20 December, 2024

From the European Province Archives

2024 has seen a number of important events and celebrations at Apley Grange, but perhaps the most significant and joyful of all was Sister Oona Mohan’s jubilee celebration of 80 years as a professed of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. As far as the records show, Sr Oona is the only SHCJ to reach this impressive milestone. It was a privilege to be there that day not only in the presence of Sr Oona, but to also be surrounded by sisters who all had helped their fellow human beings in diverse and wonderful ways, alongside the brilliant staff of Apley Grange who help to make it such a warm and happy place.

Just before the celebrations took place, I found a 1944 edition of Ours and took images of it to circulate at Sr Oona’s Jubilee tea party. Ours was a noviceship magazine created by generations of SHCJ novices from circa 1875 to 1949 (the title Ours was first adopted in 1926). This particular edition had a beautifully embroidered cover. It contained, within a series of comic descriptions of the novices, the following verse paying tribute to Sr Oona’s skill with her needle:

We hear quite often of golden threads running through people’s lives. This is only metaphorical, but as Sister Mary Una [later Sr Oona] excelled in doing gold work this was literally true of her. On Sundays she put down her needle for her pen to do printing, but whether she would agree that the pen is mightier than the sword or the needle we don’t know.

Sr Oona told me how her skill in gold work was so prized, that she was exempt from several typical noviceship jobs so as to preserve her hands for this important task. However, as part of ‘the War time noviceship’ at Clifton Hill, Lancashire, Sr Oona was one of a group whose duties included working as land girls with local farmers. Writing in 2001, Sister Margaret Mary Donnelly (Mary Benignus in religion) remembered one day sheep dipping and ‘as I had never been so near a sheep before, it was quite an adventure’. Unfortunately, she and another novice ended up in the dip themselves. Regardless of these physical difficulties and the ‘challenging experience’ of Clifton Hill, Sr Margaret recalls that ‘we were on the whole, very happy together’.

The SHCJ Archives holds a lovely example of gold work made by the SHCJ sisters that is most appropriate to this time of year: a chasuble featuring an embroidered image of the Nativity. St Joseph, Our Lady and the Holy Child are worked both with brightly coloured thread and gold work. The entire scene is surrounded by a sunburst also in gold work.

This year also marks 65 years since the first Live Crib was performed at Mayfield School on 15th December 1959. That evening, a group of Mayfield girls appearing as Our Lady, St Joseph and six angels dressed in white started from the Royal Oak along with singers from the school choir. The girl performing as St Joseph was the owner of the donkey that also featured in the procession and was therefore best suited to handle the equine performer.
The event featured in the local paper and raised money for the charity World Refugees.

Live Crib was initiated by Sr Colette Dwyer during her time as headmistress of Mayfield School. It is one of this SHCJ sister’s enduring legacies alongside Sallynoggin Community School and her tireless work to improve access to education for Irish Travellers through St Kieran’s School and other projects.

In an earlier edition of Ours created in 1936, much like the description of Sr Oona and her gold work prowess, we have a glimpse into Sr Colette’s spirit as a novice through a passage written by her on the subject of ‘Pax Christi in Regno Christi’. Sr Colette mentions the conflicts in Spain, Russia and Mexico – perhaps also thinking of rising tension in Europe – and reflects that ‘we may feel tempted to ask what has become of the Peace of Christ’. Sadly, as over the Christmas of 2024 we will think of those suffering in the conflicts of Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and throughout the world, today we might ask this once again. Sr Colette nevertheless has faith that Christ’s Peace will overcome war and strife and ends asking this hopeful question:

He brought peace into the world with Him on the day of His Birth, He made it His parting gift to His Apostles on the eve of His Passion – it was His Easter greeting to them after His Resurrection – will He not bring an increase of it to a world so much in need of it this Christmas?

Unfortunately, Sr Colette and Sr Oona with all their fellow SHCJ would have to adapt to and survive the Second World War which was to come. While the novices went through formation under the shadow of war, Sr Colette travelled with the evacuated community and school of St Leonards. She was rescued by her superior from a fighter plane’s machine gun fire on the beach at Torquay before the sisters and children moved to the safety of Coughton Court in Warwickshire.

When we remember that the novices created their colourful magazine during such a frightening time, their artwork such as the watercolour of two novices praying before the Nativity at the opening of Ours 1944, feels especially poignant. This peaceful image is accompanied by the following resonant verses:

Light no more on sword-blades played,
And cries of war were stilled; The battle axe discarded laid,
And hearts with peace were filled:

Light shone in a stable bare,
Where Infant’s cry was heard;
Rebellion’s ills discarded were
Because His Heart was stirred.