From the brothers of the fraternity of Kendal.

It is with true joy that we all say thank you to Our Lady and to the divine providence because we had received the great gift to visit the Our Lady of Knock Shrine.

For the first time the fraternity in Knock and our fraternity in Kendal had the possibility to work, pray and stay together. This shown to us once more that even if we come from different places we all live the same difficulties and the same growths.

The time passed together helped us to realise that we are part of the same family that is our Community.

While we were there we participate to the celebration for the Novena to Our Lady; this year was the 135 anniversary of the apparition that took place in Knock on the 21 of August 1879.

We had the possibility to lead a Holy Hour in the Apparition Chapel where we brought in front of Jesus & Our Lady our intentions and our prayers.

This was another testimony of the importance that Mary  in our Community and in our lives.

We said thank you to Our Lady for the many blessings and graces received and for her protection for us and our families.

After a couple of days there we were blessed with good weather that allowed us to climb “Croagh Patrick”

We lived this as a pilgrimage and so we walked and prayed thinking about the importance that this place had for the conversion of so many people: the same conversion of the heart that we desire for us and our families.

The climbing was a real effort especially for some of us but we all manage to reach the top of the hill where we had lunch, thanksgiving prayer in front of St. Patrick’s chapel and to finish a time of singing that made all the others pilgrims curios about this strange and variegated group

Our daily life in house was characterised, as usual in our Community, by prayer and work; but we didn`t miss the opportunity to have a nice football tournament, that everybody really enjoyed!

We also decided that this was a good occasion to let our selves be known better so after every meal two of us stood up and gave testimony about his experience in Community.

The witnesses and the examples of the other brothers were really genuine and inspiring so that was easy for us to see ourselves in the other’s experiences.

We were also blessed by the presence of Brother Josip, a consecrated brother of our Community, and Fr. Bryan, who is one of priest close our fraternity in Knock.

Both of them gave us a catechism on the importance of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and on becoming more aware of the evil we do to others and how this evil hurts first ourselves, taking away from us the happiness and the will to live our life.

Our week ended with a moment of sharing; we divided into different groups and we shared what we had been living during this time passed together.

Again we all want to thank all those made this possible and in particular Bryan and Maurine, Joan,

Fr. Chris, Chris, Caroline, Francis, Joseph, Ben, Fr. Donald, Fr. Bryan, Jerry, Elsie, Padraig, and all those supported and helped us with their prayers.