Saying goodbye to Vails Gate

For most of my ordained life, the entrance to the Convent of Order of St. Helena at Vails Gate has stood for me as a portal into a deeper understanding of hospitality and solitude, of deeper spirituality and prayer, and of understanding what it means to live in religious community.

The bench outside the entrance is the place of quiet expectation - either as one makes an entrance or one is returning back into the world.

The sisters and their guests often gather on the patio outside, to share meals or to catch up on stories, or to find a quiet place to sit and enjoy "God's Chapel".

This was also the site of the Annual July 4th Celebration - Sr. June Thomas on grill, Sr. Ann Prentice on desserts (except for Sr. ES who makes a mean pecan pie), and yours truly on the Bombay Sapphire Gin and Schwepps Tonic - with fresh slices of lime.

The two guest houses on the property were often used for church groups to gather. A few of the CTB (Claiming The Blessing) working retreats were held there, in our earlier days. Ms. Conroy and I would often stay here - with our beloved boxer, Bogart. Dogs were "not exactly allowed" said Sr. June Thomas, but she always made an exception for Bogart. After Bogart died, one of the first people we called was June Thomas. She must have cried for five minutes with us on the phone.

The hermitage has served as a place used by sisters as well as guests, including poets and authors. I have done some of my best writing there.

Come with me into the chapel - one of my favorite places in the Convent.

Not to worry. One of the sisters will call you when it's time for community prayer
by pulling the rope which will ring the bell.

The chapel has no organ. The sisters believe that the human voice is really the only instrument one needs to glorify God.

As good Anglicans, they have an equally high doctrine of Word and Sacrament.

I have always loved the way the light comes into the chapel and dances on the altar, the walls, the pews and the people. Even on rainy or snowy days, the light has always taught me more about prayer than anything I ever learned in seminary. It's amazing what you can learn if you stop talking.

The statue of a woman in prayer never ceases to draw me closer to the heart of prayer.

I will always treasure the days when I would come up on Friday afternoons for spiritual direction and retreat and then rejoice in the privilege it is to preside at the altar and preach.

For a season, I was able to stay through Sunday and
preside at the principal celebration of the Eucharist.

My favorite memory of this altar is the first time Sr. Ellen presided at Eucharist. It was Easter Day. She was so serious, it almost broke your heart. Ms. Conroy would have nothing to do with that. She hid an Easter Egg in the chalice.

I can still see the look on Sr. Ellen's face when she found it. As Ms. Conroy said to her, "If Jesus can trick the Devil out of death, we can trick you into joy!"

These are the views from the sacristy where I would peak out to see who was in the congregation. I don't know why I did that. The sisters always sat in the same pew. Still, it was a treat to peak out expectantly and watch my sisters gather in expectant prayer. I think some of my best sermons were given there.

This stands just outside the Chapel which faces the Monastic Enclosure.
One sister said to me about her new home in Augusta, GA,
"I just can't imagine it! Twenty-three sisters in the same Monastic Enclosure!"
She rolled her eyes and added, "Quiet is one thing. Solitude is quite another."

Whether meals were taken during The Great Silence or in boistrous celebration, the Refectory was always a place where the ministry of Hospitality continued.

The Great Vigil of Easter began well before sunrise and in the Refectory. I will never forget the Easter morning shortly after Sr. Ruth had gotten her hearing aids. In the midst of the last of the readings, Ruth gasped out loud, "I can hear the birds singing!" And, so they were. It was evidence enough that Christ had risen. He had risen, indeed!

The enclosed porch was a wonderful place where silence didn't have to be maintained. Telling jokes and laughing quietly sometimes proved to be harmful to one's rib cage!

Sr. Ellen created this icon of St. Helena, who was, of course, Emperor Constantine's mother (c. 255-c - 350). A Christian, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where she identified many of the sites associated with Jesus; she also believed she had found the true cross.

In the early 1980's, the sisters began to feel the frustration of the masculine language in the psalms and began to change the language of the psalms. They understood that whatever changes they made could not be purely academic or intellectual, but must grow out of their shared prayer in community.

The result was a the Saint Helena's Psalter, published by Church Publishing in 20004. By Eastertide, 2006, they published the first inclusive/expansive Monastic Breviary which is one of my very favorite ways to pray the Divine Office. Not only have they kept the integrity of the architecture of monastic prayer, they have also expanded images of God.

As Sr. Pemberton writes, "seeing God as a mother was not a new idea; from Augustine of Hippo, through Sts. Bernard and Anselm, the maternal side of both the first and second persons of the Trinity has been invoked."

What was specifically new to the Sisters, however, was using the material from Dame Julian's writing in the form of canticles which they assigned to the season of Advent - a celebration of motherhood as we await the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

You can order your own St. Helena's Breviary or Psalter here.

I will close this tribute to them in grateful thanksgiving for all they have contributed to my priestly formation with their trinitarian antiphon:

Glory to God,
Source of all being,
Incarnate Word and
Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now and will be forever.
Amen.