During Holy Week most of the CR brothers will be out in parishes across the country.  However, Holy Week in Mirfield still happens…and how!  Every year the ordained College staff, Fr Peter, Fr Ben, M Jennifer and M Rowena, preside at the liturgies and the students welcome guests for the week, many of whom are exploring the possibility of ordination in the future.

If you would like to stay at Mirfield during Holy Week, please email guests@mirfield.org.uk, or call 01924 483346

 

Join us on Sunday 8 April at 9.00am for the Community’s Car Boot Sale! Come along to browse for a bargain or sell off some unwanted goods. There will be a £10 charge per car for sellers, and refreshments will be available.

Pre-booking is essential, please contact Leanne O’Sullivan  01924 483302

losullivan@mirfield.org.uk

Israel–Palestine is such an extraordinary country that it is difficult to know what to say about my recent visit, under my own steam, and partly by bicycle. Jerusalem is a surreal mixture of black-hatted Jews on every street, frequently on electric bicycles or even pushing prams, and often boisterously singing rhythmic Jewish music, while very loud calls to prayer from loudspeakers on Muslim minarets boom regularly over the city, often coinciding with peals of Christian bells; hordes of tourists/pilgrims even in February were doing the rounds of the amazing amount of things to see, all in the context of the tragic division between Jews and persecuted Arabs.

It felt like a new and brash country, yet steeped in antiquity. Travelling by bicycle around Galilee again gave almost too much to digest: biblical sites heard about since childhood, and now seen to be so very different – the Vale of Jezreel with acres of lettuce in market gardens, a traffic-clogged road built up with housing all the way from Nazareth to Cana, the huge seaside resort of Tiberias. My sponsored bike ride round the Sea of Galilee plonked me in place after place that had to be re-imagined – the lush green hills and beautiful flowers of the country of the Gerasenes, the watercourses and picnicking families of Bethsaida, the great wealth of first-century Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee’s piles of rocks and pebbles where you would expect a beach, and the black volcanic basalt of the buildings, giving them a rather grim appearance. Images of a lifetime are turned topsy-turvy.

Then the sponsored bus-ride through the West Bank, with breathtaking countryside and hardly a soul to be seen except soldiers everywhere, frequent barbed wire, and the awful concrete wall built around the Arabs. President Truman had said the Jews deserved a land of their own where they could live in peace, but I’m afraid they haven’t found it and haven’t discovered the knack to produce it. You are left not knowing what to think or say, apart from offering it all up in prayer, and seeing what we can do to help this unique land find peace and justice.

George CR

 

To sponsor George please visit http://mydonate.bt.com/events/galileebikeandbusride/452968

It is hard to believe it but we are now on the final run in to the auction. We are doing very well. In previous auctions I have had over a year to campaign but this one really only began around September and was slow getting off the ground; however by Christmas things were hotting up. Several things of considerable value were donated and pre-auction sales stand at £2,500+.

Those of you who follow Facebook will have seen some of the lovely and exciting things that have come in to date. One collection of silverware has been estimated at over £1,200, yet it is hard to speak of a star item as there are so many interesting items.

Then came the Swedish connection. A lady from a village nearby offered me some copper pots and ‘a lot of stuff from the garage’. Apparently these had belonged to a Swedish friend who had hoped to settle in England but who had died shortly after taking up residence. The pots were gorgeous antiques that looked like mis en scene from Babette’s Feast. The ‘stuff from the garage’ was varied but it was glorious. It would have been worth the visit for three chairs alone – a tall armchair from the Georgian era, a 19^th century 6 leg armchair for which Sweden was famous and most wonderful of all a Louis Soixante armchair in very good condition.

We have now 230 lots which is an amazing collection for only 4/5 months. Thank you to everyone who has helped, contributed prayed. Remember the campaign is not over. The big day is 23^rd June. I will need lots of prayer and lots of help. Prayer – you know how to. Other help – Making the auction known (especially if you know dealers near you), contributing if you can, some transport is very useful and on the day we could do with helpers. And, of course, come along and enjoy yourselves.

John CR

 

If you wish to donate or enquire contact Fr John Gribben CR jgribben@mirfield.org

Dean of Pastoral Studies

We are looking to appoint the right person to join our staff team

Location: Mirfield

Hours: Full Time

Contract Type: Permanent

The person appointed will:

CR elects a Superior every 5 years. Fr George had served 15 years in the role, and now has leave to take a sabbatical (see the next article). The brethren expressed their enormous appreciation for the faithful and imaginative ways in which George has drawn the Community to a closer walk with God over these many years.

Br Eucharius, the Prior of St Matthias in Trier and a good friend, came to preside over the election (it helps that he is also a judge in Trier). This time around, a couple of days after New Year’s Day, the brothers elected Fr Oswin. Oswin came to the Community from the Diocese of Liverpool in 1997 and most recently has been the Prior and Novice Guardian. Previously he spent time in Japan with the Church Mission Society. He has maintained an interest in inter-religious dialogue and teaches Theology of Mission at the College.

The way we work things the newly-elected Superior takes over immediately, guiding brothers through the work of Chapter. He is then installed in post by the Community’s Visitor (currently +Graham Norvic) as soon as may be. We were fortunate that Bishop Graham could come the following Sunday. The installation is a liturgical renewal of the Community’s life, taking its place within the celebration of the Mass. The new Superior promises to teach and care for the brethren; he receives and returns their greeting of peace and the brethren renew the commitment of their profession. The Bishop gave Oswin his blessing and Oswin prayed for the Community, its wider family and works. We were joined on Sunday morning for the installation at Mass by, among others, Sr Phyllis and Sr Jean Clare from St Peter’s Horbury.

