Anglicans Will Attend Retreats At Monastery

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31028, 6 April 1966, Page 7

Anglicans Will Attend Retreats At Monastery

Anglican clergymen will attend two retreats at the Roman Catholic Redemptorist Monastery, New Brighton, in June. The retreats will be conducted by Fathers Geoffrey Curtis and Humphrey Whistler, members of the Anglican Order of the Community of the Resurrection, and will be the concluding functions of their two-month visit to the Diocese of Christchurch. The retreatants will have full use of the facilities of the retreat house and will be looked after by the staff of Redemptorist Brothers while in residence. Although the retreat house

has accommodation for 30, 50 would be attending each retreat said the secretary of the Anglican Diocesan Retreat Committee, Mr G. J. Halliburton, yesterday. Silence to allow contemplation, was one of the exercises of the retreats and the 20 members living out would try to keep as quiet as possible While away from the monastery. The retreats were being held at the monastery because the Sister Eveleen Retreat House at Sumner was not large enough to accommodate those attending, said Mr Halliburton. For Laymen Two Anglican retreats, one for clergy and one for laymen, were held at the monastery last year and were “a wonderful experience,” according to the Rev. J. F. B. Keith, vicar of St. Peter's Church, Ritecarton, who conducted the laymen’s retreat. It was one of the few times tha Anglican clergy had gone on retreat at a Roman Catholic monastery since the Reformation. Members of the Presbyterian and Methodist churches had also joined in the laymen’s retreat and had enjoyed it greatly, Mr Halliburton said. It is hoped that the monastery wilt have space to accept further Anglican bookings, Mr Halliburton added. Mirfield Community Two retreats will be held for lay people also during the period that the members of the Mirfield Community are in Christchurch, and applications were invited from all those interested, Mr Halliburton said. A retreat for women will be conducted by Father Geoffrey Curtis at the Community of the Sacred Name from April 22 to 25. and one for men at the Sister Eveleen Retreat House from April 29 to May 1 by Father Humphrey Whistler. Anglicans were not good retreatants mainly because they did not know anything about retreats, said Mr Halliburton. It was one of the few opportunities in a busy life that one had of getting away from the noise and bustle of the world, to be quiet and leave behind stress and strain for a short period to think about God.