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‘Lots of times people have come along to an event that the team have been involved in and have said that their lives have been turned upside down.’

The Irenaeus Project By Father Chris Thomas

‘the glory of God is a person fully alive’

Just after Covid struck in 2020 and all the churches in the Liverpool archdiocese were closed I received a phone call. The gist of the call was that the parish in which we live, St Thomas of Canterbury, was closing and we were offered the chance to take the buildings and turn them into a centre for spirituality and outreach.

Obviously, this required a huge amount of discernment and so I asked for a week to discern and to try and get the wisdom of God on the matter. I’m a great believer in ‘the body’ discerning so I got in touch with our intercessors and some other trusted people and asked them to pray and to come back to me within the week. It was unanimous – we should go ahead. This was tremendously exciting for us and offered a new development for St Thomas’ rather than it becoming another mothballed church.

So, what’s our history? The Irenaeus project began in 2002 when Archbishop Patrick Kelly released me from parish work. I can remember sitting in an empty house in Formby with all the packing boxes around me and wondering what have I done? I‘d left a comfortable Parish with lots going on and lovely people all around me and here I was embarking on something that wasn’t neat and tidy and supportive. The only thing I knew was that I felt called to help people pray and explore the scriptures in a different way than I had before. So, the ‘lrenaeus’ project was born. Irenaeus was an early church Father who said the ‘glory of God is a person fully alive’.

For nearly seven years I had worked part time at Sandymount House of Prayer. The more I talked with people there, praying with them and sharing their stories, the more aware I became of the desperate need there is within people to find meaning in life. In Christian language we would say that there is an overwhelming desire to search for God and to explore what it means to be fully alive.

Our small team has worked, and works, all over the archdiocese and further afield to help people have opportunities to pray, explore the scriptures; reflect on what it means to be human and alive and to know the truth that God is with us. We have run parish missions, parish retreats, open retreats, weekends of reflection on the scriptures, weeks of guided prayer and a course in spiritual

accompaniment as well as being invited to speak at various conferences. We also do a lot of spiritual accompaniment, so life was really busy even before we opened the centre.

One of the big events that the project has undertaken is the biennial Come and See Conference. We have always tried to bring to the conference keynote speakers who can both challenge and encourage participants. Gathering with large numbers of others enables people to see that they are not alone on the journey.

Lots of times people have come along to an event that the team have been involved in and have said that their lives have been turned upside down. People have talked of giving God ‘a last chance’ and have found new reasons for living and hoping. People have said that they have been challenged to change their ways of thinking and their ingrained attitudes. People have gathered, explored, and find themselves enriched by the process.

We had always wanted a centre, so that our outreach could touch the lives of the poor and the needy. Suddenly, with the closure of St Thomas’ it was within our grasp. We set about fundraising and the money poured in as people caught our vision for a centre that would be open to whoever walked through its doors. Within 18 months we had raised £150,000. For two long years we have battled with workmen and enjoyed the support of the surveyors in the archdiocese. We have painted and plumbed and replaced boilers. We’ve hung acoustic curtaining and carpeted throughout so that we have a space that includes an oratory, a meeting room for 120, a smaller room for about twelve, a dining room that seats 40 and a drop in that will seat about 30 people. The development of the Centre has enabled us to continue to offer short courses on methods of prayer and the scriptures and host renewal events. During the liturgical seasons of the year, we have offered evenings and days of prayer and retreats of various sorts. The Centre has helped us to continue to provide opportunities for spiritual

‘I felt called to help people pray and explore the scriptures in a different way than I had before’

accompaniment for anyone requiring it on a regular or ad hoc basis but all of this to larger numbers. This year we have spread ‘Come and See’ over twelve months, a day each month with well-known speakers coming to comfort and challenge and we haven’t had to leave home to do it.

Any reflection on the scriptures and any time spent in prayer has to have a concrete expression in the way in which we live our lives, in our desire for justice and our willingness to be open to otherness. Sister Helen Prejean who has been twice to ‘Come and See’ challenged us many years ago to reach out to the poor and broken and so the area we wanted to develop was our outreach. For several years we have run a dementia choir under the auspices of Sister Moira Meeghan, but now with the help of Sister Siobhan O’Keefe we also offer a service for carers to give them a safe place to come and share their needs. We are very aware that spirituality is about the whole person and so we offer, with the help of Liz, one of our volunteers, what we call movement for healing, gentle exercises that help those who struggle with mobility in any way, with or without dementia. Our drop in has welcomed those with mental health issues alongside people who simply want warmth and conversation. Some people come and just pick up a book and read for a while. Others come and visit our bookshop. New books are costly, but we have lots on sale and our second-hand range is proving very popular too.

Our immediate concern was to open a food cupboard for those in most need. The food cupboard has provided us with heartbreaking stories of people who are at the end of their tether, some of them ashamed to come and ask. For those people our volunteers are essential to make them feel comfortable and at ease.

We always hoped that the Irenaeus Centre would provide a safe haven for many vulnerable people and in the short time it has been open, it’s begun to do so. We have a knit and natter group which gathers people and gives them space to tell their stories. That finishes at 12 noon on a Tuesday and is immediately followed by a Godly play session led by Francesca who animates the knit and natter group. We are lucky to be gifted with a local artist, Maureen, who each week gives of her talents as she leads a paint and meditation session. Our beautiful oratory is open for prayer each day, a place to sit and be, as well as at times to celebrate the Eucharist.

So why not come along and visit us? Have you any suggestions about what more we can do? Can you help support us by donations of food or money? Or do you just want to come and see what we are about. You would be most welcome.

The Irenaeus Centre can be found at 32 Great Georges Road, Waterloo, Liverpool, L22 1RD. For further information contact jenny@irenaeus.co.uk Tel: 0151 949 1199 or visit www.irenaeus.co.uk