East Leake

The Holy Cross Convent, Rempstone and Costock.

This is the current home of the Sisters of the Community of the Holy Cross at the Convent, Rempstone.

They are planning to move to smaller accommodation in Costock in the near future. Please watch the website and blog for updates.

UPDATE - AUGUST 2009

ON THE MOVE - where? And when?

Convents and monasteries don't relocate every five minutes. It is against their ethos. So why are the sisters moving from Rempstone to Costock? One overriding reason is the A6006. The traffic is incessant and noisy nowadays as any Rempstone resident will substantiate, and an atmosphere of peace and quiet is as vital for a monastic community as for those visitors who are seeking at least temporary respite from the pressures of daily living in a frenetic world. Highfields Farm at Costock is sufficiently distant from the A60 to be idyllic by contrast.

Many other practical problems will also be lessened by having a purpose built convent and more extensive and improved facilities for our guests and helpers. The whole complex should be more environmentally friendly and, after the initial outlay, less expensive to maintain. Of course, there will be unforeseen snags but we are doing our best to keep them to a minimum.

Principally though, we are looking to the future. These are not easy days in the church and it is a temptation to become despondent. There is so much apathy and indifference about religion around and Christianity is often an easy target for ridicule. All the same, there are many signs that the tide could be turning. This is certainly true as far as vocations to the religious life are concerned. God is still calling individuals here and there to serve him in this particular form of dedicated living. It is essential therefore, that places where such callings can be lived out and tested should continue to be maintained, places open to change, development and growth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Other communities similar to our own, both in the C. of E. and the R.C. Church, are likewise on the move so it certainly feels like being part of a movement of the Spirit taking us to fresh fields and new areas of challenge. Please join us in the venture, with your prayers and support, even if, like ourselves, you might find it hard to see just now, how it is all going to turn out in the years ahead. Taking steps of faith usually brings down greater blessings, so on we go in trust.

THE BUILDING SAGA - a progress report (June 2010).

Things have gone forward in strides since we last wrote of our plans to relocate the convent from Rempstone to Costock. The buildings at Highfields Farm are more than halfway complete now and it is very exciting to watch it all coming into being. The greatest joy is to see our church in the centre of the complex, gradually evolving into what already feels like a true place of worship for the greater glory of God - a place to be shared with our guests and visitors as well as being a monastic choir for ourselves.

On Monday April 12th the Earl of Halifax came to lay the foundation stone of the church. This was very appropriate since his great grandfather had done the same in 1902 at our previous convent in Sussex. Bishop David Hope led the service at the small gathering. Numbers had to be limited naturally but, happily, our local parishes were represented.

As well as the buildings themselves there is much underway in the grounds and woodlands around us. It is very much part of the monastic tradition to care for the whole of God's creation, as his gift to us and as a task enjoined. Suitable habitats for birds and wild life in general are being created and this is already reaping dividends. Barn owls have taken up residence in one of the special boxes provided and are rearing their young. Also, trees and wild flowers are being planted and sown and well-established species protected.

In conjunction the buildings and grounds here at Rempstone have been 'on the market'. At the time of writing, we can safely say that it looks as though a sale is going through but because of complex business arrangements, we have not yet signed on the dotted line. If all goes to plan, we shall remain here until next Spring when the new convent should be completed. The new residents will use part of the house as their family home and part as business premises - more details of this when everything is settled. The old proverb about not counting chickens too soon is very wise.

In all of it though we continue to trust in God, to ask for wisdom and to thank him for enabling all that has happened so far to come about. We have our part to play and much work lies ahead. Moreover, without the help of our friends and benefactors, our wonderful team of builders and professional advisors, we would be nowhere.

Thank you everybody.

The Community of the Holy Cross Contemplating...

GLORY

August is the month of the Transfiguration, when we recall how Jesus showed his majesty to Peter, James and John on the mountain top just before he went to die for us at Calvary. Listen to how Eric Milner White, one time Dean of York and originator of the nine lessons and carols service at Kings College Cambridge, speak of this glory:

Show me, O God most holy,
According to the measure of our mortal sight, THY GLORY.

Disclose the splendours of thy power, thy wisdom and thy love, as the rising sun breaks upon the night shadows and day leaps into joy.

But day is here; thy glory thou hast revealed already if we will but see...

In the face of a little child, thy Son, my Christ ...
the effulgence of the glory,

but glory of One despised, rejected, dying outside the gates, who has washed us clean from our sins in his own blood to make us priests and kings;

The glory too of the living One, Beginning and End of all, the image of the invisible God... freely imparting to us the spirit of his glory that we may live and not die.

O God, most glorious,

Make our life the vision of thee, to the praise of thy glory; that we all as a mirror may reflect it, and be transformed
into the same image from glory to glory
world without end;

The glory belonging to Jesus has indeed been given to us, our bodies will be changed, transfigured like his, to be eternally glorious and immortal, together with a whole renewed creation, after death has been passed through in and with our living Lord and saviour when sorrow and sighing will be no more.