Here is an extract from the sermon Bishop Graham preached on this occasion from John 1 43ff. on the call of Nathanael, and also the painting to which he referred, of Nathanael asleep under the fig tree painted by Mark Cazalet, the artist of the screens in the Community Church:

“Keep company with Jesus and you will know and see greater things than you know and

see now.”

“Jesus sees Nathanael entire, without pretence, uncovered. Jesus knows what Nathanael is and who he can be.  Nothing of Nathanael is hidden from him. And yet Jesus still calls him.”

“Through your daily round of prayer and worship here you are a community called to be a sign of the constant presence of Jesus Christ in His Church, a spiritual ladder linking heaven and earth … That’s what CR offers.  An invitation to “come and see.”  And who knows where that may lead them – and you.”

Mark Cazalet Nathaniel asleep under the fig tree © the Methodist Art Collection

Offertory

Foreword by Oswin Gartside CR

‘What is a poet-in-residence?’ asked one brother.

We didn’t quite know. But our monastery has been enjoying residencies by artists for a number of years, and each time our eyes have been opened afresh, and we’ve made new friends. And we knew Maggie, and knew that she wrote and breathed poetry. So, in a moment of serendipity the idea came to birth of ringing the changes and welcoming a poet-in-residence.

Maggie is a well-known and respected spiritual director and retreat guide. Her unassuming skill in guiding souls to a greater vision chimes with her ability to connect words so that we read the world anew. We wanted to know more. So on October 21^st 2017 Maggie arrived, joined the monks in our services and meals, and stayed until the beginning of Advent. She talked, listened, looked. She gathered fellow poets and invited an audience to talk poetry together. She read some of her verses to the brothers one memorable Autumn evening when the room seemed to grow closer and to hush, as unadorned words unspooled a lifetime’s empathy. And gradually a body of new poems emerged and we discovered them waiting for us, in our orchard, on unnoticed ledges in the monastery, at watch in church.

Here they are. Maggie’s voice, full of playfulness, uncovers the eternal in the most surprising of the things that surround us and in our human hurts. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we have.

And the brother who wondered what a poet-in-residence might be? He’s discovered a new talent of his own for connecting words and worlds and the heart; every day seems to bring a further poem. So may you.

Offertory is priced at £3, and is available to purchase from our online shop, alternatively you can, email the Shop (theshop@mirfield.org.uk),or call 01924 483345.

Maggie Jackson, on being ‘Poet in Residence’

In 1979 I heard Ted Hughes give a poetry reading at the University of Leeds in what had once been the chapel for the Hostel of the Resurrection. I could not have imagined that many years later I would be made welcome not only as a Retreat Guide at the Community of the Resurrection, but as Poet in Residence in Autumn 2017.

In recent years I write mostly in my sitting room or garden at home, but to be given such wonderful hospitality, to live alongside inspiring people in a beautiful environment, and, above all, to soak up the silence and profound stillness of the monastery, made this a unique, productive and extremely creative experience.

During the six-week Residency I led two public events at the Mirfield Centre – a Quiet Day on the theme of The Tent of Meeting and a Poetry Salon along with Poet colleagues. I had the freedom, not just to write new poems and revise others, but to share my poetry with the many guests and visitors to the monastery who could pick up a poem in various locations, including the church and the garden. Perhaps the ‘event’ I valued the most was a more intimate evening spent reading my poems to the CR brethren themselves – a small way of thanking them for all they have given me.

Being available during the Residency to talk about poetry, and encourage others to write, was an immense pleasure. Many people told me how helpful they found my poems for their own contemplative prayer and I hope the poems in this collection will help many more readers in the same way.

Most of the poems in ‘Offertory’ were written during the Residency or were inspired by other visits to the Community of the Resurrection. Some poems emerged from prayer, others from observation or conversation, and prolonged silence stirred memories which demanded to be shared poetically.

To have the privilege of living in a prayerful community, and be given the time to write, fills me with gratitude. I am grateful to the CR brethren for their fellowship and for the generous and imaginative invitation to be their first Poet in Residence.

Maggie Jackson

Further information

Maggie Jackson is a Spiritual Director, Retreat Guide and Poet. Now living in Selby, Maggie lived and worked in Leeds where she enjoyed a long career as a Youth & Community Worker. Having trained in Ignatian Spirituality she led a parish Spirituality programme in Leeds for seven years and has been a Retreat Guide at the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, since 2010. She has published poems in several anthologies and on websites, has given public poetry readings and led workshops linking poetry and spirituality. A Roman Catholic, committed to inter-faith and ecumenical dialogue, Maggie was ‘Poet in Residence’ at the Community of the Resurrection in Autumn 2017. ‘Offertory’ is the published outcome of this Residency. A further collection of poems –‘The Tent of Meeting – a Poet’s Encounters with the Divine’-will be published in 2018.

Holy Week 2018

Watch this space for more details about Holy Week 2018.  The Holy Week lectures will be given by the Revd Canon Professor John Rodwell on the theme of ‘the Tissue of his Kingdom’.  John Rodwell has worked as an Anglican priest and scientist for over 40 years, was Professor of Ecology at Lancaster University, is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the Lincoln Theological Institute in Manchester University and is attached to the Priory of St Mary the Virgin in Lancaster.  He provides research and expert advice for environmental agencies, and is committed to considering how God’s costly generosity is expressed in Creation.

New term at the College

The spring term began on 22nd January, with some students spending a block week in parishes, and others involved in a week  on ‘Liturgy, ritual and sacred space’, led by former College principal, the Revd Canon Chris Irvine, including visits to Wakefield Cathedal and the Hepworth Gallery.

The last week in January is the annual College retreat, and this year we were delighted to welcome the Revd Canon Dr Mark Clavier from Brecon Cathedral as our retreat conductor.

The Revd Dr Rowena Pailing CoR