Dear Friends

The town of Mirfield is not easily found on the map. Running through its centre is the busy main road linking Wakefield and Huddersfield. A small unmanned train station takes travellers on the short journey to Leeds. In its heyday most of its inhabitants worked in local mills.

In 1897 a group of Anglican monks arrived to live in the empty house of a former mill owner. The monks were known as the ‘Community of the Resurrection’. Today the Community is still there with 22 monks in residence. On an adjoining site is a theological college training men and women for the ordained ministry. There is also a centre for spirituality, providing courses and retreats for visitors throughout the year.

For all of May and most of June I shall be living at Mirfield with the Community of the Resurrection. The Community’s day starts at 6.45am with Morning Prayer. Holy Communion is at midday. Evening Prayer is at 6.30pm. The day ends with the service of Compline at 9.00pm. From the end of Compline until 9.00am the next morning the Community remains in silence.

Whilst there I shall share in the Community’s common life, helping with gardening, washing up and such like. I shall also make use of the Community’s extensive library particularly exploring the insights which monastic living can offer to the church at large. Through it all I shall be making extra space for God trusting that in the space I shall more clearly hear his word.

Hearing God’s word is the privilege of every Christian. In his classic book “Prayers of Life” the French priest Michel Quoist writes, “If we knew how to listen to God, we should hear him speaking to us. For God does speak. He speaks in his Gospel. He speaks also through life – that new Gospel to which we ourselves add a page each day.” He later writes, “The Father has put us into this world not to walk through it with lowered eyes but to search for him through things, events, people. Everything must reveal God to us.”

This is what Christian living is all about. It is about listening, looking, being open to God reaching out to change us. This purpose is not confined to monastic living though monastic living is a powerful sign pointing us to this end. For the end of all Christian living is to be changed by the life and love of Christ so that through us, his life and love can better change the world.

There is a story of a novice monk who went to an older one and said, “I keep my rule, my fasts, my meditation, my prayer and my contemplative silence. What more should I do?” The older monk rose up and stretched out his hands as if receiving something from heaven. His fingers became like flames. He replied, “Why not be totally changed into fire?”

Your Rector

Raymond Brown