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Friends of the Foyers Newsletter - February 2003 www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/movecomm/foyer/foyer.html Dear Friend, You are receiving this Friends of the Foyers Newsletter because you subscribed at the Theotokos Catholic Website - www.theotokos.org.uk - or you contacted the site at some stage about the Foyers, or possibly a friend may have forwarded it to you. This newsletter usually appears a couple of times a year, in the spring, and in the autumn, after the annual Foyer-type retreat in England. God Bless, Donal Foley and Martin Blake ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents - February 2003 Foyer Friends News Retreat September 2003 Chateauneuf Retreat Youth 2000 community Spring Get-together NEWS from ABROAD - France, India and Poland Books and Articles Book on Marthe Websites worth visiting Foyer Fund ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Foyer Friends News The last Newsletter in October was well received and Martin had a number of favourable comments. It's good to receive 'feedback'. Sometimes he is tempted to drop people from the mailing-list when nothing has been heard from them for a long time, even from those who have been on earlier retreats. To achieve a Foyer in poor old England at the moment will require perseverance and constancy from all Marthe's friends! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Retreat September 2003 The Next Retreat has been booked at Boars Hill for the week September 1st - 6th We have been most fortunate in obtaining the services of Dom Piers Grant-Ferris, the well-known mountaineering monk of Ampleforth, who will lead the retreat. Booking forms and details will be mailed during the summer, but you may reserve a place now if you wish. Each day will be modelled on the retreats held in the many Foyers world-wide. Silence will be of the essence. For more details please email: more information is also available at: www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/movecomm/foyer/eretreat.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chateauneuf Retreat The English Foyer retreat in France this year will take place from 17th-24th August at Chateauneuf-de-Galaure. Fr Kilian Byrne will lead a five-day silent retreat at the home of the Foyers. For details please contact Edward Donaghy in Ireland. Tel: +353.1.2692395 - e-mail: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Youth 2000 community So far there has been little response to Donal's idea for 'living in community' this summer. But we hear that Youth 2000 is developing a community for young people at East Keswick, in Yorkshire, and we hope to form a link with them. Fr Ian Ker said last September that our first Foyer members might well come from Youth 2000! He continues to be most supportive of the Foyer idea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spring Get-together It was agreed on the final day of the retreat that it would be a good thing to have a meeting in the spring when those who cannot manage the September Retreat might meet, and those who are really keen supporters could have a 'half-time' get-together. We are suggesting Glastonbury as the best venue for this, with Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd April as the most suitable days. These dates are during the first week after Easter Sunday. If you are interested can you contact Martin - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NEWS from ABROAD France We received a Christmas card from Pere Michon at Chateauneuf-de-Galaure. Substantial modernization of the buildings and amenities is in progress there, and also at Poissy near Paris where Cecilia Scovil is the only English member of a Foyer. India While he was in India in November, Martin was taken by a priest friend to the Eluru Diocese where they visited first his parish and then the Prema Seva Ashram at Gowripatnam which is the second Foyer in India. It is on a huge scale and most impressive. It is run by a dynamic priest called Fr Jesu Rajan who founded the Foyer some years ago on a hill near the Godavari River, which was already a centre for Catholic pilgrimage. At the foot of the hill is a vast new Millennium Church, recently completed. The Foyer has a large modern church and the community can receive more than two hundred retreatants in three newly constructed buildings named after Marthe Robin, Pere Finet and Pere Ravanel. The place is also used by the bishop-whom I met as his diocesan retreat house, and some seventy-five priests were starting a week's retreat when I was there. There are two million Catholics in the diocese, and no fewer than five hundred seminarians preparing for the priesthood. Despite a certain hostility on the part of the BJP Party currently in power, (and politically pro-Hindu), the Catholic Church in India is expanding fast, and it was refreshing to find everyone I met utterly loyal to the Pope and Vatican II, with little sign of either liberal dissenters or 'traditionalists'. Fr Jesu told me he was a pupil of Dom Bede Griffiths who went from Prinknash to India in 1955 and died about ten years ago. He has exerted an immense influence on Christian-Hindu relations. Poland Donal and Timothy Tindal-Robertson went to Poland in the autumn, primarily to publicise the new Polish edition of his book Fatima, Russia, and John Paul II, (revised English edition still available from Gracewing Publishers). It was very interesting experience, and highlights included visits to Krakow, the Pope's old diocese, surely the most beautiful city in Europe, and Zakopane, in the southern mountains. In many