This time last year we were celebrating the Year for Priests and were beginning to anticipate the visit of Pope Benedict to the UK. Those of us at the Diocesan Vocations Office and at Oscott were also busy preparing for Invocation 2010. We were a little apprehensive about how things would turn out as it was the first time anything quite like it had been attempted, but we need not have worried as the Holy Spirit was clearly active in ensuring that the event, which took place throughout a beautifully sunny weekend, was a huge success.

Many young people and religious from round the country and beyond came, and the speakers, the atmosphere and the prayerfulness were remarkable. So much so that the organisers felt compelled to offer still more young people the chance to benefit from the spiritual fruits of a second national discernment weekend, which will take place again here at Oscott in June, 17-19 (see www.invocation.org.uk).

This year’s event will be very similar to last year’s, with a very high standard of speakers, workshops and opportunities for prayer. Archbishop Longley will open the weekend with sung evening prayer in the college chapel. Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury will be the celebrant at Mass on Saturday and the recently appointed Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Mennini, will be celebrating the closing Mass. I would like to extend a personal invitation to all the young Catholic adults of our diocese: come to Oscott College and experience a weekend during which you will have a powerful opportunity to listen, to pray, to ask questions and learn, and to have a thoroughly enjoyable time. This will be a great time too for you to meet new friends as well as to encounter Christ and his Church in a powerful way.

This will be a great time too for you to meet new friends as well as to encounter Christ and his Church in a powerful way.There will be areas available for pitching smaller tents and larger tented areas for those with just mats and sleeping bags. There is also some local bed and breakfast accommodation available for those who prefer not to sleep under the stars! But most people find that the atmosphere of being together for the whole weekend gives them a much better chance to meet new friends, get talking to the visiting priests and religious, and to pray throughout the night too.

In addition to the three main speakers, there will be a variety of workshops on offer during the weekend, exploring the main spiritual traditions of the Church such as Benedictine, Dominican, Franciscan and Jesuit, enabling people to learn more about vocations, how God calls people, how we can better listen to his voice and how to respond to what we think he may be calling us to.

Above all, however, will be the presence of the Lord. Jesus Christ is always, or should be, the focus of our activities. There will be opportunities for individual confessions and Eucharistic adoration is a key element of the weekend. There will also be a torch–light procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the grounds on the Saturday night.

Please keep the success of Invocation 2011 in your prayers and pay a visit to the Invocation website for more information and to revisit something of last year’s event.

Fr Stephen Langridge, The Chairman of the Diocesan Vocations Directors for England and Wales draws on his experience to explain why he’s looking forward to this summer’s national Vocations Weekend:

I sometimes wonder what persuades a young person to get into a car, possibly with a lot of strangers, and travel to a Catholic youth festival – particularly if they rarely go to Mass, and especially if they are not Catholics. I doubt it’s the prospect of going home with a ‘Jesus loves me’ t-shirt or a WWJD (‘What would Jesus do?’) wristband! Last August, for Sophie, at the Youth 2000 festival in Walsingham, it was the chance of spending a few days camping with her four brothers. For Ollie at New Year, it was the invitation to spend time in London, catch up with friends and find a really good steak house!

Fellowship, Catechesis, Confession and Adoration:
a pretty potent mix!If you organise a big gathering of young people something is bound to happen. In my parish I know parents who long ago decided the only way to keep their sanity was to decamp to a hotel when a son or daughter was having a birthday party at home. But my experience is that if you add to the mix some catechesis, a lot of Eucharistic Adoration and the chance to go to Confession that ‘something’ can be pretty powerful. For Sophie the experience of Confession changed her life. She hadn’t intended to go ‘because I had no plans or desires to change the things I was doing wrong’ but when she did she ‘finally felt like the person God had made, a person I had lost years ago’. For Ollie, who arrived at the retreat proclaiming he definitely wouldn’t become a Catholic, an unexpected meeting with a priest had dramatic consequences. As he wrote later, ‘instead of giving me lots to think about he rather eased the burden of my thoughts… I’m going to become a Catholic this year’.

Fellowship, Catechesis, Confession and Adoration: a pretty potent mix! The fellowship is important because it lets young people see they are not alone – and whether the group is a million people gathered for World Youth Day, a thousand for the Youth 2000 Walsingham Retreat, or three hundred in a small Church in Balham, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they are no longer alone. Catechesis is also important not just because young people want answers but because sometimes they need help formulating the questions! Confession is really vital because as young people approach the Lord they become aware of how short their lives fall of his love. They have to be reminded that the devil is more interested in keeping them down when they fall than in any particular sin that might trip them up. And Adoration is important because in the end what matters is that they approach the Lord and begin to open their hearts in a loving dialogue with him.

