Michael Campbell reports on the Winter Weekend and 2020 Dora Turbin lecture: “Overall a great weekend and a great start to CPW’s 75th anniversary year of events!” Read more here.

This year’s Dora Turbin Lecture was given by David McLoughlin, Emeritus Fellow of Christian Theology at Newman University, Birmingham. David spoke about a vision of the future which is filled with hope, but also asks us to change our ways. Read the full lecture here.

Those we call ‘Prophets’ have a hard time of it; the nearer they are to us, the more reluctant we are to be convinced by their message. Let us consider the environmental issues which have been presented to us with increasing urgency since the 1970s. Why has it taken us so long to listen?

It is possible to find the divine hidden in the smaller lights only visible when the main stage lights are extinguished. May your Christmas be filled with starlight and may the Christ-child ‘bring you home.’ The wait is over. Christmas is here. God is with us. Merry Christmas.

The first year of our three-year cycle of study into Priesthood, Prophesy and Kingdom, has come to a close and our Chair, Anne Dixon, offers some observations on the year’s events. 

Over the course of the weekend we descended into the underworld (where we found both buried treasure and things that are meant to be hidden away forever) before journeying on to build the heavenly Jerusalem. 

It's not easy to be out of step with everyone around you. They’ve all started the party and we’re still getting ready. Now is the time to hold our nerve. Take some time, just a little, to reflect on where we are.

Beginning in Advent we are inviting CPW members to host CPW’s 75th Anniversary Year Icon for their area - opening up an opportunity to invite people to come and pray in their homes or parishes and to enjoy the unique CPW hospitality.

The first year of our three-year cycle of study into Priesthood, Prophesy and Kingdom, has come to a close and our Chair, Anne Dixon, offers some observations on the year’s events. 

It’s not what we achieve that makes us Saints, it’s the love of God, reflected in us and channelled to others, that brings about the transformation. Once you realise this and look around, we really are surrounded by a ’communion of saints’. Saints of CPW, past, present and to come - Happy Feast Day!

Anne Dixon reports on CPW’s inaugural Autumn Lecture, which was given by Mike Kane MP, Shadow Minister for Schools on Tuesday 8th October. Anne writes that Mike delivered “a personal and empowering talk which resonated with many members of the audience. His themes were over-arching, deliberately avoiding a politically polarised position, and opting instead for a wider interpretation of Gospel values.”

CPW member Dave Yates write about the Kintbury all-age week: “We were invited to discover how we could live our lives more eucharistically. Various stimulating sessions challenged us to be more blessed, broken, poured out, and shared, and how they could be woven into our daily lives.” Read more here.

Our summer adventures are over. The reports of the summer weeks are being drafted as I write and we are left with the books of notes, the photographs, the artefacts and the humming of songs half-remembered from beautiful shared and inclusive liturgies. Oh the tales we could tell, if only they would listen!

A first-time summer week participant recounts their family’s experience at Malvern. From a reluctant start, the writer recounts that, “All the children showed an enthusiasm for everything they did and not once did they use the word ‘bored’. As a parent I felt rested, refuelled, and genuinely as if I had been given a new lease of life.” Read more about their experience here.

A few days ago I attended the Catholic People's Week at Hyning. It was an amazing experience that has had a tremendous impact on me and changed my life! The church today is weathering a terrible storm. This experience teaches me that it has treasures beyond measure in the clergy and people that make it up. I am so thankful that it exists and has given me so much.

This is the month when the last weeks of the summer term tumble over each other in a riot of picnics, summer fetes and sports days. Life is more ‘outside’ and relaxed, holidays are on the horizon and everyone just seems friendlier.  As we meet, greet, walk and talk with each other this summer, may the eloquence of our speakers, and of our response to one another, fill this glorious month with our prayer, praise and thanksgiving.

What is CPW’s ‘here’? Can you imagine yourself in a CPW landscape? A mountainside? A garden? A forest? Look around you. What do you see? What can you hear? Let me show you four places that I saw when I looked around CPW, and four accompanying scriptures that I ‘heard’. I offer these pictures, these places, as a means of discovering together CPW’s ‘Here’.

Mike Winston shares his report of the 2019 Walking Week at Willersley Castle near Matlock. In the words of one of the group he recalls that there was “over everything, an awareness of the presence of God in nature, in the stones on our path, in words spoken out-loud or in the depths of our hearts - a precious closeness with one another, immediate and lasting.” Read the full report here.

Clare Guidi reports on our Easter CPW in Wales. Clare writes: “Our time together was holy not because of what we remembered about Jesus’ last days but because of how we gave of ourselves and allowed Jesus’ presence to work within each one of us. I am left feeling deeply satisfied, grateful, and refreshed from the experience.”

The Lenten practice of fasting leads our chair to reflect upon how we 'Hunger for meaning' in Lent. Symbols can help us to find meaning where words are inadequate. Using three examples - a bowl of tears, a bronze sculpture of a Homeless Jesus, and the Eucharist - we see how symbols can be re-imagined as an accessible way to unlock meaning for all.