THE CHURCH POST-PANDEMIC

In my ministry of supervising such people I listen to the concerns brought by a varied group of men and women, from mostly Anglican and Roman Catholic backgrounds, accompanying clergy and lay-people in their journey with Christ. Without breaking the confidentiality of such groups, one of the pressing and fundamental matters emerging from some directees at present is the way their churches are not engaged in any process of reflection on what the pandemic has revealed – how it affected people's relationship with God and the positives and negatives involved – there are even, it appears, a few churches against such an activity.

It’s clear that some lay people have been exposed to a variety of forms of online Christian gatherings for almost 18 months (often not with their own parishes) and have profound questions as churches re-open. This is especially true for those who have discovered new ways of being fed and nurtured by what they’ve experienced online which can have given them fresh insights into their relationship with God through prayer groups encountered, sermons heard, or different forms of worship in which they've shared.

As a consequence, it appears that a number don't want to go back to church; that in light of their experience during lockdown, what 'going to church' offered pre-pandemic no longer satisfies. Whilst, clearly, this doesn’t apply to all I wonder how many churches are engaging in any organised reflection on the experience of the pandemic? A reflection that would enable people to talk about how it affected their faith-journey and asking what God might be telling us through the pandemic; what there is to learn and how we might now grow.

I wonder how many are engaged in this process or might consider such a possibility?

HOLY SATURDAY 2020 - Sermon for All Saints, Blackheath

“Let him Easter in us,

be a dayspring to the dimness of us.”

X

INTRODUCTION

So wrote Gerard Manly Hopkins in his epic poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland, a ship that, in 1875, floundered off the coast of Harwich and in which five Franciscan nuns, fleeing persecution in Germany, were drowned.   ‘Let him Easter in us’

It is such an odd use of the word; surely ‘Easter’ is an event, not an experience; a noun not a verb?  Yet, here is Hopkins inviting us to let Christ ‘Easter in us’.   But it’s a great way to look at the truth, the transforming reality of Easter.  For Easter is about an activity that does not apply to something we do but something ‘he’ does in us.  Let Easter get into us.  Let Easter come and live where we live.  Let Easter permeate our souls.  Let him Easter in us; be as a new day to the darkness in us.  

Tonight we normally gather, after the long rigours of Lent and Holy Week, to do just that.  To let Christ ‘Easter’ in us.  Not to wistfully recall a long-ago episode, affirm our faith or even to worship at a powerful and moving Liturgy.  But to be present before the One who can Easter in our lives; we gather because we want to be transformed, given new life, find meaning and purpose.  Isn’t that what each of us longs for?  What we really want?  To know Easter in us.

Poetry, of course, takes us to places that prose cannot.  It is a way of painting with words and, like any painting it looses something when you try to explain its meaning.  Its power lies in the way the words effect the soul.  It’s the difference between the women described in tonight’s gospel reading from Matthew (28.1f) as running from the tomb with great fear and joy, and the description of Mary Magdalene, in the gospel for Easter Day (John 20.11), standing alone and encountering the risen Christ who forbade her to touch him: she needed to take that encounter to heart, not to make sense of it.

St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans hints at something similar: ‘For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his’ (6:5).  Hopkins, on the other hand, reflects that same faith in fewer words: ‘Let Him … be a dayspring to the dimness in us.’

So here we are, like Mary Magdalene, before the mystery at the heart of our Faith, a Faith that is not focussed on the way we should live, or on the quality of life; not on creating a particular social order or helping people deal with pain and sickness, though it involves all of that and more.  Rather, ours is a faith that is centred on the death and resurrection of Christ.  It asks you and I to stand before that one event (for the two are one, though separated in time) and gaze upon it with loving eyes in the belief that that which you desire, that upon which you set your heart, will change you.  ‘Let him Easter in us.’

