Nuns-Prayer Centred Life

Saturday the 9th of Feb 2013,  I had the great opportunity of celebrating Mass with Sisters of St John the Divine, who had been part of St Barnabas and St Gabriel Parish in Durban South. This took me to memory lane when I remembered in the  Anglican Parish, St Francis of Assisi , Bulawayo, a traditional Anglican Church that I grew up, when the parish had Nuns. I remembered, Sister Teresa and Mother –Superior Anne-Maria. For a short time we had a Franciscan brother from Penalonga Mutare. The Sisters came from St Augustine Penalonga, from the Community of the Resurrection. In the Anglican Church in general Religious Orders are in the decline. Very few Bishops seem to encourage this way of life. To my mind the Religious Sisters served the Parish of St Francis of Assisi well. These Nuns knew everyone in the Parish, from the least to the greatest. They walked the parish nearly every day and most people knew them. The Religious Sisters played a huge role in my Spiritually formation and what orthodox grounding that I got from them. From learning to say the Angelus to the Rosary and learning to value morning and evening prayer, part of the success of the parish was the praying presence of the Nuns. The Nuns prayed in the morning, mid-morning, noon, evening prayer, attended mass, compline and night prayer. Really soaking the Parish in Prayer! I think it is time that Anglican Parishes revisited the value of the Religious Communities in the Parish for these do some much work and central to this is PRAYER.
Fr. Barnabas Nqindi