My friend Sister Jane

My dear Friends

Recently, as you know, I lost an old and dear Friend, Benigna, someone with whom I lived for sixteen years. Very recently I lost another dear Friend, Sister Jane, who used to come and visit me and got to know Benigna.

Sister Jane, an Irish nun, who lived in community in Cambridge for 60 years  but who made regular trips back home to see her family and revisit the beauties of the Irish countryside, was one of my first Catholic friends when I came into the Church in 1989. I was struck by her deeply prayerful and contemplative nature, which was combined with a love and empathy with the poor and the marginalised and those who were depressed, upset or grieving.

But she could be very joyful too-she loved the Jewish people and was very moved by a visit she made to Israel-Palestine. Perhaps that was why I felt so close to her. When I started co-hosting Passover Seder meals in the traditional way for mainly Catholics in the large Catholic Church in Cambridge, she not only participated in every one over the fifteen years but arrived early to lay out the tables with all the ritual foods.

She had a very simple and pure heart, combined with a curious mind. She loved music and came to some of my concerts. When we were able to have a chapel in Benigna's garden in 2002 and Mass was occasionally celebrated there, she would attend with a few of her fellow Sisters. I remember on one occasion that she was very keen afterwards to sample the Polish vodka I was so fond of. From time to time she would invite me to the convent, for Mass and a bite of supper, making sure that i was well looked after.

She died in Holy Week and on the Jewish Passover, just hours before I was due to attend a communal Seder in the Jewish community-no accident I felt. I had a lovely warm presence to accompany me, just as I had had in all those other Seder meals. Her funeral was full to overflowing, with a lovely Irish hymn amongst others and her presence lives on.

Hallelujah!
Shalom from Gila 

Holy week and Easter Saturday

My dear Friends

I can't believe that we have come to the end of Holy Week and Easter, and the Risen Christ, is upon us. This week has been a bit of a whirlwind, as I have bowed to the Spirit and let god lead me through all sorts of encounters with different faith groups. It started on Palm Sunday, when i was unexpectedly asked to read as the third voice of the Passion, the events leading up to, and including the death of Jesus on the Cross.

Palm Sunday and Good (really meaning Holy) Friday are always difficult and painful days for a Jewish Christian, when you feel torn between your love for your own Jewish people and your love for your Lord(explains why the Gospel of John can be seen as controversial.) But of course they are not contradictory, far from it as the Jews still have a role to play in the history of salvation, something which has meant more to me now that I have been twenty four years in the Catholic Church. (It was on this Saturday that i was baptised and confirmed.) And speaking out the different voices in Church last Sunday  I became more aware of the battle between Good and Evil, which was not just played out on the particular but continues on the universal plane.

Tuesday I was with my friends in the little Independent Evangelical Church round the corner from my home, where i have a close relationship with the Pastor and his wife. Tuesday evening was pure JOY as I joined the Beth Shalom Jewish community round the communal Seder table for the Jewish Passover and relished in the singing. I met friends, old an new as we recounted the Exodus from Egypt, the liberation of the people from bondage to redemption and sorrow to joy-we enjoyed the traditional four cups of wine and opened the door for Elijah and the heralding of the Messiah.

In between these two events I learned that my very dear friend, Sr Jane, had just died. I had no time to grieve as i prepared for the Seder, but reflected it was a most timely moment for her to enter her heavenly home on Passover and Holy week, as she loved the Jewish people and came to all of my passover meals that I presented in the Church, arriving two hours ahead in order to lay out tables with all the ritual food. Not only was she loved in the parish, but in the wider community and as well as having a heart for Israel and justice, she was often helping the poor and marginalised, often in hidden ways.

To be continued!

By the time i write the next instalment it will be Easter ans xtill Passover.

Chag Sameach and Krystos Voskreas-Christ is Risen!

Shalom from Gila 

Habemus papem-we have a Pope!

My dear Friends

There was a cartoon in the paper last week. Coming out of the Papal chimney was smoke-not white or black, but pink! The caption read-'It's a girl!'

