GraceStreet- a company of exiles

The Anguish of an Absence

The terrible mystery of Holy Saturday, its abyss of silence, has thus acquired a crushing reality in these days of ours. Cardinal Ratzinger

the day of that unprecedented paradox we express in the Creed with the words: “Descended into hell”, became a partaker of our solitudes.

The empty day…The King Sleeps and there is a great silence over the land.

the day of that unprecedented paradox we express in the Creed with the words: “Descended into hell”, became a partaker of our solitudes.

a future not our own.

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Archbishop Oscar Romero

Gethsemane

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." He took along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to feel sorrow and distress. Then he said to them, "My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me." He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will. "When he returned to his disciples he found them asleep. He said to Peter, "So you could not keep watch with me for one hour? Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:36-41.

Diaspora and servanthood

Len at www.nextreformation.com

There are times when.. I just don’t how else to say this.. it seems that large churches generate a dynamic that is simply hostile to the gospel. Business models overtake ecclesial life. At this point they become more interested in preserving their life, or in preserving their image (success) than in the kingdom of God, and this becomes a violent and oppressive dynamic. The alternative.. simple and small. Paul at Prodigal Kiwis writes,

“Listening to Hauerwas recently I was drawn particularly to Karl Rahner’s notion of the church as having been scattered and marginalised.

Thomas Merton said that,

“The diaspora imagined by Father [Karl] Rahner may well call for the small, poor, isolated and unknown monastery instead of the illustrious plants of our great American communities. The monk will have an important place in that diaspora, not as a pious organization man, but as a true servant of God.”

Now substitute “church” for “monastery” and “layperson” for “monk”. Or, rework the paragraph so that, for example, it might read:

The scattering and marginality characteristic of the Church in the post-Christendom West may well call for small, poor, isolated (maybe even “new monastic”) church communities, communities centered on a rhythm and service which focus less on the institution and established forms of church and more on discerning God’s healing and loving activity in the ordinary and everyday life of the wider communities of which we are a part. Around worship, the contemplative and mystical, praxis and the invitations of God, new church communities will form, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the love of God and the cruciform love of the “other” (the work of community-building and mission).

                                                             

Forgiveness is to the soul what a trade wind is to a sailboat. 

Holy Week

 

‘It was not to man’s future, but to a present holy God that Christ Himself poured out His dying soul. It was into God’s hands He committed His Spirit, not to a future that would do Him justice’. - PT Forsyth, ’Missions the Soul of Civilisation’. Christian World Pulpit, 4 May 1910, 275.

As Julian of Norwich wrote:

“Therefore we can with his grace and his help persevere in spiritual contemplation, with endless wonder at this high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his goodness has for us; and therefore we may with reverence ask from our lover all that we will, for our natural will is to have God, and God’s good will is to have us, and we can never stop willing or loving until we possess him in the fullness of joy.”