Love was His meaning
Led by Stephen Cherry
In 1373, when she was 30 years old, a woman of Norwich, whom we now know as Julian, thought she was going to die. She didn’t die, however, but she saw – and what she saw so transfixed and challenged her that it changed the course of her life. She became a writer; not only recording her visions while they were fresh in her memory, but then pondering them with all her powers of imagination, curiosity and analysis for a further twenty years before writing them all up again.
The story of what happens to Julian’s books, the first to be written in English by a woman, is mysterious and fascinating, but not as important to us today as the spiritual and theological insights that are to be found in this extraordinarily rich and vivid book.
In the retreat we will let Julian’s Revelations guide our own spiritual and theological meditations and see what that says to us about our relationship with God and with others. Retreatants will be encouraged to let Julian challenge the way they think about what God is, what God does and what God means.
Retreatants will need to have a copy of Julian’s Revelations with them on the retreat, preferably the excellent translation by Barry Windeatt in the Oxford World’s Classics Services published in 2015, which the leader will be using.
This will be a fairly traditional style retreat, with two addresses each day and a daily Eucharist. It will be in silence from after supper on Monday until supper on Thursday. Opportunities to meet with the conductor will be offered at scheduled times through the week.
Stephen Cherry is Dean and Fellow of King’s College Cambridge, where he is responsible for the life of the world-famous Chapel and is Director of Studies in Theology.
Before ordination he took degrees in both psychology and theology. While Chaplain at King's College, he completed much of the work for his PhD thesis, a theological study of forgiveness which drew on psychology, ethics and literature. He then spent 12 years as rector of the ancient parish church in Loughborough. Next he moved to Durham to become a Residentiary Canon and Director of Ministerial Development and Parish Support including Continuing Ministerial Development for clergy. He returned to King's College, Cambridge in September 2014.
Stephen is the author of several books ranging from Barefoot Disciple, which was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book in 2011 to books about forgiveness (Healing Agony, Continuum 2012) , sin (The Dark Side of the Soul, Bloomsbury 2016) and time wisdom (Beyond Busyness, Sacristy Press, 2012) together with two collections of poem-prayers (Barefoot Prayers, 2013 and Barefoot Ways, 2015 ) His latest book in an invitation to young people to explore theology (God-Curious, JKP, 2017).
This event is open to everyone.
Arrival: 3 - 5pm
Mon 16th April
2018
Departure: 10am
Fri 20th April
2018
Residential - £420 (20% ministry discount)