Well, the church has not yet become that revolutionary but we do have a slightly unusual man at the top. Pope Francis I seems a holy, good and above all, humble man, who chose the name of Francis after St Francis of Assisi. A Saint devoted to joyful poverty he is beloved round the world and crosses the divide of all religions and cultures. He is the attributed author of Make me a channel of your peace, a poem and song dedicated to bringing love out of hatred, joy out of sorrow, healing and reconciling misunderstandings and anger-so very close to my own heart and mission.

Apparently the new Pope, on his first day at the Vatican, asked the chauffeur to drive him into town. He stopped at the hotel he had stayed in before the Conclave (election of the Pope), paid his bill and carried his own bags out. He paused to talk to passers by, on their way to work or school.

No-one is underestimating the huge task which lies ahead, not only to reform the governing body of cardinals in the Vatican itself, but to heal the wounds of abuse and hopefully address the question of human sexuality in a deeper way, while not compromising the central tenets of the faith. Apparently he has declared that we must respect everyone.

My own deepest wish is that he moves on the process of Jewish Christian reconciliation, begun in earnest in the last fifty years, and that he reaches out to other faiths and to those who have none.He is praying for everyone in his heart.As a Jesuit he has the intellectual capacity, as well his obvious prayerfulness to make inroads into the enormous task he faces. His sense of humour will serve him well.

Shalom from Gila

Benigna

My dear Friends

Since I last posted a text, there has been some sad news. My landlady of sixteen years and my dear friend, Benigna, has passed away.At times she was as close to me as my own mother.

I lived with Benigna for sixteen years, from 1987 until 2003, when i moved over the river from her house in the South of Cambridge to the North and my present flat. The years with her in the big house were important and formative. People from all the world used to stay there and feel welcome.

Born into an upper middle class English family, who could boast Rab Butler amongst its members, Benigna went to the Royal College of Music in her early twenties to study piano. She distinguished herself and became a valued accompanist to many musicians, including myself-I used to sing with her and we gave small concerts together, initially for Peace and Reconciliation.It was in her house the I made the official foundation of The Little Sisters of Joy with the help of a French friend on 7th March 1999.

Benigna was an avid supporter of the Liberal Democrats and the orange flag which used to fly outside our house at election time stood out in what was mainly a Tory neighbourhood.She was a regular attender at Trumpington parish Church and I went to the Midnight Service with her in the Christmas of 1999. When I became a Catholic she was very supportive, being naturally deeply ecumenical.

I have many happy memories of sitting on the lawn in her extensive garden with a variety of friends. Benigna also hosted many of the musical events in the Jewish community, as she had married a German Jew, the distinguished professor Herman Lehmann, during the war. She had four children, three of whom survive-her daughter Fardijah, lives in Cambridge and there is also a granddaughter with several children.

Benigna's passing really marks the end of an era-she shaped and changed many peoples' lives. Her name means kindness and no better person could embody this. She will be truly missed.

Shalom from Gila

Newsletter no 18-Friends of The Little Sisters of Joy

My dear Friends

A very happy and healthy New Year to you all! May it be a peaceful one for us and for the whole world. I have some interesting news of what has passed and of what is to come. I commemorated the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 by giving a concert that day. Our theme of Peace and Reconciliation played itself out reflectively in the music performed and which you are now familiar with.  After Reverend Schilson-Thomas drew us into silence in the beautiful chancel in the Michaelhouse Centre in Cambridge, I started singing ' Last night I had the strangest dream.' This was composed by Ed McCurdy, the father of folk singers such as Dylan, Paxton and Baez. 'I dreamed the world had all agreed to put an end to war.' Psalm 23 in Hebrew continued the theme of good coming out of evil and 'Eli, Eli' spoke of the transcendent God, a song written by Hannah Senesh by the Sea of Galilee. She perished in the Second World War but wrote these lines during her life in Palestine.

'The souls who have gone before us light up the way for the rest of mankind.'

I was blessed at the concert with a full house and with many resonant voices joining in the songs of the sixties.

