CHURCHES TOGETHER IN HALE

Hello! My name is Mary Nono I am a parishioner of Holy Angels in Hale Barns and a member of Salford Prayer Guides and for the last 10 years I have been involved in Retreat work and Spiritual Direction. During the Churches Together in Hale Festival of Faith in 2001 I put on a short series of prayer workshops and afterwards some people wanted to know how what they had received could be developed. As you know seeds take along time to germinate and need watering. One little seed, however, managed to survive and grow into a very special event held during the week beginning Sunday 5^th October.

‘Jesus, tired by the journey, sat down by the well’

At 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon 32 people gathered in the lounge off the large hall at All Saints’ in Hale Barns to start together the Week of Guided Prayer. This is a way of going on retreat which acknowledges that it is very difficult for many of us to go to a retreat house away from our family and work commitments.

The retreat comes to us! God meets us where we are!

People had come along for a variety of reasons wanting to do this retreat in daily life. All realised that somehow they wanted to get to know the Lord better; to learn how to pray a little ‘better’. All were drawn by God at this time in their life to have this experience of being accompanied during this week by a trained guide who walked alongside them. The guide listened in order to help them deepen their appreciation of God’s loving presence in the ordinary everyday events of their lives and relationships; and where appropriate made suggestions to pray with. Sometimes this was a Scripture passage or the words of a hymn to reflect upon or even to go on what is called an ‘Awareness’ walk for example. For each individual the suggestions were different and private, because this type of retreat is individually guided, not preached.

‘Drinking at the well’

Every day, Monday to Friday during the week, the people doing the retreat came along to Holy Angels. Therese Delahunty had organised a lovely team of people from Churches Together in Hale who welcomed those coming along for their individual meeting with their guide. Guides were in the Library, in the inner sacristy, in the computer room, the parish room upstairs, the confessional and even in the church porch screened off for privacy.

I had ‘nowhere to lay my head’!-but managed to use one of those spaces as most people came during the afternoons and my people had chosen to come in the evenings.

Each meeting lasted about half an hour and everyone who took part found being listened to in such depth a most powerful experience. People had committed themselves to a half hour ‘special’ prayer time every day for the week and when they came to see their guide they talked a little of how that had gone, what they had found difficult or rewarding; what they had struggled with or been amazed by; what had touched them; how painful memories from long ago seemed to be healed; how seeds had been sown; how their relationship with God had seemed to take off; how they felt they had a new relationship; how they seemed to be able to live more easily with a seemingly impossible situation or been inspired to find a change of attitude to an on-going challenge; how they felt ‘enlightened’, lighter, transformed, more hopeful, encouraged, more loved, more forgiven, more ‘whole’.

What better testimony to the experience of the retreat than to hear people’s reactions and experience articulated in such a positive and joyful way? How could it be otherwise when we had committed ourselves to spending a little bit of extra ‘quality time’ in God’s presence, being loved by God, having our thirst quenched by drinking that ‘living-water’ that Jesus offered to the woman at Jacob’s well! (John 4 v 5-42) We came, often tired by the journey like Jesus, and were refreshed.

‘Many Samaritans of that town believed in him’ on the strength of the woman’s words’. (John 4 v39)

The team of 7 guides have all been trained in this ministry of spiritual guidance in the Ignatian tradition, mostly at St. Beuno’s in North Wales and Loyola Hall, Merseyside. Our team was made up of 5 members of Salford Prayer Guides, an Ecumenical Team started over 10 years ago by Teresa Malone, a Holy Child sister who lived in the community at the R.C. Cathedral, Salford (above the bookshop); and 2 of the team have trained with Sr. Jo Bird and the recently set up Shrewsbury Diocesan programme.

Guides are those who live out their call and charism to put the Lord at the centre of their lives through being a companion for the journey to those who cross their path, be it in formal retreat work as in Retreat House, or whether it is in a parish, church or community setting through, for example, weeks of guided prayer, Open Door retreats, Spirituality workshops or Quiet Days etc.. We meet people, tired by the journey, and give them a bucket with which to draw water from the well, the well of living water which we too drink. Every day between the afternoon and evening sessions we have half an hour of silent prayer together started by one of us then we share a little of our own journey. Following this we consider some aspect of our work i.e. there is some training in-put so that we are always being developed in our ministry, then we share a meal together. We are very grateful to all those who nourished us in this way. We all appreciated the lovely food! Many thanks.

‘The water that I shall give you will become in you a spring of water, welling up for eternal life (John 4 v14)

Saturday morning everyone was back together again assembled in All Saints’ Hall

To pray and reflect together on the experience and to go out encouraged, strengthened, renewed and refreshed. One really good thing about this type of retreat is the ordinariness of it. Because we have been at home in the midst of all the busyness and mess, the stresses and strains and tensions of everyday life and found a time and a place to set aside half an hour in our day to spend some quality time with God then it is possible to carry on doing that and like the psalmist sing:

‘O Lord, you are the centre of my life; I will always praise you,I will always serve you, I will always keep you in my sight.’(Ps 16.)

Like Jesus invites the Samaritan woman to let the water become in her a spring, welling up for eternal life; and like the woman we now say to Jesus:

‘give me some of that water, so that I may never be thirsty’ (John 4 v 15)

(Click on a picture to enlarge)


	Reception area: Mary lighting a candle at the well to signify Jesus’ presence

In computer room: Sr. Roisin with her Bible open		Entrance to Holy Angels: Sr. Roisin with Mary
	Guides: Photo of the team meal: clockwise Mary Nono, Janet Haimes, Barbara O’Friel, Geoffrey Mitchell, Christina Walsh, Roisin Smyth. (not present Jeremy Tear)