Workshop 14 : 1.30 pm to 2.30 pm

The Revd Dr Jordan Hillebert is Director of Formation and Tutor in Theology at St Padarn’s Institute, the training institute for the Church in Wales. He is the author of Henri de Lubac and the Drama of Human Existence (University of Notre Dame Press, 2021). Originally from the States, he moved to Scotland in 2011 to pursue a PhD in theology at the University of St Andrews. In 2015 he took up the post of Tutor in Theology at St Michael’s College (Cardiff) before joining the team at St Padarn’s in 2016 as Residentiary Tutor and Tutor in Theology. From 2016-2019, he also served as Assistant Curate at Christ Church Roath Park. As well as teaching in the areas of Christian theology and ethics, he oversees the fulltime community of ministerial candidates at St Padarn’s Cardiff. He lives in Llandaff with his wife Krisi, their daughter Keira, and an ill-behaved beagle named Willow.   

As Hans Urs von Balthasar notes, ‘prayer is a conversation in which God’s word has the initiative and we, for the moment, can be nothing more than listeners. The essential thing is for us to hear God’s word and discover from it how to respond to him’ (Prayer, 15). Throughout much of the Church’s history, this process of prayerful discovery and response was closely related to particular forms of scriptural reading—putting oneself in a position to be addressed by Christ through the biblical writings and using the scriptures in turn to guide our response to God’s Word. In this session we will discuss some influential early/medieval practices for reading the scriptures for the sake of guiding our own conversations with God in prayer.  

The maximum number of participants in each workshop is limited, so book early to avoid disappointment!