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Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
Last Update: 01/02/2009 |
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Visits to the Archbishop of Birmingham, The Most Reverend Vincent Nichols
On Thursday 16th March 2006 the three of us visited Archbishop Nichols at Archbishop's House in Birmingham. The purpose of the visit was to introduce ourselves and the project and to begin to explore with him the possibility of establishing our new community in the city of Birmingham. We had an excellent conversation with the Archbishop and with Bishop David McGough, one of the Auxiliary Bishops in Birmingham. Before opting for Birmingham, Archbishop Vincent invited us to take some time to clarify our primary intention in undertaking the project and to first consider the city of Stoke-on-Trent, a smaller city in North Staffordshire with significant problems in terms of poverty and deprivation. We agreed that we would take a serious look at Stoke and arranged for a visit of the city with Bishop McGough the following Tuesday (21st March 2006). While Stoke presented many interesting possibilities, and is undoubtedly a city of great need, our visit and research led us to the conclusion that it did not sufficiently fulfil our established criteria (see list of criteria here). The principal reasons are as follows:
On Saturday 8th April we returned to Birmingham for a second meeting with Archbishop Vincent and shared with him our thoughts on Stoke-on-Trent and our more precise intentions in undertaking this project (click here). He was very encouraging and understood fully our reservations about Stoke. When we asked if we could establish the project in Birmingham he gladly agreed. We suggested to him that the area of the city covered by the Aston Ward (Aston, Lozells and Birchfield) represented the best match to our criteria and that we would like, if he was willing, to look for accommodation in this general area. Recognising the great need in this neighbourhood, he readily agreed and warmly welcomed us to the Archdiocese.
God’s Heart for the Marginalised: Responding to the Destitute on our Doorsteps
Conference hosted by ‘Restore’ and ‘Karis Neighbour Scheme’ at the Methodist Church in Central Birmingham on January 25, 2006. Mark and Ton attended. ‘Restore’ is a project of Birmingham Churches Together welcoming and supporting refugees and asylum seekers. Its main activity is a scheme to befriend the strangers in our midst. Karis Neighbour Scheme is a community project based in Ladywood, Birmingham. It developed from concerns of local general practitioners, health visitors and district nurses. They found that some people were finding it increasingly difficult to get help with practical tasks in their home or experiencing isolation. Among those are many refugees. Poverty among refugees has increased because of the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act. Similar laws have been enacted in other European countries. ‘Failed’ asylum seekers, those whose applications were refused, have all state support withdrawn unless they sign a declaration that they are willing to be returned home. Many, terrified at the prospect of returning home, are left in a kind of limbo, banned from working yet unable to access benefits. The conference programme hosted a number of speakers: several refugees who related their haunting experiences, a lawyer, a doctor, an Anglican bishop and several church people who initiated small imitable projects for the increasing number of destitute refugees. Some quotes: Refugee: “The past holds me and the future is a desolate unknown.” Bishop: “Concern for the destitute is not an optional extra. If our city wants a future, it has to take care of the poor and the stranger.” Refugee: “We need people to listen to our stories.” Doctor: “The destitute asylum seeker cannot be healthy.” Church helper: “The key to help refugees is relationships: getting to know them and make friends with them.” Refugee: “If my country were a safe place, I would return tomorrow.” Church helper: “It’s amazing what you can do, if you don’t know what you cannot do.” Refugee: “They did not believe me and questioned my credibility”. Church helper: “The forces raised against us are very powerful: the government and most of the media. Their only hope is the faith communities. We are God’s people.” Karis Neighbour Scheme: “Hope is the bird that sings to the dawn, while it is still dark.”
