The Faith Winter Conference 2008

Stonyhurst College in Lancashire

We’ll be spending the next few days in Lancashire at the Faith Winter Conference. The theme for the session is ‘Hearing God’s Word’ and the talks will include:

‘The Bible belongs to the Church’

‘Christ – the Key to understanding the Old Testament’

‘The Gospels – Historical and true’

‘The Bible in our prayer and in our lives’

It’s unlikely that internet access will be available (though Fr Tim may well find a way to post!) so we’ll publish a full update when we return. Normal blogging will also (hopefully!) resume - apologies for the somewhat irregular rate of posting lately.

Busy, busy.

Apologies for the lack of recent posts - the last few days have seen a stepping up in preparations for our annual Advent Bazaar, which will take place on Saturday 1 December. The Initiative has been a hive of activity as we’ve been organizing the various elements of the day’s activities.

This has been our main focus of late, but here’s a quick summary of a few other things that have been going on.

Sr Andrea celebrated her thirty-third birthday on Sunday.  The count down has been a running joke in the office over the last few weeks and we’ve already started the next one - only 360 sleeps to go!

Sr Roseann left today for a visit to Rome, where she will be speaking to students at the Pontifical Scots College next week. She will then travel to London for a meeting of the trustees of the FAITH Movement.

We’ve started the process of assembling the various Christmas gifts we give to the families we work with - a considerable task that will continue throughout the coming weeks.

Birthday girl

FAITH Summer Session 2007

As promised, some pictures from the FAITH Summer Session…

Sr Andrea with Fr Roger Nesbitt, FAITH co-founder and the first speaker of the Session.

Woldingham College
(Picture by Fr Tim of The Hermeneutic of Continuity)

Sr Roseanne gave a talk entitled ‘The Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative: Ten Years On’

Sr Andrea and Clare.

Sr Roseann with this year’s Chairperson, Amy Murphy.

“Three craws sat upon wa’…”
(Picture by Fr Tim of The Hermeneutic of Continuity)

Clare keeps herself busy on the twelve hour journey back to Glasgow.

What we’ve been up to…

You may have noticed that posts have been fairly thin on the ground in recent days (as we’ve been reminded repeatedly).  The summer months are always hectic for us, and this year has been no exception.

Firstly, congratulations to Sr Andrea who sat her final exam on Saturday.  After five years of part-time study Sister will graduate from the Maryvale Institute with a BA in Divinity. Sr Roseann is almost as pleased about this as Sr Andrea herself, and after allowing her a short break will be presenting the ‘To-do’ list she’s been working on for the last five years

While Sr Andrea was preparing for her exam, Sr Roseann was at Ampleforth with the FAITH Movement’s Northern Summertime (affectionately referred to as ‘Baby Faith’), an event for children between the ages of ten and fourteen. This year one hundred and thirty three children were accompanied by thirty helpers for a week of talks and activities. A good (if exhausting) time was had by all.  Pictures coming soon.

This week both Sr Roseann and Sr Andrea are at Woldingham College in Surrey for the FAITH Summer Session, a conference for young people between the ages of sixteen and thirty.  The week is made up of social, spiritual and catechetical activities. Daily Mass, Exposition and a Reconciliation service are accompanied by talks, seminars and discussions as well as sports, outings, a Ceilidh and the opportunity to catch up with old friends.

After a, rather longer than expected, eleven hour journey, the Scottish/Northern contingent arrived just in time for the celebration of Mass followed by supper and an excellent (as ever) opening talk by Fr Roger Nesbitt introducing this year’s theme: ‘Jesus Christ: The Hope of the World’. The talks have been of the usual high quality from a number of familiar FAITH speakers.  This afternoon Sr Roseann will give the feature talk ‘The Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative: Ten Years On’. 

We’ll be posting soon with pictures from Ampleforth, as well as pictures and more of the goings-on at the Summer Session. Here’s a taster for you. God bless!

Fr Scott does his Marge Simpson impression on the journey down to Woldingham.