Gardener’s Cottage,
Princethorpe,
England.
community@msceurope.co.uk
www.msceurope.co.uk
March 2006
News from the New MSC
European Community
Dear Brothers, Sisters and friends of the MSC family,
It’s already March 2006. Time goes so quickly and we’re fast
coming to the end of our preparatory period in this new European Project. What
have we been doing since our last newsletter to you in November 2005?
Much of our time has been spent in study and research –
immersing ourselves in a wealth or recent literature on urban ministry of
presence, missiology, social analysis, the challenges of secularisation,
developments in Western European culture, evangelisation, the phenomena of
postmodernism and globalisation, the contemporary quest for spirituality, multicultural
ministry, and inter-faith dialogue. This
has been an enriching experience for each of us.
Besides our ongoing commitment to study, research and
regular times of discussion, we have also visited a few projects and people who
have been a great help to us in our discernment.
At the end of November last year we visited
“Brushstrokes”, a Community Project in Smethwick, a deprived neighbourhood of
North-West Birmingham, which is run by Sr. Margaret Walsh I.J.. When Sr.
Margaret came to live in Smethwick six years ago her
main priority was to get to know the people and to identify their most
important needs. She did this primarily by visiting people’s houses. Today the
project has developed considerably and now has a permanent paid staff and a
team of committed volunteers all providing a range of services to the local
community, especially the hidden poor and the many immigrants, refugees and
asylum seekers.
In December we visited the Fr. Hudson's Society (FHS), the Social Care Agency of the Archdiocese of
Birmingham. We had a really valuable afternoon meeting with the Director,
Kevin Caffrey, and the Director of Community Projects, Andy Quinn. Fr
Hudson's offers services to those in greatest need across the diocese, in order
to improve their quality of life. We
found the visit to Father Hudson's very valuable indeed. Kevin and Andy posed
several critical and challenging questions to us that really helped us reflect
on our deepest intentions, our identity as religious and missionaries, and our
determination not to take a parish. But the visit also confirmed in us
our strength as a religious community, the real need for a project such as the
one we have in mind, and the need of contemporary society for our spirituality
of the Heart. Kevin and Andy were able
to point to some other existing projects and offered us the names of people
worth visiting. They also offered some good advice on how to go about
selecting a neighbourhood and acquiring accommodation. Should we end up
living and working in Birmingham we
anticipate a closer collaboration with Fr Hudson’s.
Early in January this year we travelled to London to
meet with Mgr. Keith Barltrop and Clare Ford of CASE (the Catholic Agency to
Support Evangelisation) – an agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Both Keith and Clare have a very good sense of what is already happening across
the various dioceses and cities of England
and Wales. They
were also aware of some of the emerging needs and trends in different cities,
and possible opportunities for our engagement. We found them to be incredibly
encouraging and affirming and we very much appreciated our visit with
them. We were also delighted to discover that CASE is in touch with a
national network of people, one of whom would be able to accompany us as a
supervisor in our ministry, something we have been keen to arrange since the
beginning of the project.
Also of
interest in January was a conference in Birmingham
hosted by the ecumenical partnership of the Birmingham Churches. Entitled, “God’s Heart for the Marginalised:
Responding to the Destitute on our Doorsteps” the conference focussed primarily
on support for refugees and asylum seekers.
After the first few months of reading and study, and the
many interesting visits and conversations, we have been able to refine our
intentions for the project. We want to
adopt an incarnational ministry of presence in an inner-city
neighbourhood, participating in neighbourhood activities not according to any one
particular function (priest, teacher, community worker) but as a religious
community sharing in the life of the local community and witnessing to the
values of the Gospel. We hope to
contribute to a better life in the neighbourhood together with the people
themselves and in co-operation with local agencies. We are particularly interested in
accompanying those who are marginalised or excluded and trying to facilitate
the bringing together of people of different backgrounds and beliefs in an
effort to build bridges, promote trust and strengthen peaceful
relationships.
By mid-January we
were ready to start naming criteria to help us narrow down the search for a
city. We are looking to select a large, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic,
multi-religious, crossroads city in the UK
which is somehow characteristic of contemporary trends and developments in other
European cities. Of particular interest
to us are the levels of deprivation, social exclusion, unbelief and secularism,
the significant impact of migration and immigration, and the fragmentation and
disconnectedness of communities and neighbourhoods. We also hope to be able to work in
partnership with the local diocese, parish and other churches.
After naming our criteria we set about a careful study of
sociological, statistical and demographic data for various cities in England
and were able to draw up a short list of about five cities which met our
criteria and which we would be interested in pursuing further. Top of our
list is Birmingham and that is the
city we shall be looking at first.
At the beginning of February
we travelled to the MSC Mission
House in Tilburg (The Netherlands)
for a specially designed three-week Seminar in MSC
history, charism and spirituality. The time was almost like a short second
novitiate (but better!) – part study, part retreat. It gave us the opportunity of re-discovering,
in a deeper fashion, the person and intuition of our Founder, Fr. Jules
Chevalier, and exploring the MSC
charism and spirituality from the point of view of the social/spiritual
characteristics and signs of our times in Western Europe.
A number of resource persons from the Chevalier Family accompanied us on this
journey. We are deeply appreciative of the time, contributions, enthusiasm and
encouragement which they gave so generously. All the details of the seminar,
including the seminar papers, audio clips and photos, can be accessed on the
Seminar page of our Website.
Website? Yes you read correctly! Since the middle of
January we have our own website. One of our initial commitments to the
eight sponsoring European Provinces was to communicate regularly with the MSC family, especially in Europe,
and make our resources and learnings available to them. On the website
you can follow all that we have been doing so far and access all of the
resources we have been using. The website is regularly updated. We would
be delighted to hear your comments and enter into a dialogue with anyone who is
interested in the project. Our web address is: www.msceurope.co.uk.
On March 16th,
2006, we visited the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop
of Birmingham to introduce ourselves, explain the project we are planning, and
begin to explore with him the possibilities of establishing our community in
the Birmingham Archdiocese. We had a very fruitful meeting with him and one of
his Auxiliary Bishops, David McGough, during which they made several
propositions to us. As a result, our consideration of a city is not only
confined to Birmingham but we will
be looking at other possible cities and neighbourhoods within the diocese over
the next few weeks before meeting with Archbishop Vincent again. We still
hope to make a decision about the location of our project within the next month
or so: then begins the search for a house. If things go well we could be
moving in May or June.
Bit by bit over the last five months we have come to know
one another more deeply as persons. The quality of community life is a high
priority for us. Our time together in prayer, faith-sharing, refection,
discussion and study, as well as the domestic sharing of cooking, cleaning,
shopping and relaxing, are all important aspects in building community.
Following on from our day with Fr Mark McDonald MSC
(Superior General) during our Seminar in Tilburg,
we committed to take time over the next couple of months with a facilitator for
a more focussed personal sharing. In preparation for that we are going to
do the Myers Briggs Personality test together. As a community it is
important for us to know, appreciate and understand one another, to be able to
genuinely support one another and to be able to build on one another’s gifts.
This is most of our news for the moment. By the time of our
next newsletter we hope to have decided on a neighbourhood, have found a house,
and moved to the heart of a city to really start our Ministry of Presence. Follow our progress on the website!
Ton Zwart MSC
Mark Van Beeumen MSC
Carl Tranter MSC