Want to Donate some of your Catholic Books to raise up the Next Generation?

Brentwood Catholic Youth Service oversees Walsingham House, Brentwood Diocese’s Youth Retreat Centre, located on Canvey Island. The ethos of the House is based on the spirituality of Our Lady of Walsingham, whilst also recognising her role as the Star of the New Evangelization, the model disciple, and intercessor for souls like no other.

The House is managed on a day-to-day basis by a permanent staff team and the Diocesan Youth Chaplain has oversight of the liturgical life of the House. The staff team invite young people aged between 18 and 25 from our diocese to volunteer to undertake a year of Discipleship and Mission in their on-going conversion to Jesus Christ and their growth in the saving truths of the Catholic faith. In turn they evangelise the young people who come on retreats from our Parishes as part of their Confirmation Programme and Schools as part of their Religious Education Curriculum.



Every Tuesday the ‘volunteer disciples’ spend time in prayerful formation, often aided by a visiting speaker who provides training and encouragement to delve deeper in Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Magisterium. As part of the volunteer disciples formation Leighton Walker the Assistant Director of Walsingham House has started to pull together a library of Catholic books, DVDs, pamphlets etc, so that the team have a ready access to good formation materials to aid them in their spiritual development. It is hoped that these materials would also become a reference points for their prayer life and for further strengthening existing programmes and devising new ones.

The formation of the volunteer disciples is not only important in forming them during their time at Walsingham House, but also when they leave giving them the knowledge of what type of books they should be reading and studying so that maybe continually “Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith” (cf. Col 2:7).

Vocations do not grow on trees as it is often said, the future growth of the Church arguably depends on such initiatives forming our young people to be authentic disciples and missionaries, particularly through good Catholic books. Please support this important diocesan initiative and contact Leighton Walker, the Assistant Director of Walsingham House if you feel you can be of assistance in donating some books on Tel: 01268 515970 E: leightonwalker_90@hotmail.com

Leighton Walker, Assistant Director of Walsingham House.