Invitation to join Prayer and Life Workshops following successful pilot

All are welcome to a taster session for the launch of a series of Prayer and Life Workshops on Saturday 16 October 2021 (north Staffordshire) and Saturday 23 October 2021(Birmingham/Wolverhampton).

Fr Julian Green, parish priest for Our Lady of Grace partnership of parishes, together with a small group of clergy, lay leaders and Natalie Orefice and Paul Northam from the diocesan Evangelisation Team, recently piloted the 15-week programme.

Prayer and Life Workshops is an international initiative started in Chile by Fr Ignacio Larranaga, a Spanish Franciscan friar, in the 1980s, and has since spread worldwide.

The programme consists of a weekly two-hour workshop and daily prayer resources, to help to equip people to pray interiorly, but also to apply their spirituality to their lives too.

It ends with a ‘desert day’ of prayer at a retreat centre.

Following the successful pilot four workshops - two in north Staffordshire, one in Birmingham and one in Wolverhampton – will be launched this month:

- Two workshops each week in north Staffordshire: Saturday morning at 10.30am at St Teresa's, Trent Vale, and Saturday afternoon at St Joseph's Catholic Academy, Goldenhill at 3pm, starting with the taster session on Saturday 16 October.

- Two in the West Midlands: Saturday morning at St Thomas More, Sheldon at 10.30am and on Saturday afternoon at St Michael's, Penn, Wolverhampton at 3pm, starting with the taster session on Saturday 23 October.

Planning for the pilot started during the January lockdown and both Archbishop Bernard Longley and Area Bishop Stephen Wright are supportive of the initiative.