74: I love God. I love Mary. And I love the opportunities that I’ve been given.

Episode 74 Sue explains how she wanted to really 'do something with her life' on reaching forty. Invitations and opportunities followed and Sue has embraced them all - including volunteering with Mary's Meals and 'relearning my faith through my children.' Sue shares how devotion to Our Lady is a big part of her faith journey too - and the special reminder of Mary that she carries with her now.

Find out more

Mary's Meals

A new episode, a different conversation, every Wednesday!
Email me: theresa@KindsofCatholic.co.uk
Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and X/Twitter Give me a follow @KindsofCatholic
Find the transcript: https://kindsofcatholic.buzzsprout.com

The podcast is kindly supported by the Passionists of St Patrick's Province, Ireland & Britain and by CAFOD.

Music: Greenleaves from Audionautix.com

Transcript

You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of ways we're living our faith today. Pope Francis used the image of a caravan for our travelling together on a sometimes chaotic journey.  And Pope Leo, quoting St Augustine, reminds us, Let us live well and the times will be good. We are the times. I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed and maybe challenged now and then.  I am too in these conversations. And if you're enjoying them, it helps if you rate and review on the platform where you're listening.  Thank you.

'I'd just like to think that people would see me as approachable and if they were curious, they could ask me a question and I may not always have all the answers, but I'm not frightened of my faith.' So listeners, those are a few words from this week's guest and the episode is coming up in a moment. First I wanted to let you know that I'm planning an event for the Spring of next year likely to be a Saturday in March where we can meet each other in person. Guests and listeners will be invited to come together and spend some time talking about the podcast, getting to know each other better, and I'm planning to do a live podcast conversation recording while we're there together. And there'll be a time of prayer too. So please be thinking about whether that's something you might like to come along to. There will be more information coming soon so keep listening. 

So listeners, thanks for joining today. I'm talking to Sue today who's in the West Midlands in the Birmingham Archdiocese. We're going to talk about a range of things, but among them volunteering and how important that can be as part of our faith. So welcome Sue

Thank you, Theresa. 

We talked earlier and I said perhaps we’d start in the middle today, Sue.  I met somebody who works for Mary's Meals when I was at the We Believe Festival this summer. We were talking about how good it would be to have somebody who supports Mary's Meals as a guest on the podcast. So here you are talking to us about your life and your faith, but about Mary's Meals too. So why don't we start with Mary's Meals? Perhaps you'd tell us about, you know, what you do with the organisation and what they do.

I always talk about Mary's Meals. I became involved with Mary's Meals when I went to Kenya back in 2014. I was out there as part of a medical team that went out there to do some volunteering work. And we were in the very interior part of Kenya, a place called Tsavo. And during the camps we had, we obviously witnessed the poverty, not only the medical conditions, but also the schooling, lack of sanitation and opportunities for girls particularly. Instead of having my lunch when we were there, I would go and find out what the children were doing. And it was there that I saw a feeding programme. Was very intrigued that mothers went a silly hour in the morning to prepare the meals and did enough for about a thousand children. These ladies spent hours in this very smoky kitchen preparing the meals for the vulnerable children. And it really struck a chord with me. You know, people do these sorts of experiences and say, Oh, it was a life-changing experience. And I thought, You know something, when I get home, I want to make it life-changing. I don't want just, Oh, I had a great time. I had a fantastic experience. Put it down on the CV. So when I got back, I was pondering as to how I could still help those children thousands of miles away. And somebody mentioned, Have you heard of Mary's Meals? So he said, we feed children all across the globe. You might be interested.  So. I then looked into it and got all my facts about the charity and I contacted them and said, Could I do a bit of fundraising for you? And they said, Yes, of course. I was just coming up to my 50th birthday. So I had a party and instead of any gifts or cards, I asked for them to put, as it was then, £12.50 in an envelope and it'd raised over a thousand pound for the children. And I thought, Okay, if I can do that, perhaps I can do some more. I then got back in touch with them and said, What else can I help with? And they said, Well, you can become a volunteer. What skills do you have? And I said, Well, the only skills I have is really, being a nurse, and I can talk. Would you be interested in doing talks in your parishes and schools, assemblies, things like that? And I said, Well, I'll certainly give it a go. I did the small bit of training that you do. Here we are nearly 11 years later and I'm still working for Mary's Meals. I'm now lead volunteer for the West Midlands area. I've done lots and lots of talks. I've done fundraisers in and we're always looking for new volunteers. I never spoke in front of anybody until I was 40. I'd had the opportunity to go to Lourdes and somebody said, Would you like to do a reading? And I was always the kid at the back of the class. And I was like that throughout my career, although nursing did bring me out of my shell, but I'd never got up in front of people and spoke. But I just started talking and Mary's Meals just gave me the passion to do some good. And I really felt that Kenya gave me the opportunity to then continue to help the children.

