Our Corporate Worship
At the College of the Resurrection, we start by building prayer into our day, and then build the rest of the day around it.
Our regular pattern, Monday to Friday, is to gather for Mattins as a College, and to join the monastic Community of the Resurrection to sing Evensong. The Eucharist is celebrated each weekday in the College Chapel.
Our weekly timetable on Monday to Friday is
Mattins: 7.30am
Eucharist: 12.30pm or 5.00pm
Evensong with CR: 6.00pm
On Thursday evenings, the evening service (most often the Eucharist) includes Children’s Church and precedes the weekly College Meal.
On Sundays, we join the monastic Community for Mattins at 7.30am. After that, first year and penultimate ordinands are on placement in local parishes, while final year ordinands join the Community for its Sunday Eucharist.
In addition to services in College, many students value the opportunity to join the Community for at least part of the daily round of monastic worship. On Saturday evenings, a number of students join the Community for the beautiful Vigil of the Resurrection.
Public worship in College is taken from the Church of England’s Common Worship. We also make periodic use of the Book of Common Prayer. As part of their formational programme, students have regular opportunities to plan and lead College worship, drawing on the rich variety of traditions within Anglicanism, and working both individually and in groups with a member of staff.
Diversity and exploratory worship
As students prepare for ordained ministry, exposure to, and a growing comfort with, a wide variety of styles of worship is necessary. This is particularly true when one considers that diversity within a shared structure is fundamental to the approach of Common Worship.
The College encourages students to bring their own gifts and backgrounds to worship and to explore new styles of worship while in training. Each student belongs to a Liturgy Group, which works with members of tutorial staff to prepare and lead exploratory worship for the whole College community. Both in this way and on placements, students gain practical experience and reflect together on something of the rich diversity of worship-styles which God has entrusted to his Church.
Personal Prayer
Students at the College find encouragement and support to deepen their encounter with God, and to discover patterns of prayer which will support their ministries in the years after they are ordained.
Shared, liturgical prayer deepens and enriches personal prayer. Students are helped to find a rhythm of personal prayer and scriptural reflection that supports attentiveness to God and to one another. A number of students gather for prayer groups, using a variety of styles of prayer. Particular highlights of the year include the College Retreat in Advent, the guided quiet day in Lent, and the Spouses’ Retreat in Eastertide.
Prayer is the way God enables us to glimpse the life and purposes of Father, Son and Spirit. [... It is] the way God helps us to open ourselves to hear and be ready to do God’s will and to grow in awareness of God’s presence to us and in us. A CR Brother