This paper will attempt to trace the Baker tradition down the history of one community, letting the nuns speak through their writings. These were never written for publication, but for the community present or future, or for the individual alone.

THE FIRST GENERATION OF BAKER'S DISCIPLES

The Monastery of Our Lady of Good Hope was founded in Paris by the nuns of Cambrai, ten years after the death of Baker. It is now St. Mary's Abbey, Colwich, near Stafford. Cambrai wanted the new community to be based on the teachings of Baker. Some of our 'Mother Beginners', as we call them, had been taught by Baker personally, for instance, the first Prioress, Mother Bridget More, whose famous sister was Dame Gertrude More. Less well known, was Mother Elizabeth Brent, the first Novice Mistress. Her obituary notice says she was:
"sent to Paris . . . to assist Mother Clementia Cary in the beginning of this our Monastery here in Paris. She was of a serene and equal temper and an intern spirit, much relishing venerable Father Baker's divine instructions, as may be seen by her collections and his books which she wrote out and faithfully practised with custodia cordis that he so much recommends".
A Memorial of Father Baker, written at our Paris monastery, states that all Baker's manuscripts and his collections were copied at Cambrai for the new foundation at Paris. The Cambrai nuns:
"had for some years not only the happiness to partake of his verbal instructions and advices but also he enriched them with his precious manuscripts, which were above thirty treatises, and as many translations out of several spiritual authors viz: Harphius, Thaulerus, Blosius etc., all which books in his own hand are now transcribed into twelve tomes. There is also an abridgement of these holy instructions set out in print and called Sancta Sophia. But the precious originals of his own writings having been strictly examined and approved by grave and learned Doctors as containing sound and catholic doctrine, and admirable instructions for all estates in a contemplative life etc., are all extant and most carefully conserved in the aforesaid Monastery of the English Benedictine Dames of Our Blessed Lady of Consolation in Cambrai, our Mother House. From whence as from the head fountain we have, by the great care and diligence of our Venerable Mother Beginners obtained original and faithful copies of all those his books, by which means this our Monastery of our Blessed Lady of Good Hope au Champs d'Allouette in Paris is also enriched with all the same spiritual treasures. God Almighty give us his holy grace to be true and perseverant practisers of these holy and divine instructions."
We still have many of these manuscripts at Colwich.
The Constitutions of the Paris house, based on those of Cambrai, were approved in 1656. The whole of the Preface is full of Baker's spirit, and once quotes him by name:
"To this purpose is that legacy the venerable Father Augustine Baker left you: 'Observe your call, that's all in all', that is, the spirit of your vocation must be the life of all your actions, interior and exterior; and all your actions, interior and exterior, must be to conserve and increase the life of your vocation, there by making our vocation secure (as St. Paul saith). Or in other terms, as the same venerable Father and true intern propensioner saith to the same purpose: 'Prayer and mortification is the only means and way to perfection, to which we ought all to aim, tend and aspire'."
The community lived by these Constitutions almost unaltered until the early 20th century.