BAPTISED INTO LIFE IN CHRIST

This year we’re unable to celebrate this mystery with symbols that speak to us about life: fire and light; bread and wine.   We can’t encounter these sacramentals, as Mary Magdalene encountered Christ, material things which don’t speak into our understanding, but into our heart.  Although there is one symbol we can use – water.   If you can, go now and fill a glass bowl with water … 

We use water to wash and cleanse, to drink and enjoy.  But water also ends life, as it ended the lives of those Franciscans – and it can restore to life.  It is the ocean of birth and the river of death.  Hopkins was moved by the drowning of those five sisters, but he understood their death to be the fulfilment of baptism into new life, their rebirth into Christ, so concludes his poem:

Now burn, new born to the world,

                                                Doubled-naturèd name,

                        The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled

                                     Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,

Mid-numbered He in three of the thunder-throne!

Hopkins saw in this wrecked ship the lot of a world gone astray.  He compares it with the ark of salvation, the barque in which we’re saved.  He saw in the water the womb of Mary and the birth of Christ, and beneath the waters of death saw the ground of our being – what he called the ‘granite of God’.   Tonight, we can affirm our own faith in the granite – the Christ-rock: just dip your fingers into the water and make the sign of the cross over yourself …

None of us are immune to the ravages of existence; all of us are at risk of infection.  Sometimes it can feel as if we, too, are drowning beneath the terror of it all.  There will be moments, maybe days or weeks, when we seem to be existing beneath a dark pall, when it seems as if the storms of life will never pass.  That is when we need to hold fast in Christ. 

Eventually the storm will pass and calm will come; it’s then we need to make sure that that which holds and carries us, the faith which we profess, the hope which we have and the love which holds us in his hands, lies at the heart of our attention.  And there will be moments when we just need to bask in the sun of God: ‘Let Him Easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness in us.’

CONCLUSION

So, let’s live as Easter people!  Live the faith we profess tonight: Christ is risen. For “… if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Roms. 8:5)

This is the night when first you saved our fathers:
you freed the people of Israel from their slavery
and led them dry-shod through the sea.

This is the night when Christians everywhere,
washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death

and rose triumphant from the grave.

Christ is risen, and hell is cast down!

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life reigns in freedom!

Christ is risen, and the grave is emptied of the dead!

Let him Easter in us as we gaze upon him, not seeking to hold him but, rather, to be held in him who is our life and who offers us Easter.

Alleluia!!

GOOD FRIDAY 2020 - Sermon for All Saints, Blackheath

O EVER-LIVING GOD,

let this mind be in us which was in Christ Jesus:

that as He from His loftiness stooped

to the death of the Cross,

so we in our lowliness may humble ourselves,

believing, obeying, living and dying

to the glory of the Father

and in the power of the Holy Spirit,

for the same Jesus Christ’s sake.  Amen

(Christina Rossetti)

INTRODUCTION

At the end of the 14^th cent there lived a Recluse – or Anchoress – in a cell attached to a tiny church on the outskirts of Norwich.  She had grown up during a time when the Black Death had ravaged the city and, on the 8^th of May, 1373, received a number of revelations which, for the next 20 years, she meditated upon until finally setting down her ‘shewings’ – her revelations – in a book.  The name of the hermit was never recorded, but she’s now known to millions by the name of the church where she lived: Julian of Norwich.   Her book, the Revelations of Divine Love, has become world-famous and what she reveals is especially relevant at a time when we’ve been affected by another plague.

There were sixteen shewings in all and they concerned the love of God realised through the crucifixion of Jesus.  She received them sometime after asking God to grant her three favours: to understand Christ’s passion; to share in his sufferings; and to have as God’s gift three wounds.  Ultimately all her wishes were granted; and, because of the depth and profundity of her desires, we are the richer.  The second of these, to share in the sufferings of Christ, was realised when, at the age of 31, she suffered from an illness that brought her close to death and received the Last Rites of the Church. 

Three days afterwards, whilst lingering between life and death, her parish priest was again sent for.  He held a crucifix before her eyes with the words, “I have brought you the image of your Maker and Saviour.  Look at it and be strengthened.”  It’s an image that any of us might benefit from gazing on when we’re suffering – why not find a crucifix now and spend some time in contemplation.  What happened when Julian did that, she records in these words…

THE FIRST REVELATION: THE CROWNING OF CHRIST

“And at once I saw the red blood trickling down from the crown of thorns, hot, fresh and plentiful, … At the same moment the Trinity filled me full of heartfelt joy, and I knew that all eternity was like this for those who attain heaven.  For the Trinity is God, and God the Trinity; the Trinity is our Maker and keeper, our eternal lover, joy and bliss – all through our Lord Jesus Christ”

What do we see when we look on the figure of the Crucified?  What did Mary and the disciples see when they stood before his Cross?  And the centurion, and the crowd of onlookers?   I imagine all saw something different: a suffering son; a dying friend; a terrorist rightly punished; yet another victim of foreign invaders.  Just another criminal.

