C&SI - Contemplative love at the heart of the Church - Chatting to the Tyburn Nuns (and Habemus Papum!!) - S05 E24

We have a BUMPER podcast this week for listeners!

So in normal programming which had been planned for quite a number of weeks, John and Shane were delighted to speak to Mother Catherine, the prioress of the Cobh Priory of St Benedict of the Congregation of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmatre a.k.a. the Tyburn Benedictine Nuns. We learn about the sisters daily life, their history and also their role in honouring the 350 martyrs of Tyburn including St Oliver Plunkett.

But obviously given the week that is in it we couldn't ignore the news from Rome and the election of Pope Leo XIV on Thursday so John and Shane had to very quickly get to grips with the information about the new man and rapidly change our plans for this weeks podcast on Friday morning!

We do have our regular run through the liturgical odds and ends including up coming saints of the weeks and our congratulations locally to (Fr - to be) Tim Collins who is to be ordained for our home diocese of Limerick on 11 May. 

Our gospel reflection this week is a tad shorter than usual but hopefully will give listeners some food for thought as we mark the 4th Sunday of Easter also knows as Good Shepherd Sunday or Vocations Sunday and in Ireland in particular we lift up our prayers for the Lord of the Harvest to send labourers into his vineyard. 

Habemus Papum!

Well! Have you caught your breath yet with the speed of events? White smoke on Thursday evening around 5pm Irish time with the presentation of the new Holy Father Pope Leo XIV to the faithful about an hour later. We have a brief chat about what we know so far about the new Holy Father and share some thoughts and a little bit of C&SI speculation as to the days ahead.

One thing for listeners is to have good, reliable sources of news information and here on C&SI when it comes to things Papal at the moment we have three solid recommendations:

• Vatican News (hear it from the horses mouth!
• The Pillar - the team have done an amazing job of covering the last few weeks, brilliant coverage, loads of digestible information with a solid Catholic understanding of what is going on. 
• CruxNow - John Allen and Co provide excellent coverage and analysis as always.

One article which caught our eye is the reportage from a press conference given by the American Cardinals - have a look and see what you think.

Contemplative love at the heart of the Church

One of the things we like to do on the podcast is to help listeners explore the many facets of religious life in the church. On this weeks podcast we were delighted to chat to Mother Catherine of St Benedict's Priory in Cobh, Co Cork who shares with us the contemplative Benedictine life of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmatre. She shares with us their daily life, the history and foundation of the congregation in France, its exile to the UK and the fortuitous story of how they came to be custodians of the memory of the Reformation martyrs at Tyburn in London. 

• Tyburn Nuns main web site in UK
• St Benedict's Priory Cobh webpage