One hundred years ago when the CWL was founded by Margaret Fletcher and her companions, the Mass was at the centre of Catholic life, and it will be the same one hundred years hence in the long history of salvation. Today, as we celebrate our centenary Mass at this most holy shrine of Walsingham, we stand in direct continuity of faith with those early pioneers for whose founding inspiration we want to thank God with all our heart at this Eucharist.
Dear Members of the CWL
Brighton in October at the National Conference will be the fitting culmination of a year of celebration – after all it was there that the CWL was born one hundred years ago. But for many of us this centenary pilgrimage to Walsingham is the spiritual highlight of this special year. Just as those first disciples (and we heard about them in that reading from the Acts of the Apostles) gathered around Mary in Jerusalem to await the Holy Spirit, so you today, the CWL, gather around her in this holy shrine to await a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon your League of Catholic Women.
A great bonus for me personally in being asked to preach at this centenary celebration has been to discover a bit more about Margaret Fletcher, your foundress. Previously I had known a few basic facts: that Margaret was born in Oxford in 1862, had become a Catholic at the age of 35. and had been the prime mover in the birth of the CWL at Brighton in 1906. What I hadn't known was how as a seventeen year old she went to the Slade School of Art in Chelsea; and then, crucially, continued her studies in highly cosmopolitan Paris. It was an opportunity which she eagerly took. and there she broadened out dramatically in her views about life, religion and politics. It was in Paris that she first developed that spirit of internationalism which was to mark her life and which still today marks the ethos of the CWL. Only recently a delegation from the CWL crossed the Atlantic to take part in the 4? Yearly assembly of the World Union of Catholic Women's Organisations. Your Margaret Fletcher was one WUCWO'S founders as well as being its fourth world president.
Something else which I had not known previously was her love for St John of the Cross. His writings were a key part of her decision to become a Catholic. But, above all, it was her friendship with a Mary Miller in Oxford, as they took an active part together in their local parish, that created the birth pangs of the future CWL. Mary had travelled widely in Europe researching Catholic secondary school education for girls, a subject dear to Margaret Fletcher's heart. Mary told Margaret about a newly formed Catholic organisation of women in Germany. and that led in turn to the launch, with Cardinal Bourne's active approval, of a new quarterly 'The Crucible'. Its purpose was to arouse the interest of teachers in schools to develop a better social education for women. The Crucible ran for eight years, and in one of its very last issues the proposal was made to establish a league of Catholic women.
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The rest we say is history, and what a history, ranging from the first CWL Union of Catholic Mothers (eventually to become the UCM) in 1914, through the CWL huts of World War One and the Relief and Refugee Committee, and the founding of Our Lady's Catechists to help with the religious instruction of children in non Catholic schools. To this very day Our Lady's Catechists' summer camps for such children remain an important part of the Catholic landscape. Then there were the social welfare schemes, summer school courses at Plater College and Oxford; old people's housing and service committees. In more recent years the CWL together with the UCM mothered CAFOD into the world, and has remained ever since a hands on supporter of CAFOD's overseas development work.
Throughout her long life – she died in December 1943 at the age of 81 – Margaret Fletcher always insisted that the League needed women with 'balanced common sense', and that it should 'utilise the average women in convincing the Catholic world that business-like methods and intellectual gifts are excellent weapons in the service of God'. Though two centuries separated her in time from that other Margaret so dear to the CWL; St Margaret Clitherow, your patroness, Margaret Fletcher shared with her namesake the same experience of becoming a Catholic and a similar resolution to use every gift and talent she possessed for the common good.
In 1938 your foundress wrote the final chapter of her autobiography. Tucked away in the middle of it are some words that I particularly want to quote. "The long effort to organise Catholic lay women nationally has prospered. Time has brought other societies into existence with more specialised aims, and, at long last, all are working in mutual helpfulness, directed by the hierarchy. To the CWL which first threw the spearhead into public life is given the task of furthering the work it began". And it has, dear Margaret, to your great pleasure surely in the sight of God, it has furthered the work it began, and with what wonderful fruitfulness.
But let me conclude back here in Walsingham, this dowry of England, this ancient shrine hallowed by the countless prayer of pilgrims down the centuries. Walsingham is surely one of the 'thin' places of this earth, where the veil of faith separating us from the vision of God, is worn thin to the point of transparency. Where better place to come as 'women pilgrims with a purpose' in this your centenary year? The League's purpose in gathering from the four corners of England and Wales in this hallowed Marion shrine is very clear: firstly, to thank God for Mary, Our Lady; and Our Mother; and then, to ask Mary's continued intercession before God for all your many CWL missionary endeavours.
One beautiful paradox of Mary's life surely is that from under the wraps of a lowly handmaid, humble and self effacing; there emerges this strong, vibrant and valiant woman of faith. Mary is the best flowering of our human nature because she centred herself so completely on God. Instinctively then you want to turn here at Walsingham to her as a Mother, entrusting to her maternal care your great apostolic work for the Church at every level; nationally, internationally and; most vital of all, at grass roots parish level.
Dear members of the CWL, go on 'setting your sights high', is the plea that the Church in England and Wales, would in gratitude want to make to you today. Your gift to us since 1906 has been so special. In 'setting your sights high' you were being especially mindful too that Margaret Fletcher your foundress did the same, never settling for anything but the best as regards the Catholic women she so powerfully inspired. Aiming high in fact is the only possible course of action for those who discover in faith, as Mary first discovered, that "nothing is impossible to God".
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