On that Sue, tell us a bit about that. You mentioned that £12.50 there. So explain for listeners then, I think that number has changed more recently, hasn't it? But explain to listeners then what it is that Mary's Meals does and what kind of amount of money is needed to feed a child. 

So Mary's Meals provides a meal for as many children as we can, that we have money for, in a place of education. So namely a school. So £19.15 will feed a child for a whole school year. Obviously the cost has risen since I started, but still the reason that we can do that is because the overheads are much lower. We heavily run on volunteers, you know, using the resources as well as we can without any wastage. Spreading the word. There are little groups popping up all over the place. There are people that do work in the background. There are people that will go out there and do talks and assemblies and run marathons. Phenomenal fundraising. And it's all those skills put together that we are now feeding over three million children across the globe. We empower communities to produce their own crops. When they get the rains, where possible, we will use their crops. But obviously we don't not feed the children. If we don't get the crops, we will provide otherwise. And we also have volunteers in the countries because without the mums and the communities being involved in preparing those meals, it wouldn't be possible. It's almost like a global volunteering program to help the future of the children and give them a better education so they can break that cycle of poverty. 

And there's something really smart I've often thought, about Mary's Meals, about making it a meal at school so that you're also empowering the children to continue their education by providing them with a meal.

 Absolutely. And that really goes back to a young boy called Edward who Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow who founded the charity, spoke to in Malawi, which at the time was one of the poorest countries in the world. This young boy was only 11 years old at the time and he'd never been to school. And his mother was very seriously ill. His father had already died and he'd got five siblings. And Magnus just said, What are your ambitions in life? What would you like to do? And he said, I’d just like enough food and to be able to go to school. Children want to learn. Children are so curious. Their minds are like sponges. They want to learn. They want to develop skills. And just because they're poor doesn't mean that they don't have the ability to learn. If you can provide a meal in a school, not only do you give them that social aspect of going to school, they're fed, their tummies are full so they can concentrate, learn their lessons, gain qualifications that perhaps the parents thought they would never do and you, become the professionals of the future. When I first started doing the talks, somebody said to me, Oh, the children of the future. And I always used to say, No, the children are the here and now and we need to invest in them now because they won't have a future if we don't. Everything about the charity just resonates with me, who I am as a person and what I've done in my life up to now. I'm really grateful for somebody saying to me, Go and check out Mary's Meals. 

That's wonderful to hear about Sue. I can really see  what you mean about how much you get from this. Just before we move on to you a little bit more, maybe just explain for listeners who don't know, I mean, there is a reason why it's called Mary's Meals, isn't there? 

Yes, there is. So the charity was started, it wasn't actually called Mary's Meals originally. It was called Scottish International Relief. And they took aid over to Bosnia during the civil crisis over there. And Magnus and his then girlfriend, was to become his wife, and his brother. They asked for donations within their parish of food and toiletries and resources. And they went over by land to Bosnia. In Bosnia, there is a Marian shrine, Medjugorje, which is a shrine where Our Lady appeared to some children. We call her the Queen of Peace because Bosnia was in such crisis at the time. When Magnus got back and the crisis is now over: What do we do now? And it was the last thing he was thinking of. Eventually the charity did get set up in 2001 and he was praying on it as to what they should call it. And the family themselves are devout Catholics and they've been to Medjugorje many, many times in Bosnia. And they said, We need to call it Mary's Meals. Mary is the mother of us all and Mary is asking us to feed her children and look after her children. We don't profess to be a religious charity, but the name just fits really well. I think for Magnus, and I've met Magnus, well, a few times, for him, there was no other name possible really. It just had to be Mary, to be Mary's Meals. 

