Bullaven Franciscan Retreat Centre

We've been silent for a long time but that's no bad thing at a franciscan retreat centre where listening is better than talking. However, Facebook is prompting us to share something of what is happening here.
Well, in no particular order these are some of the things we have been doing while trying to maintain lives of prayer, study and active work. We've, that is to say Tim mainly, repainted most of the outside of the hermitage so it does actually look like it's photograph again. Tom, Lauren, Chris, James, Jamie, Tim, John and Paul have cleared the secret garden, the slope down to the front of the hermitage and the old tennis court of laurels, rhododendrons, brambles, fallen trees and bracken. All three areas have been rotovated. The tennis court has been seeded with grass and the other two with a wildflower mix to give us two wildflower meadows. We're now busily chopping up wood for the winter wood burner. We're in the middle of an increasingly lengthy transformation of a small box room into a galley kitchen to give us two separate areas to live in, so guests can have their own air b & b. We've currently run out of money so things have had to come to a halt until we can pay for the electrics and installation of kitchen units.
We are now back in the stable chapel for times of contemplation as the weather turns warmer. The swallows are investigating whether to build a nest in the stable which we hope they will. It's good to have our brothers and sistets back from their long migrations.
Out of our contemplative prayer life has come the acroynm: wall law. When you hit an inpenetrable wall: wait and listen, look, love and wonder. Reminiscent of Isaiah. This might help one enter the realm of contemplation.
On studying Robert Harris's trilogy on the fall of the Roman Empire It came about through overwhelming greed, lust for power and putting ones self before all else. The story of a lot of the old testament and several of today's leaders but the antithesis of Christ's life.
Outwardly we are about to repaint the interior of our local church.

Sitting on what's going to be a wildlife meadow watching the sun go down before evening prayer. Very peaceful with just the birds tweeting in the distance and the farm cat joining me for the last rays of the sun. Praying for Syria what can we do but pray?

We've been silent for rather a long time but that's no bad thing for a Franciscan Hermitage.

However, the buzzards are back circling high over the farm with their delightful mewing calls telling us they back in residence so we'll add to their update with one of our own.

Paul has been away in London helping form a new Young Franciscan community near Shepherds Bush. The project is in the early stages and we are just on the point of looking for five young people interested in joining the project for a year. If you know anyone who might be interested let us know and we'll send you a link. Interviews will be taking place in June I think.

John is back in residence. David is working with horses and looking after a friend's farm. Michael is trying to get back to the Sudan.
I'm, Paul, busy trying to get the end of the Hermitage turned into an AirB&B, preparing the ground for a wildlife meadow and conducting a Quiet Lent Day for the Parish of Harford.

That's quite enough for now. Back to some silence with just the sound of the owls, buzzards, chaffinches and woodpeckers for company. Oh, and the wind in the trees and the river in the valley.

If you want to come and visit us contact Paul on [email protected]