On Saturday 11 March, CR came to Canterbury to play a leading part in a Study Day arranged by Canon Christopher Irvine – Canterbury’s Canon Librarian and former Principal of the College of the Resurrection. Exploring the importance of prayer and community in the circumstances of our everyday lives, CR’s Oblates, Companions, the Society of the Resurrection, College alumni and our friends and wider family were all well represented. George CR gave a keynote talk, and Jacob CR spoke engagingly about his vocation and life in community.

 

The day was oversubscribed – as well as having a waiting list for places, many additional chairs had to be found on the day – and we were delighted to renew old friendships and to meet new people. Participants included other religious (including the Community of St Anselm), members of the Cathedral family, parishes within the Diocese and many more.

 

We hope to be able to run similar days in other parts of the country in due course. Please do let us know if you have thoughts of suitable locations!

Images © Canterbury Cathedral

It has been many months in the planning, but brothers George, Dennis, Jacob Marc and Fabian finally embarked on our nine-day visit to Italy and the homes of the Vitorchiano, Civitella, Siloé and Bosé communities. And much is to be said. Significantly, the Trappist community of seventy-five sisters at Vitorchiano, 80 km north of Rome, wishes to establish a relationship with us. They are an inspiring group of women, whose founder, the beatified Maria Gabriella felt called by God to offer her life for Christian unity. Blessed Gabriella reposes in a chapel close to the monastery’s guest accommodation, and we were highly privileged to pray alongside her and be given a relic symbolising our mutual commitment to prayer for unity and ongoing relationship. In addition, we were invited to see the enclosed life of the sisters in this place as they opened to us the 100-acre grounds, and afterwards to sing somewhat off-the-cuff excerpts of English plainchant and hymnody to some rather nonplussed faces in choir! Thankfully, George CR saved much bacon with his skills in translation – a grace which was afforded us many times throughout the trip!

Next, we were warmly welcomed by the effective partnership of the Civitella family, which comprises Benedictine nuns and sisters of the Bosé community who have merged to revive the monastic presence in that locale. Here, they sing the Bosé office and plainchant in Latin. We were told how, at first, this required daily choir practices to allow each party to learn the other’s music – A commitment which has clearly borne fruit in their worship. We also learnt something of how guests and larger groups are accommodated alongside the community’s daily life and practice, which we felt was timely given our own community’s recent discussions on this subject.

Being shoehorned into a rented Fiat Panda for several hours of our time abroad, we were often able to think together about CR’s future, ideas for hospitality, common life and particularly the necessity for our own enclosure that new monastic buildings would offer. As such, we were much impressed by the spirit of the brothers at Siloé monastery in the Italian Maremma, Tuscany. Several of its founding brothers had had to leave a bigger monastery where their emphasis on more open personal relating was not acceptable. Reading of this in the local press, a local woman unknown to the men freely offered them her land for building. The rest is history! One now encounters a modern purpose-built monastery, whose small church is a converted cowshed, and whose several cats roam blissfully, spying out mice in the mountainous Tuscan countryside and basking in its prevailing sunshine. All the buildings are eco-friendly because the brothers feel strongly that their life should exercise all possible concern for the environment. Water is heated by solar grills installed to the windows and communal spaces are designed to give maximum light and capacity. Every space functions for eating, study, talk and silence. The monks here are known because, “they work” harvesting olives daily in the plenteous groves nearby. They fed us superbly, and we stayed in highly modern cells overlooking the mountains.

Bosé was our last and longest-journeying port of call. This community is known for its distinctively international feel and ecumenical atmosphere. I don’t think we had appreciated just how industrious is their work, however! Members set out each day following Mattins and breakfast to begin work in the publishing-house or prodigious gardens, the marvellous jam-making kitchen or icon-painting workshop. Novices of Bosé serve time in every department before they may develop and stay with a particular aptitude for their subsequent life in community. Here again was the now familiar sense of Christian kinship and affection we had come to know in a country where monasticism remains so well embodied as a way of life. We enjoyed further excellent hospitality, as brothers of the community took turns to eat with us. These exchanges not only provide novel encounters for guests every mealtime, but also fulfil a due sense of enclosure for the Bosé members which safeguards their common life. Whilst a couple of us reflected that the worship here is perhaps more exuberant than contemplative, we were in total accord that a good zeal lay at the heart of the community’s life and witness, and indeed was something that characterised the tenor of our visit in every place. For us all, the ‘Italian Job’ has served to enrich our lives as brothers and give deeper insights into the vocation by which God is drawing us to Himself.

Marc nCR

From the 2nd to the 5th of March Stephanie and I spent time with the local people of Gateshead as part of a wide spread mission across the Diocese of Durham. The mission titled ‘Talking Jesus’ included bishops, teams of clergy and laity from all parts of the Northern Provence. Although the mission was a fairly big scale event, for the small teams like us, it was about getting involved on the ground with the local community. We shined peoples shoes on the street, visited schools to take assemblies, took part in various social events and many other things. The theme ‘Talking Jesus’ comes across as quite evangelistic, and in many ways it was. But we felt that the real fruits of the mission were the ways in which we helped engage the local Christian community with the local people and local organisations. It wasn’t about a short-term top up of evangelism and outreach; it was about forming relationships and small building blocks for God to build on in the weeks, months and years to come. We had the privilege of both blessing and being blessed by the local Christians we met, and our prayer for them, is that in their continued witness to Christ, through the Holy Spirit, the people of Gateshead will come to know and experience the Good news of Jesus Christ.

