This is from the meeting of 11 November 1982.

Hyacinth:  Mrs Adie, on Tuesday night my mother rang me and told me my grandmother is in hospital. She asked me to pray for her and I said yes. I did try saying the rosary that I used to say in school days, but it didn’t connect inside at first. The next day I went to see my grandmother. In the morning preparation I planned that for the three hours I would be in the hospital and I would work. Tomorrow I will be seeing her again. My question is about prayer and how to be with her.

(Pause)

Mrs Adie: How old is she?

Hyacinth: She’s about eighty-nine.

Mrs Adie: Is she dying?

Hyacinth:  Possibly.

Hyacinth: Has she been a very religious woman?

Hyacinth: Yes.

Mrs Adie: Is she conscious?

Hyacinth: She can hear you.

Mrs Adie:   Your question is about prayer?

Hyacinth: Yes, how to, what can I, how to be, will I pray, will it help her? That sort of thing.

Mrs Adie:   I remember asking a similar question of Jean Heap. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of Jean Heap, when Mr Adie had his operation I was very terrified, she said two words, She said: “A foe is always a foe. It doesn’t have to be within.” I just felt terribly bewildered, but somehow on this occasion something became possible all of a sudden, but with an old person like that you can’t do a lot, it really is how you are. There has to be affirming, it has to be positive and very quiet, it depends of course a little bit on her type. If she’s very ill, in any case she just wants your presence. She doesn’t want to talk a lot, does she?

Hyacinth: No, she can’t speak.

Mrs Adie: No. It’s quite difficult but you must sit with her quiet and you feel something affirming towards her, something positive, very quiet. She doesn’t want pity, you know. Or, if she does want pity, let her have pity, but not in a negative way. She’d like to feel that someone is there. People are very weak like that, but still, they are much more sensitive to real things. You go by yourself not with family?  

Hyacinth: Yes, by myself.

Mrs Adie: You try and remember yourself all the time when you are with her and be very aware of what is taking place maybe she’s absolutely motionless and says nothing, you might be quite content to do the same. Just sit with her and hold her hand, and convey something with your feeling, you don’t try and convey something, but you could have that feeling. Be quiet and firm and she will receive it much more from that state.

What is prayer? Well, the number eleven is a prayer, the Movement number eleven is a prayer; it’s a state of self-remembering when I call for help from some higher part in myself. I’ll be directed if I’m doing it in the right way to a higher part of myself.

I think of myself as a universe – which I am. Everyone has a higher part. I don’t understand or know with my head where it is, but when I enter into myself in a way I’m contacting that higher part which gives me strength. So, you can convey something to her that way. If she’s very ill, she’s probably much less in her head than normally; I don’t know, people go in and out. You must judge.