MEMORIES OF LEN
One Sunday afternoon in 1984 Sr Mary, a French Nun living in the Parish invited a group of her protégés to meet with her. She had returned from France full of vision. She had attended a Gathering which really inspired her because it embraced whole families. Her vision was for something like this to take place in England. One member of that group caught the vision, and that was Len. Speaking fluent French, Len was perfect as the trailblazer. It was the beginning of an Adventurous Journey for him with the Lord through the Community then known as New Christian Communities (NCC), and to-day as Fondacio.
After embarking on several trips to France for his own Formation with NCC, Len invited a number of us to travel with him to Paris for a week-end of formation in 1985. A Coach filled with participants travelled to that week-end; two further week-ends followed, and these culminated in the setting up of an NCC Community in England.
Len with enormous dedication, passion, commitment and energy dedicated himself tirelessly to building the Community in England and helping each member grow and achieve their potential through formation.
Writing this brings back so many memories of our times shared in the Community, the joys, the fun, the deep moments, the spiritual experience, and yes, the times of pain. The tapestry of our lives has its rich hue through the intertwining of the joy and pain of our lives.
Central to all of this was of course God, and then His chosen Instrument to lead us at that time – Len.
I know Len would be the first to agree with me when I say that practical details were not one of his strongest points, I affectionately often called him the ‘Absent Minded Professor’. He had numerous other gifts. Concentrating on the higher things of God and our formation, were much more important to him. His lapses of memory in the area of practical details can make us smile even to this day.
Our trip to Paris for our very first week-end of Formation is one such event. Arriving in Paris in the dead of night Len discovered he did not have the precise address of where we would be staying! Touring around Paris for some time we eventually reached our destination around midnight! Jacques (De Foucauld) sometime later described the scene thus: “Les Anglaise descended from the coach, weary and bedraggled, but as soon as they had had a cup of tea they were ALIVE and noisy! Bless the French they had wonderful food and of course tea awaiting for us on our arrival.
Another such story comes to mind. A group of about six of us were travelling to Dijon for a ‘Life in the Spirit’ week-end that the Community were running. Delayed flights from England meant we missed our TGV train and had to wait some hours for the next one. It was the age before mobile phones so arriving so many hours later meant there was no one there to meet us, and Len had no address for the venue, nor contact telephone number! Trusting in the Lord, we entertain ourselves singing Praise Songs in the foyer of the station. A young girl of about 19 entered the station quite distraught. She was Welsh living in Paris. Her boyfriend was to have arrived that afternoon at 1pm but had not come and she had no information about him. We invited her to join us and we prayed that her boyfriend would arrive on the next train. The train arrived around midnight, her boyfriend was on the train which was wonderful. Christian from Dijon arrived with an NCC Placard to meet people off this train, learned of our plight, handed us his wallet to buy drinks for ourselves and said he would come right back for us. What a friend. And what a wonderful lesson the Lord taught us about His care for each one of us. Our delayed flight, Len’s lapse in the area of practical detail about our lodgings, and contact telephone number meant God had us in the right place at the right time to be there for that young girl from Wales. God brings good out of ALL things for those who love Him.
THANKS FOR ALL THE MEMORIES LEN
EILEEN (O’KANE)