Formation Day!

On Saturday twenty young people met in London to plan and prepare for sanctuary@walsingham. It was a day for formation, prayer, training, planning, and catching up, and it was exciting to see how many talented young people were keen to offer their gifts and energy to serve other young people at this year's festival!

Fr Emmanuel CFR was with us to inspire us ready for the work of evangelisation we are preparing for in sanctuary@walsingham. He spoke about the importance of evangelising in our daily lives, and reminded us that the Church exists to evangelise! Those of us in the church pews need to be bringing other people in! This tied in with what Fr Stephen Wang has been teaching at other formation days: as lay people, it is our mission to sanctify the world - because we are in places and see people every day that priests and religious don't come into contact with. This is really our mission for sanctuary@walsingham - to invite those young people who otherwise wouldn't have contact with the Church and to show them that the Church is alive and that Christ really brings Good News to their lives!

Fr Emmanuel also talked to us about the importance of being "plugged into" Christ if we are to be effective evangelists. We need to be deeply rooted in Christ and receive our nourishment and support from the sacraments, personal prayer, prayer groups, Scripture, etc, if we are going to be open to opportunities that God gives us to speak about Him to the people we meet. If we don't experience the Gospel as Good News for ourselves, how can we show others that it is really is Good News?!

The day ended with a blessed time of prayer together and a trip to the pub. Thank you Fr Emmanuel for firing us up ready for the festival ahead!