A vulnerable human being. 

And what did God see? 

I pose that question because it was God-in-Jesus who was dying on the Cross.  We can believe that God ‘saw’ his own suffering and death; indeed, if he did not, then he could not have fully shared in this world-changing moment.   I believe he saw the love of his friends and the anguish of his Mother; the lack of insight in some, the superficiality of others.  The lack of interest in the onlookers and the fear of his disciples that they might get too involved. 

He saw it all, and more.  He saw the weakness and vulnerability of those around him: those who were scared and frightened of the consequences of being labelled his followers and friends. 

And he saw the depth of his own heart.  He saw love.  He saw his own fear yet, beneath that and stronger than that, he saw love.   And that’s why we come to the foot of the Cross on Good Friday; why we open ourselves to the love of God known through the death of Christ.

THE ETERNAL SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST

These Revelations occurred after three bouts of plague had ravaged East Anglia, yet nowhere in her writing does one get the impression that Julian doubted the love and mercy of God, became angry or disillusioned.  Quite the contrary.  What is evident is that she, like so many at that and other times, looked at the Crucified and gained immense re-assurance and comfort that God shared their sufferings. 

At one point in her contemplation she had a conversation with Jesus in which he told her that if he could have suffered more for her he would willingly have done so.  As she marvelled at this, she realised that – in her words – “though the dear humanity of Christ could only suffer once, his goodness would always make him do so – every day if need be.  If he were to say that for love of me he would make a new heaven and earth, this would be a comparatively simple matter; something he could do every day if he wanted, with no great effort.  But for love of me to be willing to die times without number – beyond human capacity to compute – is, to my mind, the greatest gesture our Lord God could make to the human soul.  This is his meaning: ‘How could I not, out of love for you, do all I can for you?’.” (‘Revelations of Divine Love’ Ch. 22: Ninth Revelation)

‘How could I not, out of love for you, do all I can for you?’  That is the truth of this moment in time, a truth upon which we’re invited to dwell.  Not how terrible is the suffering, yet that is true.  Nor how sad the fact that few will gather at the Cross, and that is true also; perhaps, if more did, they would realise why these three holy days, this Sacred Triduum is of such profound importance, for they teach us all there is to know about being human.  Why, then, are so many of our church’s normally half-empty today?  For the truth Julian discovered, and in which we need to share, is this: how could God not, out of love for us, do all he can for us.  For … me.   Not take away the suffering – for to live involves suffering – but to share in that suffering with us. 

Most didn’t see that; many standing there had come because they’d heard that this man had done great things – the man they’d welcomed with such enthusiasm into Jerusalem just five days before – might he do something spectacular and make something ‘happen’?  But, no: this healer (he may have healed them), teacher and popular leader was now hanging there on a cross, like a common criminal.  Perhaps he wasn’t such a great figure after all.  Just another Johnny-come-lately.  So, with a shrug, they’re off.  And God must see all that, too. 

Could he who made heaven and earth not have ended it differently?  Snapped his divine fingers, waved a majestic hand and sorted it – and himself – out?  If there is a God, why doesn’t he zap the virus?  Surely, that’s what gods are meant to do – to save us from trouble and not get too involved.  But this God got involved.  What nonsense, the reasonable ones say.  It’s all nonsense or, at best, just a story.  And, in a way, they would be right.  As St. Paul would later come to realise:  ‘Jews demand signs, Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ nailed to the cross; and through this is an offence to Jews and folly to Gentiles, yet to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, he is the power of God and the wisdom of God.’ 

