Ten Steps to Strengthen Your Faith
Summer School: Thursday 6th - Sunday 9th August 2015
Ten Steps to Strengthen Your Faith is a practical course on how to allow God to deepen and energise the gift of faith in your life. It aims to strengthen your faith by drawing on the wisdom of Our Lord’s Beatitudes as lived and explained by the tradition of the Church, from the Desert Fathers to modern popes. This short course, participating in the rhythm of the Liturgy of the Hours at Buckfast Abbey, will help you see the importance of the Beatitudes for your day-to-day life.
‘The Beatitudes display the mystery of Christ himself, and they call us into communion with him. They are directions for discipleship, directions that concern every individual.’ (Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. p. 74.)
The key to Christian life is not to focus on strengthening ourselves, but to stay close to Christ and let Him strengthen us. And the great masters of the Christian life teach that the way to stay close to Christ is through living His Beatitudes in our day-to-day lives. In this summer school we will explore together Jesus’ portrayal of His own interior life through each of the Beatitudes which He explicitly intended as the strong foundation of the Christian life. The Beatitudes are the wellspring of living water that is the source of all subsequent authentic Christian spirituality.
At a time when there is confusion and misunderstanding about what constitutes spirituality this course upholds the truth that Our Jesus Christ is the absolute revelation of God, and His Gospel is the source of all saving truth, moral teaching and heavenly gifts. Our spiritual life will be Christian to the extent that it is founded on Sacred Scripture received through the liturgy of the Church. Sacred Scripture, read in faith and with the mind of the Church, is ‘the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life.’ (Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution of Divine Revelation, 21).
The summer school aims to strengthen your faith by drawing on the wisdom of Our Lord’s Beatitudes as lived and explained by the tradition of the Church, from the Desert Fathers to modern popes. There will be a special focus on the lives and teaching of the early monastic tradition.
Course Tutors
Rev Nick Donnelly
Rev Nick Donnelly is the Director of Formation at the School of the Annunciation and a Permanent Deacon. Nick is a well-known author for the Catholic Truth Society, writing on pastoral care, spirituality and the New Evangelisation. He is also a columnist for the Catholic Voice Ireland newspaper and a contributor to the EWTN radio show Celtic Connections. He holds a BA in Divinity, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Pastoral Theology and an MA in Spiritual Formation, and has a particular interest in promoting authentic Catholic Spirituality.
Dom Benet Watt OSB
Dom Benet Watt is a Benedictine monk and a tutor for the School of the Annunciation. Dom Benet has a deep love of the writings of the Church Fathers which informs his daily life and teaching. His areas of particular focus are the early monastic writers, and the encounter between the Christianity and classical culture in Late Antiquity. He has a BA in History (London) and a MTh in Church History (Cardiff).
Cost: £325 including full board and lodging at Buckfast Abbey, or £60 per day (including refreshments and lunch). There is also a non-refundable £20 registration fee payable upon your application.
There is a reduction for those who wish to participate in two Summer Schools. The cost for two Summer Schools is £575. This price does not include the £20 registration fee for each of the Summer Schools.
Cancellation Rights:
You have a 14 day cooling off period which starts from the date of application.
The summer school begins at 5.30pm on the first day and finishes at lunch time on the last day. The weekend is designed to include lectures and seminars in the context of experiencing the rhythm of daily prayer of the resident Benedictine monastic community.
Download an application form here.