Finding God in Sixth Week

How can I find God in 6th Week?

Retreat in Daily Life 14th—19th November

Led by Steve Hoyland of the Loyola Hall Retreat Team

The week offers the opportunity to develop ways of praying in the middle of a busy life, through workshops and with the help of a personal prayer guide. The Retreat begins at 6:30 on Sunday 14th November in the Meeting Room.

We ask for a donation of £10.00 to cover costs.

If you would like to participate, please contact Fr. John on moffsj@yahoo.com

Retreat Programme

The workshop sessions are recommended, but are an optional part of the programme and are open to all, whether or not you are on the guided retreat. The number of individual meetings with prayer guides will be worked to suit your schedule.

Sunday, 14th November
5:45 Mass
6:30 Opening Meeting

Monday, 15th November
Individual meeting with prayer guides
8:00 Optional Workshop 1 ‘Ways of Praying’ (open to all)

Tuesday, 16th November
Individual meeting with prayer guides
8:00 Optional Workshop 2 ‘Discernment and Decision-Making’ (open to all)

Wednesday, 17th November
Individual meeting with prayer guides
7:00 Pasta
8:00 Optional Workshop 3 ‘Images of God’ (Joint event with Newman Society and Cathsoc)

Thursday, 18th November
Individual meeting with prayer guides

Friday, 19th November
Individual meeting with prayer guides
6:00 Final Reflection Meeting

‘Newman and student living today’

‘Newman and student living today’

Summary of a talk given to freshers at the Chaplaincy on the Thursday of Noughth Week by Dr Paul Shrimpton

Going to at university is one of most exciting and defining moments in life, and especially so for those privileged to come to Oxford, a university which is in so many ways a student paradise. Naturally, along with all the expectations, there are fears: will I be good enough, will I survive, will I make friends, will I be happy?

For a British Catholic these times are doubly exciting as the visit of the Holy Father has given a new impulse to Catholic Christians in this land and set us off in a new direction. Then there is Blessed John Henry Newman.

What has Newman to say to me, a school-leaver yesterday, an undergraduate today? Isn’t he a remote figure far removed from my world? A short answer as to why Newman is so important for Christians today is that he lived at the start of the modern age – our age – when, for the first time, Christian traditions were being openly challenged and alternatives proposed. He is interesting for us, because he confronts non-Christian approaches just when they were beginning to be propagated and responds to them with reasoned arguments. He acted fearlessly when there was loss of nerve, great confusion, and a tendency to retreat from engaging with the post-Enlightenment world. Newman was a man of great energy, resilience and with a capacity to inspire others; he was highly original, a genius; moreover, he was a man of great integrity, i.e. personal holiness.

So what would be Newman’s ten top tips for student living today? At the risk of attempting to ‘bullet-point’ this great Christian humanist, I would suggest the following:

• A student’s studies are all-important. University is all about learning how to learn: learning how to profit from reading, lectures, seminars, tutorials and learning from other students.
• On opening the Catholic University in Dublin in 1854 as founding rector, he told the students present that they had not come to be made doctors, engineers, lawyers or priests, but in order “to be made men”. University was about human flourishing at all levels. An undergraduate at Trinity College Oxford, Newman indulged a very broad range of interests.
• There is plenty of knowledge to be found at Oxford and endless amounts of expertise. But where should the student turn who is in search of wisdom, as opposed to knowledge, and guidance on the art of how to live well? Where can be found the dispassionate advice and encouragement for that personal project of striving for human flourishing? Catholic Oxford has plenty to offer students to enable them to fill out their formation and the Catholic Chaplaincy is the leading, though not sole, provider.
• Student days are dangerous times – but then, Newman insisted, so is living in the world. In 1854 he wrote: “These may be called the three vital principles of the Christian student, faith, chastity, love; because their contraries, viz., unbelief or heresy, impurity, and enmity, are just the three great sins against God, ourselves, and our neighbour, which are the death of the soul.”
• Daily practices of Christian piety allow spiritual growth to take place. As an undergraduate Newman devoted half an hour a day in the early evening to prayer, meditation, self-examination and the reading of Scripture. As a tutor at Oriel he encouraged his tutees to take their Christian faith seriously. As a preacher at the University Church of St Mary’s he inspired his congregation to lead deep spiritual lives. As rector of the Catholic University, he ensured that daily Mass was said in each of the collegiate houses and arranged that each student should have a confessor; he even thought about beginning the academic year with a retreat.
• Just as students should have a general knowledge of history, philosophy and literature, so – he argued – they should have a parallel know of sacred history, Christian philosophy (and theology), and biblical literature. As appetite and capacity grow with age, so this need should be met. Quoting Newman at Hyde Park, Pope Benedict said: “I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it”.
• Cor ad cor loquitur (Heart speaks unto heart) was Newman’s motto as a cardinal. He reminds us that through our personal influence we affect others: “The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us.” Whether we want it or not, we all influence others.
• Newman considered that the disjunction of the academic and moral was one of the evils of the age. “It will not satisfy me, what satisfies so many, to have two independent systems, intellectual and religious, going at once side by side, by a sort of division of labour, and only accidentally brought together. It will not satisfy me, if religion is here, and science there, and young men converse with science all day, and lodge with religion in the evening. It is not touching the evil […] if young men eat and drink and sleep in one place, and think in another: I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and moral discipline. […] I want the intellectual layman to be religious, and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual.” Being Catholics in Oxford is not limited to our presence in Catholic institutions.
• Absent from Newman (and from all his generation) is the idea of ‘outreach’. He did not have access to Gaudium et Spes (Vatican II) which asserts that “man […] does not fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself”. Consider involvement in a service or outreach project.
• Newman entrusted the Catholic University in Ireland to the patronage of Our Lady under her title as Sedes Sapientiae (Seat of Wisdom). Why not do so too and display the Chaplaincy image on the mantelpiece in your room? [Insert image]