CONCLUSION

The God who hangs before us on the Cross is not some all-mighty, ever-powerful Lord but a naked, vulnerable human being.  That is the uniqueness of our faith and the terrible consequence of the Incarnation.  For the God in whom we believe, the maker of heaven and earth, was prepared to know what it is like to be en-fleshed – to be weak, frightened and lonely.  That is why women and men down the ages have been drawn to and by this moment.  That is what has inspired the greatest artists, musicians and writers.  That is what moulded our culture, this insight into God-made-man hanging, dying, on the cross who unites himself with all who suffer and die.  That is what spoke to Julian.  And we?  We recognise the nonsense of it all yet are drawn by the vulnerability of this man. 

So those who have the eyes to see recognise in sweating, bruised, torn flesh; in fear and loneliness, vulnerability and passion, a glimpse of themselves.  We identify with our God, not in his majesty but in his broken humanity.  That’s why God had to do this.  Julian of Norwich, like every other saint, wanted to know Christ.  Not just to be one who, like the bystanders, came along, gazed around and went home.  Nor one who wanted God to do something.  But to know Christ in the depth of her heart.  “And at once I saw the red blood trickling down from the crown of thorns, hot, fresh and plentiful.”  This moment which seemed to be ending in death was, in fact, the moment of glory.  For it was at this moment that the truth of God was revealed.  This is the moment which reveals the paradox – that out of suffering comes new life.  As we live through an immense pandemic that is what we’re, even now, seeing, as people reach out with compassion; break down barriers that have restricted them; find reservoirs of creative living, and – after a period when we seemed to have become a broken, divided nation, experience a unity forgotten by many.

“At the same moment the Trinity filled me full of heartfelt joy, and I knew that all eternity was like this for those who attain heaven.  For the Trinity is God, and God the Trinity; the Trinity is our Maker and keeper, our eternal lover, joy and bliss – all through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

MAUNDY THURSDAY 2020 - Sermon for All Saints, Blackheath

‘So, after receiving the piece of bread,

(Judas) went out.  And it was night’. (Jn.13:30)

X

INTRODUCTION

St. John records those words immediately before Jesus exclaimed, in our gospel reading, “Now the Son of man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him!”  On this night we’re accustomed to reflect on Jesus’ example of loving service as he washed the feet of his disciples and instituted the Eucharist; how, taking bread and wine, he says, ‘This is my body, given for you … my blood, shed for you.’  But those moving yet foreboding words are omitted by John.   Instead, he, and he alone, records that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, after which Judas departs to meet with the Chief Priests: ‘And it was night’. 

There’s a finality to those words that’s in marked contrast to what’s gone before.  It’s almost as if Jesus’ glory, the glory of God, is enabled through that simple act: “Now the Son of man has been glorified.”  It’s as if a curtain has come down and we wait for a new act to begin; we’re about to experience a primal, paradigm shift.  Yet John lets us in on a secret: whatever the night portends, there is, in the end, a glory to be revealed.  But darkness must come first.

This year the Triduum occurs when there’s darkness over the land caused by a pandemic, a time when many are anxious, many sick and many living in fear.  Lent has been a strange time when we entered an unexpected wilderness, wondering how long it will last – when ‘forty days’ stands for an awfully long time. Tonight, Jesus enters a deeper wilderness, a brief but intense period when all that he’d lived for these past thirty-odd years, all he’d preached about and declared over three, are put to the final test.  In his humanity, Jesus could not have known the outcome; we, with the benefit of hindsight, know that this Son of Man will be glorified, and God glorified in him.  And it all hangs on Judas.

JUDAS AND THE HANDING OVER OF JESUS

Judas, of course, gets a bad press.  His exit into the night after sharing communion was in order to betray Jesus.  That’s what all the gospels tell us, yet why would Judas do such a thing?  There are many arguments about his role and actions which stretch back to dawn of our Faith.  We shall never know exactly why he acted as he did: was he a thief?  Driven by envy?  Hungry for power – or simply given over to evil?  All this, and more, has been said of his motives.  What emerges is that, on this night, Jesus is to be handed over to those who sought his life. 

Or, might we need to view that in a different way?  Might it be more correct to say that Jesus handed himself over?  “This is my body, my blood, given over for you.”  Some have seen in this a profound shift.  Up to this point, Jesus has been in control, has eluded his enemies, been free to exercise his ministry and proclaim his gospel.  Now all that changes as he allows himself to be abandoned to those who seek his death.  

