Rivendell is a Eucharistic community working and praying to renew and actualize the vision of the Church as a holy priesthood (I Peter 2:5), in and on behalf of the world. We seek to live all life Eucharistically, offering ourselves continually to God in thanksgiving, intercession and adoration, for the nourishment and healing of the world, and to extend God’s hospitality to others.

Rivendell seeks to expand the Church’s capacity to provide skilled, well-educated, and holy priestly ministry, particularly in smaller, less affluent, struggling churches, both directly, by forming, educating and providing Community priests, and indirectly, by supporting those engaged in ordained and lay ministry through spiritual and intellectual nourishment, retreat and Sabbath time. We seek, also, to create and serve places where the beauty of holiness and the radical invitations of the Gospel may be more fully lived, "thin places" where a little of the Kingdom of Heaven may be glimpsed.

The Community’s work of prayer and hospitality embody two facets of the Eucharistic pattern:  Facing Godward, the royal priesthood gather up the world and present it to God; this movement is embodied in continual prayer, both liturgical and personal, intercession and oblation, willing identification with the poor and needy, in union with the One who bears our sin and carries our sorrows. Facing toward the world, the life-giving Body and Blood are given back to others – a taste and foretaste of the consecrated, transformed, redeemed life of the Kingdom of God. This movement is embodied in parish ministry, social justice concerns, offering retreats, opportunities for quiet, rest, reflection and challenge, spiritual direction and education, and homely, routine tasks of hospitality.

All orders of ministry –laity, bishops, priests and deacons – participate in the royal priesthood we share with Christ, our great high priest, while some are ordained to focus and embody this priestly ministry of the holy people, enacting it in the Sacraments. The Rivendell Community is seeking members who are already ordained or who feel they may be called to ordained ministry, as well as members who will contribute to the Community’s priestly work as lay persons and deacons.

Exploring a Rivendell vocation

- persons who value the life of prayer and are willing and able to devote significant time to prayer, both liturgical and personal

- desire to live holy lives, wholly given to God

- may be male or female, single or married, lay or ordained

- are at least 21 years old

Residential Members:

- may be single (unmarried, widowed, divorced); or married with both partners willing and able to live in residential community

- share a conviction that our cultural values of consumerism, status-seeking, "me-ism," and insular individualism are death-dealing, to ourselves and the world, and desire to find faithful Gospel alternatives and live them, recognizing the cost and difficulty as well as the joy involved

- desire to become as fully transformed and available for God’s purposes as God gives them grace to be

- are attracted to the ethos and work of the Rivendell Community, and bring gifts, talents, experience, interests and abilities which can be well used. This includes, specifically, active retired clergy ("55/30" and others), and persons wishing to explore and discern a possible vocation to ordained ministry, especially to serve small, poor congregations.

- are relatively unencumbered (financially and in family/professional commitments)

- are in sufficiently good health to take part in the life of their House

- Desire and intend to live with the Community’s Rule

- Support and take part in the Community’s life and work (in prayer, financially, and/or through gifts of time, work, and expertise, according to their circumstances)

- Meet regularly with one of the Community’s chapters and are involved in its particular expressions of prayer and hospitality

- May live in their own homes, with families, professions, ministries in the church and the world.

- Support and take part in the Community’s life and work

- Commit themselves to a regular pattern of prayer, adapting or modifying the Community’s Rule to their own circumstances and vocation

Friends

- May participate in the life, prayer, and work of the Community as they desire

- May contribute to the Community’s mission through material donations and/or counsel, expertise, and work

For more information, contact the

Inquiries Secretary

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