It is often in Adoration that young people hear the gentle voice of Christ calling them to greater generosity and inviting them to follow him along a particular path. At New Year it was no surprise to find that one lad who spent hours in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament went home and made an appointment with his vocations director. Another emailed his appreciation and ended with the comment ‘I won’t lie by saying I haven’t thought about my vocation’.

So I am looking forward to Invocation 2011. It will be the second time we’ve had a big national vocations event for young adults and I am sure it will be powerful. It’s not a recruitment weekend - so there won’t be any child-snatchers or Pied Pipers enchanting young people to follow them! The focus will be on discernment, which is to say it will be on making space for the Lord and listening to his call. I am sure the Church in this country will feel its effect for many years to come.

For further information on InVocations 2011, please visit: www.invocation.org.uk

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 2011

	Fr John Hemer MHM studied philosophy in the Netherlands, Theology at the Missionary Institute London and was ordained for the Mill Hill Fathers in 1983. He worked as a missionary in Pakistan and in Kenya. After graduating with a Licenciate from the Pontifical Missionary Institute in Rome, he taught Scripture and Liturgy at Queen of Apostles Philosophicum in Jinja Uganda. Since 2006 Fr John has been on the resident staff and teaching at Allen Hall Seminary where he teaches Scripture, Greek and Biblical Hebrew. He is also part-time on teaching staff at St Mary’s Seminary, Oscott, Birmingham.
	Sr Gabriel Davison OSC is a Poor Clare nun and has been a member of her community in Arundel in the South of England for more than a decade. Before entering the convent, she read engineering at Salford University. The Poor Clare community in Arundel featured in the BBC series ‘The Convent’ and Sr Gabriel provided mentoring to the volunteers with warmth and insight. ‘I discovered that God wants us for who we are and not for what we can do and so my focus changed from ‘doing’ more to ‘being’’. This year by popular demand Sr Gabriel will be delivering a workshop on ‘Prayer Life’ at Invocation 2011.
	Monsignor John Armitage is a parish priest in the heart of London’s Olympic zone and is Vicar General of Brentwood Diocese based at St Margaret’s parish - the Catholic parish of the royal docks. Mgr John works a great deal with the community development organisation London Citizens and he has a great passion for and commitment to the social teaching of the Catholic Church, as can be attributed to his many links with various organisations such as ‘The million minutes’ project, a not-for-profit organisation enabling youth action and advocacy activities that give voice and support to young people to transform their lives and their world.
	Fr Christopher Jamison OSB is a Benedictine Monk and former Abbott of Worth Abbey in Sussex where he served as headmaster of the adjacent Worth School for eight years. The community at Worth became well known through the popular TV series ‘The Monastery’. Abbot Christopher is also the author of ‘Finding Sanctuary’ and ‘Finding Happiness’ which explore monastic wisdom and values and situates them in the modern world. At Invocation 2010, Fr Christopher gave the following key note address: Called to holiness - What is vocation and how is it relevant to my life? By popular demand Fr Christopher will be delivering a workshop on ‘Exploring the Charisms’ at Invocation 2011.
	Andrea Velarde Vidaurrázaga is originally from Lima, Peru and is the superior of the Marian Community of Reconciliation. These communities of Fraternas are present in 19 dioceses in various countries in North and South America, Europe and Oceania and are communities of laywomen who, in responding to God´s call, have consecrated themselves to God in order to serve others in the world. They live a full apostolic availability, which is to give their entire lives freely to the evangelisation of the whole world.
	Dr Andrew O’Connell is the Communication Director for the Presentation Brothers in Ireland, where a key part of his ministry is the promotion of vocations. Andrew is in high demand as an international speaker and draws deeply from his own experience when he speaks as evangelist and promoter of vocation. At Invocation 2010, Andrew gave the following keynote address: Standing out from the crowd’-A radical challenge in response to the counter culture. This year by popular demand Andrew will be delivering a workshop on ‘Interior Life and Society’ at Invocation 2011.

WORKSHOPS

SPIRITUALITY WORKSHOPS

PROGRAMME