Visit to the Catholic Agency to Support Evangelisation (CASE) On Wednesday 11th January 2006 we travelled to London to meet with Mgr. Keith Barltrop and Clare Ford of CASE. CASE was launched by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales to support, resource and help co-ordinate approaches to evangelisation in England and Wales. Because of the work that Keith and Clare are engaged in on behalf of the Bishops' Conference they both have a very good sense of what is already happening across the various dioceses and cities of England and Wales. This, then, provided our first real opportunity to begin to name and examine potential cities for our new community project. They are also aware of some of the emerging needs and trends in different cities. They were able to point us in the direction of several good possibilities and contacts which we will be considering and pursuing over the coming few weeks. During our time at CASE we were also able to explore some of the resources that the Agency makes available to projects such as ours and discuss with them recent publications on various aspects of evangelisation and secular British culture. We found them to be incredibly encouraging and affirming and we very much appreciated our visit with them. One thing we have been keen to arrange for the last couple of months is a supervisor, facilitator or accompanier for our project. We were delighted to discover that CASE is in touch with a national network of accompaniers called "Building Bridges of Hope" and once we have made our selection of a city CASE has offered to help us find someone who will journey with us in an ongoing capacity. Back to top
Visit to Fr Hudson's Society, Coleshill, Warwickshire On Tuesday 20th December 2005 we visited the Fr. Hudson's Society, the Social Care Agency for the Archdiocese of Birmingham. We were able to have a really valuable afternoon meeting with the Director of Fr Hudson's, Kevin Caffrey, and the Director of Community Projects, Andy Quinn. Fr Hudson's offers services to those in greatest need, in order to improve their quality of life. The Society was founded as a children’s home in 1903. One of the needs at that time was the growing number of destitute children in industrial society. Over one hundred years later, the needs are very different, but still Fr. Hudson's responds. FHS has established various projects on its own and is a partner in many others. The three main fields in which it now works are Family Placement, (e.g. a registered adoption agency and a service to enable people involved with Father Hudson’s as children to learn about their origins); Adult Care, (e.g. residential care for frail older people especially those with dementia and bungalow housing specially adapted for adults with multiple disabilities); and Community Projects, (e.g. the ‘Hope Family Centre’ in Wolverhampton offering counselling and support for local Children and families, and ‘Brushstrokes’ in Smethwick, a collaborative project supporting ‘the hidden poor’). FHS does not work on its own. It recognises the importance of building up networks with other organisations, offering particular expertise and experience, as well as working collaboratively on particular projects. There are also many committed volunteers and religious sisters who co-ordinate and staff the projects supported by FHS. All projects are driven by outreach and home-visiting. “It is important to go where the people are, and not to wait for them to come.” The motivation of FHS to work with vulnerable people is based on Christ’s command “to love one another as I have loved you.” This characterises the particular Christian ethos of the Society. It also works together with some parishes in the diocese, supporting particular local projects. FHS relies solely on charitable funding, from individuals and groups, throughout the Birmingham Archdiocese and from other Churches. They have a fundraising team which, through its hard work, is able to provide the different daughter-organisations with funding, staff, financial accountability, administration, etc. We found the visit to Father Hudson's very valuable indeed. Kevin and Andy posed several critical and challenging questions, such as: How will you identify yourselves as individuals, as a community and as project? Why not take on a parish - there may be advantages as well as disadvantages, one of which would be legitimacy in the neighbourhood. These have given rise to much conversation among us since. 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 our society today for a 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. Back to top
Visit to the Brushstrokes Project in Smethwick, West Midlands On November 24, 2005, the three members of our community visited Sr. Margaret Walsh of the Infant Jesus Sisters in the parish neighbourhood of St Philip’s, Smethwick, Birmingham. She was very generous and gave us hours of her precious time. Sr. Margaret started living in the community of Smethwick about six years ago. Her main activity at first was to get to know the people and their needs. She did so in the name of the Parish. She went around, knocking at doors, trying to make contact with as many people as possible. It was hard work but it resulted in identifying important needs. One of these concerned the refugees and asylum seekers in the area. The women in particular hardly knew English and stayed mostly at home, quite isolated from the rest of the community. Sr. Margaret began by giving English classes at her home, the only place available to her. Soon her house became too small both because of the increasing numbers of refugees interested in the English course and the number of volunteers willing to assist Sr. Margaret in her work. She found a bigger place in the parish hall after succeeding in restoring the building, the upper floor of which was turned into a centre called “Brushstrokes”. The name reflects a phrase used by the founder of her congregation who saw God as a master-painter. A crèche forms part of the centre, making it possible for young mothers to attend classes undisturbed. Sr. Margaret believes in the paramount value of home visits. It was the foundation of her work at the beginning and is so to this day. She also continues to make her own house part of the project, as a store room for relief goods and as a place to stay for volunteers willing to help her a few days a week. The centre cannot manage without outside support, the volunteers in the first place but also the financial and administrative assistance given notably by the Father Hudson’s Society, the social care agency working within the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham. Back to top
Visit to the Oblate International Community's Mission to Secularity, Birmingham City Centre In February 2005, during one of our planning meetings in the UK, we spent a day visiting a new inner city parish project in Birmingham begun in the last couple of years by an international community of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) where they are engaged in a mission of evangelisation of secular culture. They have taken responsibility for the Parish of St Michael's on Moor Street (opposite the new Bull Ring Shopping centre). This gives them great access to the very heart of the city, its commercial centre where people gravitate for work, shopping, passing their lunch hour, and meeting friends. There are very few "residents" in this district, and so the parish provides a stopping point for shoppers and those working in the city who wish to attend lunch-time mass and an early Sunday Vigil mass on a Saturday afternoon. While care of the parish is a central responsibility, much of their effort is directed to searching for new and creative ways of reaching out to the secular world that surrounds them. We were very impressed with their missionary attitude, being non-judgemental of contemporary Western European culture, refusing to demonise consumerism and the other "isms" of our time, and their quest for a new language by which to communicate the basic message of the Reign of God. Our meeting with them was very useful from various points of view. It gave us some good ideas about a thorough preparatory process (ideas we have since used). It helped clarify some of our our own aspirations and also made clear to us what we didn’t want to do (e.g. take on responsibility for a parish, and live in the commercial district of the city rather than a residential area). It also surfaced some useful contacts in the UK which we will be pursuing over the coming months. After our time with the Oblate community we walked through the city centre and visited some of the poorer, multi-cultural suburbs. Back to top
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This is a joint mission of the eight Provinces of the
Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Europe. |
