The Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament is hosting drop-in sessions on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month for anybody who wants to come in for a chat or a cup of tea.

The sessions, which are supported by Samaritans Liverpool and Merseyside, are open to anybody, regardless of their religious beliefs.

It is a new project that commenced in July 2024. It is taking place at the Blessed Sacrament Shrine Church, which is in Liverpool City Centre, just behind Williamson Square, by Queens Square Bus Station.

This forms part of the discernment to respond to the loneliness, isolation, and needs of people especially family carers.

Fr Darren Maslen, Superior at the Blessed Sacrament Shrine, preached about it in a recent homily before the launch of the project.

In the homily, he said: “The Blessed Sacrament Shrine has been on this site for 39 years and its doors are open every day.  

“Because it is not a parish, there are no geographical boundaries relating to the people who come here. What I hear is that generally, the Shrine is a place where all kinds of people have found a spiritual home and some fulfilment of what they seek in life.

“However, since undertaking responsibility for the Shrine 25 months ago, I am struck how so many people who come here reflect the biggest social disease that impacts upon so many societies including ours: loneliness.

“Every week I hear of the same kinds of experiences in conversation, in the confessional, or on the telephone- loneliness; the isolation of family carers; carrying such hefty grief or suffering in family life, and that nobody cares and there is nobody to talk to- this is what I hear all the time.

“For the last three months, we have formed a small hub of people from the Shrine who had been working together diligently to set up all details for this project. It is meeting every second and fourth Tuesday of the month from 2.15pm in our St. Joseph’s Hall.

“Working in collaboration with Rachel Howley, the development manager of Samaritans Liverpool and Merseyside, together with her trained volunteers, the project, Shrine Friends, is a creative way to offer a solution to that ever so repetitive statement: Nobody cares and there is nobody to talk to.

“It is certain that by launching Shrine Friends we can become a practical influence for good in the community of which we are part as a eucharistic family.

“Somebody has said that it is better to light a single candle than curse the darkness. This project is a single candle to join the other candles burning in the Shrine chapel.

“If Christianity could recapture once again the simplicity of the idea of service, that Christ gave us, it would restore once more the meaning of life, and the significance for others of the work we find ourselves doing every week at the Shrine.”