Note about the Franciscan Study Centre

 

dining room

My Former Office at FISC

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FISC Car Park

FISC Library Corridor

Our readers will be aware that the Franciscans have closed their Study Centre in Canterbury. This message from Ms Pat Brookhouse, a faithful friend of the Study Centre may answer a few questions about what is happening.

I know that some people were concerned about what was going to happen to some of the contents of the centre. The following has been put together with the help of Br Antony Jukes.

 

 

As Some of you will have seen in the local paper the centre is now owned by a development company “Empiric Student Property”.

I thought you might also like to know how the contents of the centre have been dispersed.

 

The new owner requested that the houses and contents remain intact so that they could continue to rent them out to students.  They also requested that the kitchen be left open though the rest of the main building was to be left empty.

 

The Contents of the Library.

General Philosophy went to St Bonaventure’s College in Lusaka, Zambia. General Theology, Scripture, Liturgy etc. went to Holy Trinity College, Harare, Zimbabwe. Most of the caged section of the library went to second hand specialist booksellers. A few of the very old rare books will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in the hope that they will find a new home and owner who can properly maintain them.

 

The Franciscan collection has gone to St Mary’s University Twickenham and it is their intention to put on a Franciscan weekend possibly in the new year with invited speakers. They are wanting to use the collection and so it is hoped that in the future they may try to put together a Franciscan course of some sort.

Chapel and General Fittings

The Organ has gone to Fr. Stefan’s Conventual Community in Romania. Many things including the altar and lectern have gone to Ramsgate (the old Benedictine Abbey) which is now The Divine Retreat Centre run by the Syro-Malibar community. They also took most of the furniture from the main building. The Stations of the Cross will remain nearby: the University of Kent Catholic Chaplain, Fr Peter Geldard, has accepted these with the stand for the tabernacle, to furnish their new chapel. The statue of St Francis will be erected within Saint Thomas’ Church, Canterbury.

And various other items have found homes.

Thank you Pat, for your efforts in gathering this information.

May the Harvest of FISC be abundant: One sows, another reaps.

WT

 

 

 

 

 

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April 6, Station III: Our Own Hopes Had Been…

Our Own Hopes Had Been… [19-24]

We now come to the account the two disciples give to ‘the stranger’ of what happened. What the stranger/Jesus is doing is listening to their experience of what happened, and as we listen with him—which is what we try to do at this station—we can become aware of several things.

• The first is that in pouring out their experience it is clear that they cannot understand it, still less accept that it makes any sense at all. It should not have been allowed. The unspoken question, their cri de coeur, is: Where was God? Why did God allow it to happen?
• That’s not a million miles from the way we might have experienced it if we had been there. All the more reason then to pause a little longer at this Station.
• If we pay closer attention to what they say we will surely recognise the Gospel story, only it is not ‘Gospel’/Good News! It is their experience of the story, told from ‘a purely human’ point of view, and it is heavy with the weight of failure and ‘loss of faith’.
  • First, there is the failure of the religious authorities [our chief priests and rulers] to recognise and accept Jesus of Nazareth as the prophet he had shown himself to be: ‘mighty in word and deed before God and all the people’. And not only that: They had delivered him up to be condemned to death.
  • And now they admit to a faltering in their own faith: ‘But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.
  • They then go on to talk about something else that has happened, something that seems to have disturbed them even more than the death of Jesus, and which has probably driven them to leave Jerusalem: ‘Some women of our company have amazed us’. They say they have been to the tomb and did not find his body but that they had ‘seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive’. Some others [presumably men!] had gone to check for themselves ‘and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see’.

• It is at this point that the stranger ‘breaks in’, upbraiding them for their lack of faith, so slow to believe. But before going there we should allow ourselves to be questioned also, and to hear what we might say in reply.

What is this like for us today?

• How do we try to ‘make sense of’ the crucifixion of Jesus, and of the apparent powerlessness of Jesus—and of God—to prevent it?
  • This is not about theology but faith, about trusting and accepting that God’s power, and way of doing things, is very different from ours.
  • Do we believe/accept that? What difference does it make to the way we actually live, and make decisions?
• When we talk—argue, complain—about what is happening, or not happening, in the Church today do we hear ourselves like these two disciples, telling it as we see it: needing it to make sense [our kind of sense]; and, of course, finding someone to blame [our chief priests and rulers]?

 JMcC.

April 3 – The Journey of Conversion andDiscipleship

 

The traditional Stations of the Cross invite us to re-enact the Passion and Death of Jesus, pausing for reflection and prayer at ‘Stations’ along the way. The focus for ‘the Stations’ has traditionally been on only a part of the Gospel narrative, the Passion and Death of Jesus, and it has been recognised that that was too narrow and had to be extended to include the Resurrection, without which the Way of the Cross could never be complete. Much can be gained, I think, by extending it still further to encompass the entire narrative of the Gospel, recognising that ‘the Way of the Cross’ is actually the Way of the Gospel, of discipleship—‘Take up your cross and follow me’.

I suggest we take one text—St Luke’s account of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus [Luke 24:13-35]—and use it as a template for our own ‘Stations’ on our journey of faith, our learning to be disciples in the reality of our lives and of the Church as we experience it today.

After reading the text it will help to offer a bird’s eye view of the overall movement, noting how it opens with two dispirited disciples leaving Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Jesus and ends with them hurrying back, at the end of the same day, to re-join the community they had just left, eager to tell the others what has happened to them. What we want to do is not just understand what happened to them that accounts for this dramatic turn-around, but to try to position ourselves at each Station in the narrative, looking for correlates in our own experience—as individuals, as a group, as Church.

JMcC

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“The Joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew…

“The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ.”

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium [1-2]

Interruption: Introducing Stations on the Way to Emmaus

John McCluskey is a Mill Hill Missionary who has worked in Europe and Cameroon, Africa. He now teaches at the Institute of Saint Anselm, Margate as well as at the Franciscan International Study Centre. He offers these reflections on the Way to Emmaus as a way to take stock of our situation today, as individuals and groups in the Church and World today. I am very happy to recommend them to you as our posts for this week of Eastertide.

WT.

If your New Testament is not handy, try this link to the Gospel text, which is Luke 24:13 – 33.

http://www.esvbible.org/Luke%2B24%3A13-35/