After lockdowns and Covid restrictions, tentative steps towards ‘normality’ for the Sisters at Matlock:

By Sr Christina Dolan:

On the first day of March Sister Elizabeth invited the whole community and as many staff as could come to enjoy a coffee event in the Hall. It was a bright sunny morning filled with the hope of Spring, the feeling of newness and togetherness, an opening-up after a dark time was in the air. An invitation to a new healthier beginning for Spring 2022 was deeply appreciated.

Then, later in the month we enjoyed a three day retreat/ recollection to which we felt able to invite Sisters living near us .. this in itself a tentative step towards a further widening of our tent and a pointer to more of the same in the gradual fullness of time.

As we passed through early April, however, things seemed a little less cheerful as a new wave of Covid 19 seemed to be taking hold through the country. This time our Matlock community, having for all this period of pandemic, successfully kept infection at bay, was not so lucky. Our hope for a gradual opening-up has hit trouble and a ‘battening down of the hatches’ seems in order again. Our strong courageous Sisters still free of the virus, are generously tending to a considerable number of us in isolation.

Now entering Holy Week and the celebration of New life of Resurrection we hold a sense of joy and gratitude - despite or maybe because of, our vulnerability and our dependence on the God who heals. We are praying for a quick return to those earlier days of Hope.

In Orthodox Eastern Europe the greeting for Easter is ‘ Jesus has Risen ‘ to which we response ‘ He has Risen indeed’.