THE SECOND GENERATION OF BAKER'S DISCIPLES

The second generation were nuns, and monks, who did not know Baker personally. For instance, Father Serenus Cressy was sent to Paris with the nuns and was their chaplain for a short time. He is well known as the compiler of Sancta Sophia and biographer of Baker, but it is important to realise that he did not know Baker personally. The second generation depended on those who did, and on his writings. The Memorial of Father Baker already quoted was part of the Necrology, a book of obituaries of the nuns to be read out on their anniversary day. It was written in 1695. Baker is the only person not one of the nuns who was given an entry. As the one who wrote it had not known him personally, it is not about his life, but about the importance of following his "doctrine". For instance:
"Let us not then, as St Paul saith, be like unto children wavering and carried about with every wind of doctrine, since we with the very Religious Dames at Cambrai may justly apply to him that which the same Apostle said of himself viz: Although we may have ten thousand Masters, yet not many Fathers, for in Christ Jesus by the holy Gospel he has made us his children."
We can see in the 17th century obituaries of the nuns how Baker's works were important in attracting women to the Paris community. For instance, Sister Rachel Lanning:
"By the divine conduct she came to be acquainted with the Reverend Father Hugh Starkey . . . who gave her the Abridgment of venerable Father Augustine Baker's instructions in print, called Sancta Sophia, and some directions for mental prayer. By the practise of which Almighty God pleased to enlighten her . . . "
She entered the community early in 1659, and therefore must have read Sancta Sophia quite soon after its publication in 1657.
Mother Clare Newport:
"Coming to London to her sister Allonson, whose first husband's mother being Mrs. Watson (with whom venerable Father Baker of happy memory died), the said Mrs. Watson speaking to her of Father Baker, showed her his Book D; and she by reading it was so much touched that in a little time after she resolved to be religious in the Monastery where the said venerable Father's books and instructions were kept and practised, which she knew was then only at Cambrai or here".
This took place early in 1664. Later she was:
"above twenty years Librarian in which she took the greatest care and pains to preserve all the books, but particularly those precious treasures of our house, venerable Father Baker's manuscripts".
The Abbey of English Benedictine monks at Lambspring in Germany became a centre of Baker spirit through the Gascoigne family: a Gascoigne Abbess of Cambrai, a Gascoigne Abbot of Lambspring, and later a Gascoigne Prioress of Paris. Abbot Maurus Corker of Lambspring, a second generation Baker disciple, was an influential figure in handing on the tradition. He recruited members to the Paris community:
Sister Benedicta Pease, who became a lay sister:
"always lived in Catholic houses, and some years before her coming hither, [lived] with the widow Cotton with whom very reverend Father Corker then also lived, and he knowing she had a desire to be religious, proposed her coming to us".
She came in 1668.
Mother Gertrude Hanne:
"Lady Fairfaxe . . . lent Dame Gertrude More's book and Sancta Sophia to her, who found unspeakable comfort to her soul in reading and following these instructions. It renewed in her mind fresh and ardent desires to give herself entirely to God, and to this end she laid out all ways she could to be received into some religious house where they followed those heavenly instructions . . . [she] obtained to be admitted into this community by means of very reverend Father Corker to whom she addressed herself".
She became Novice Mistress, and lived into the 18th century, dying in 1701.
One of Corker's letters to the Paris nuns in 1673 makes clear that Baker was a constant point of reference:
"I confess I cannot be very solicitous, neither would I have you, about God's Providence in the choice of your superior. . . As to the queries you propose in case of a new superior, I think Mr Baker would have returned these answers, viz. first, what if the superior should command you to give an account of your interior to her or her agents? I answer: you ought with sincerity and brevity to obey, yet if she or they give you manifestly false or impertinent instructions you may if the matter be of great concern appeal to higher superiors as judges herein," and so on.
In another letter he gives New Year greetings, adding:
"and, which is no small blessing, I wish both you and your Sister Mary the Spirit of Father Baker."

DID THE BAKER TRADITION SURVIVE UNBROKEN IN THE COMMUNITY?

18TH CENTURY

What happened during the 18th century? The Paris community had English monks as confessors, at least two being from Lambspring, but was under a French external superior. This comparative isolation, outside the English Benedictine Congregation until the early 20th century, may have helped to preserve the original spirit, but there were French influences too.
Mother Mary Clare Bond
Preserved in the collection we call our Baker manuscripts are the notebooks of Mother Mary Clare Bond. She was writing from the time of her profession in 1762, and sounds like a lone voice. She later became Novice Mistress and Prioress, and built up the community before the French Revolution. She died in 1789. Her language is very reminiscent of Baker, though the "brand name", so embarrassingly prominent in the early years of the community, has dropped out. For instance, she writes:
"It is a good while now, my Lord, since you had the goodness to draw my heart to listen to your calls and counsels for my interior conduct and tendance to you. It is now two years, I think, that from time to time I am in this sufferance and pain of darkness and obscurity. It seems to me that I walk without a guide. My heart, I think at least it is, checks me when I propose laying my case open to anyone".
There seems to be a clear quotation from the Cloud of Unknowing in her:
"Look not upon what I am, or have been, but upon what I desire to be, and that make me through the merits of thy most dear crucified Son".
She appears to have found a confessor who helped her, but he was removed, and she turned to the Prioress. This was according to Baker's advice to the Cambrai nuns, that one of them who practised this type of prayer would be a better guide for the other nuns than an inexperienced confessor. Sister Mary Clare Bond writes:
"What shall I do Lord in this case? . . . you have been pleased to take away him who was to me in your stead . . . I hastened to our reverend Mother . . . she as soon satisfied me . . . I had suffered for years before . . . Our Lord has chosen her himself to conduct us . . . for it's you, my God, that speaks in all to them who desire to seek you in all.
There is a strong appeal to the tradition of the Mother Beginners in her prayer for the community, and the phrase "entern spirit" which crops up time and again through our history as the touchstone:
"O my God, I call on thee from the bottom of my soul on behalf of this community, in general and particular. I beseech you, do all your wills in us and make every one a simple instrument to depend on thee and obey thy will. Revive the decayed spirit of our Dear Beginners, that you may live and reign in us and be our sole confidence and hope. O give us that amorous and filial reliance on you which banishes all anxiety and effectually moves your fatherly goodness to grant things necessary to those who seek you. O my Jesus, put the divine spirit into the hearts of all us young ones who have already engaged in thy most sweet and holy service, and likewise in all those who shall hereafter engage in it. For the sake of thy adorable heart, I beseech you let none engage here but those who will advance thy honour and contribute to keep up regular discipline and the true entern spirit of our holy order".
Another passage in the form of prayer is clearly influenced by Baker and the Cloud:
"I can't, neither by nature nor your permission, help myself by meditating or praying vocally, nor by forcing acts or aspirations, because you don't call me that way, therefore how should I find you so? What I think you require of me is, to attend nakedly, as I may say, by faith to your divine presence in my soul, for there I know you are, and keep myself united to you by resignation and abnegation of my own private interest or satisfaction".
Where did she get this? From the manuscripts, or from the Prioress, or from her confessor?
She certainly found that she had to do as Baker advised, and avoid unnecessary spiritual direction. To God alone can she write:
"You require me to follow on as you lead me. I have asked advice whether I should not do so. All have assured me I ought and that I am in safety, and that the less I have to say to confessors or directors upon it, the better. Only when real necessities occur, or that I understand it is your will, I should apply to them. All else is but satisfying nature, that never can be satisfied fully, and I have this proof that such is your will, because you have very many times made me like a dumb dog when I have gone to consult and talk about my interior out of my own fear and hoping to find some help or comfort that was not necessary, and the same incapacity has befallen me when I would have wrote it".