In his book, The Stature of Waiting, the Anglican priest, William Vanstone, argues that behind this act lies a constant theme in Jesus’ life: his self-abandonment to God.  An abandonment now fully realised in this final act of giving himself into the hands of others.  ‘The ‘day’, wrote Vanstone, ‘which gives freedom and opportunity to work is succeeded be the ‘night’ when there can be no more work and by the ‘binding’ (of Jesus) which takes away freedom and places (him) in the hitherto ineffective hands of others. Now he who previously exercised (power) passes into the (power) and judgement of others ... ‘

ABANDONMENT TO JUDGEMENT

And it is the power of judgement to which he becomes subject.  Jesus will be arrested, tried and found guilty.   He will be condemned, abused and tortured – physically and psychologically – and he will be killed.  All of that is a consequence of this moment when Jesus allows Judas to betray him, to hand him over to the religious and political authorities. 

Who can know the mind of Christ, the mind of God?  Yet this we know, as St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, that Jesus:

though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death –
   even death on a cross. (2: 6-8)

Jesus – God – becomes the subject of confusion, hatred and violence.  Our hatred and violence. 

My hatred. 

Christians have long thought of Jesus as the ‘scapegoat’, the one who carries the sin of others, who must be sacrificed to remove that burden.  But what if this scapegoat has given himself over to allow us to express our worst excesses on him?  Allowed himself to become the willing victim of our hatred … of God? 

So often anger is present in times of suffering.  God is blamed for the world’s ills.  Yet, without God to take the blame, whom would we accuse?  Without suffering, how would we know the depths of our humanity?  We only understand what it means to be fully human in the context of suffering, and it’s as if there are times, maybe times like this, when our blind fury at suffering and loss needs a god at whom to rail.  What, then, if tonight, is God beginning to show that he takes ultimate responsibility for the suffering which is part of his Creation?  Handing himself over to the consequences of evil?  Letting himself become our victim and then, through the Resurrection, revealing meaning through it all? 

EUCHRISTIC SACRIFICE

Alone of the four gospels, John does not tell of the institution of the Eucharist.  Instead, he recounts the act of servanthood and humility which has come to symbolise this night, when one of his disciples will be the instrument of his final abandonment.  His self-sacrifice:  This is me given for you to use as you will.  To be broken that life might emerge from death.  Only God could make that shocking gift.

Twice Jesus predicts his own betrayal and, according to John, takes a morsel of bread (the word is one that will later be used to define a Eucharistic 'host'), dips it into the dish and gives it specially, and first, to Judas.  And then Jesus quietly instructs him: 'Do what you have to do, quickly'.  What the gospel of John is telling us is that it is Jesus who gives Judas permission, even orders him, to do the job that he has to do; the Passion cannot happen without him.  On him everything hinges; here life and death, love and betrayal intermingle and contend.  This is indeed Judas's night, for his action becomes the cause of our salvation. 

THE SERVANTHOOD OF CHRIST

Tomorrow we shall recall the life-giving death of Christ on the Cross.  Yet it is on this most holy night Jesus ‘showed (the) full extent of his love’ or, as one reading expresses it: ‘Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.’  (John 13:1)

This is the night of foot-washing and self-giving, of offering a body to be used as a slave.  This is our God.  The uniqueness of our God who, in human form, humbles himself even to undergoing death.   Gives himself over to be the victim of our passions and, in so doing, shows that beyond all the hatred and violence there is new life.  Jesus will take our anger and rage to the Cross and set us free from its burden. 

We are taught that he came among us as a servant – tonight we see him washing our feet, kneeling before us to cleanse and refresh us and saying those words: This is me, my body and blood, given in love for you.’  Can we – can I – let Jesus love me in this way?  Can I allow myself to be loved by him, open the depth of my being to being loved ‘to the end’?  Letting even the ‘Judas’ in me be loved?  For Judas, too had his feet washed. 

‘So, after receiving the piece of bread,

(Judas) went out.  And it was night’.

Could we love like that?  That is the Love behind our faith.