Chaplaincy Retreat

Chaplaincy Retreat, Carmelite Priory, Boars Hill—Friday 5th November—Sunday 7th November—contact one of the Chaplains

Lectio Divina

Lectio Divina Contact andrea.pass@magd.ox.ac.uk
Prayerful reading of the scriptures. Wednesday 8.00pm, Old Palace

The Big Silence

The Big Silence is a series about five men and women struggling to build silence into their daily lives. For four months, they were introduced to the practice of daily silence and meditation, staying at Worth Abbey and St Beuno’s Retreat Centre in Wales along the way, under the guidance of Abbot Christopher Jamison OSB.
The Big Silence will be broadcast on BBC2 on the three Fridays – October 22 and 29, and November 5

Retreat in Daily Life

Retreat in Daily Life—Sunday 14th November pm—Friday 19th November pm—an opportunity not to be missed! Contact one of the chaplains

Pilgrimage to Lourdes

The Oxford and Cambridge Pilgrimage to Lourdes takes place from the 25th July-1st August.

Compass Project

Compass is a discernment group for 20-35 year old Roman Catholic women and men who want to explore a sense of calling to Religious Life. The group meets over 9 weekends between September and June and for Holy Week, and is based at Worth Abbey in Sussex. You can contact them through http://www.compass-points.org.uk/ A number of members of Compass over the years have had links with CLC.

Individually Guided Retreat

There is a 6 or 8 day IGR taking place in Barmouth between 23-30 July (6 day) or 21-30 July (8 day). This is also at a reduced rate £360 8 day; £280 6 day and a student rate of £160. There are only a few spaces left on this retreat. For more information and bookings please go to the St Beunos Website www.beunos.com

If you would like to discuss more about what might be the benefit of going on retreat or to explore other retreat options please feel free to get in touch with Sister Sarah Anne srsak10@hotmail.com

Oxford University Chaplaincy, Retreat at the Carmelite Priory, Boars Hill

Oxford University Chaplaincy, Retreat at the Carmelite Priory, Boars Hill,
Friday 7th – Sunday 9th May, 2010.

Having never made a retreat before, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the Chaplaincy retreat at the Carmelite Priory at Boar’s Hill. I wasn’t even sure whether I had made the right decision to sign up. Could I really afford to take out a whole day and a half (give or take) from my hectic start-of-term schedule (sound familiar?). What is more, the unseasonably chilly weather, which made the long-awaited yet short-lived spell of heat at the end of April seem like a distant memory, did not help matters. As it turned out, these proved to be the perfect conditions for getting maximum benefit out of the experience.

Even though Boars Hill is a mere fifteen minutes away by car from Oxford city centre, it still enjoys an idyllically rural environment of peace and tranquility. When my fellow retreatants and I arrived at the recently renovated Priory, we were warmly welcomed (in both spirit and central heating) by the Friars Michael and Philip, who helped us settle in straightaway by supplying us generously with the secret ingredients of the successful retreat — food, rest, and heat. After supper, Fr Simon presented us with a proposed programme for the next day and a half or so. While the programme – which included talks by Alex and Fr Roger, prayer in the Chapel, Mass, Vespers, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation – may have appeared packed, I can promise you that there was ample opportunity for rest, reflection, relaxation, and recreation, all fuelled by the hearty and homely fare of the Friars. In addition, we were given the full freedom to pursue as many or as few of the timetabled activities as we so wished.

What sticks out most in my mind from my first retreat was the feeling of my brain slowing down to function fully in synch with my body, which allowed me to absorb all the activities to the best of my ability. It was a pleasure to listen to the personal ‘faith journey’ of our lay chaplain Alex, someone I am sure we would all love to hear more from. Since my brain had slowed down to such an extent, I am grateful to Fr Roger for explaining in his customary clear and concise fashion a few of the ideas of Ignatian spirituality in his session ‘How do I know where God is leading me?’

I would like to thank most particularly my fellow retreatants. The retreat’s success was undoubtedly due to how seriously they all took it, in that everyone made the effort to leave behind their worries and cares for the weekend. As someone who expected to struggle without my laptop and mobile phone for over twenty-four hours, I can happily confirm that I didn’t at any time experience a craving to check my emails or my text messages, or to waste time on facebook or youtube. What better way to spend a weekend than to take time out from technology and go for a walk amid the bluebells? Fortunately, there are plans afoot to repeat the retreat at the beginning of November, 5th – 7th, put it in your diaries now! A better antidote for the onset of winter could hardly be recommended.

Iarla Manny

Pictures from the retreat

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