Supporting young adults in their faith

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By Simon Heart

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On the day of Sister Lynne Baron’s interview with the Pic, she is in the middle of delivering a retreat, together with the Jesuit Institute, for students at the Oxford University chaplaincy.

 

Despite that, she has still found time for her morning run – crucial given that, at the time of writing, Sr Lynne had two 5K runs to prepare for, the first at Silverstone racing circuit in late November, the second at Wavertree Sports Park on 27 December.

 

Running is a hobby she only began last year. “It’s just a way of switching off,” she says, yet the funds raised along the way go to CAFOD, and it certainly feels a fitting pastime for a woman who seems to be forever on the move. As she admits: “I’m never not a sister. It’s not that I have a day off.”

 

As a sister with the Faithful Companions of Jesus (fcJ), she has young people at the heart of her work. “Vocational accompaniment” is a central part of her ministry, and this means supporting young people who are thinking about religious life. And, in these uncertain times, she has seen “an uptick in religious searching”. Sr Lynne elaborates: “I think there is that searching going on, and perhaps it is around questions of what can be trusted and what is reliable and finding some guidance or reliability in the Church. Certainly, as a congregation, we’re seeing an increase in the number of young women who are thinking about religious life. Not that they’re flooding in, but there’s definitely an increase.”

 

Based at St Hugh’s, Wavertree, Sr Lynne helps to run the FCJ Centre there which, she says, “looks at outreach spirituality in the local area as well as focusing on community-building and young people.” The sisters are accompanied in their work by a group of lay people called Companions in Mission who are associated with the FCJ’s charism and spirituality.

 

The order also has a nationwide Young Adult Network which offers a buttress to Catholics in their 20s and 30s. “We’re not trying to pull them out of parishes or out of existing connections but rather to provide something additional that helps to support them in their faith, because often young people can be quite isolated in parishes,” she explains.

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For this Lancashire-born Physics graduate, the work does not stop there. She is the delegate for Catholic Social Action on the Archbishop’s Advisory Board and serves as a governor at Bellerive FCJ Catholic College in Sefton Park. “I work with the staff on Catholic ethos,” says Sr Lynne, who taught at the school from 2002-2011.

 

She insists that there are some quiet moments, citing regular retreat days and the FCJ’s “lovely practice of an eight-day silent retreat every year”. Yet certainly the lead-up to Christmas will offer little let-up. The FCJ Centre at St Hugh’s runs a project throughout the year to support some 35 local families, and this expands at Christmastime. “Around Christmas, we’re collecting food and luxury items to put into hampers to give to a wider range of people in the local area,” she says.

 

Additionally, from 30 November - 5 December, Sr Lynne will be leading an online “Advent Week of Guided Prayer” along with an online discernment workshop on the evening of Tuesday 3 December. All that, plus those regular jogs to prepare for CAFOD’s Christmas fun run at The Mystery in Wavertree on 27 December.

 

“Actually, there’s a CAFOD poster for that which features myself and Sister MaryAnne,” she confesses. “We’re the two in the Santa costumes!”

 

• To help collect, pack, wrap and deliver hampers to local families in need on 19 December, email: fcjcentresthughs@gmail.com

 

• For more information about the CAFOD Christmas fun run visit: cafod.org.uk/news/ events/liverpool-fun-run