Pilgrimpace's Blog

Here is my paper from the Teresa Conference.  Comments welcome!

Transforming Love; Wounded Christ:

Some Teresian Insights into Estate Ministry

I am an Anglican parish priest, serving outer council estate parishes in Birmingham and have found the Carmelite mystics to be extremely nourishing in this ministry. Outer estates (or housing projects) are areas of social housing on the edges of our cities into which working class people were moved as the inner city slums were cleared in the twentieth century. They are areas often marked by multiple deprivation and poverty. People in them are resilient but often have low confidence and self-esteem. Good employment is hard to find, educational attainment can be low. The Church has historically tended to find it hard to make an impact on these places; congregations are often small.

This paper seeks to lay out some areas in which St Teresa seems to speak to my…