#marriedtojesus

[cuzbruce]

#Repost @tamarbraxton with @make_repost ・・・ 😂😂😂 #marriedtojesus should be a series 🙏🏽 https://www.instagram.com/p/BrEVmCJn3C7/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=16uyx5nc2s4wn

[annespebbington-blog]

Farewell to my Sisters, Hello to my Family

In the past few years, Sir Thomas Cromwell has proposed the idea that convents, monasteries, and other such religious groups serve no purpose in England. That they simply steal resources from the Royal Highness King Henry VIII to benefit themselves. Parliament has forced Convocation to pay a fee of 100,000 pounds under the accusations of Praemunire. Already the English Parliament has passed The Supplication against the Ordinaries, forcing the Catholic Church in England to surrender its legislative powers. They “attacked the power of Convocation to make laws without the consent of the laity,” claiming the Church stepped out of bounds with prosecution, legal fees, and even their “ecclesiastical jurisdiction,” such as sacrament sales.[1] Then came the Conditional and Absolute Restraint of Annates, legislation that cut the amount of funds our Church leaders were allowed to send back to Rome in order to better serve the Lord. The Act for the Submission of the Clergy, The Act Forbidding Papal Dispensations and Payment of Peter’s Pence, and The Act Annexing First Fruits and Tenths to the Crown were all designed to limit the power of the Catholic Church, the Pope, and therefore God within this country.

At last, just this past year, The Act for the Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries ordered the closure of small monasteries all throughout England. Although I am, or was, a part of a larger convent, this further damaged the public image of simple devout women such as myself, turned England against us, and cut off resources that we needed to maintain ourselves. Even in Barking Abbey, our poverty, chastity, and obedience came into question during a visitation by one of Cromwell’s men.[2] Although we survived Sir Thomas Cromwell’s orders for the dissolution of monasteries, I fear Barking Abbey shall fall also fall soon. Barking Abbey has one of the most wealthy convents in England.[3] I take great pride in that. Although I am but a humble woman below my God and my King, if that day should come that my sisters in Christ shall be cast onto the streets, I hope they would at least be granted pensions on which to live. Oh, how I long to be back with them!

So, what am I doing here, you might ask? A nun, separated from her sisters in Christ and her life in a convent. Did Saint Paul not write that he wished us to be free from our anxieties? In 1 Corinthians 7:34-35 Saint Paul shared God’s message:

“There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.”[4]

My life in the convent was one of prayer and dedication to serving my Lord to the very best of my abilities. Yet a fire is sweeping this country, consuming all who step before it and leaving behind only ruins. This fire’s spark was set by Martin Luther from Germany, and Sir Thomas Cromwell fanned the flame. Each of his allies have added a log to this fire. Lutherans accuse the good Catholics of England of being lustful and promiscuous and that marriage and the continued population of the earth is the highest calling for a humble woman such as myself, not the worship of our Lord in Heaven. That, in fact, a nun’s life is sinful! Yes, there are faults within the Catholic Church, but these can be internally reformed. The lives that dwell within a convent should remain unaltered, and left to worship and serve their communities, thereby fulfilling their heavenly calling.

I have been dragged away from my sisters and my calling by my own mother, who saw it within herself to forcibly remove me from Barking Abbey, and force me into the world. I have missed my family, but I miss my true life back in the Abbey with my sisters. I hope one day that Mother and Father will allow me to return to this life once more. For my life as a nun, serving God and the London community, is even better in God’s eyes than a life of marriage that I my mother would banish me to otherwise.[5]

I am sorry mother, I respect you and I love you, but this time, for the sake of my soul when I appear before the Lord’s heavenly throne, I must remain in my heart with the pope and the Catholic Church.

[1] J. Patrick Coby, Henry VIII and the Reformation Parliament (New York NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005), 152. [2] Kathleen Cooke, “The English Nuns and the Dissolution,” The Cloister and the World: Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara Harvey, ed. John Blair and Brian Golding (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 291. [3] Ibid., 290. [4] 1 Cor 7:34-35 (KJV). [5] Caritas Pirckheimer, “Defending Women’s Communal Life,” German History in Documents and Images: From the Reformation to the Thirty Years War (1500-1648), accessed January 23, 2016, http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=4330.