19TH CENTURY

Mother Teresa Catherine Macdonald
Mother Mary Clare Bond certainly handed on the teaching to those who were novices in her time. One of these, Mother Teresa Catherine Macdonald, became Prioress and Novice Mistress in the early 19th century. In one of those enigmatic notes that mean something to the mystic who wrote them, Mother Teresa Catherine Macdonald clearly quotes Baker:
"Nov 30th 1817 Nine in the morning, what secrets was shown. Oh keep thy peace and let silence attend thee. Pass and pray, must be the way".
She puts Baker's name with quotations in her papers:
"Happy is the soul that during the time of Prayer looses the possession & interest in all manner of things, but God. F. Baker"
followed by a quotation from St John Chrysostom:
"All the warr & controversy that is between us & the devil is about no other thing than Prayer. St J Chrysostome"
and then an expression of her own experience, dated April 4 1820:
"Now, now my soul you see and are permitted to have a view of this most desired thing. Hail, happy emptiness. Hail, release from concerns but how to live to thee, my God and my all".
In another paper she quotes "a holy hermit", Saint Augustine and Cassian, and then Father Baker:
"The degrees of grace & sanctity in a man are to be measured according to the virtue of [that, inserted] prayer has upon his actions: for the more & more frequently that his ordinary Actions are performed in vertue of prayer, the more perfect & holy such an one is, & the more approaching to his chiefe end: And he whose actions do not for the most part flow from the vertue of Prayer, is not yet rightly disposed towards his last end. F Baker.
A Soul except She be in Prayer, or that the vertue of Prayer be alive in her, is in a state of distraction & disunion from God: & consequently exposed to all manner of dangers and enemies, being with all deprived of the only means to resist them, so that the dangers & miseries of an unrecolected life are inexplicable. F.Baker"
On another undated paper, another direct quotation:
"Father Baker says viz by what I have read in contemplative Authors & other ways conceive of myself, the souls of contemplative Persons that are come to any reasonable degree of elevation in spirit (or which is all one) to the poverty or nakedness of spirit mentioned by our Holy Father, are in an other manner in the body, then they are [those, inserted] in the bodies of those who get no higher than the exercises of the Imagination".
It seems that Mother Teresa Catherine Macdonald (and this is after she had ceased to be Prioress) had access to the manuscripts still in the community's possession. Having the manuscripts was a force for keeping up or reviving the Baker spirit in the community.

DID OTHER INFLUENCES TAKE OVER?

