Month: February 2023

Pray for Syria and Turkey

A Prayer for the Turkey and Syria Earthquake Appeal

God of time and space,
we cry to you for your children – our neighbours
– in southern Turkey and northern Syria,
following the earthquake that has devastated hundreds of lives.
Only they and you know what it is like to experience
such trauma in the middle of the night.

We give thanks for the aid that is already being given
and for the promises of help that have been made by many nations.

Comfort, we pray,

those who are trapped in collapsed buildings;
those who have lost loved ones;
those who wait for news and
those digging through rubble to save others.

Grant the gift of hope
so that those caught between life and death know that you are with them
and that others are ready to support them
as they seek a future that overshadows the experiences of today.

We ask this in the Name of Jesus,
who endured so much for love of them.

Amen

If you are unable to pray the prayer for somereason, please look at the candle and make it your prayer.

from the CEO of Christian Aid…

On Monday 6 February, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit in southern Turkey close to the border with northern Syria. A second 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck nine hours later, followed by aftershocks.
Thousands of men, women and children have died or been injured in the aftermath of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. It is not too late to save lives. Christian Aid is already working with partners in north-west Syria to provide winter kits to people seeking shelter.

Even before this devastating earthquake, there were more than 4 million people in need of aid in north-west Syria.
Nearly 3 million people have been displaced by the long conflict in Syria, 80% of whom are women and children.
Now extreme weather events and the spiralling costs of food and fuel due to ongoing conflicts are making the situation even worse.
People are facing a crisis on crisis.

The scenes from this disaster are heartbreaking. And even before this devastating earthquake, we knew over four million people needed aid in Northwest Syria alone. We are hopeful that the British public will show the same spirit of solidarity and compassion that we saw in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine a year ago. Every prayer, every gift, every action brings hope to people hit by disaster. By joining us, you can help people in need rebuild their lives.

Patrick Watt

Please make a donation

You can do this in the United Kingdom through the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) which is a joint response of all the Aid Charities. You can donate through your usual Aid Charity such as Red Cross, Christian Aid, Cafod. The money will reach those who need it. If you are reading this outside the United Kingdom, please look for the DEC equivalent or contact your local Red Cross.

Dear Sister Irène

*Photo from the Convent at Le Bec taken by the Sisters.*

At the Weekend, I posted a blog item about Sister Irène-Marie, a beautiful nun and iconographer. She was a member of the community at the Monastère Sainte Françoise Romaine, Le Bec Hellouine, Normandy. You can read more about her if you scroll back two blog entries.

Her funeral is today, Thursday 9th, at the Convent and I just wanted to mark the entry into heaven of a dear friend.
So I have written the following poem.

Dear Sister Irène-Marie,
bearer of Peace,
held in the love of Mary,
you brought a singular joy into our lives.
We met you and sensed your nearness to God.
We were enraptured by your sacramental eyes
which mirrored the Divine.

Extending monastic hospitium ,
you encircled us with welcome,
embracing our need with thoughtfulness
and gentle love, which was kept warm
within the folds of your habit.

Your listening expressed concern
for a broken world from which you could draw
a reservoir of experience.
No hidden cell housed you.
The lives of others glazed your windows
and held open the door from which rays of love shone.

Most of all, you ‘wrote’ visible signs
of God’s Presence in Jesus and the Saints.
You dipped your brush and pen
in the palette and inkwell of God.
From the depth of your prayerful iconography
you led us into the heart of faith
which has led you now into the bosom of your Saviour,
for as you said, that is what you, (and we,) “are here for.”

Thank you for opening and sharing the images
of your faith with us.
By you we have been truly blessed.

[Mr. G. 8^th February 2023]

Icon, Resurrection : Sister Irène-Marie.

Prayer after an earthquake

A Prayer for After the Earthquake in Turkey & Syria

Lord, at times such as this,
when we realize that the ground beneath our feet
is not as solid as we had imagined,
we plead for your mercy.

As the things we have built crumble about us,
we know too well how small we truly are
on this ever-changing, ever-moving,
fragile planet we call home.

Yet you have promised never to forget us.
Do not forget us now.
Today, so many people are afraid.
They wait in fear of the next tremor.
They hear the cries of the injured amid the rubble.

