We are an international Catholic community of religious women dedicated to spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ, using all forms of communication.

Our spirituality is nurtured by the Eucharist and the Word of God and expressed through our collaborative effort to present the living message of Christ in a way that is meaningful for people today.

A Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving
for the
fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the
Daughters of St. Paul
in Great Britain
22nd. May, 2005
Holy Family Church, Langley, Berkshire.

The principal celebrant of the Jubilee Mass was Bishop Arthur Roche, (Leeds).

The first Pauline Books & Media Centre began with four sisters, previously based in Rome, setting up a Centre in London, near Brompton Oratory.

While the mission of the Daughters of St. Paul, who are also known as the Pauline Sisters, propels them along the modern highways of information and religious communications, the deepest heart of the Sisters’ identity is their consecration to God,  lived in community, and nurtured daily by the Word of God and the Eucharist.

The Daughters of St. Paul are an international Congregation of women religious with more than 2.500 members living and working in 53 nations throughout the world.
The Sisters, who have a fundamental relationship to St. Paul (hence their name Pauline), dedicate their lives to bring the Gospel with the means and the language of communication, so that the Word of God may reach everyone.

The Founder of the Daughters of St. Paul, Blessed James Alberione (1884-1970), shared his vision with the members of the religious communities that he founded: “Books, radio, television, movies, and all other means of communication are the ‘pulpits’ of today; the recording studios, production houses, bookcenters are the ‘new cathedrals’ from where the Daughters of St Paul announce the Gospel.”

We thank Bishop Roche, Bishop of Leeds, in a special way.  He graciously and generously accepted our invitation to celebrate this anniversary with us. We are very honoured and delighted to have him here today. He is a friend who supports and holds in high estimation the charism of our Founder Blessed James Alberione.
It gives us special pleasure to have with us The Mayor and Mayoress of Slough Councillor  Latif Khan and Miss Aisha Khan.

We are pleased also to have the opportunity to thank Canon Hazell and all our concelebrants who are here in solidarity and friendship and as a mark of their appreciation of our mission in Great Britain.
Fifty years ago Holy Family Parish was established. We were among the first parishioners  and we are proud to belong to this Parish.

And finally, we want to assure you all of the prayers of the Daughters of St Paul
and ask that you to continue to pray for us.
Thank you!

Solemnity of The Most Holy Trinity 50^th Anniversary of the Foundation  of the
Daughters of St Paul in Great Britain

22 May 2005

Bishop Arthur Roche

The history of the order, which is given us in the booklets, published to mark today’s occasion, makes fascinating reading. We hear of the first sisters, three Italians and an Irish lass, getting to know the locals through house-to-house-visiting and distributing religious books; we hear of astute stewardship as you gradually extend your field of operation in response to the needs of the local Church; we hear of the major contribution that the sisters made at the notable National Pastoral Congress in Liverpool in 1980; of their setting up of what is now Pauline Books and Media Productions; and we learn how the sisters are increasingly engaged in the vigorous marketing of their products in a commercial world in which it is not easy to remain buoyant.

Anybody who enters one of your Centres cannot fail to be impressed by the high level of courtesy, combined with professionalism. There is no doubt that you set a noticeable high standard in this field. Each of the Centres is first and foremost an attractive environment. They are places in which people linger and search. What a boon it is for the likes of us priests and catechists and teachers to stumble across a stock of such a variety of media that they stimulate us to get to grips with the new and wonderful opportunities for evangelisation which modern technology makes possible. What a contribution alone that is.

You cater for a whole range of needs. Some of your customers are deeply imbued with the faith and are looking for materials to deepen their own knowledge of the Lord or to share their faith with others. Then there are those who consider themselves to be on the fringes of the Church. Perhaps they have been invited to a baptism and enter the Centre rather gingerly, looking for something appropriate. They may buy a bible or a prayer book or an icon or a rosary. The importance of such a moment can never be calculated - God’s Providence is so very mysterious and the use He makes of those who serve Him with the whole of their lives is never in vain.

The one thing that most sets your Centres apart is that they are not just places of commercial excellence: they constitute part of a religious house. The sense of calm, which is so typical of them, proceeds from the presence of the Blessed Sacrament in some part or other of the Centre. The message is clear – Christ’s abiding presence is at very heart of your apostolate, of all that you do.

It would be difficult to calculate how many of the conversations with customers have a deep and much needed pastoral dimension. People in need, I know, find in you attentive listeners; they enter ostensibly to buy a card; they leave consoled, having had an opportunity to unburden themselves to somebody whom they know they can trust. I know too that you engage in many other forms of pastoral work in the local Church. Love and evangelisation – the two dimensions of your apostolate bound together in such a practical way – being alongside your brothers and sisters and preaching in the market place!

Today is a wonderful feast to be celebrating: the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The original prayers of this Mass were composed by St Thomas á Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and those opening phrases of the Collect are so apt for you:

Father, you sent your Word

to bring us truth

and your Spirit

to make us holy.

What is the Church saying to us today about truth and holiness?