Thank you, Sue, for giving us that picture of the charity and all the work it does. Great to hear directly from someone who's involved all these years, as you are. That's wonderful, and it's very moving, actually, to hear. Now, let us think about you a little bit though, Sue. You mentioned that you were in Kenya, seeing firsthand there the effects of poverty on children and families. But how did you even come to be in Kenya? And where is your faith in this? Is there something to do with being a Catholic that has given you this way of being that is of service to others? Or did you fall into it and then find that it was something that really worked for you? 

I've been a nurse for over 40 years. That is a vocation and I've always seen it as a vocation. By nature, it's a caring role and you always go a little bit above and beyond throughout your career. As I said, I wasn't very adventurous until I hit 40 and then my children were of an age where I thought, maybe I could go and do something now. I really felt like I hadn't done an awful lot really in my own life, other than bring up my children and my married life. But there was something just nagging at me that if I look back on my life, what have I done? And don't get me wrong, bringing up children is a challenge. I had the opportunity first of all to go to Lourdes. Somebody came and asked for volunteers at my parish. And I said, Well, I'm a nurse, would I be any use? It just snowballed from there. So every time I came home, I was asked to do either another trip... I just felt like, No, you can't say no. You've been given this opportunity. Somebody's inviting you. Therefore you need to take that challenge on.  And there was a particular nurse who is just a phenomenal person. And she set up this charity for practice nurses to go out to Kenya to help do a medical camp. She was looking for volunteers and I thought, Wow, Kenya! That was it. It was just a turning point for me. And the poverty level in Kenya was just something I'd never experienced before, you know, and it was just so heartbreaking that surely we can do something. If you think about Mother Teresa and she says little acts of kindness, or do one thing, but do it well. You don't have to do anything that puts you on the map, it's just those little acts.  If you add them to lots of other little acts, can make a big change. I've just recently come back from India and again, my family laugh at me because they say, Why don't you ever go on holiday for holiday? But I get so much out of the volunteering. You gain so much back yourself. And yes, it might only be for a week or two weeks. And people will say, Well, what difference can you make? But you know, if we all did our best, the world would be a far better place.

That's really heartfelt. And I think you've explained really well many of the things that you've gained from putting yourself out there and making that effort to do what you can and bring what skills you can.  How very impressive that you're using your holiday time from work to go and do those things. What about your faith then? Do you feel called to this, would you say? Or is this work running in parallel to your life of faith? 

No, I think I've been called to it because when I was at school and we had a vocations day, I remember the Jumbulance coach came. We had a talk from a religious sister who was a missionary. I was really intrigued by it. And I went home and I said, Mom, I know what I want to do when I leave school. I said, I'm going to go on that Jumbulance. I want to be a missionary. And she went, Oh, no, you're not. My parents were, unfortunately, divorced. She said, You need to leave school. You need to get a job and you need to support the family. So I almost feel like I had to have a period of doing what I was expected to do.  And then, you know, when I started, when I was 40, it was almost like God had been steering me in that way that I was going to be a missionary one way or another. Now, I'm not a missionary in the true sense, but I never tire of volunteering. I never tire of being available to people. I'd like to think that through my actions, it comes from God and people can see that in me. I give vocations talks all the time in senior school and I have a list of things that I've done. And I say, this is not a bragging list. This is not what I'm here for. What I'm saying to you that if you answer that call from God and you say yes or you're willing, He'll do the rest.  He'll find out what you can do. You don't have to overthink it. One of the Psalms particularly that resonates with me is Matthew 25-35. And it's about when I was hungry, you gave me food. And when I was naked, you gave me clothing. And that resonates with me because all the different volunteering things I've done, has done everything bar when I was a prisoner, visited me. But I'd like to challenge that and say, Living in poverty is a form of being imprisoned because unless somebody comes in and says to you, We're going to help you get out of that poverty cycle, you are a prisoner to that poverty. That is what my volunteering has done. But also sometimes when I went to these volunteering places, sometimes they become completely overwhelming. Like when we came back and we were in the middle of the preparation for Christmas and I just got completely overwhelmed and I thought, can't believe what we've come from to where we've come to. And I really struggled to settle back in. And I even said to my family, We're not celebrating Christmas as you understand it. We're celebrating it as a religious festival as it should be. They thought I'd gone mad. I said, The meaning of Christmas is what is important. We did give gifts, but we did have a beautiful Christmas, probably one of the best Christmases we've ever had. We've continued to do that. My faith has got stronger over the years because I've been given so many graces and so many blessings. God just gives me the energy to do it. I'm looking now for what my next trip will be. 

