Inside Britain's first mixed convent

[FarCenter]

The number of women called to become nuns in Britain has shrunk to just a handful. Yet in Essex, the country’s youngest religious order is preparing to welcome new sisters – and perhaps even the odd brother – as the country’s first mixed convent takes shape

Joanna Moorehead

It’s a busy Friday evening in Heathrow’s Terminal 5, and at the Costa Coffee shop in Arrivals, air stewardess Katie Colbran, 32, is recounting the events of her week. Today she was in Milan; yesterday it was Paris; the day before, Amsterdam. Tomorrow she’ll be in Oslo. “It’s an amazing job,” she says. “Sometimes I can hardly believe I’m having such a fabulous time. Constant travel, five-star hotels, great camaraderie with other members of the team… You couldn’t ask for more.”

So it’s strange that Colbran is asking for more – and stranger still when you find out what it is she’s asking for. Because later this year, after she’s paid off her car loan and worked out her notice, she’ll hang up her smart BA suit for the last time. In its place she’ll put on one of the most anachronistic uniforms the world has to offer: the religious habit of a Roman Catholic nun. In her case, it’ll be the powder-blue scapular of the Community of Our Lady of Walsingham, in Brentwood, Essex.

From September, she’ll be Sister Katie: instead of the fast-moving, hard-living, sexy, dizzy, international world of air travel, she’ll be surrounded by the peace, tranquillity and well-tended gardens of the community’s House of Prayer. Instead of the Arrivals and Departures boards at Heathrow, her life will be ruled by the ancient rhythm that’s been followed through the centuries by Catholic men and women who have taken up life as a monk or a nun: morning prayer, Mass, the Angelus, Vespers, night prayer. Instead of her mobile phone, she’ll live by the bells of a religious house; instead of eating in a different restaurant in a different European city each night of the week, she’ll be sharing meals around the simple community table with her fellow sisters. And instead of looking ahead to a future that might have included a partner and children, she’ll be choosing a life in which a lover, and babies, can have no part.


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She’s excited, too, about the fact that several men are watching the order’s development keenly, and may take the plunge and ask to join. “It’s not something I anticipated happening so soon,” explains Sister Camilla. “Traditionally, Catholic religious orders are male or female, and convents and monasteries are completely separate. But when men started coming here and asking whether it might be possible for them to join us, I thought: ‘Why not?’”

So it was back to the Vatican again, to ask whether the new congregation could be mixed, and now word has just come through that, yes, Rome has no objections. There are still decisions to be made over exactly what part of the house the monks will occupy, but the die is cast for a community of men and women who will live, work and pray together. “We’ve got one man at the moment who is seriously thinking of joining us as a brother, so it could happen very soon,” says Sister Camilla. “And there are other men who are currently working out their future, and whether they might be being called to be with us.”

<snip>http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6226274.ece

[baldguy]

1. All the monks I've met have been pretty odd.