Festival of Meditation & Prayer

Our Festival of Meditation & Prayer is now over. We have left this page open for a little longer so that web users may review our Festival. We also intend to publish some feedback from the Festival at this page in due course.

 3rd - 26th September 2010

Open to All

 FESTIVAL OF MEDITATION & PRAYER

September 2010 

September 2010 will be a great start after the summer holidays!   A month long series of activities has been planned.   These will include guest speakers from the Reformed, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.   There will be a lecture, workshops, a pilgrimage, spaces for silence as well as music from Bach to Taize and on Doors Open Day our new book on the windows of Mayfield Salisbury will be launched with a signing by the author, Dr Elizabeth Cumming.

Mayfield Salisbury will be welcoming the Revd Dr Alison Jack (Church of Scotland), the Revd Dr Michael Fuller (Scottish Episcopal Church), the Very Revd David Lunan (Church of Scotland), the Revd Dr Sophia Marriage (Scottish Episcopal Church), Father Gerard Hughes (Roman Catholic Church) and Father Raphael Pavouris (Orthodox Church).   We will also be welcoming a numbers of musicians and singers.

Our guests will be speaking on children’s spirituality, opera and faith, the spiritual journey, icons and visual theology and there will be many opportunities for prayer in and through music, meditation and silence.

The programme is in Grapevine and on the website, so think about how you can be participate in all that’s going on!  

Our Speakers

During September we are delighted to welcome visiting preachers and speakers who bring with them the richness of the Episcopalian, Reformed Presbyterian, Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions.  They will develop individual themes that build up our understanding and develop our experience in meditation and prayer.

Prayer in the New Testament will be the topic of the Revd Dr Alison Jack’s lecture on Sunday 5 September at 7.00pm.  Alison Jack is Assistant Principal of New College and has a particular interest in the Bible and Literature in the parables.

On Sunday 12 September three visiting preachers lead our worship.  At the 9.30am early service the Revd Dr Sophia Marriage of the Scottish Episcopal Church will develop the theme of Children’s Spirituality and lead the informal Communion service.  The Very Revd David Lunan, Moderator of the Church of Scotland in 2008-09, will explore prayer with us at 10.45am and the Sacrament of Holy Communion will be served.   At 7.00pm, our worship will take the form of a workshop led by Father Raphael Pavouris on icons or visual theology, with examples from the Orthodox Church.

Godly Play (for Adults) is the subject of Eilie Blackwood’s workshop on Sunday 19 September at 7.00pm.  Eilie will look at an approach which presents sacred stories of the Bible, parables, silence and the liturgical actions of the church to encourage the individual’s innate spiritual awareness to respond with wonder and awe.  

Father Gerard W Hughes is a Jesuit priest whose many books and related work on prayer have pushed back the barriers to exploring spirituality and enabled lay people to support each other.   He will preach on Sunday 26 September at 10.45am.

Full details of all the events in September’s Festival of Meditation and Prayer are now available.  Pick up a copy of the Festival Brochure in the Halls Entrance for information about our speakers, preachers, and musicians and when they will join us.

Download copy of Festival Brochure here: Festival Brochure
  

Arts and Faith support Meditation and Prayer

The connection between the arts and faith is a theme throughout the month.

The Festival opens on Friday 3 September with Meditation through Music when musicians and singers will introduce the themes of Meditation and Prayer.  We are privileged to welcome Chloe Young on Clarsach, Caritas Strings with Hector Scott, John P Willmett playing the organ, and Walter Thomson with a group of singers from Jubilo.

On Wednesday 8 September at 7.30 pm the Revd Dr Michael Fuller will lecture on Opera and Faith, and at 7.00 pm on Sunday 12 September Father Raphael Pavouris will lead a workshop on visual theology, worshipping with icons.

Our glorious stained glass windows have been captured in a new publication The Mayfield Salisbury Windows Thy Story in Glass by Dr Elizabeth Cumming.  This book will be launched on 25 September at 2.00 pm, during Doors Open Day (9.00 am to 5.00 pm) which provides an opportunity to explore the history and architecture of our buildings.

On Doors open Day there will also be organ music from Dr Revd Stuart Lawrie at 11.00 am and John P Willmett at 3.30 pm.

Open Church

Open Church in September

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday - 8.00pm to 9.00 pm 
The Sanctuary is open daily for an hour for silent prayer and meditation

Wednesdays 8,15,22 - 7.30 am to 9.30 pm
The Sanctuary is open all day for silent prayer and meditation – with music from 6.00 to 7.00 pm.  Sit in the candlelight or from 8.30pm in twilight.

Written guides to help and encourage are available

Full details of other events are in the Festival Brochure

Prayers for spiritual growth

Prayers are to be read meditatively and with sensitivity to each word and phrase.  In so doing, we allow them to settle in our consciousness, to still us, bringing calm and peace.   At their best, prayers are the language of intimacy with the Holy, the Divine, the Sacred.   The prayers of the Church are our words to God and our spiritual food.  

My Father, I abandon myself to You;
do with me as You will.
Whatever You may do with me, I thank You.
I am prepared for anything, I accept everything.
Provided Your will is fulfilled in me and in all creatures,
I ask for nothing more, my God.
I place my soul in Your hands.
I give it to You, my God,
with all the love of my heart
because I love You.
And for me it is a necessity of love, this gift of myself,
this placing of myself in Your hands
without reserve
in boundless confidence
because You are my Father.
Amen.
               Charles de Foucauld

 Guide me, teach me, strengthen me, till I become such a
 person as You would have me be:  pure and gentle, truthful
 and high-minded, brave and able, courteous and generous,
 dutiful and useful.
      Charles Kingsley  

I bless Thee, O most holy God, for the unfathomable
love whereby Thou hast ordained that spirit with spirit
can meet and that I, a weak and erring mortal, should
have this ready access to the heart of Him who moves
the stars.

With bitterness and true compunction of heart
I acknowledge before Thee the gross and selfish
thoughts that I so often allow to enter my mind
and to influence me deeds.   I confess, O God:

 that often I let my mind wander down unclean and
  forbidden ways;
 that often I deceive myself as to where my plain
  duty lies;
 that often, by concealing my real motives, I pretend
  to be better than I am;
 that often my affection for my friends is only a refined
  form of caring for myself;
 that often my sparing of my enemy is due to nothing
  more than cowardice;
 that often I do good deeds only that they may be seen
  of others, and shun evil ones only because
   I fear they may be found out.

O holy One, let the fire of Thy love enter my heart, and
burn up all this coil of meanness and hypocrisy, and make
my heart as the heart of Christ.      Amen.
                John Baillie

Soul of Christ, be my sanctification,
Body of Christ, be my salvation,
Blood of Christ, fill my veins.
Water from the side of Christ, wash out my stains.
May Christ’s Passion strengthen me, O good Jesus, hear me.
In thy wounds I fain would hide,
Never to be parted from thy side.
Guard me when my foes assail me,
Call me when my life shall fail me.
Command me then to come to thee.
That I for all eternity with thy saints may praise thee.
Pope John XXII (translated by John Henry Newman)