The Sisters of Saint Anne are five women religious whose gifts of prayer and hospitality seem utterly boundless. About 15 years ago they partnered with a number of lay women in the Diocese of Massachusetts to develop the Bethany House of Prayer. Today, the once quiet city block containing their convent, chapel, two houses, and their former school for girls is bustling with activity. People go for spiritual direction, for retreats, and various church and non-church groups use the resources of these highly skilled women (most of them not ordained) to connect with God and to develop community. I go to the convent about once a month to celebrate Mass for the sisters, a precious gift which they give to me and to many other local priests.
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| The Sisters of Saint Anne Arlington Heights, Massachusetts |
Two years ago the Parish of the Epiphany’s vestry went to Bethany for a retreat, ably led by Bethany House of Prayer’s staff, Julia Slayton and Mary Meader. We left renewed and energized and we didn’t do a single piece of business. We prayed, listened, ate, and prayed some more.
Just this past Friday and Saturday, like we did in 2012, the vestry turned ourselves again toward Julia and Mary’s voices, the Sisters’s hospitality, and it’s not too much to say that in doing so we were transformed yet again
Vestry work is often intense, and it’s also quite often fairly mundane. A monthly meeting in a parish hall, no matter how attentive we might be to Bible study and to praying at the beginning and at the ending of our meetings, is not an adequate forum to reflect on our call, or to connect with God and each other. Yesterday after church every single vestry member who was there (in church) made a comment about the retreat—how important, how moving, how grounding, how energizing, how powerful.
There’s no question that we’ll do an annual retreat—we might even do two a year—because it’s now in our DNA: it’s essential to our ministry.
In September the Diocese of Massachusetts sponsored an event in Roxbury about the B-Peace for Jorge Campaign (our work to end violence in our city). The keynote speaker was the rector of Trinity Church in Newtown, Connecticut, Kathy Adams-Shepherd, who had been there for 18 years when the tragedy at Sandy Hook School occurred. In her keynote Mother Adams-Shepherd told us a story about how Trinity Church was completely unprepared for that moment (everybody was), and completely prepared for it. Her church, led by the vestry, worked together in complete synchronicity during those days and weeks. She attributed their capacity to respond to the community (and to one another), and her ability to lead them in those dark hours, to the parish’s emphasis on pastoral care and prayer. Then she said there one particular practice their vestry has always done: they go on retreat twice a year. “In those vestry retreats we have learned the importance of putting on our own oxygen masks first,” Adams-Shepherd said, “then we can help others.”
There’s no question that we’ll do an annual retreat—we might even do two a year—because it’s now in our DNA: it’s essential to our ministry.
