We take our prayer seriously at St. Margaret's. We realise that prayer is a gift we have been given in order to communicate with our Creator. We therefore help each other to pray, to see that God is everywhere and in everything we do. We appreciate that our relationship with God needs to be nurtured and valued, like any relationship.

We try to help each other in several ways.

We offer retreats and pilgrimages. We go away together and this helps us to get to know one another better. It is through our human relationships that we learn a lot about God.

Last year we went away twice. In September, twenty one of us went on a pilgrimage to Rome . We were saturated and awestruck at the artistic treasures and historical sites we found all around us. There seemed to be a sense of timelessness and a real sense of history – a taste of what eternity means! We felt a real presence of the remarkable men and women who have contributed so much to the Church. We also felt privileged to be in that place which cradles Christianity in so many ways. Throughout it all we had time to reflect and contemplate and share our thoughts in a way not possible in our everyday lives at home.

The second time away was a retreat at the Franciscan Friary in Alnmouth during Advent. Here we are always made to feel so welcome and invited to fully participate in the discipline of the Offices and Mass with the friars each day. We used the book by Abbot Christopher Jamison, “Finding Sanctuary” to focus our thoughts and help us pause and examine our hearts in readiness for Christmas.

This year we have been to St Drostan's Lodge in Tarfside and enjoyed an excellent retreat set in beautiful Glen Esk.

We have meetings for prayer and Bible Study. Recently we have been studying with the Church Times Study Guides. They cover a multitude of topics relating to aspects of our belief and practice in a systematic way. During Lent we are using the York Course “Can we build a Better World?”.

During Holy Week and the octave of St. Margaret of Scotland we join Fr. Emsley in his discipline of praying and reading the Offices.

These are just some of the ways we nurture our spiritual lives outside of the Masses in church which form the very heart and centre of our lives as Christians.