You may know that I was born in London and raised in Glasgow. I had my schooling there from age 11 and in my formative years had my wild youth(while I was at Glasgow university.) I did a lot of singing, in the style that I do now, in those days, in cafes and once at the Edinburgh Festival. So I jumped at the chance to visit my Glaswegian family and friends, especially as my cousin had been unwell in the summer.

They say that Glasgow has changed.  I stayed in the West end, near the University, and I still recognised some pubs from the old days.  I remembered too the cloisters and the sweeping boulevard leading up to the University being a fine match for Cambridge. I went to Glasgow Cathedral, picking up the echoes of its once Catholic heritage and relishing the beauty and peace. Relishing too the Glaswegians and the immediacy of the way they respond to you.  Observing the chiselled faces in the University Cafe, still run by the same Italian family who founded it around 1917.

Highlight of the trip ( as well as a drive through the Campsie Hills) was a visit to Garnethill Synagogue.  Founded in 1879, it is possible that my great-grandfather had a hand in its foundation. Certainly my maternal grandparents, Samuel Solomon Samuel, the first Jewish magistrate in Glasgow and his Swedish wife Anna (Bergson) were regular attenders there. My cousin and I delighted in a stained glass window in their memory. My cousin had a sudden inspiration and pointed to the place where her father, Henry, would have sat, near the Ark with the Torah scrolls. Beside him would have been my father, Joseph, up on a business trip from London. Legend has it that my father, contrary to tradition, raised his eyes to the ladies' gallery opposite and had his first glimpse of my mother. And the rest, as they say, is history...

 This summer, if all goes well, I will be in Toronto for the first time in five years. It is one of my favourite cities in the world and in one sense my spiritual home. You may recall that I was thinking of emigrating there. That didn't quite work out, but I felt it was time to revisit friends and places still dear to me. Bishop Lacey, now in his nineties and fondly known as Father Pearce has issued a welcome, as has my friend John in Cambridge, Ontario. That was the first place I visited in Eastern Canada way back in 1988; it was a result of that visit that I decided to come into the Church.

Tell you all about it in the next newsletter. I hope to have fun and lots of relaxation over there.

I wish you all good things.
Shalom and be well.
Your sister Gila

Dancing in the snow

My dear Friends

The rainbow bridge between Cambridge and Toronto seems even closer now because of the cold weather.Cambridge has been suffering bouts of snow over the last few days and today is the coldest its ever been. I am reminded of all those happy times I visited Toronto in the cold and snow, taking refuge in those marvellous shopping malls in the city where people go to shop, or just hang out and talk to their friends. It's lovely to see the old people sitting on benches and making new friends.

Here the malls are much smaller and not so friendly.Thinking again of Toronto, I paid a visit to the Eaton shopping in the downtown area on one occasion. Beside the fountain, I chatted to a guy of about forty years old who told me he was born and bred in Toronto and how much it had changed. He struck me as a kinda easy going guy, who liked to hang out in the mall in the hope of making new friends.

I want to prepare for this trip well. Going back to this city is like going back to an old friend. They say old friends are like old wine-they mature until they taste better.This time I will be visiting in the summer, where I hope my old friend is waiting for me -to give me an embrace.

Shalom from
Gila

Up, up and away

My dear Friends

Last week I saw a fascinating programme about a balloon journey over Africa. That's what I want to be when I go to Canada this summer-up, up and away.

Travelling gives us a new perspective on life, especailly when you cross the Atlantic.I have done it before at important crossroads in my life and I feel this year is a year of new beginnings. I am going to friends and a place where I was touched by the Divine in a new way: as someone said Canada is my spiritual home.

We all have places which touch us deeply and usually they are connected to the people who live or come from there. I am going to reconnect with a Canadian friend I first met in England almost twenty five years ago. Had it not been for him opening his home in Canada as a place where I could reflect on all the momentous things that happened to me, I might not have come into the Church. His home and its surroundings were the jumping off point for an experience which will remain with me for the rest of my life. And beyond.

There are new friends out there too. And a lovely cousin who plays the harp. I look forward to all the coffee shops we will haunt together. I will raise my glass to all of you.

Shalom from
Gila