Our Mission
The world is charged with the grandeur of God — Gerard Manley Hopkins
Convivium is a new initiative of Brecon Cathedral to support strong local communities that connect people with their heritage, the environment, and faith. Convivium is a Latin word that means both to feast and to live together generously.
The three main goals of Convivium are:
- To raise awareness about issues of sustainability and conservation. The focus will be less on renewable energy than on the need for individuals and communities to adopt sustainable lifestyles: to live in ways that are in harmony with God and creation;
- To raise awareness about issues affecting rural and agricultural communities, especially in Wales, and to develop the Cathedral’s relationship with those communities;
- To support strong local communities and identities that will encourage people to connect with their own localities and to foster research and activities that promote Welsh culture and religious heritage.
You can read about our guiding principles here.
Not every person, charity, or organisation that joins in our initiative will be signed-up to all our Principles. Some will be focused more on the environment, some on building strong local communities, some of preserving local heritage and culture, and some on the Christian faith.
All share, in their individual ways, a belief that consumer culture fails to deliver the happiness it promises while inflicting terrible damage to our planet and communities.
Our hope is that we can inspire others to embrace a vision of a world that connects with things richer and more fulfilling than consumer culture.
The world needs for us in the West to rediscover our roots, to accept the limitations this world places on us, and to reconnect with our Creator, his creation, and our communities.
Not convinced?
Our hope is that Convivium will provide opportunities for people from a variety of walks of life to explore what that world could be like
Come join us.
A Theology of Conviviality
Our approach to conviviality is grounded in four biblical principles:
- The Genesis image of a Creator who delights in a flourishing creation (‘And God saw everything he had made, and, behold, it was very good’ ( 1.31), ‘Be fruitful and multiply’ (Gen. 1.28)) and creating Adam and Eve to ‘tend and keep’ the earth (Gen. 2.15) as his image-bearing stewards;
- The Easter image of the nuptial union between heaven and earth revealed in the resurrected body of Christ ( 24; Jn 20-21), portrayed in the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 21-22), and expressed through the sacraments, in which earthly creatures (water, bread, wine, oil) convey heavenly grace;
- The Pauline image of humanity’s call to share in the work of redemption through reconciliation ( 1.19), fellowship (koinonia) (Acts 2.42; Rom. 12.10; Gal. 5.13; Phil. 2.1-2), and virtuous lives that manifest the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5.22.-23).
In the New Testament, these three images are expressed by the overarching image of the heavenly feast (Latin: convivium), portrayed as a wedding banquet (Mt. 22.1-14; Lk. 14.15-24), table-fellowship with the marginalized (Lk. 5.29-32; 7.36-49), and the Eucharist (1 Cor. 11.23-34).
These define the Christian understanding of conviviality.
Weekly Podcast
- Episode 14 - Inhabiting Paradoxes May 8, 2020In the final episode of Paradoxes in an Ancient Landscape, Mark considers what it means to inhabit paradoxes. Introducing the Welsh ideas of hiraeth (longing) and tangnefedd (peace), he identifies living within the paradoxes of our faith with the Sabbath rest where our hearts can settle and we discover our true home. --- Send in a voice message: https://podc […]
- Episode 13 - A Nuptial Faith May 6, 2020The paradoxes encountered on Cadair Idris offer a timely lesson about a central feature of the Christian faith: that God created seemingly opposing things--heaven and earth, sun and moon, land and water, man and woman--to share in a kind of nuptial unity. Paradoxes compel us to understanding difference in terms not of opposition but of marriage joined togeth […]
- Episode 12 - The Eucharist May 1, 2020As Mark returns home from Cadair Idris, he considers how all the wonders he had seen consisted of the most commonplace materials: water, earth, air, and fire. Natural wonders always consist of ordinary things and costs the earth nothing, unlike our own attempts a creating marvels. This episode concludes with a reflection on the Eucharist in which the wonder […]
- Episode 11 - The Commonplace April 29, 2020As Mark heads down Cadair Idris and back to civilization, he reflects on the ordinary and the commonplace. Despite our thirst for wonders and extraordinary experiences, it's actually in the everyday and commonplace that we grow and flourish. Christ's own life as an ordinary craftsman teaches us to be content with our commonplace lives and to embrac […]
- Episode 10 - Wonder April 24, 2020Mark finally makes it to the summit of Cadair Idris and takes in the amazing views all around them. Reflecting on the nature of wonder, he argues that our world needs to rediscover a "sense of wonder" in order to escape loneliness and our incessant need to tinker with creation. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ma […]
- Episode 9 - Baptism April 22, 2020Mark uses the Norman font at Brecon Cathedral to discuss how the paradox of silence and words are resolved in baptism and how they have been related to the Incarnation of Christ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 8 - Words April 17, 2020Cadair Idris is a mountain of myths and legends: the chair of the giant Idris Gawr and the hunting grounds of Gwyn ap Nudd's hounds. Mark considers how words inscribed into landscapes become explosive, shaping us in fundamental ways. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 7 – Silence April 15, 2020What’s more silent than a mountain on a still night? Mark ponders the silence he experienced as he sat by his tent in Cwm Cau on Cadair Idris and what it tells us about our own inner silence and the silence we know as God. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 6 - The Incarnation April 10, 2020Reflecting on the juxtaposition of thick-history situated within changeless landscapes, Mark discusses what the paradox of eternity and time tell us about Jesus Christ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 5 - History April 8, 2020Mark recounts his walk from the Dysynni Valley where the layers of history stretching back to the Bronze Age hold important lessons about place, thick-time, and our care for the earth. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
Convivium 