistic adoration and Mass online, maybe livestreamed during this time, and that way to find that renewal in ourselves and in our hearts that enabled us to soldier on and with joy to witness to our faith and to live our lives.