Whatever occurred between Jesus and Judas, whatever lay in the heart and mind of that man, whatever his intentions and actions, Jesus ‘loved him to the end’.  And we are loved to the end, not just of our lives, but through all our moods and actions, our confusion, hopes, anxieties and fears.  Even those who would betray us are held in that Love, for this Love desires to draw the sting of pain from us that we might know something of the glory of resurrection life. 

And, if all that is too much to take in, then we also remember that he took his friends aside and asked them to spend time with him as he prepared for the final act of abandonment into the hands of men.   Normally we process the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose, walk with Jesus to that Garden where he spent the night before his Crucifixion. This year, we cannot do that – but might you be able to spend time between now and midday tomorrow in meditating with the Lord?  If you have access to the internet, why not tune in to a church where the Watch is taking place.  If you can, ask him into your heart and, when you have done that, don’t be afraid to open yourself to him.  Never be afraid of that, for God in Christ would transform your body and blood into his own glorious body.  For in all this the Son of Man is glorified and in him God is glorified.  And we are glorified in Him. 

(This homily is available via YouTube:

VIRAL THOUGHTS 3 - PALM SUNDAY: ENTERING THE PASSION

ON A HOT, SUNNY DAY like this has been people might be forgiven for not remembering we’re living under a dark cloud.  The weather's certainly encouraged people out and, I suspect, some will have flouted the guidelines about social distancing.  The past forty days of Lent have been dark and foreboding but now, suddenly, the sun has put its hat on and come out to play!  

It’s easy to forget that, for forty days (or however long) we’ve been travelling through an unexpected wilderness, where the loss of so much that’s familiar has been disorientating and destabilising.  The journey began, as usual, when we were signed in ash with the sign of our Faith; but quite quickly we found ourselves alone in the desert with Christ.  Our unexpected retreat had begun, and I wonder, now, what wisdom we can find through this time of silence and solitude and the dynamic we’re entering this Holy Week.

Last November I stood, together with a group of pilgrims from Greenwich, on the edge of the Judean wilderness where Christ spent those forty days.  We looked up at the great Monastery of the Temptation, the Quarantana which we longed to visit, but were unable to because we needed to move on.  Little did we know we’d be entering quarantine just four months later.

This year’s Lent has been profoundly different.  We’ve been in a wilderness where people can feel isolated and at the mercy of unseen forces and, like the Israelites who followed Moses millennia ago, might experience a sense of abandonment and loss.  And then, like the Israelites, what has formed our humanity comes to the fore. Many of them moaned and longed to return to the old days and gave themselves up to playing around rather than re-connecting with God. 

However, during these days what’s been more noticeable are the acts of kindness shown by people; the determination to wonder at life in the midst of darkness; the faith in goodness and desire to help, and I’ve given thanks for what’s nurtured their lives.  And, when I notice the selfishness of a few, I wonder at the narrative which has formed theirs.  How far has it been influenced by the way our culture has promoted the notion that competitiveness is good, winning is what matters and strangers are of less importance than members of the ‘family’. 

Today, Palm Sunday, all this begins to come to a head as the great drama of Christ’s Passion unfolds, a drama that’s been recalled two thousand times – mostly in a context of normality.  But whenever it’s celebrated in the context of tragedy – war or famine, disaster or plague – it has the ability to focus our attention in ways which can reveal deep and eternal truths, truths about patience and waiting, suffering and death, heart-searching and new life.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem on this day, he did so on the humblest of beasts, a donkey, so fulfilling words of the prophet, Zechariah who lived about five hundred years before Christ: ‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!  Lo, your King comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey … ‘ (Zech.9.9)  Christ, with humility, wants to enter our heart, wants to come into the Temple, the centre of our being, to our soul, and cleanse it so it can reflect the glory for which it was created. So Jesus overthrew the tables of the money-changers, those who sought to profit from people’s need, who filled the sanctuary and obscured the heart of holiness.

Two thousand years later a humble virus is not only over-throwing everyone’s lives and causing misery and death, it’s also revealing the consequence of that selfish narrative promoted by so many, that ‘I’ come first.  It’s challenging the sub-conscious ways we’re encouraged to want something, no matter the cost – we ‘deserve it’; a system that puts profit before people, where some become rich, no matter what happens to the other.  It’s helping us see more clearly what it means to be human.  And we face the awful truth of the paradox that suffering is an aspect of the road to newness of life. 

