The Church of England’s newest nun is Sister Penny Jeffries of Cromer.
Sister Penny made her life vows to the Society of St Luke at a service in St Peter’s Church, Sheringham on Sunday.
The Society of St Luke is a small Church of England community based at Beeston Common near Sheringham. Its 17 members, both men and women, live around the county and country with a mission of prayer and care. The Society is the sister community of the Christian Deaf Community, based in Beirut, which was founded to support two schools for deaf children in the Middle East.
Its ministry in Norfolk includes regular craft groups, retreats and quiet mornings for guests – with a mission to pray for the suffering world and support those who come for help and counsel.
After a career as a librarian Sister Penny joined the Community as an Associate in 2018, becoming a postulant (or enquirer) the following year and then a nun in 2020. Three years later she made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and this month made her Life Vows to the Society of Luke before the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher.
Bishop Graham preached the sermon, for the Festival of St Luke, on Luke 10, verses 1-9 as Jesus sends out his people.
He told the congregation: “Mary Oliver, the American poet asks in the final lines of her poem The Summer Day: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do, With your one wild and precious life?’
“Penny, I suspect today wasn’t in your life plan as a young women, or even just a few years ago. But God has a habit of changing our plans and surprising us. God makes a habit of putting some people in habits.”
He said Jesus sent his disciples to eat and drink with others; to cure the sick, and to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near.
“You are being sent to share in receiving hospitality, delighting in other people, and what they offer. The greatest gift in a distracted world of scrolling and swiping is to give people time. So, practice lingering and loitering and listening with a Jesus-like attention to the other.
He said Penny was being sent to heal with words and hands with a Jesus-like voice, and to practice looking, learning and living with Jesus-like eyes.
“To do this you will need to go. The word go is one of God’s most favourite words. ‘Go’ said God to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and your household’. ‘Go’ said God to Abraham, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’. And we sing of Moses’ ‘go’: ‘Go down Moses way down in Egypt land, tell all Pharaohs to let my people go’.
“Jesus is always asking people to go. Go to the sea, go and point out a fault, go to the vineyard, go to Jerusalem, go into the village, go into the main streets, go into the city, go to Galilee.
Bishop Graham ended his examples of Jesus telling people to go with the risen Jesus, saying: “Go, and make disciples of all nations.”
“Penny, your calling is to go. Part of your contemplative prayer will be listening for the answers to the questions that emerge from that. Where to? With whom? Why? How? What with? Why now? What about next week, Lord? “
He said mission is not something we do for God but ‘what God is already doing in our world right now.’
“Jesus tells those he sends to put down their purse and bag so that they might be reliant on the kindness of strangers, to take off their sandals because the ground they walk on is holy, and not to be distracted from the task. This was about giving up some security and the familiar, to place our trust entirely on God’s leading.”
“Penny – ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do, With your one wild and precious life?’
Penny – just go…and do it!”