Burnham Abbey

The Society of the Precious Blood

an Anglican Contemplative Community

"The reason you have come together is that you may have one heart and one mind entirely centred upon God" – so wrote St Augustine, in the 5th century, to a group of Christians who had come together for just that reason.

Down the centuries God has called some people to come aside, away from the business of the world, to worship him and to seek him in spirit and truth – a truth that gradually opens our hearts to embrace the needs of the whole world in prayer. It is good to have companions on the way, and that is what a Christian Community is – a group of friends traveling on the spiritual journey together. As the group expands so the need is felt for some sort of structure to hold it together, and that is why St Augustine wrote the letter which has become known as The Rule of St Augustine.

Mother Millicent Mary chose this early monastic rule on which to base the spirituality of the group of women who began to gather around her when she first took her Vows in Birmingham, in 1905,  while working as a Parish Sister at St Jude’s Bright Street.

Click to enlarge pictures

The little group was led to come further apart, and eventually became a contemplative community and in 1916 found its home at Burnham Abbey . This had been a house of Augustinian Canonesses before the Reformation. It was dissolved by Henry VIII and later became, first a private house, and then farm buildings until finally part of it was restored in 1914