So, we’ll remind ourselves, as we always need to, of the fundamental truths our faith proclaims, truths people need to hear.  On Maundy Thursday we’ll enter more deeply into the Passion of Christ by re-membering the drama of that night – the example of love revealed in serving others and finding the Divine in the Bread of life and Cup of salvation.  And we’ll wait and watch with him who is there in the darkness.

On Good Friday we’ll be faced by the Crucifixion.  So often people turn from this day, forget its place in the mystery of life – want to celebrate as if suffering weren’t part of the process.  This year as every year – but this year in particular – we need to stand by, and venerate, the Cross if we’re to make sense of it all. 

Then we’re faced with a period when Christ descended into the depths.  He will enter the depths, if we open our heart to him, to cleanse them and draw us into life as he, traditionally, dragged our primal forebears, Adam and Eve.  It’s a period of great importance – Christ didn’t ‘rest’, he undertook that great work of inner liberation.  It’s a time that’s been ignored by the church in our land, but which, during this time of pandemic, needs to be recalled.  Our heart can be cleansed for new life if we allow Christ to enter that place.  That in spite of the murkiness that surrounds us, the sense that night isn’t yet over, he is there in the midst of it all.  That we need to listen to him and learn from him.  And then, on Easter Day, we can take a bowl of water and affirm our faith that this darkness will pass, and we will enter a new day though renewing our Baptismal Vows: I believe!  

The Sacred Triduum, those final three days of Holy Week, contain important truths and if we don’t enter them, we’ll fail to see into the heart of our faith revealed in a such a short span of time.

Today people welcomed him – by Friday they will have turned against him.  How fickle we are.  Yet Jesus remains constant in his belief that God held Jerusalem in his loving embrace, as he holds all things, and places his faith in the knowledge that he must love to the end.  Isn’t that what we’re called to do – to love to the end?  For in that way of loving, though it will involve – in so many aspects – the way of the Cross, is the only way to discover the life God has to offer.  This is the Christ-wisdom that needs rooting in our heart.

As we enter this week of Christ’s Passion, I’m aware some scientists believe this might also herald the time when the virus peaks in Britain.  This unwanted guest, who led us into a wilderness, will be overcome through our many acts of love.  This Holy Week reflects the way life can triumph over death, so do not be afraid.  Our attention needs to be turned to Christ who goes before us, who kept the eye of his heart centred on his Father as he prepared for what was to come.   A century ago a married Frenchwoman, Élisabeth Leseur, during an era of great suffering wrote these words:

‘When … life and the efforts that it calls for is a little painful and duty is arid; when I sense most keenly that there is in me something of the highest and the best, when I cannot find food for satisfaction in the midst of things and see people who despise the good and ignore the beauty; then I go to the Source of all Beauty and all Truth; I take refuge there, in ardent prayer, close to Him who gives the most profound peace; I concern myself with the God of humanity And I return a little better and soothed about poor humans, my brothers.’ (When Silence Speaks, The Life and Spirituality of Elizabeth Leseur, p.80)

This Lent will pass.  Easter will come and those seeking the Christ will find him in the mists of a new day.  Let’s be faithful to our calling and open our hearts to God as this week progresses.  O come to my heart, Lord Jesus!

You can watch a video of this sermon on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XB14c1fLBGc

VIRAL THOUGHTS 4 - THE BETHANY SISTERS

ABOUT 18 MONTHS AGO twelve teenage boys, all members of a football team, became trapped in a flooded cave system in Thailand before being rescued after 17 days as the world looked on.  All of them coped remarkably well – that is, all bar one.  For eleven of them were Buddhists, trained in the skills of meditation, whilst the twelfth was a Christian who he found it hard to cope with such sustained solitude.  At his church, no one taught the importance of contemplation.

I mention them because of the place of the contemplative as we enter Holy Week.  According to St. John’s gospel today, Monday, Jesus came to the home of his friends; Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany (Jn.12.1).  The two sisters, Mary and Martha, play quite a prominent role in the gospels; Martha seems to be the active one whilst Mary appears to be more reflective.  Luke’s gospel contains a famous account of a visit Jesus paid to them when Mary sat at his feet whilst Martha was distracted by the many tasks she had to undertake.  This caused Jesus to observe: “Martha, Martha. you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part which will not be taken away from her” (Lk. 10.41). 

