“I have a 100-year plan,” admits Father Hugh of St. Paul’s Monte Carlo. “How does this church serve the community in a hundred years’ time when I’m dead?”
WATCH VIDEO: Father Hugh talks about the Warmies® Prayer Bear Centenary campaign.
As the Oxford native explains, “You create a structure which sustains itself, which is outlooking, confident in its own identity” he explains. “And that confident position allows me to go out and do what I do.”
And he certainly has a gift to “do what I do”. Anyone who’s been to the Anglican church at 22 avenue de Grande-Bretagne since Hugh Bearn arrived in April 2023 would agree.
Under his direction over the past 18 months, all the memorials that were previously sitting on the church floor have been restored and hung by using panels of reclaimed wood from skips. “We are very conscious of not wasting and chucking things away,” he says, adding, “The icon was restored anonymously; all the furnishings were put in anonymously.” Additionally, the 60 x 8-metre church pew cushions were replaced, anonymously, with the previously-loved ones being donated to the SPA (Société Protectrice des Animaux) Monaco.
The three stained-glass altar windows are each being restored, with the third and find panel to be completed in January. “A woman and her half-Scottish husband in Castillon are really superb artists. They restored the windows of Mary Magdalene’s cave up the road [in Sainte-Baume].”
As Father Hugh says, “Slowly slowly, lots of little changes make a big difference.”
It’s not just the aesthetics that are getting all the attention. Father Hugh has put his efforts equally on boosting the calendar of church events. There was the Exeter College Oxford Alumni choir and the Danish Boys choir, a visit from Prince Edward, and Prince Albert, and the Churchill family who attended the inauguration of a memorial, funded by the International Churchill Society, installed in September to mark 150 years since Winston Churchill’s birth. “I think people understand it’s about the church serving the Principality and getting the community together.”
He adds, “When people are focused not on themselves, they can see the goodness of what’s going on.”
Which leads to the Warmies® Prayer Centenary Bear and “a little idea I had”. First, St Paul’s is gearing up for its 100th anniversary – it was built on avenue des Fleurs and dedicated by the Bishop of Gibraltar on February 19, 1925, when the street was re-named avenue de Grande-Bretagne for the occasion. Second, created in 1995, Warmies® is a heatable plush toy that provides a soothing and therapeutic warmth. Warmies® are popular with all ages and were named in February 2024 as GiftBeat’s Best-Selling Toy in the USA for the second consecutive year. And thanks to a member of the congregation, 600 Warmies® were generously donated to the Prayer Bear Centenary Campaign.
“The bear has lavender inside and you stick them in the microwave for maybe 15 seconds,” says Father Hugh. “They’re really good for kids with autism, kids who can’t sleep, adults who can’t sleep.”
The words God is Love in English and Dieu est Amour in French are written on the bear’s chest, with St. Paul’s Church Carlo on the its paw.
For Father Hugh, the Prayer Bear is a way of engaging with the community, engaging with young people and old people. “Who doesn’t want a teddy bear? And with a message of a prayer that says you are never alone. A lot of people are really lonely.”
The church will give the bears to women’s refuges and “people who have real needs, where where they have a really unpleasant existence”.
“The idea is that there’s a 6-year-old kid who gets this teddy bear in La Trinité in Nice. Fast forward 10 years and he’s getting into sex, drugs and rock and roll and he looks at this teddy bear and thinks, ‘Why did someone give me this bear that has God is Love on its paw?’ It’s that sense of sowing a seed of which we will never see the results.”
The bears can be adopted for a donation of €30. The funds raised will go to the St. Vincent de Paul association in Monaco, to help with their homeless and refugee projects. “The teddy bear is a gift that parents can give knowing where the money is going so it’s a win-win good-good situation.”
Father Hugh is most excited about selling the Prayer Bear not online or through social media, but “people having to come and collect them. That physical connection is really important.”
With a laugh, he adds, “If you go into my vicarage, you may open the cupboard and find a bear staring at you.”
Article first published December 15, 2024.
Wednesday December 18 at 5:15 pm: Sunday School Christingle.
Christmas Eve at 7:30 pm: Holy Communion and Carols with refreshments afterwards in St Paul’s House.
Christmas Day at 8 am: Holy Communion.
Christmas Day at 10: 30 am: Holy Communion and Carols with refreshments afterwards in St Paul’s House.
