Advent in Community

Join with us as we practise community this Advent.

We approach Advent in a time of global turbulence. Violence across the world is destroying lives and communities. The climate emergency, economic hardship, widening inequality, the rise of the far-right, anti-migrant policies, restrictions on the right to protest, the list goes on… 

We do not turn away from these realities, we choose to face them and journey towards them in Community. Voices and actions for justice and peace persist. Communities continue to resist oppression, campaigners demand climate action, and people of faith and goodwill come together to nurture compassion, creativity, and resilience. We keep hope alive when we work together for peace and justice.  

We are convinced that the radical, inclusive community we seek must be embodied in the community we practise. Join us as we practise community this Advent, the season of anticipation.

You do not have to be in membership of the Iona Community to participate in this Advent series. But if you are interested in becoming a Friend or Associate Member of the Iona Community you can find out more here.

Advent activities

Advent in Community Conversations
1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd December
7pm GMT Online

Join with Iona Community leader, Ruth Harvey as she hosts conversations with intentional communities, local and global, each Monday of Advent. These evenings will be an opportunity to learn and share with other intentional communities about the importance of practising community in these challenging times.

Registration will open in November – sign up to our newsletter below to find out when registration is available.

Advent readings with Wild Goose Publications
4th December 7pm GMT Online

Join us for an evening of Advent poetry and prose, read by a number of Wild Goose Publication Authors.

Though you don’t need to wait until then to get your Advent and Christmas books.

Registration will open in November – sign up to our newsletter below to find out when registration is available.

Prayers and Poems of Want
Wild Goose Resource Group in collaboration with Pádraig Ó Tuama
12th December 7 – 8:30pm GMT Online – please note this event will not be recorded.

Join Pádraig Ó Tuama as he considers this everyday, but complicated, word Want. To want something means two things: we desire it, but we also lack it. Poems are a perfect exploration for this. “Sometimes I prayed so hard for God to materialise at teh foot of my bed / it would start to happen; // then I’d beg it to stop, and it would.” Marie Howe writes. We want what we want until we have it and then we want the want again. Oh the conundrum, especially in a time of gifts, and what lurks beneath a gift.  

Expect poems, questions, discussions. Bring a friend. Bring a cup of tea. Wear your slippers.  

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet from Ireland. He presents Poetry Unbound from On Being studios, and his two 2025 books are Kitchen Hymns and 44 Poems on Being with Each Other. More importantly, he’s a fan of the Wild Goose Resource Group, and loves any collaboration and troublemaking with this delicious network of people.

Registration will open in November – sign up to our newsletter below to find out when registration is available.

Second Sunday Sing
Wild Goose Resource Group
14th December 3 – 5pm In person/ Onsite at Gorbals Parish Church, Glasgow – please note this event is not available online.

No need to register. You’re welcome to just turn up at Gorbals Parish Church on the day.

Iona Abbey in Winter

Keep an eye on our social media channels for glimpses of Iona Abbey and surroundings in winter. Accompanied with sounds and songs recorded on Iona by staff and volunteers. For those not on social media – we’ll try to provide them on our website too, watch this space.

Advocacy for Advent

In collaboration with our Common Concern Networks we will be providing an action for justice and peace that we can all participate in together this Advent. More information coming soon

Carrying a candle

Carrying a candle
from one little place of shelter
to another
is an act of love.
To move through the huge
and hungry darkness, step by step,
against the invisible wind
that blows for ever around the world,
carrying a candle,
is an act of foolhardy hope.

Surely it will be blown out:
the wind is contemptuous,
the darkness cannot comprehend it.
How much light can this tiny flame shed
on all the great issues of the day?
It is as helpless as a newborn child.

Look how the human hand,
that cradles it, has become translucent:
fragile and beautiful; foolish and loving.
Step by step.

The wind is stronger than this hand,
and the darkness infinite
around this tiny here-and-now flame
that wavers, but keeps burning:
carried with such care
through an uncaring world
from one little place of shelter to another.
An act of love.

The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness can never put it out.

Jan Sutch Pickard