One thing that you said there that really resonated with me about seeing that poverty in Kenya. A few years ago, I went to Zambia with the Presentation Sisters back when I was a speech and language therapist.  Like you, I wanted to just do something. I took my skills. It was only a couple of weeks. Like you say, it was a short time. I was working full time in the NHS then, I had to go in holiday time. But I did some volunteering speech and language therapy work with children, with the Presentation Sisters.  What was so hard for me was seeing the children who were suffering from malnutrition and they were so much smaller than they ought to have been and so delayed in so many ways, in a way that would be permanent because they had been malnourished from the beginning because of the levels of poverty in these remote areas. You know, it took me a long time to get over that experience. It was overwhelming. 

Absolutely. Yeah. 

It was really hard to explain to other people when I came back. Seeing pictures and hearing people talking about malnutrition and children in poverty in some countries, it didn't actually reach me in the same way until I was there in that environment, trying to interact with these children while being shocked at how I found them. I know what you mean about what a difference it makes to the rest of your life.

When I came back the first time, it took me six months to actually be able to talk to somebody about it. I wrote an article for the Catholic Today as it was then, and that was almost the start then. And then people would naturally ask me about it. My youngest daughter has autism. We went through a very difficult time when she was growing up because it wasn't heard of as much with girls having autism and she had lots of other things with it. But my daughter taught me that even however difficult you think your life is, you can always help somebody else. When I was 40, I said to her, Dad's going to look after you. Are you, are you okay if I go and do these things? Because we have a very close relationship. And she said, Yes, mom. I can see it in you that you want to do it. I almost needed her blessing to let me go.  How lucky am I really that, well, not only have I got a child that needs a lot of care and attention, but she's allowing me to go and give other people care and attention. And when your child turns around to you and says, You're my biggest inspiration, that just melts your heart completely. For me, I always felt that Mary was close to me because she is a mother, I'm a mother. And I always felt when I was really struggling that it was Mary that I turned to, to help me through the very difficult times and there were some very dark times. I love being with young people. I've run a youth group, I've run a liturgy group, I've run a women's retreat group. And currently I've set up a SEND Mass at my parish and we've done a whole year cycle of SEND Masses. He's sort of steering me in. Because I have that experience with a SEND child, I can see how other parents are struggling. He's saying, Right, okay, you need to help these parents worried about going to Mass and their child making a noise. And it's not that you sit down and think, Oh, God just said that to me. It doesn't work like that. I don't know how it works, but it just does. 

That's interesting that you say that Sue, because I can really hear just in the way you're speaking about your life. I can hear God working in your life, even though, like you say, it's not individual telegrams coming through with the next step on, of course. But when someone is speaking about their life, and especially a life of service, using skills to help others and being moved by others and allowing your compassion to change the way you live and inspiring people around you to change the way they live and to think about things differently because of those experiences. I can see God in all of that in your life. I'm hugely inspired by speaking to you.  One thing we've not really talked about, you mentioned having some Irish heritage and I'm guessing that's how you've come to be a Catholic today.

Yes, my mom is from County Meath. My mom came over to England when she was 15 to do her nurse training. She married my father who wasn't a Catholic, but my mom has always been a strong Catholic and brought the children, my brothers and sisters, up as Catholics. 

And Sue went on to tell a story here listeners that gives you some insight into who her mother was and what their relationship with each other was like. 

