Booking now: Living Theology at Ammerdown, Somerset

'This grace dissolved in place.' Our parish as a place of divine encounter.

The quotation is from Shakespeare's Pericles. Shakespeare attempts to capture the wonder and awe in Pericles' gratitude after he is reunited with his daughter who he thought had drowned. It is an expression of encounter, of love in the reality of persons and place.

Should we not feel such wonder and awe in our parish life as we encounter our God?

For most of the Church's history, the local parish has been the context and the means by which the faithful have been initiated and sustained in their Christian commitment.

The parish is, and has been, a place of encounter with the living God. Today, this gift of 'grace dissolved in place' is under severe challenge. In the western church the sacramental handing-on of faith to new generations of Christians is in huge crisis. So the question is:

Can we still speak of the parish as the 'place of encounter with the Triune God?'

Dr Michael Kirwan SJ, Heythrop College, and Dr Clare Watkins, University of Roehampton, will address the question of how we can experience God in our parishes, and how we can help others towards that experience, especially the younger generation at the 2018 Living Theology weekend to be held at Ammerdown from 22-24 June.

Dr Michael Kirwan SJ was appointed Dean of Theology of the Bellarmine Institute, the Catholic ecclesial faculty attached to Heythrop College in 2014. In summer 2015 he took over as director of HIRS. He is a member of the Catholic Theological Association (GB), and has also participated in its European meetings, as well as networks of Jesuit theologians and intellectuals. Michael has lectured in a number of Systematic and Pastoral Theology programmes at Heythrop, including sessions on Ecclesiology and Ecumenism, Theology of Ministry, Foundations of Pastoral Theology, as well as introductions to theology, political and liberation theologies, and soteriology. He has also been extensively involved in the pastoral and spiritual formation of Jesuits students for the priesthood.

Dr Clare Watkins is a Roman Catholic lay woman theologian, committed to teaching and research in the areas of ecclesiology, sacramental theology and practical theology, and with a particular concern for working theologically in ways that contribute to ministerial formation and church life and mission. Having completed her doctorate under the supervision of Professor Stephen Sykes, in 1990, Clare juggled pastoral and theological work with raising her four children. During this time she was lucky enough to work pastorally as a lay assistant in parish and student chaplaincy ministries, and to develop teaching and research at Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, in the Cambridge Theological Federation, (Vice Principal and Director of Studies) and at Allen Hall, the Westminster Catholic seminary.
In addition to their consideration of this main question, Michael and Clare will also form a plenary 'Brains Trust', at which participants will be able to raise wider questions arising from the lectures, and other questions of relevance to Christian life today.

The Living Theology threefold combination of Liturgy, Study, Community, will, as always, pervade the weekend and we hope that as many as possible will respond to our invitation to be involved and to contribute to the programme.

Full information and booking details can be found at: www.jesuit.org.uk/living-theology-ammerdown-2018