Community Days – St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
August 29 – September 1, 2005

The Newfoundland representatives to the IPA (International Presentation Association) Assembly – A New Dreaming – Seeking Wholeness of Creation – in Australia in 2003, Betty Rae Lee, Miriam Martin and Lois Greene, working with the Congregational Leadership Team, planned Community Days and invited international visitors to bring the spirit of Coolangatta to St John’s, Newfoundland. Marlette Black (Australia), Sharon Altendorf (United States), Fatima Rodrigo (India), Terry Abraham (India) and Bridget Gochera (Zimbabwe) joined us to tell their stories. They helped us realize more deeply that “Their story is our story and our story is their story”. We Newfoundlanders told our story formally in a play entitled Fire from the Rock and we informally listened, talked, prayed and played together with our visitors for three days.

IPA was alive and well on our shores as we interwove the principles of the Earth Charter with our lived experience and together explored the call to deepen our awareness of Nano Nagle’s call in our day. Opening night set the scene with a spiral of significant dates from the beginnings of the universe, to Cove Lane in Cork, to Galway, to Newfoundland to … through our collective history. We listened to the story The Everything Seed as we began our days of story-telling. Marlette told her story under the umbrella of “contemplation/interiority”. Sharon and Fatima shared conversation about their stories in their work at the United Nations from the perspective of “creativity/diversity”, and Terry and Bridget discussed life, vocation and ministry from the viewpoint of “compassion/ communion”. The atmosphere was electric and Miriam’s song From Fire to Rock tied the strands of the stories together.

The visitors’ native dress and that of our congregation’s Sisters ministering in the West Indies, added to the global sense. Emma Rooney as Nano wove her way through the spiral and the gathering – another deepening of “their story – our story”. Sisters and Associates responded to each story in various ways led by facilitator, Mary Anne O’Hara. We held a brief “twinning ceremony” with Bridget to celebrate our new relationship with PBVM in Zimbabwe. We ended with a celebration at Virginia Water, our eco-spirituality centre.

Photo taken during the Community Days
Back row: Mary Dower, Betty Rae Lee, Sharon Altendorf,
Bridget Gochera, Marlette Black, Rosaleen O’Connell
Front row: Terry Abraham, Joan O’Sullivan, Fatima Rodrigo