I've been to Medjugorje myself twice. I went with my mother. I had a problem with one of my feet. I've got plantar fasciitis. We were due to do Cross Mountain. I was in a lot of pain with my heel. Mom said, You'll do it. You'll do it. And I said, Well, mom, I really don't know whether I can do it. You know, and I don't want to be a burden to anybody. I just prayed to Our Lady. If you want me at the top of that mountain, you're going to have to help me. We started off, I got to the 11th station and I thought, You know what? I can't do it anymore. I can't get to the top. I'm so close. And I remember we all took it in turns to read the Stations and I started crying. Why am crying? I'm reading the Station. I said again, Lord, if you want me to reach the top of this mountain, you're going to have to help. People probably won't believe me, but it was as if I was lifted to the top. And when I got to the top, the euphoria that I felt, I was looking out over Medjugorje and I thought, I've done it. And I've made it because of Mary and Jesus, because there was no way I was going to go another step. And coming down the mountain, all the massive boulders. With my health and safety hat on as a nurse, it really isn't the safest thing to do. But I came down that mountain an awful lot quicker than I went up it. I just couldn't wait to get back to mom and say, Mom, I've done it. And she said, I had no doubt you would. There's been times in my life where I perhaps haven't been as devout as I should have been. I lost my dad when I was 21. I was 18 going into nursing and saw some things that, you know, an 18-year-old shouldn't really see. You do question things sometimes. I never lost my faith. They used to come round the wards and give you Communion on a Sunday if you were on  shift and that. Even when I got married, you know, it was a case of I wanted to get married in a Catholic church and I wanted to bring my children up Catholic, even though my husband at the time wasn't Catholic either. But I said, Well, this is non-negotiable. But I think also having children, you relearn your faith through your children. Because we were rote taught it. I started exploring my faith more. When I realised there wasn't things within the parish community really for the younger children, I thought, Well, I'll set it up then. Well, I'll do it. My children can benefit from it and other working moms can come together and do something. I really think I started to learn my faith from then. When I started doing the youth work, I felt like I was reliving my childhood. 40-year-old giddy kid going round because I could go to praise and worship. I could adore the Blessed Sacrament in a different way than -  as my younger daughter said, she went to Alton Castle, they taught her what you should do when you're in front of the Blessed Sacrament. And that was a revelation for both of us. 

You've captured there something that's become clear to me while you're speaking really, that somehow our faith is shaped by the things we experience. It's when you're faced with your children and their questions that you start to question yourself and find things that you have just accepted and not really thought about or gaps or things that you can't put into words when you need them or words that are going to work in this situation. I think those kinds of life experiences challenge our faith, don't they? And help us to grow in our faith. If we embrace them and try and find a way to carry on being a practicing Catholic in this environment and find ways to help other people with their questions, which you've done so amazingly in different times in your life, I can really see that.

I can't say that I can just pluck a psalm out of the Bible. I'd just like to think that people would see me as approachable and if they were curious, they could ask me a question and I may not always have all the answers, but I'm not frightened of my faith. I've got Mary, I've got a tattoo of Our Lady on my forearm, which I had done three years ago. So Mary's with me all the time.  

Listeners, I wish you could see that. That looks beautiful. 

And I think that's it. I am a brave Catholic woman. I love God. I love Mary. And I love the opportunities that I’ve been given. The rosary is the richest thing you can have. It's more richer than gold. And so the rosary is extremely important to me. I actually challenged the Archbishop of Birmingham when I was giving a talk at Oscott once, and it was about the rosary. And I said to them, What would we do without Mary? How would our faith be without Mary? And I said to the Archbishop, Do you do the rosary every day, Your Grace? And he said, No, I don't. And I said, But your rosary is worth more. It's Jesus' story from beginning to end, and Mary's sorrows, what it is to be a parent, to have a child that is suffering. He now does the rosary every day. But again, I took on an archbishop and I wasn't fazed. He could have just said, I'm not answering that question, but he did. And everywhere I go, I will take a spare rosary, and I will leave it, almost as if someone will pick it up and they'll be curious and they will perhaps start doing the rosary. 

Listen, Sue, it's been a breath of fresh air talking to you. It really has. I'm deeply inspired by your energy and your adaptability to so many different parts of your life and things that you've done and people that you have brought with you in your own faith journey. It's amazing to listen to you and wonderful during the month of October that we've had somebody who has a devotion to Our Lady talking about that very practically for everyone. And maybe there's someone out there who's picked up one of the rosaries you've left somewhere. There must be.  

I hope so. 

Thanks so much. 

Thank you, Theresa, for the opportunity.

 Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time.  I hope today's conversation has resonated with you.  A new episode is released each Wednesday. Follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms. Rate and review to help others find it. And follow our X, Twitter and Facebook accounts @KindsofCatholic. You can comment on episodes and be part of the dialogue there.  You can also text me if you're listening to the podcast on your phone, although I won't be able to reply to those texts. Until the next time.