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Marygate House was bought in 1969 and opened to pilgrims at Easter 1970.
Marygate House Holy Island is a charitable trust, it is an independent organisation with no formal links to any church or organisation. It is a retreat house on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. We are here to serve Christ, our guests, the wider community and each other. Marygate offers a "Ministry of Welcome", whereby we provide a safe, welcoming Christian environment for people who visit Holy Island to stay for religious, cultural or educational reasons. Marygate facilitates the opportunity for people to listen and talk, to each other and to God. It is a place to encounter creation and holiness, in nature and in everyday life. Retreatants, guests, pilgrims come to stay individually or in organised groups. We have two houses on the island, one noisy and for groups of people, the other quiet and for individuals. We rely on God's providence and donations from our guests to provide the facilities, having no other source of funding. Similarly, we rely to a great extent to the work of volunteers who often are generous with their time and there energy. An ecumenical house we welcome all Christian denominations, similarly we welcome all Christian spiritualities. The Marygate Team forms a serving, loving, praying community, but is not a formal religious community we form community through our relationship with Christ and our commitment to serving others. We value service and prayer and work and take to heart the words of Brother Laurence and Charles de Foucauld. Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures – I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father. |
“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.”
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.”