The Revd Haydon Wilcox writes:

SISTER Margaret Paul of the Community of St Peter, Woking, died peacefully on 1 August.

Born in Wolverton, Milton Keynes, in 1928, she trained as a nurse and then qualified as a midwife. A faithful Anglican all her life, she was challenged in 1954 to hear of the death of Sister Mary Clare, a member of the Community of St Peter.

Sister Mary Clare had been captured with the then Bishop of Korea by the Communists and taken on the “death march”. She was a much-loved nursing sister who ended her life on a bed of straw, having suffered the anguish of that forced march across Korea, sharing the distress and suffering of countless other civilians.

Moved by this account recorded in the Church Times on 15 April 1954, Margaret Lilian Webber offered her life to God as a religious. She was accepted as a novice, and was professed in 1956.

The Community of St Peter, being a nursing order, resembled in many ways the BBC drama Call the Midwife. Founded in 1862, the Order established many homes where the sick and frail were cared for.

Although the Mother House was finally based in Woking, branch houses were established throughout the south of England. They were greatly influential in the Anglican Church’s mission and ministry to relieve poverty, heal the sick, and proclaim the gospel.

Sister Margaret Paul became the Mother Superior in 1973 and served the community through a great period of change, especially as fewer people were entering the novitiate.

The development of St Columba’s House, the Community’s Retreat and Conference Centre in Woking, now modernised and a resource for the wider Church, was encouraged by Sister Margaret Paul. She was engaged with the building of a new convent and nursing home. She pioneered many visionary ventures and had an ecumenical heart with an openness to people of all faith and none. Her leadership, wisdom, humour, and deep spirituality inspired many.

She continued for 28 years as the Mother Superior, standing down in 2001. This was a time when religious communities that had once been founded in the Anglo-Catholic tradition were now entering a time of decline. Nevertheless, Sister Margaret Paul knew that as one expression of religious community declined, new expressions would emerge.

Though content in her own spirituality, she knew that not all the former practices of religious orders had been helpful. She welcomed a renewal within the Church and rejoiced when she heard of new and imaginative initiatives being developed. This is a lesson that many of us need to learn: contentment in our spirituality balanced with a willingness to accept change in order that a new generation can discover their contemporary experience of God.

Sister Margaret Paul was known and respected by the leaders of many religious communities. Mother Teresa of Calcutta visited her to find support from the Community of St Peter. Many in the Church valued her discretion, wisdom, and insight. The establishment of the Society of Holy Cross in Seoul, South Korea, was always a joy to Sister, and there was always a movement of Sisters visiting to and from the UK and South Korea, supporting, encouraging, and resourcing each other.

Her last years were spent prayerfully and joyfully at St Mary’s Convent Nursing Home, Chiswick.