Bardsey Healing 2008

The Thought
After three annual Retreats, the time came for the Order of Jacob’s Well to offer to weave a strand of our own colour into the spiritual atmosphere on the Island for the benefit of pilgrims over the years to come.
The Strand
Early Christian monks and saints began to build a Christian community on the island around fifteen hundred years ago. Since then there has always been a Christian presence there, men and women prepared to live and pray there all their lives, or at least for a greater part or a faithful part of their lives.
Twenty thousand of these saints are said to be buried here, having made pilgrimage to their chosen land of resurrection.
Giraldus Cambrensis, writing about his journey through Wales in 1188, tells us that, "beyond Lleyn, there is a small island inhabited by very religious monks called Caelibes or Colidei. This island, either from the healthiness of its climate, or rather from some miracle and the merits of the Saints, has this wonderful peculiarity that the oldest people die first, because diseases are uncommon, and scarcely any die except from extreme old age. Its name is Enlli, in the Welsh, and Berdesey, in the Saxon language, and very many bodies of Saints are said to be buried there, amongst them that of Daniel, Bishop of Bangor."
This is high praise indeed for the health of the community! The suggestion is that Bardsey was always a healing and wholesome place.
The Weaving
So we want to go back again to the Island. We want, from next year, to weave a coloured thread of healing and wholeness back into the life-giving strands of these holy lives that have come down to us through the centuries.
Whatever we do we will try to get it right from the start but at the same time staying open to altering things as events unfold. We would want, as well, to approach this gentle long-distance motorway of island spirituality on an angled slip road and not come crashing straight into it at ninety degrees!
To this end the Order proposes to hold quiet and blessed Celtic Healing services, the inspiration and outline of which were given on the Island back in 2004.
When
Together with Carreg Trust we have set aside Saturday July 12 to Saturday July 26 2008 for the fourth year of our Bardsey Healing Missions.
We think there may be five afternoon services in all, made up almost entirely from modern translations of ancient Welsh and Irish prayers.
These times of prayer for Christian healing would be held in the grounds of the Hermitage and Oratory. In this way we offer times of healing prayer over two weeks on island residency and day visitors together with the whole weekend for those who would travel over then.
These will be public services, extending a welcome to all who come, whatever their own spiritual background.
Our hope
Our hope is that we can bring back to Bardsey that practical sense of the Kingdom of God that brings resurrection and restoration to all those souls who seek it. Holding services of Christian Healing at the end of ancient pilgrim routes seems completely right and fitting to the spiritual history of those routes and the Island itself.
It is our hope, too, that churches and other groups may organise pilgrimages at this time and join us on the blessed island.

Revd. Mike Endicott. The Order of Jacobs Well. Cwmbran. South Wales.