Toby Artis

 

Sponsored Bike Ride

From 13 to 15 May, George CR is leading a group of cyclists on a Sponsored Bike Ride with the theme of Returning to the Sources of Christian Life (the aim of religious communities). We now have six riders confirmed – ranging in age from late teens to early 70s and ranging in fitness levels from super to not!

The challenge will follow the course of the Rivers Swale, Ure and Ouse, covering 120 miles over three days on the way to the Humber Estuary. Starting just outside Keld in the Dales (at the source of the Swale) the route travels through Richmond, Ripon, York and Selby on the way to journey’s end at Hull.

George and Jacob CR will be joined by Beth Crowther (daughter of a CR staff member), Beth Godbold, David Adamson and Andrew Davies. The event seeks to support the renewal of our buildings to meet the needs of the many thousands who come each year for retreat, learning and rest, as well as raising the profile of the Community’s 125^th anniversary.

To sponsor George please visit www.mydonate.bt.com/events/crbikeride/436839

 

Yarm School

We have already had around 150 school students visit us so far this year, the rest will be in May (after my exams). Every year we are given a wonderful opportunity to engage with the young people who come her
e. This year’s visit from Yarm School, arranged by their inspiring head of Religious Studies Janice Nickson, has helped us to develop further our work with GCSE religious studies students. Additional to sharing about our life in Community, we also engaged in theological reflection relating more specifically with the students own studies in ethics, spirituality and Christian texts. So much of study can be for the mind alone, and so it was good to be able to reflect on the things of mind and heart together.

Uppingham School

I was also given the opportunity to spend half a day at Uppingham School. Interestingly the school of Nicolas and Jonathan Graham CR. We were invited by Uppingham school to talk to the Confirmation class about vocation and what it is to be a Christian. The students are fantastic, and so are the chaplains! I was warmly welcomed by both Fr James and Jarrod, who made the connection with the Community through his roots in South Africa.

It might be that God has a plan for vocations to the Religious Life and Priesthood from amongst the students that we meet.  Students from Yarm School have gone onto explore Priesthood, Church Missionary Society, and one is training to be a Rabbi. But most importantly it is our hope that the students will discover within themselves that precious gift of life, that we believe is of God, that will be the foundation of all their thoughts and relationships.

Jacob CR

Come to read, rest and reflect. Step aside from the relentless 24/7 media exposure and experience words in a different time-frame and at a different pace. An opportunity to explore the Community’s extensive and unique library.

12th – 14th MAY 2017 Led by Barbara Clarke (Associate of the Community & Librarian)

Cost for this retreat: £125.00

Over the past few months – really quite a few months – Br Jacob has been working tirelessly with Adele, the Community’s Business Manager, to bring a new website into being. The hope is that – eventually – the various and disparate current websites (Community, Centre, Companions, Commercial) will be brought together under a single virtual roof. This should make information easier to find for the first-time visitor, as well as making it easier to maintain up-to-date information and to avoid the inconsistencies which may have featured previously.

Working with Fantastic Media, based locally in Birstall, we have come some way to achieving this and the site launched in a low-key way at the beginning of March. We would value feedback – with the caveat that we will not be able to address all comments immediately!

From Saturday 18 – Sunday 19 February, 11 members of the College undertook a pilgrimage to Durham, focusing on the northern saints.  We began with lunch in the beautiful Prior’s Hall, followed by an excellent talk from the Precentor and Vice-Dean, Canon David Kennedy, on the history and evolution of processional rites in the Cathedral, from pre-Reformation evidence up to the liturgical renewal of the last couple of decades.  Canon Kennedy then took us around the Cathedral, illustrating the way in which the northern saints are honoured liturgically.  He also showed us an important piece of Anglican history – the Dean Hunt altar, the first stone altar installed in England after the Reformation.

After Evensong, we held our Pilgrimage Eucharist at the Shrine of St Cuthbert, gathered around the bones of the blessed saint himself, and presided over by Fr Ben Gordon-Taylor.  We gathered first at the Shrine of St Bede in the Galilee Chapel (astonishingly, his remains are also still preserved in the Cathedral) and then embarked on a lengthy time of ‘liquid prayer’.  This consisted of stations around the Cathedral with prayer intentions, including prayer for vocations, the College, evangelism, and so on, accompanied by readings from Bede’s Life of St Cuthbert, and taking as long as we wished at each station.  It was a most moving and engaging way to direct our prayer, honour St Cuthbert, and prepare ourselves to receive the Sacrament at his Shrine.

After the morning liturgies on Sunday (Mattins and Eucharist) we travelled out to the ruins of Finchale Priory, built on the site of the hermitage of St Godric, where we sang CR Evensong in the remains of the Quire (pictured, preparing to sing).  Godric was one of the first lyrical poets in English, and we sang one of his hymns – the earliest-known text in English for which the original music survives.  We then had a chance to wander prayerfully in the ruins before making our way back to Mirfield.

Our sincere thanks go to Canon Kennedy and the Chapter of Durham for their hospitality, and to Fr Ben for leading us in worship.

Alexander Crawford and Sebastian Hamilton, Pilgrimage Officers.