Mother Maria Francesca of the Annunciation PCC

Mother Maria Francesca - Nothing is impossible..

Mother Maria Francesca of the Annunciation PCC..
Hildegard Magdalen Hohmann
17 August 1935 - 13 March 2021..

The Angel Gabriel tells the Mary that nothing is impossible to God - or, in the Greek, that it is very easy. Mother Francesca of the Annunciation died at midday on March 13 as Mother Damian and the two sisters who were permitted to be with her were reciting the Angelus. Mother Francesca had been taken to hospital on February 23 with unconnected medical issues. Some days later, the doctor admitted that she had caught Covid on the ward.

Born near Limburg, western Germany, Mother began her life under a totalitarian regime governed by fear.

"Earlier, on the night of the 9 November 1938 the Jewish orphanage on the opposite side of our street was sacked and the boys dragged out and beaten. My father was outraged and wrote a formal letter of complaint to the (National Socialist) Party. The following day, while he was out of the house my mother received a visit from a friend. He said to her, "Your husband's name is at the top of the 'List' the only thing that will save him from imprisonment will be to volunteer for the Forces". My father immediately resigned his job - he was a court recorder - and joined the airforce…He could not of course leave the party; one was thrown out and immediately imprisoned in a camp or executed."

Her father came home a starving ex-prisoner of war, embittered by the tragedies of history, to discover his children had grown up. He was more than dismayed to find he had a daughter with religious susceptibilities. She went, ahead of her age, to the secular and reluctantly co-educational Grimmelshausen Gymnasium, in Gelnhausen, where she was deputy-head pupil (the head had to be a boy!) Joining the post-war Catholic Youth, she loved the singing - she was a very able musician - and the experience of Church.

"The next four years were the most constructive of my life - a new world was unfolding itself before my eyes and with hindsight I realise now that this was my novitiate. One of the highlights of Catholic Youth gatherings were the camping holidays around Pentecost. The day began with holy Mass, celebrated around the breakfast table, then we were divided up to do the needful chores. After dinner we gathered for singing and playing and after supper we met around the bonfire all manner of problems were discussed at this meeting, Then we sang Compline and those who wanted to go to confession did so. It was an all-in introduction to community life; an unforgettable lesson in the dynamics of human relationships."

Since her parents refused permission for her to enter the Palottine Sisters, she spent her time till her 21st birthday doing German literature at Frankfurt University and working in a Jewish rehabilitation centre. The Palottines sent her to Britain to take a degree in Latin and Greek - while struggling to perfect her English.

"In college I had met a young girl, Margaret Scott, a recent convert to Catholicism, who to my surprise was trying to discern a vocation. She confided to me that she wondered should she join the Carmelites or a teaching order. She had the making of an excellent teacher. I tried to explain to her the difference between a contemplative vocation and an active one - and strange to say, by explaining it to her I explained it to myself."

Margaret became a Handmaid of the Sacred Heart. Sister Hildegard joined the Poor Clares. Long afterwards, Mother Francesca admitted that if she had known how hard it would be for a young German to enter a very British community who were still telling stories about the blitz a quarter of a century later, she might not have done it. Nevertheless, the Community received her gladly, advanced her Solemn profession and she left the Novitiate, only to return Immediately as Novice Mistress.

I had become a Poor Clare in Britain, because I desired to meet God. I was a bit at a loss to know what meeting God was all about, but it seemed to me that it was the only way of living worth having - for me… I did believe that we must build bridges to come to a better understanding. When, in 1968 we received Sr Ruth as a postulant I was anxious when I heard that she was half-Jewish. I thought it was better to introduce myself to her and to leave it to her to make friends with me. I stretched out my hand and said to her, "Our forebears have been enemies; we can continue this or we can build bridges as meeting points." She took my hand and said, "We will build bridges!"

Sr Anthony was another Jewish Convert who had long preceded Mother Francesca in religious life.

"At a time when nobody had a biro, Sister Anthony had several, if you asked her for one, she gave willingly and lovingly. She always had things, but she never refused anything that could be helpful to another… Poverty is trusting; it is all too easy for me to say 'I trust' if everything is provided for me. There is to poverty a very practical side which teaches you not to take things for granted; it is not that you should not have them but that you should not take them for granted. That in turn means that we are dependent on others."

The sisters vividly remember Mother Francesca reading the passion of St John at the foot of Sister Anthony's bed as she was dying on March 13 1973. On March 13 2021, it was not difficult to believe that Sister Anthony was amongst those who came to greet her in heaven.

In 1982 Mother Francesca was invited to re-found the Poor Clare Colettines in Hawarden, North Wales. A community abounding in artists, musician and dancers set out to reclaim a five acre wilderness of brambles and decaying infrastructure. Creating one of the most media-friendly monasteries in Britain, she was induced to make twenty-two televised appearances, innumerable radio broadcasts, print articles and ten CDs. Like the music she and her sisters produced, this was an intrinsic part of a life lived to the full.

" Everything we do can become an expression of giving life. There is no need to limit creativity to outstanding works of art and literature; the ordinary daily life provides us with plenty of opportunities of being creative. Irrational outbursts are the best proof that man will create - even if it is only havoc!"

For over thirty years Mother gave days of recollection to the thousands of retreatants who came to Hawarden. Though she had a brilliant intellect, Mother Francesca was able to communicate with perfect simplicity. Ordinary people quote back to the sisters decades later, things she said to Liverpool parishes, Franciscan tertiaries, women's groups and ecumenical gatherings.

One of the language translators of her order's international communications journal she also worked amongst others for the German scholar, Hermann Schneider OFM,

Mother Francesca was Abbess for nineteen years in total, and a formator from 1962 onward. In 2018, frailer in health and now retired from office, she welcomed each new opportunity as God offered it and accepted the proposition to tear down what had taken thirty-six year to build in order to move to an inner-city monastery in Nottingham situated in a parish community as international as her own.

"The leprosy of our time is the non-ability to be loved and to love. Leprosy is not incurable, but one has to accept the fact that those who suffer from it take much, give little and mostly do not say thank you. This fact affects all relationships in community. The 'Life' - our life - is the Gospel. Love is the heart of the Gospel. Therefore we can say we are made because God's love is overflowing and so we respond to that love for which we are made by loving God in turn - but that is our response. The indwelling of the blessed Trinity begins with baptism, but that presence has to be developed and welcomed, our soul is like a house in which we live. If the milkman or the postman comes - business is settled in the doorway, if it is a neighbour; you will probably invite her into the kitchen for a cup of tea, if it is a good friend or a relative you might even allow her the freedom of the house - it is up to us how far we allow people in. Our God is a courteous God, he knocks - but we must say come in."

On March 12, the Hospital rang for Mother Damian to come. We had not been allowed to see Mother Francesca since she had been admitted. We knew it was the end. Mother Damian, with Sr Seraphina, Mother Francesca's personal Infirmarian and Sr Anezka were praying and singing by her bed, holding her hands - she was no longer able to speak. Her condition remained unchanged until about 11.30. The sisters began the Angelus at midday, renewing their vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and enclosure. Beloved stopped breathing during the prayer.

The italicised quotes are from a partial autobiography Mother Francesca was persuaded to dictate in 2015. Available on the community website: www.marianhouseoftheholyspiritpcc.org/mother-francesca