When announcing the Year of Faith, Pope Benedict XVI said he hopes that it will be a ‘moment of grace and commitment to an ever fuller conversion to God, to reinforce our faith in him and to proclaim him with joy to the people of our time’. We are all encouraged to make an effort in this Year of Faith, to do a bit more than usual to find out about our faith and to engage with our fellow Christians.
One way in which you may choose to mark the Year of Faith is through participation in small faith-sharing groups in your parish. These groups have been present in the diocese for some years now and have been very fruitful in providing a place for people to get to know each other and as a space for individual growth. These groups make use of faith-sharing resources produced by the diocese twice each year - Lent and autumn.
The diocesan faith-sharing resource for this autumn is called Radiating Christ (taking its name from the wonderful prayer by Blessed John Henry Newman). The theme of this booklet is, simply put, Faith and the Church’s mission to spread the Good News. It has been written in collaboration with the Home Mission Desk of the Bishops’ Conference and contains six group sessions on themes such as: What is Faith? The Person of Christ, The Church and Mission. The themes of the booklet mirror the principal themes of the homily Sundays nominated by Archbishop Vincent Nichols for the first part of the Year of Faith in the Diocese of Westminster. The booklet also coincides with the Synod of Bishops which will meet in Rome on ‘The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith’ (7-28 October 2012).
To have a look at the booklet, listen to audio recordings of the group sessions click here. Or if you want to purchase one or more copies click here for our online bookstore.