Both Mother Mary Clare Bond and Mother Teresa Catherine Macdonald, already quoted as followers of the Baker tradition, also had a marked devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. They were attracted to frequent Holy Communion, which required special permission in those days and was rather frowned on, and they wanted to introduce Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament into the community. This was eventually done in 1829 and remained the main focus of devotion until the mid 20th century.
Perpetual Adoration meant that the nuns kept up prayer on a rota day and night in church before the tabernacle. This involved a conflict with one of Baker's very few absolute rules, namely, not to attempt to pray on a full stomach! (or in the afternoon generally). Perpetual Adoration tended to lead to an increase in forms of vocal prayer and ceremonies, and it was phenomenally popular. The community at Colwich grew to more than 50 professed nuns on the eve of the Atherstone foundation in 1859. All were called to Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, but it is unlikely that all were contemplatives. The motive for the Atherstone filiation was the foundation of "England's Second House of Perpetual Adoration".
In the 19th century, "Perpetual Adoration" attracted recruits as "Father Baker's instructions" had done in the 17th. The Prioress's Council discussed the clothing of a novice in 1829:
"Sister Mary Angela Salvin. . . her decided attrait for the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament makes her a subject particularly desirable at the commencement of this wished for Devotion in this Community".
In 1840:
"Miss Eliza Gibson had passed a fortnight in the outquarters on a visit . . . she was much taken with our retirement but above all with the Devotion of the Perpetual Adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament."
Yet the old criterion had not been given up. At the same Council Meeting, the suitability of Sister Francis Magdalen Taunton for Profession was noted, and the Novice Mistress reported:
"She was gifted with a special aptness for prayer and love for an intern life".
The word "intern" must surely have been archaic by 1840, and therefore refers back to the Baker tradition of the house.
There is some evidence of Baker still being used as a criterion for making decisions about the community's activities. Soon after settling at Colwich in the 1830s, the community began a "poor school", that is, a day school for local children which charged no fees. In 1840 there were between thirty and forty children, and at least two nuns instructed them outside the monastic enclosure. The "Life" of one who had been involved as a young nun states about the school:
"It was given up, to the satisfaction of the Religious Community, who ever cling to the happy privilege of being exempted from all duties that would bring the world, great or little, rich or poor, within the enclosure, and with it solicitude and distractions, remembering that to 'mind their call is all in all', and this 'call' is to pray for the world and thus to love and serve our neighbour most effectually".
The school was given up in 1852. We know from the Council Book that the Prioress:
"strongly urged the necessity of giving up the poor school . . . and all most willingly agreed to it, for many reasons, which her reverence made known to the Bishop, and his Lordship has also given his approval to it".

BAKER INFLUENCES FROM OUTSIDE

This Bishop was Bishop Ullathorne, and here we come to one of the influences in the 19th century from outside the community, which tended to revive the Baker interest. Ullathorne wrote that before leaving Australia in 1840:
"Amongst my books I had some valuable ascetic writings . . . Father Baker's "Sancta Sophia", and I was still a monk at heart".
He was the community's external superior and friend. In 1850 he made a retreat at Colwich, and wrote:
"It is long since I have had such a time, and I may safely say never so much light as to what God requires of me, I have had I may say no books, six syllables have been my main exterior instrument and I do not see how I can ever need more, except that Father Baker's very solid and plain exposition of St. Benedict's 12 rules of humility were put into my hands apparently without intention".
The nun who later transcribed this commented:
"The six syllables the Bishop alludes to were Father Baker's trite [sic] saying, quoted in the Preface of our Constitutions, 'Mind your call, it's all in all'.

20TH CENTURY

In the 20th century, Colwich rejoined the English Benedictine Congregation, and came under the influence of its old mother-house. At Stanbrook a new "brand name", Solesmes, had been adopted at the end of the 19th century, with enthusiasm. This gave a strong emphasis to liturgical prayer, further reinforced after the Second Vatican council by the move to vernacular liturgy. My personal impression is that Baker was for a time undervalued at Colwich, if not forgotten at the daughter house of Atherstone.
The Baker spirit, with its stress on the importance of the individual listening to her call and a reluctance to seek spiritual direction, will of itself tend to die out unless it is actively promoted.

CONCLUSION: RELEVANCE TODAY

This is a personal view, but I think my own community agrees with me.
1. I do believe that Baker's teaching is relevant to the individual nun today: for her prayer, as for those who have spoken from the past; but also for what Baker refers to as "mortification", which has not figured much in my quotations. This is what we call "living the life", and includes ordinary obedience, solitude and silence.
2. I believe a return to Baker and our Beginners can serve in decision-making about the suitability of activities for our communities to undertake.
3. And may be most important for our future, this spirit could still attract women to our life, and be used to discern their vocations.
4. But for this, the old writings need to be made accessible in small volumes in the language of the day: as Baker did in his time.
5. And we must be living what we publish.