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Mother Edmund Campion dies aged 94


Mother Mary Edmund Campion

Mother Mary Edmund Campion

Mother Mary Edmund Campion went to the Lord at 5.45am on 31 January 2012 at Tyburn Convent, London. She was in the 94th year of her age and the 63rd of her religious profession.

Born Avarina Mary Bodger in Wanstead, Essex, on 10 September 1918 Mother Edmund was raised an Anglican but converted to the Catholic faith in the mid-1940s.

She served as a Wren in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and was heartbroken by the death of her brother, Douglas, a Royal Navy sailor killed in an accident aboard the Curacao.

She joined the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre OSB - the Tyburn Nuns - in 1949 at the novitiate house in Royston, Hertfordshire. As a novice she took the name Edmund Campion after the famous Elizabethan Jesuit Tyburn martyr.

She made her temporary vows on 11 October 1950 and on 11 October 1953 gave her life completely to God by the consecration of Monastic Profession of Perpetual Vows.

Mother Edmund's family struggled to grasp the importance to her of the religious choices she made, especially that of becoming a contemplative Benedictine nun and spending her life and gifts within the confines of the cloister, but they were eventually happily reconciled.

During her monastic life Mother Edmund served as sub-prioress, prioress, novice mistress, secretary general, general councillor and also as assistant general.

Her fellow Sisters gave her the nickname "the Rock of Gibraltar" because of the way, through her love for the Cross, she steadfastly and heroically bore both personal trials and those of her community.

Mother M Xavier McMonagle, the Mother General at Tyburn Convent, said that in many ways Mother Edmund's character was similar to that of St Edmund Campion. Mother McMonagle said: "Hers was a strong strong, direct personality, very self-disciplined yet warm and outgoing to those around her, and ever ready to help those in any need.

"Her mode of responding to her contemplative vocation was that of fruitful faithfulness in everything she did - whether it was her prayer life, daily duties in the ordered round of each monastic day, or a glad self-surrender to the Will of God in every unexpected circumstance in community life. She was always at the ready to keep the ship afloat with a resilient sense of humour".

She added: "She lived in a continual state of intimacy with God in self-surrender to his Holy Will. Her response to the Divine Will was like a song of spiritual jubiliation: her living faith ensured that God's Will was her sole, unique point of reference in all her decisions and dedication to duty.

"She exemplified in a high degree all the virtues inherent in the living out of the Rule of St Benedict.

"Her daily life expressed her gratitude - faithful and fruitful - for her monastic vocation to be lived for the glory of God in small things as well as great. She loved God with all her heart and cherished all her fellow sisters in our monastic family with great esteem and dedication."

Source: Tyburn Convent

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