A Samuel Group

One of the current initiatives of the National Office of Vocation under the able leadership of Fr Christopher Jamison is roll out discernment groups across the country. There are different types on offer. Compass groups, for example, (of which I think there are two at the moment) are specifically aimed at those who are contemplating religious life. Here in Leeds we started a Samuel Group in September. These groups, which follow a template created by Cardinal Martini in Milan in the 1980s, are aimed at all young men and women who wish to discover their vocation within the Church.

Our group is, we might say, struggling but vital. The number of attendees at the first two meetings was, respectively, one and two. The third meeting was due to take place yesterday afternoon but then I heard that the only two people I knew were attending both had essay crises. I was resigned to pastoral failure - a familiar experience for every diocesan priest in the country - but then there were two knocks on the door and in walked two serious-minded, young Catholic women, Trish and Sarah, who wanted to go deeper in their faith. We had an inspiring afternoon reflecting prayerfully on the call of Samuel in the First Book of Samuel and then said Vespers together. Moreover, some of the students in the Chaplaincy here at Leeds Trinity saw what we were about and by the end I intuited that they wanted to be in this gang too. I love my job. Here are Trish and Sarah in front of our crib just before it was dismantled.