Archives for Reports

The Father: Adult Lent group 4

Our fourth adult Lent group focused on the figure of the Father in the Prodigal Son. We began by looking carefully at Rembrandt’s painting, the focus for Henri Nouwen’s book. We noticed the difference in the two hands, showing the maternal and paternal nature of God’s love. There is a great love in the embrace [...]

The Elder Son: Family Lent Group 3.

We began our third family session by talking about a scene from “The Lion King” when Mufasa confronts Scar. Scar is resentful because he has lost his place a heir to the throne with the birth of Simba. He will never be king now. Scar was like the elder son in the parable of the [...]

The Elder Son: Adult Lent Group 3

Last Thursday many of us gathered for the third of our adult Lent group. The theme was the Elder son. He was the one who stayed at home and yet in many ways was as lost as the younger son. The first quotes, from pages 69 to 71 in the book, sparked off discussion about [...]

The son returns: Lent Family Group 2.

Our second Family Lent group took its inspiration from Henri Nouwen’s writing about the return of the Prodigal Son and specifically his quote about the son’s confusion as he makes his way home. We began by reflecting on last week and hearing the Bible passage that tells the story of the younger son’s return home. [...]

Family Lent Group 1

The 15th February saw the first of our Family Lent group at St Agnes. As the adults are using Henri Nouwen’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son”, the children are going to be using the story of the prodigal son to investigate some of the themes of Lent. We began by looking at two things [...]

Adult Lent Group 1.

In Lent, our adult group is working its way through a course based on Henri Nouwen’s book, ‘The Return of the Prodigal”. The first session, on 14th February, we listened to extracts from the chapter entitled “The younger son leaves home.” Nouwen says that “Leaving home is…a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong [...]