COMMUNITY OF ST CLARE

Who are the Sisters who provide our communion breads?

They are the Community of St Clare, Freeland, Oxford and are part of the Society of St Francis, one of the biggest of our religious communities in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. There are twelve nuns at their convent at Freeland, and the Anglican Religious Communities Year Book provides the following information about their life and work:

"We are a group of women who live together needing each other's help to give our whole lives to the worship of God. Our service to the world is by our prayer, in which we are united with all people everywhere. We have a guest house so that others may join in our worship, and share the quiet and beauty with which we are surrounded. We try to provide for our own needs by growing much of our own food, and by our work of printing, wafer baking, writing and various crafts. This also helps us to have something material to share with those in greater need."

The Franciscan Order was founded by St Francis of Assisi in 1209, when he gave his followers their first rule of life. It is the largest of the religious communities in the Universal Church, and has always cultivated popular preaching and missionary activities. It has produced a number of famous men and women as saints to the Church: St Francis; St Anthony of Padua, St Clare; St Bonadventure and others.

Franciscans first came to England in 1224 and set up houses in Canterbury, London and Oxford. Their piety and learning soon won them a ready hearing, and by the middle of the century they had some 50 friaries and over 1200 friars in England. By the 14th century, they no longer possessed the same qualities and became a source of attack by some of the Protestant Reformers at that time. They had acted as confessors to Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon; but were scattered before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538.

Since the middle of the 19th century, many Franciscan houses have once again been established in both the Catholic Church and the Church of England. It was in 1921 that a group of men and women in the Church of England were inspired by the ideals of St Francis and set up a house at Cerne Abbas in Dorset. In 1931 they took vows and were constituted as a Religious Community in the Church of England. They have grown considerably in numbers over the years and have a number of friaries throughout the country with over 70 friars (they also have a large number of houses throughout the Anglican Communion with over 100 men and women in the Society). Today they are engaged in various ministries within the Church which includes religious education in some of the universities; commitment and care for the poor; retreat work in their houses; counselling and sharing in the task of mission in parishes and schools. They share with the Sisters a common life of prayer, fraternity and commitment to the poor.

Please remember to pray for more vocations to the religious communities of the Church. How important they are and how would the Church today manage without them?

MALCOLM FERRIER