Province Retreat at Ushaw

Forty Salesians made their annual retreat in Ushaw College Durham from Monday 26 to Friday 30 May 2008. Most were from the UK, but Poland, Germany and Argentina were also represented.

Province Retreat

The group of retreatants in St Cuthbert's Chapel. Fr Ian Murdoch is centre forward.

The retreat preacher was Fr Ian Murdoch SDB, former Provincial of the Australian Salesian Province and currently lecturing at the Catholic Theological College in Melbourne. He based his talks of the General Chapter theme of starting afresh from Don Bosco, and used his skills as a Church Historian to move 'beyond anecdotal, fragmented and disconnected approaches to Don Bosco towards a contextualised and more integrated approach, recognising his own personal growth and development, and reconstructing his inner life as well as his role in the events of history'.

This was the second Province Retreat to be held at Ushaw College, the first being in 2005. This year Ushaw is celebrating its Bicentenary. One of the highpoints of the celebrations was Holy Mass on 25 May 2008, at which Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor presided. Fr Michael Winstanley and Fr Hugh Preston SDB, former lecturers at Ushaw, concelebrated at this Mass. A video recording of the Mass is available online.