Gathering with the Community of the Passion, at Boar’s Hill

On the weekend of the 17th to 19th October, twenty-two members of the Community of the Passion attended its Autumn weekend gathering at the Carmelite Priory, Boars Hill, Oxford. They were joined for the occasion by three members of the Passionist Companions (lay people who live the spirituality of St Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists, in their daily lives) who travelled from Ireland for the meeting.

The Community of the Passion is a dispersed community of women and men, finding together a new way of being Passionist, under the auspices of the Passionist Province of Ireland and Britain.

Married and single (and including some vowed Passionist members), the Community engages in practical solidarity with the Crucified people in their daily lives. Committed to prayer with and for each other, we find God in our encounter with and commitment to all those who are poor, powerless and suffering. We support each other in our living out of our faith and our call to missionary discipleship.

This mutual support is provided through regular meetings, via zoom and in person. Most of these meetings are held locally or regionally but the Community gathers twice a year for weekend meetings. Whenever we meet, the focus of our gathering is our sharing of how we have experienced the Passion of Christ in our lives and in the lives of those around us. 

We also share what are termed ‘Resurrection Experiences’, where members give expression to any signs of hope, growth or new life that they have experienced lately. In this way, the lens of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus becomes the way in which we interpret our common discipleship journey and are formed in Passionist spirituality. Our meetings always include shared meals and social time, culminating in the sharing of the Eucharistic meal.

This Autumn gathering was even more special because it took place on the Feast of St Paul of the Cross and included a presentation on the message of this first Passionist for our world today.

During the weekend we were given a wonderful presentation on ‘The Message of St Paul of the Cross for Today’ by the CP Companions – based on quotations from some of his letters (he wrote more than 20,000!) – and accompanied by some beautiful images and music.

The weekend also included a guided tour of the College at Littlemore near Oxford where on 9th October 1845, St John Henry Newman was received into the Catholic Church by Blessed Dominic Barberi, an Italian Passionist missionary priest.

Renewed by this coming together, we departed Oxford with a fresh sense of our Passionist calling to ‘keep alive the memory of the Passion of Christ’ and with gratitude for the countless blessings that being part of this Community brings us.