You know better than I, Blessed James Alberione was very fond of often repeating Jesus’ words: I am the Truth. 
His whole life strained to communicate that Truth to the people of his day using all the means at his disposal. Jesus, as today’s feast reminds us, is that creative Word uttered out of sheer love by the Father – its very utterance reveals the depth of the Father’s love for us and all human beings. Everything that we are capable of understanding about God, we see in Christ. Without Him the picture is incomplete. This is so central to our faith that every now and again we need to allow it to strike us with fresh force. God has revealed Himself to the world in Christ in order that men and women everywhere might discover Him as a merciful Father who burns with love and longing for each one of us.

The world in which we live is full of deserts, to quote our new Holy Father – the deserts of loneliness and unfriendliness, of un-forgiveness and rejection, of intolerance and violence, of closed suspicion, intemperateness, of deep hunger and of empty greed. How the example of the Witchells speaks volubly for a much needed experience of mercy - God’s mercy! People need to hear and experience that God is doing wonderful things! Jesus says in today’s gospel, I did not come to condemn, but to save. And yet how ready so many people are both to condemn themselves for falling short of what they feel they should be, and also, in their unhappiness, in their unease with themselves, to condemn others. I asked Monsignor Atherton yesterday what was the most important lesson that he had learnt as a prison chaplain for 24 years. His answer was short: he said, the wisdom of Jesus who said, Do not condemn. The mercy of God cuts through the cycle of negativity that is eating at the heart of our society today. The goodness of Jesus reveals to us both that we are sinners and that He offers us salvation. He no sooner shows us how helpless we are than He rescues us and takes us to Himself. It is only in Him, as we all know but as we all need to be constantly reminded, that we discover the purpose of our being and the sure hope for the future. Without Him the picture will always be incomplete.

This truth of our faith is communicated to us first and foremost in Sacred Scripture. One of the things that most satisfied your founder, I know, was the knowledge that the Pauline Family had distributed millions of bibles throughout the world during his own lifetime.

The centrality of the bible to our faith was very finely and simply expressed by the placing of the Book of the Gospels on Pope John Paul’s coffin. One day it will be placed on ours, too. We watched its pages flickering in the strong breeze, testifying at that moment, we can confidently say, to the magnificent way in which the late Pope had lived out the gospel in his own life. It is an image, which has remained with people throughout the world. It is in that book, in that message, that true greatness lies!

Part of John Paul’s greatness was that he never tired of preaching in season and out of season. And whether the world agreed with him or not they sat back stunned as the world, particularly of the young, responded in their millions and recognised the authenticity of his Master’s message because he clearly and courageously lived by it himself.

Your apostolate is very demanding and you always respond with such generous giving, but the old adage is true: in order to give you also need to receive.

The challenge before us all who are involved in the task of evangelisation today, and especially for a Daughter of St Paul, is that we too must allow ourselves to be evangelised in order to take the Word of Life to a waiting and needy world. This is what holiness of life is about. Blessed James Alberione was insistent on this theme. He urged you to give particular attention to the life of prayer. And he also urged you to deepen your learning. I think I am right in saying that you were among the first groups of women ever to cross, with intent, the forbidding doors of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome! Through prayerful reading of Scripture and through theological and scientific studies, you open up your hearts to be converted so that you may become channels of God’s mercy in our society. Your hallmark is what we may call sanctification through evangelisation. Every conversation you have, every stock check which you dutifully undertake, every item which you prepare for publication and for sale, when seen in this perspective, is a moment of preaching or preparing to preach the Good News and a moment of holiness, as you follow not your own will but that of Christ whose deepest desire is to reveal through you the Father’s love and the Spirit’s strength.

Along the way, I have no doubt that at times you will have felt disheartened! That’s fine. We are not to worry when we feel like that. That too is part of the task as your founder noted:

The wearying labour of the apostolate is to be joined to the labour of Jesus, he said. The apostolate brings fatigue, discouragement, disappointment. There are those who fail to understand this. One wonders, have they understood the whole apostolate of Jesus? Let us think of Him.

Thank God that in the midst of whatever difficulties you have had to endure, the Lord has blessed your work abundantly. Who knows what the second fifty years will bring? Yet, as you begin your second half-century, the need for your unique contribution to the Church in these countries has never been greater. Now, much more than ever before, we are conscious that we need to devote our energies to communicating the gospel to the people of our society. We need to establish new and innovative points of contact with people who are searching often for they-know-not-what. In this you have always been on the front line. You stand in the high streets, making the full treasures of the Church accessible to an un-evangelised and un-catechised people. You are like signposts pointing to a greater and more life-giving reality. Like sentinels of a new dawn standing confidently in the hazy mists of difficult times, a lamp burning in your hearts, a light shining in lives of dedication to God. Thank you for what you do; thank you for coming to us and for staying with us; thank you above all for what you are – true sisters of Christ – courageous daughters of Paul the Apostle with a thirst for truth and holiness, who are not afraid to stake your lives on the very things in which you so ardently believe.