Posted on: 22nd September 2025

Having recently started working with Leeds Sanctuary, I’ve been considering the meaning of "sanctuary".

I wonder - where, or what, is your sanctuary?

Perhaps it’s your home, or a garden, a favourite café, a library or a beach? For me, my sanctuary is a comfy sofa in front of a warm fire with a cup of tea and some knitting. But it’s also walking to the summit of a fell, standing laid bare to the elements, surveying the beauty and wildness of creation.

The dictionary defines sanctuary as a place of protection or safety. The word comes from the Latin ‘sanctus’, meaning ‘holy’.

Sanctuary is a place of refuge where we feel safe - a physical place – but it is also something deeper; an inner, spiritual place where God dwells with us.  A sacred interior space where the physical place is in communion with the eternal. A space where we are simply ‘being’.  Herman Hesse would argue that we don’t have to have a physical place for sanctuary, for “within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat anytime and be yourself”.

As Christians, through Jesus, we can find that in God’s presence. The Psalmist writes, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Ps 46:1). And not only is God our refuge; our sanctuary, but God chooses to be so. “Then have them make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). This reveals that sanctuary is mutual, relational, holy.

Henri Nouwen writes, “I am called to enter into the inner sanctuary of my own being where God has chosen to dwell”. He goes on to say that this sanctuary must be tended; “Our inner life is like a holy space that needs to be kept in good order… without prayer and contemplation the walls of our inner room will become barren”.

Prayer, silence and Scripture are not escapes from reality, but the ways by which we can strengthen and beautify our inner sanctuary. 

Therefore, rather than an escape, perhaps our sanctuary is more an encounter through which we are remembered and resourced. We are put back together in the presence of love, so that our sanctuary becomes a source of hospitality, where others can find in us glimpses of God’s refuge and grace. 

By Judith Marshall, Leeds Sanctuary City Centre Minister.

Leeds Sanctuary hosts communities and events, and creates campaigns and resources, so that belonging, flourishing and transformation can take place within and around the people of Leeds. Through the development of sanctuary spaces for those on the margins, we enable supportive relationships to develop and bring about change in people’s circumstances and society. Find out more about us at www.leedssanctuary.org.uk