The Society of Saint Gregory (SSG) held its annual music and liturgy Summer School at Worth Abbey from 31 July and 4 August under the theme: All are welcome: towards a Church without walls.

Over 100 participants assembled at the beautiful site of the now renowned Benedictine Abbey, host of the BBC series The Monastery, for 5 busy days of workshops, seminars, reflection and prayer. Coordinated by Philip Jakob, Music Adviser for the Diocese of Hallam and its Cathedral Master of Music, and member of the Iona Community, the event focused on the liturgy as a source of social awareness and action.

The renowned American teacher, composer and liturgist Bob Hurd led the participants in reflection and song by underlining the importance of opening our assemblies to the multicultural reality that is now part of our churches. “We began in prayer”, reflected Bob Hurd, “including an ice-breaker calculated to get any and every music-minister talking (i.e., “what is your favorite hymn and why?”); we continued in prayer throughout the week, praying for each other, our world, and dear ones facing sickness and other difficulties; and we finished in prayer with a final procession out onto the lawn dancing, drumming, and singing in African that ‘Satan has had it.’” Other workshop leaders included David Ogden (Choral conducting and Cantoring) and Ben Saul (Instruments in Liturgy and Music Therapy); Abbot Christopher Jamison led a seminar entitled Finding Sanctuary.

A workshop on developing a liturgical spirituality based on the Lectio Divina was co-animated by Caroline Dollard, a retreat and workshop leader based at Ampleforth Abbey, and Fr Allen Morris, Secretary of the Department of Christian Life and Worship of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. Says Fr Morris: “The SSG Summer School provides an opportunity like no other for liturgical ministers of all sorts to come together to celebrate the liturgy, to consider their role as ministers, to develop existing skills and practise new ones, and in all of this to enjoy themselves too. If the Summer School did not already exist, someone would just have to invent it!”

All activities, from Morning Prayer to Big Sing sessions, were designed around an integrated approach, so that the Summer School experience provided not only skills and knowledge, but also a caring for the whole person, as liturgical minister and community member. Mary Rouse, a musician in the parish of Our Lady in Lillington, Warwickshire, came away from the event both inspired and challenged: “The message of the Summer School was possibly the most challenging part of the week. We were asked to reach out to others [and] to help build a Church without walls. How fitting then, that our main liturgy of the week - Eucharist - took place in the social area we'd been using all week, with deacons sat on bar stools, and the windows, running down either side of the room, yielding views of the beautiful Sussex countryside.” A collection was taken during that Eucharist for the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, a support group which cares for asylum seekers and immigration detainees held in Tinsley House immigration detention centre at Gatwick Airport.

Next year’s SSG Summer School will be in Sneaton Castle Centre in Whitby, Yorkshire, from 30 July to 3 August.