A dancing Golden Jubilee

The Society was founded on 21st November November 1800, when St Madeleine Sophie and her first companions made their vowed commitment, and keeps this date as its birthday. This year, on its 225th birthday, Lorraine Pratt RSCJ celebrated the 50th anniversary of her own perpetual vows. Lorraine (in the centre of the photo above, dressed in black), whose ministry is leading and being part of workshops and retreats centred on sacred dance, tells us how she spent the day at a workshop in Germany...

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I arrived in Germany on the 20th and straightaway it began to snow!

I had arrived a day early for the workshop so that I could have a quiet day - and the snow added to the silence!

After preparing for Final Vows in 1975 I chose to return to Newcastle upon Tyne to make my vows because it would be in this community that I would live them. I also chose to make them on November 21st, the Society’s Birthday.

The workshop I had come to Germany for was the third of a series of three. Each morning the group begins with an ‘Atunement’ - a time which begins in silence and contains a possible poem, and about seven dances. I had asked if I could prepare the one for the first morning, the 22nd. I used a poem by Ulrich Schaffer, and dances I felt the group would be comfortable with; and during the session I renewed my vows because much of my ministry today is in the context of the dance community in Germany, Spain and Hungary. It was a shared experience of commitment and joy.

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After the workshop I went to stay with the Community in Bonn before going to another dance workshop over the first weekend of Advent. And then I returned to my community in Fenham, Newcastle, and another simple celebration.

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The Name given to my Group, which prepared for profession in Jette (Belgium) was ‘The Body of Christ’

Our devise (motto) was the Society's motto, Cor Unum et Anima Una in Corde Jesu (One Heart and One Mind in the Heart of Jesus)

These continue to be central to my life and mission.

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