They roam the streets in shock at what they see.
And they fill the dusty air with wails of grief
and the names of missing dead.
Comfort them, Lord, in this disaster.
Be their rock when the earth refuses to stand still,
and shelter them under your wings when homes no longer exist.
Embrace in your arms those who died so suddenly this day.
Console the hearts of those who mourn,
and ease the pain of bodies on the brink of death.

Pierce, too, our hearts with compassion,
we who watch from afar,
as the poorest on this side of the earth
find only misery upon misery.
Move us to act swiftly this day,
to give generously every day,
to work for justice always,
and to pray unceasingly for those without hope.

And once the shaking has ceased,
the images of destruction have stopped filling the news,
and our thoughts return to life’s daily rumblings,
let us not forget that we are all your children
and they, our brothers and sisters.
We are all the work of your hands
For though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be tossed to the ground,
your love shall never leave us,
and your promise of peace will never be shaken.

Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
now and forever.

Amen

[Diana Macalintal]

Copyright © Diana Macalintal, Diocese of San Jose, CA. Used with permission. Permission is given to reprint for noncommercial use. Originally written after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. For additional resources from the Diocese of San Jose, visit www.dsj.org/being-catholic/worship.
Catholic Relief Services

A Life written by God

Icon of the Transfiguration. written by Sr. Irene of Le-Bec,
in the Chapel of the Transfiguration, Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Epping, Essex.

Sr Irène

‘Pray to your Father who is in secret’. Matthew 6:6

A number of years ago I was searching for an iconographer to write an icon of St. John the Baptist for a church dedicated to him in Epping, Essex.

On a visit to Bec-Hellouin in Normandy I arrived at a Convent which sold what appeared to be original icons. When I enquired about them, I was immediately introduced to Sr. Irène. By the end of our visit she was commissioned to write the icon for us. Not, however, without a small consultation! In the original icon, the figure of John was part of a triptych with our Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He occupied the right hand panel. Because of where he would be positioned, with his hands facing the Blessed Sacrament, I needed him on the left! Sister Irène had to consult in prayer with St Tikhon, the original writer before it was agreed! She was to write three other icons for me. Two are of the Transfiguration and one of St. John.

Tonight we have just heard that Sister Irène died at Candlemass. I was so glad that I had been able to see her again last August.

These notes are from Sr Marie-Patrick of the Community at Bec.

Of Burgundian origin, and an elder sister to three boys, Chantal Boillot – Sister Irène Marie – entered the monastery at the age of 38, after caring for her elderly parents. She joined a novitiate which was then numerous (9!) and which shook her up a bit… She made profession as an Oblate nun on the feast of St. Benedict, July 11, 1979, and was soon sent to our little foundation at Mesnil saint Loup, near Troyes. As life in Troyes proved difficult, she was transferred to our other foundation in Abu Gosh in the Holy Land, on 1 February 1984. She stayed there for a good eight years but was called back to Le Bec at the end of 1992, a decision that was painful for her and that she never explained.

Back at Le Bec, she was able to deploy her talents as an iconographer, and even organised a few training sessions in this art. Very cultured and quite original, her interventions were sometimes unexpected, always enriching, but you didn’t want to be in a hurry!

In recent years, she bravely faced serious health difficulties, with cancer spreading despite numerous operations. Heavy treatment – which exhausted her – proved necessary. Recently, the nurse who came early to take a blood test found her struggling for breath and called the paramedics. Taken to Evreux, to the department that was treating her for her cancer, she was quickly transferred to cardiology: her heart problem – which had remained in the background until then – had worsened! Under oxygen and perfusion, she did not know when she would have a heart operation; and on her last visit, Mother Prioress admired her confident state of peaceful abandonment:
“That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? Sister Irene said to her with simplicity,
leaving us with an exemplary testimony of a profound life of faith of which she spoke little.
Her condition deteriorated rapidly despite the care of the clinic staff – whom we thank warmly – and she passed away at the age of the prophetess Anna, at the end of the first Vespers of February 2, (Candlemass), entering into that eternal Light to which she aspired with all her being.

If I were to try and sum her up, I would say that she was a person of deep holiness with a careful eye on the world. A writer of Icons which she infused with prayer and which she treated with utmost reverence. A woman of determination who served her Lord with dogged determination, not least through her long illness and sometimes in times of spiritual trial. All this and more framed in a gentle face with twinkly eyes and a genuine smile. We have a new and caring friend in heaven.

May she rest in peace and Rise in Glory!

Mr G.
[all photos by Mr G.]