Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: labyrinth, pilgrimage, spirituality, st bede's brandwood, walking
I had the privilege this week of walking a Labyrinth twice as part of our Lent Course at St Bede’s on Pathways in Prayer.
It is a wonderfully deep practice and, when you finish and emerge and contemplate, it really feels like you have completed a pilgrimage.
(This may be a good thing as the flu recovery means I am not up to serious exercise yet)
One of walks really felt like a journey into Holy Week which we will be celebrating next week.
Have you walked a labyrinth?
There are good suggestions for the spirituality of walking it here and, if you can’t walk one here is a Finger Labyrinth
(thanks to All Saints, Kings Heath for the lone of the Labyrinth. You can walk it at St Anne’s Moseley at the following times in Holy Week:
Monday 26th March, 7.30pm: introduction to the labyrinth, with the opportunity to walk it. St Anne’s will also be open on Tuesday 27th March, 1.00-3.00pm, and Wednesday 28th March 10.00am – 12noon for you to walk the labyrinth.)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: georges bernanos, novels, priesthood, spirituality, the diary of a country priest, urban ministry
I am summoning up the courage to read Georges Bernanos’ The Diary of a Country Priest again. Proper reading for Passiontide.
Why does it need courage to read? It cuts to the heart:
“To cultivate clever people is merely a way of dining out, and a priest has no right to go out to dinner in a world full of starving people.”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cistercian spirituality, photography, photos, retreat, spirituality, urban ministry
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: hope, liberation theology, may day, oscar romero, spirituality
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: church of england birmingham, council estates, estate ministry, estates, estates ministry, gillian ahlgren, national estate churches network, outer estates, outer estates ministry, practical spirituality, spirituality, urban congress, urban ministry
Just to catch up on a few things that are well worth reading or attending if you are involved in estate churches.
sunset, estates South Birmingham
Malcolm Brown has written a good blog piece here that explains well the recent energy the Church of England has found for estate churches and begins to set out what might happen as a result. I am very proud to be playing a part in this – and would be more than happy to hear any ideas or comments about this.
Here in Birmingham, the Inner City and Outer Estate Groups are holding our first Urban Congress on Saturday 5th November, Faithful People, Faithful City. The congress will hear stories from around the Diocese and with the aid of our guest speakers will share some of the challenges and opportunities parishes experience in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ in their communities. There are full details here. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do now – there are a few places left.
The National Estate Churches Network, which I am about to start Chairing, has it’s Conference in London on November 7th and in Rotherham on November 9th. This year, Gillian Ahlgren will be helping us to think about Practical Spirituality: Transforming Lives and Communities. It offers the opportunity to visit again the joy of estate church life and present important challenges to help us refresh our connections with the traditions of Christian spirituality and consider how they help make a practical difference to our loving our estates and communities. It will be a practical day with the sharing of the wisdom in the room as we seek to unlock, and share, our own, and other stories and experiences to gain fresh insight and discover new ideas. Click here for more information and to register.
Exciting and creative times. Love and prayers.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cistercian way, estates ministry, pilgrimage, prayer, spirituality, wales, walking
I am sitting in the garden in the sun with a coffee and a glass of juice. My sweet smelling clothes are next to me on the line. I was tired yesterday. I slept 11 hours solid. Wonderful to have a rest day. Just an hour and a half’s walk to the supermarket to stock up. An afternoon and evening of resting and reading. Perhaps a film this evening.
Just before I left Caldey, Fr Gildas told me to.pop into St Marys in Tenby as there is a carved scallop shell marking where pilgrims to Santiago prayed Mercy before embarking on the ships that took the empties back. I couldn’t find it and the Wardens didn’t know about it. I have though found a cheap bottle of Ribeiro that i will open to toast them with in a few minutes.
I am thinking a lot about Jesus’ teaching on not worrying, and also about Paul’s reflections on dying and rising with Christ that came up a lot in the Offices on Caldey. Lots of connections to tease out between this, pilgrimage, discipleship and estates ministry.
I saw a couple of choughs this morning.
The plan next is to walk to St Davids over a couple of days. Prayers for you there.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: andre louf, cistercian way, pilgrimage, poetry, prayer, spirituality, urban ministry, walking
Over the last few days I have been given a few questions and statements that I want to chew on as I walk the next months.
There is this fascinating sentence by Andre Louf:
But very few, despite their doubtless sincere interest, are truly sensitive to the demands of what one could call the ‘poetry’ of a pilgrimage.
I think he is talking about sensitivity to culture, to people, to relationships. I pray for such openness.
Is this helping me become more Jesus shaped?
How does this connect with my ordinary life and ministry?
Is being a pilgrim to be in search of the heart, of the deepest thing?
How am I to pray?
What is the most important thing in my life?
What does it mean to be a pilgrim?
Any other questions for me?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: nature, photography, pilgrimage, spirituality
prickly and soft at the same time
echoes all sorts of other deeper things
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: carmelite spirituality, enkindling love, gillian ahlgren, reading, reading groups, spirituality, teresa of avila, theology, urban ministry
If you are in Birmingham, you might want to join this group reading Gillian Ahlgren’s excellent Enkindling Love:
INVITATION TO A STUDY GROUP ON “ENKINDLING LOVE”
This is the title of a new book on the legacy of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross by Professor Gillian Ahlgren who recently spoke about it at All Saints Kings Heath. About it Alison Weber of the University of Virginia has written: …”This guide of Teresa and John’s major works reveals the Spanish mystics as passionate teachers and systematic theologians determined to share their transformative experience of God’s love. Gillian Ahlgren makes accessible their major insight: the inherent coherence between contemplation and loving action in the world.”
The book is in print and the cheapest deal seems to be just under £20 from the Book Depository. In one case the book came 7 days after an order was placed by email to:
https://www.bookdepository.com/Enkindling-Love-Gillian-T-W-Ahlgren/9781506405599
The group meets from 12.30 to 13.30 on a Wednesday. Members often bring and eat sandwiches. Its first meeting is to be as usual at the Queen’s Foundation, Somerset Road, B15 2QH (for directions see their website) in the Samuel Marsden Room just off the dining room. The date is to be Wednesday June 22nd. It is a ten minutes walk from University railway station.
The next three meetings, on July 6th, 20th and August 3rd, will, because Queen’s term will have finished, be elsewhere, in a room at the church and centre complex of St Francis Bournville, B30 1JY, five minutes walk from Bournville railway station. All are welcome.
The book has four chapters and the intention would be to study one at each meeting.
Further details from: The Revd John Nightingale johnbnightingale@hushmail.com 07811 128831who will be glad to know the names of those intending to attend.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: estates ministry, jean vanier, photography, pilgrimage, prayer, spirituality, urban ministry
The fruit is the life we are all called to give to others
– Jean Vanier
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