respects the Church in Poland is thriving - for example, Krakow has more than 300 seminarians. They saw numerous signs of a growth in vocations, and in particular many young women religious dressed in black habits, as well as many young Franciscans, and secular clergy - clearly the triple influence of St Faustina, St Maximilian Kolbe and Pope John Paul II has had a powerful effect. Overall, Poland seems to be one of the few bright spots for the Church in Europe, and there are probably many lessons we in the more affluent parts of the West can learn from the Polish Church. Information about the Polish Foyer was given in a previous newsletter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Books and Articles 'Marthe and Therese' The Prior of Boars Hill OCD and Editor of the Carmelite magazine 'Mount Carmel' was keen to have an article on the influence of St Theresa on the foundress of the first Foyer. This has now been written by Martin and accepted by the Editor. He does not yet know when it will be published, but maybe we shall be able to let our readers read it in a future Newsletter. Martin's translation of Marthe Robin sous la conduite de Marie is proceeding slowly, but it is unlikely to find a publisher until Marthe is beatified. Please continue to pray for this cause. Marian Apparitions, the Bible, and the Modern World Donal's book was published by Gracewing just before Christmas and is highly recommended. See www.theotokos.org.uk for details. We shall publish extracts from reviews in the next Newsletter, but here is a commendation from Fr Peter Fehlner, the Marian writer: "With his Marian Apparitions, the Bible, and the Modern World, Donal Foley has made a very important contribution to our understanding and appreciation of private revelations, in particular those of Our Lady. ... Not only ... scholars and believers, but the general public will find this volume informative and inspirational." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Book on Marthe The "Cross and the Joy" by Rev. Raymond Peyret, the only biography of Marthe Robin, in book form, in English. It is a translation from the French of Père Peyret's book on Marthe, written soon after her death in 198, and published by Alba House. Fr Peyret never knew Marthe, but he attended her funeral and was so impressed he decided to research her life. In the end he wrote three books on her, but this is the only longish biography so far in English. It gives a solid account of her life and mission, and is a good introduction to the charism of the Foyers of Charity. It is available from Family Publications, 77 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6LF, at a cost of only £5.95. Tel: 01865 514408; Fax: 01865 316951; email: It is also available online at: www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/recbooks/misc/movecomm.html Joe Connolly has kindly let us have a quantity of copies which we can supply at £5 (p & p UK included). For more details please e-mail: CTS Booklets - "The New Movements: A Theological Introduction" by Fr Ian Ker (Mo 04); "Marthe Robin: A Chosen Soul" by Martin Blake (B 652), and "Apparitions of Mary" by Donal Foley (Do 662); also "Fatima in the Third Millennium," by Timothy Tindal-Roberston (Do 679), and "What Happened at Fatima" by Leo Madigan (D 651), all priced at £1.95. CTS phone: 020 7640 0042; fax: 020 7640 0046; website: www.cts-online.org.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Websites worth visiting For more details about the Foyers please log-on to: www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/movecomm/foyers/foyers.html For further information on the Foyers of Charity world-wide and on Marthe Robin: www.foyer-de-charite.com/ US Foyer of Charity: www.foyerofcharity.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Foyer Fund We are most grateful to those 43 Friends who generously supported our appeal (some gave twice!) and we have a useful deposit in our bank account. We use this to cover two or three mailings a year and other expenses and to subsidise younger retreatants. We are of course still open to donations ('English Friends of the Foyers'), however modest, from those who so far have not contributed. And please, if you wish to be dropped from the mailing-list, let Martin or Donal know. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you have received this Newsletter from a friend, and would like to subscribe to future issues, then simply send an email to Or you can subscribe at the Theotokos site at: www.theotokos.org.uk/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi - your email address will then be added to the list. Please feel free to recommend this Newsletter to anyone you think might be interested in its. Just click on "Forward" in your email program. This is one of the best ways of spreading the word about the Foyers so please do this if at all possible. Privacy Statement: Theotokos Catholic Website will not distribute your email address to any third parties. If you have any ideas / news items / suggestions / feedback etc., for future issues, please contact me at: Copyright 2003 Donal Anthony Foley/Theotokos Catholic Website ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
- he can then book up B&Bs as people write in. For those coming via London, it is possible to get to Glastonbury by coach via National Express from Victoria, or through Berrys from Hammersmith (01823-331356), or by train to Bristol (and then bus on) from Paddington. Dormitory accommodation is available at the Backpackers at £10 a night, otherwise B&Bs are about £20 a night.
Theotokos Movements/Communities Section - www.theotokos.org.uk