Vocational story…….

I have always had an overriding sense of God in my life.  I went to a Methodist infant school and a CofE junior school, so I suppose something of the religious ethos must have stuck in my memory.   But I am from a nominal church background; my parents did not go to church and for a lot of my childhood neither did I.  My headmaster, whom I did not like, attended our parish church so why would I want to go and see him on Sundays when I saw enough of him during the school week!!   I did attend a local Methodist church with my sister who with her husband are confirmed Methodists.   And I always wanted to serve God.   One day the local parish delivered through our letterbox a parish magazine which had an article about CofE religious communities and gave an address to write off to for further details and for a list of communities.  I did this and when the list came I literally went down the list with a pen ticking off those which sounded ‘quite nice’.    Some of those who replied send brochures; the Benedictines at Alton sent theirs and it sounded a lovely place; and the franciscans at Hilfield sent a note to say that they were holding an aspirants weekend if I wanted to attend.   As I earned little wages, I had to choose what I spent my hard-earned cast on and could only afford one train ticket; as the franciscan date was earliest I decided to Hilfield, in Dorset, and I was particularly keen to join a community which worked with people.       Attending an ‘aspirants weekend’ was a bit premature, but I went, and after interviews I signed up!   And that was 50 years ago!!

What came as a cold shock was the fact that the religious life was an integral part of the Church.   I thought the two were completely separate and I was not attracted to the church and its parochial system.   Most new comers to a religious community come via their parish church – but I had no experience of the parish system and I come to love the church through my membership of the franciscan community!    With church attendance on the wane, most enquiries these days come via the internet from people who may or may not have experience of the parish.  God comes to us in surprising ways and the community has to be flexible in its discernment processes.

Living in community is not always easy.   We have to live with a group of men who come from different backgrounds, educationally, culturally, temperamentally etc.  We do not choose each other but are thrown together in a common calling to serve God after the inspiration of St. Francis; at best, we are God’s gift to each other.  The common commitment to serve our Lord in this way is the key thing, and we need a certain robustness of health, mentally and physically, to do this.