[annespebbington-blog]

What was life like as a nun in Barking Abbey?

Barking Abbey is a Benedictine abbey, founded in the seventh century by Saint Erkenwald for his sister, Saint Ethelburga.[1] Although Vikings destroyed the abbey in 870, it was rebuilt to house only women, and remains so today.[2] Barking Abbey is a very prestigious cloister, and thus consistently contains higher-class women, so it has been a good place to live. Out of all the female cloisters in England, Barking Abbey had the third highest annual income of £862 (after Syon and Shaftesbury), so I was able to live comfortably with my 30 other sisters.[3] Through the material and monetary support of general patrons, we were able to eat and live much more comfortably than the smaller cloisters.[4] I also take great pride in Barking’s long history of literary achievement. Monks and nuns who predate my contemporaries and I have compiled collections, translated documents, and even written works themselves, all stored in our vast library.[5]It is funny, at first I was filled with dread when I learned that my dear father and mother would take me to a nunnery. It was second best to marriage, happy or not for someone of my class. But it was less strain on the pocket for me to become a nun then for me to be promised to a man. I think I knew it was coming, deep within my heart. I am the third daughter of four children. It simply was not practical for me to remain behind and live out my life as an unmarried woman like my dear aunt. Despite the initial sorrow I felt within my heart over that separation from my family for the first time in my young life, I found I was suited for the religious life. Convent life is one of rules and regulations. I would wake early in the morning to spend time in prayer, then silently reflect upon God’s word as I worked – I would only be interrupted by lunch, where we would eat quietly as a sister would read aloud inspiring samples of scripture.[6] Three times a week, on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, we ate beef; those were always my favourite meals.[7] I loved Sundays and holy days the most, because I could then sing, which I have always loved to do.[8] In fact, I was one of the “ladies of the choir,” those of us who had less household duties in order to prepare songs for our patrons and mass.[9] Unlike some other nuns throughout England and the world, I am happy with my vocation. Indigenous or Jewish women have been forced to live within convents without any feeling of spiritual fulfillment or passion towards God.[10] I think it was difficult for some of my sisters to give up their worldly desires (despite the wealth and lay help that came with a wealthy abbey), but in the end, what can parallel being the bride of Christ? Besides, only in the abbey do women have opportunities to have roles of scholarship and leadership.[11] Why, my abbess, Dorothy Barley, has such a highly skilled and massive job at running Barking Abbey (which holds “more than 1,000 acres and manors in several counties”) that if she were a man, she would have been a Lord in Parliament, not just a holder of a baronial title.[12] Once upon a time, I dreamed of one day becoming prioress, even abbess, of Barking Abbey. Although the responsibility was demanding, I would have gladly accepted it if that was the way to best serve God. Above all of these different elements in my life, my sisters’ and my “primary ‘job’ was praying for the souls of [our] founders and benefactors, and so daily life in Barking Abbey was dictated by these liturgical and spiritual obligations.”[13]Overall, I miss Barking Abbey. It was my home. Now just as there is a rift between Christians and heretics in England, there will always remain a rift between my family and I. As a bride of Christ I belong with my sisters. There is nothing I can do now but ask for forgiveness from God and make do as a stranger in a strange land I once called home.

[1] David N. Bell, “Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture: Authorship and Authority in a Female Community ed. by Jennifer N. Brown and Donna Alfano Bussell (review),” The Catholic Historical Review 99, no. 4 (2013): 774-775. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed March 21, 2016).[2] Ibid.[3] Kathleen Cooke, “The English Nuns and the Dissolution,” The Cloister and the World: Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara Harvey, ed. John Blair and Brian Golding (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 289.[4] Teresa L. Barnes, A Nun’s Life: Barking Abbey in the Late-Medieval and Early Modern Periods (Portland: Portland State University, 2004), 46[5] Bell, “Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture.”[6] Silvia Evangelisti, Nuns: A History of Convent Life 1450-1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), n.d.[7] Barns, A nun’s life, 68.[8] Evangelisti, Nuns.[9] Barns, A nun’s life, 61.[10] Evangelisti, Nuns.[11] Barns, A nun’s life, 48.[12] Ibid., 54-55.

[13] Ibid., 74.