It’s a statement many consider shows Jesus commending the contemplative way over the active; others disagree.  Whatever the truth, it’s clear he’s is drawing attention to the importance of ‘sitting at the feet of Jesus’ – contemplating him – and the dangers of becoming ‘distracted’ from giving attention to that necessity.  And that would certainly seem to be true when consider the way eleven of those Thai boys had been taught the importance of meditation whilst the one who went to church clearly had not.

Discovering our inner world

As I’ve talked about before, this present period of enforced ‘lockdown’, when many cannot pursue their normal activities, has spawned a whole range of virtual replacements: if you can’t sing and dance, go to parties, play sports and so on there’s a whole range of similar activities being offered online so you never need feel alone, never have to explore alternative ways of living.  Even churches are offering online services, some of which are clearly designed to prevent people becoming bored.  And none of that is bad, it’s just that we’re missing an important opportunity to discover our inner world, an opportunity the church ought to be offering.

A long time ago, at another time of social upheaval, a wise monk said to an explorer: “Go to your cell, your cell will teach you everything.”  Those words strike me as important now we’re instructed to self-isolate.  Some, of course, will relish the monk’s instruction more than others, although it’s clear that even in our ‘cell’ we can do everything to avoid being there, never have to face what the cell might teach us. 

Whilst this crisis is a time of major, world-wide danger, it’s also, by definition, a time of opportunity; some-thing which is a very, very rare gift to humanity.  And whilst none of us want anyone to be affected by this virus, some see one consequence might be that we learn some vital truths about this matter of being human.  We’re offered a time when, unable to connect in real-time with friends, we have the opportunity of deepening our spiritual lives.  Instead of attending events where many gather, we’ve the chance of diving deeper into the cave of our inner-being and find our lost soul, both as individuals and as societies.  Will we take it?  Or is that inner world so foreign we fear going there? 

Many, when they first shut the door of their soul to the outer world find what lies within strange, even fearful, but this is the home of the ‘soul-self’, the one from whom we can never be parted, yet we can easily ignore.  Instead of finding the silence of the cell boring, we have the opportunity to practice ways of prayer which can unite us with the Other – which is one of the great discoveries I made as a Religious (a Franciscan), when I had to spend 30 minutes each day in silence alongside my brothers – and realised a depth of connectivity which no amount of partying enables.

At one with the other

Those of us living in ‘advanced’ societies can forget the wisdom of the ages – forget the deeper truths that, for millennia, sustained our ancestors.  After three or more years when we’ve torn ourselves apart over separating from a Union half the country said they wanted, and the other half didn’t, we’re suddenly realising a need for each other in profound ways.  Life’s no longer about some of the goals we’ve become accustomed to reach for; greatness doesn’t come with wealth but compassion; and that compassion is enabled by more than just a sense of empathy, it’s enabled through opening our self, our soul, to the Other. 

Those contemplative prayer-practices many have forgotten, or of which they’re ignorant, have much to offer, especially for those needing to overcome fear and loneliness.  We’re part of a hidden communion, a communion of saints, who surround us and to whom we can open the door of our heart.  That deep, slow breathing into the heart; holding on to a word and repeating it silently with the breath; being aware of ourselves as part of a beautiful, alive and life-giving creation – all this and so much more – reading those strange books called ‘gospels’ which nurtured humankind for over two thousand years, but which have been discarded in one generation – we have the opportunity of re-connecting with all these ways which touch into the heart of our humanity, the heart of God, during this crisis.  But will we take it?  There are so many resources around to help, and I’d be very happy to share some with you if you contacted me for ways of developing contemplative prayer.

The two Bethany sisters reflect our humanity and our society: we have grasped at the outer world of activity and ignored our need to nurture contemplation.   Now, for a few weeks, we have the real opportunity to dive deeper and learn practices that will help all of us – change all of us so that the tectonic plates of our humanity make a profound shift.  Practices that will open us to God in whose image we are made; which will enable us to become more at-one with the world.  Spiritual exercises good for the soul – as well as the body.

Go to your cell, your cell will teach you everything …