I found myself in a remote convent in Yorkshire on Sunday morning. The look of shock on the septuagenarian nuns' faces as twenty of us traipsed in, still slightly hungover from the night before and sneezing from the field of grass we had tramped through to get there was priceless. We did however quadruple the size of the congregation and despite their suspicious glances, knelt down at the right times and said all the right responses, so they didn’t have too much to grumble about.
The suspicious glances had started however on the 14.27 Grand Central Service from King’s Cross up to York on Saturday, where my friends and I, admittedly drinking oat-milk Pret-subscription-bought-lattes and exchanging news about mutual friends in our London accents, felt decidedly out of place in a train full of those returning home to the North.
Fortunately, feeling out of place is something I would say this particular group of friends excels at. Having met through our time at the University Catholic Chaplaincy, we bonded through our experiences of being students of faith in what at times felt like an incredibly hostile environment.
Chaplaincies are often made up of an eccentric bunch of people: there’s the Theology student who can quote doctrine in their sleep, the student who had a dramatic Road to Damascus style conversion in the summer before University, the student who’s there because their mum told them to keep going to Mass when they’re at University and they’re almost too scared to find out what will happen if they stop going. An hour of prayer and hymns followed by a tepid coffee and bacon bap seems preferable to the wrath of the Filipino mother.
But being a student who practises their faith, or at least tries to, is no longer All things bright and beautiful. It can be difficult to seek out the provisions and practical accommodations you are used to having in your familial environment, or to speak out about your personal beliefs in a student culture where a particular ideological stance seems to dominate.
Student faith communities therefore become a home away home for many; a place where they can find like-minded friends and feel nourished, but also challenged to think and reflect on a belief system they have grown up with and previously taken for granted.
Yet there’s also a worry – and one which is well-founded too - that such communities run the risk of becoming insular or inward-looking, tucked away from the mainstream. And I’ll admit that as I looked out onto the rolling Yorkshire hills from the pews in the convent, the thought of ditching all the responsibilities of suburban London graduate life did momentarily seem quite appealing.
These septuagenarian sisters were free of the signal failures of TfL – exactly whenever you need to be somewhere important, they didn’t have to worry about extortionate London rent or even, or moreover, the horrors of online dating apps.
But you’ll be relieved to know that, perhaps to the disappointment of the sisters of Stanbrook Abbey, who were maybe hoping for an influx in vocations, we got ourselves back on the train to London by the end of the day, refreshed from a weekend spent together and in the glorious countryside sunshine.
We even managed to get ourselves to Pret just before it closed. Thank the Lord!
Stanbrook Abbey, Wass, Yorkshire
