REFLECTIONS ON ST CHARLES OF JESUS’ ‘PRAYER OF ABANDONMENT’

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.

__________________

Father, I abandon myself into your hands. 

To be abandoned is a terrible thing, 
an act of carelessness 
that takes no account of what may happen to the one abandoned.  
Only an adult can abandon themselves, 

a child does not have the ability to make this reckless act.  

For it not to be reckless requires trust in another 

and a belief that the process of abandonment has a purpose. 

Jesus abandoned Himself into the hands of His Father;

He did so with faith in the One whom He had come to know and trust.

Every aspect of who I am I gift to You with no strings attached. 

I cut all ties; I entrust myself to You and let go of myself in Your absolute care. 

I place myself before You as a child before its Father, leaving myself at the doorway of your house. 

I hand over all power to You and entrust my future to You whatever happens.

do with me what you will. 

As I give myself to Him, God tells me to trust Him, 

trust that in saying ‘thy will be done’ I will be held safe 

and that God will never desert me whatever may happen. 

What matters is to live in the present moment. 

I need to turn to my Father as a child might turn to theirs and look into His loving eyes. 

There is something liberating in living in the Divine Will, whilst needing to resist evil – 

‘Jesus, I trust in You’.

To know God’s will means turning to Him in prayer, and simply saying

 ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven’.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:. 

Let me live thankfully, eucharistically, whatever may happen to me. 

And when my heart becomes overwhelmed by sadness and anxiety, 

or desolation begins to cast a shadow over me, 

inspire me to give thanks that the darkness may be turned into light.

In all places and in all things let me see your hand and give thanks. 

In every blade of grass and every mountain peak may I see your glory and give thanks.

And when I cannot see you or sense your presence, teach me to thank and praise you.

I am ready for all, I accept all.

I know that both good and evil will come my way; teach me to accept them

with a necessary detachment and not be blinded by them. Teach me to love through them.

Give me a freedom of spirit to greet them and wisdom to know how to respond

as you responded to those who were the cause of your Incarnation, Passion and Death. 

Grant me gratitude and patience, courage, fortitude and detachment in the face of good and evil.

Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

My one will and desire must simply be this: ‘thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.

For in that prayer is encompassed all that God desires and it expresses all that we can desire:.

that the divine good might be accomplished in me and all that exists.

It is what Jesus taught us to pray for and we can pray for no more or less than that:

‘Thy will be done’.

Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

Take, Lord, and receive all that is your own

For I long to live in you,

to be enfolded in your love,

for my love to be your love

that I may flow with you.

Take my heart and mould it into the form of your most Sacred and Compassionate Heart.

for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,

‘From Love in Love the leaping flame of Love is spread,

for none can love except by Love possessed.

The love that is outpoured was first Love’s gift of love.

Give, give, and give again is Love’s own song.

For Love is giving love and there is no end to Love.’ * 

 Lord, you continually awaken love in my heart; you who are the source of love and life.

When I gaze upon your revelation in Jesus

my heart is moved and I so want to give myself to you,

to let love flow through me –

love for the one I love and love for the whole of your creation,

especially the most unloved.

Yet it is hard to love those who seem unlovely

and only by your grace can I do this.

Let me gaze on all things with your inner eye of Love

as you gaze upon me and all things

that I may give myself to all that I encounter.

* Fr. Gilbert Shaw: A Pilgrim’s Book of Prayers

PROVE GOD EXISTS

You ask,

‘Prove God exists’.

I ask,

where is the home of love,

the storehouse of beauty

or the source of music?

Tell me

where I can find the spring of joy

or the heart of wonder?

Show me 

where compassion can be found,

or where mercy and pity live.

God is the air I breathe,

the earth I touch,

the seas in which I swim.

God is the ocean of life

in whom we live and move and have our being,

whose offspring I am and without whom I cannot exist;

the One who is and was and ever shall be.

God is all that is most noble

seeking the nobility in me.

All that you and I can be

as we say our “yes” to that call.

What need I prove

– only that I am not deaf to that call.

John-Francis Friendship

January 4th, 2018

CAN IT BE TRUE ... ?

O come all ye faithful – and not so faithful

who enter walls made holy by prayer 

and praise. What draws us to these places, 

from our world of the known 

into the unknown? Warm memories 

of childhood security? Snatched recollections 

of hymns and carols sung to tunes stored 

safely in half-remembered recesses of the 

mind? A desire to touch the hem of mystery?

Or the need to connect with our hidden self 

– ignored for so long yet never leaving us.

‘God, you have made us for yourself 

and our heart are restless until they find their rest in Thee.’

Just the memory of a sentimental childhood tale?  But, suppose it were true?

Suppose divine love had entered our flesh.

Imagine we had been brought into being by the overflowing of love.

Dare - for a moment - to be open to the possibility that all 

that is most noble in our humanity

is but a dim reflection of a Great Beauty?

Suppose it were true that we had a great dignity, were

temples of wonder to that which we call – God.

Suppose, just for a moment, that we were not just 

dust, but dust destined for glory?  That God had entered

the centre of our being.

That, hidden within us, we had the ability to do great things - to be

godlike.  Then, maybe, we would reflect, just for a moment

and marvel at our self;

rejoice in and give thanks for that mystery, 

pause before the wonder of our being

and have the courage to say, “Father…”

Suppose, not just for this moment in time, but for all time

it were true ...

LATE HAVE I LOVED YOU...

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

Sermon preached in the Church of All Saints, New Eltham

at Parish Mass on February 24^th, 2013

Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new,

Late have I loved you! (S. Augustine)

X

INTRODUCTION

The scenes of bloody massacre are all too familiar.  Whether it’s Syria, Pakistan or America, so much death and destruction, often in the name of religion.  And still, at times, in the land we call Holy.  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it”, yet this is the place Jesus now heads for.  Jerusalem, the centre of conflict and heart of the world’s three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  The place where God chose to dwell in the Holy of Holies, yet still the focus of struggle and lament.  So this morning I want to consider just what kind of God we are called to believe in who said to Abram, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.  So shall your descendants be.’ And we are counted amongst those ancestors. 

I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB

Firstly, human experienced God through the universe in which we live.  Look to the heavens – and marvel at the stars.  For many, they are just that – lumps of rock in the sky flung there in consequence of primeval, yet ever flowing forces, which sometimes come to earth with terrifying force.  But for one who looks at the universe and sees beneath outward appearances, mystery embraces all things.  To the mystic or simply the contemplative, ‘the heavens declare the glory of God’ in all their wonder and power.

To the saint – whether Francis of Assisi or Seraphim of Sarov – all things co-exist and each of us is called to become ‘at one’ with creation. We are called to realise we are brothers and sisters of all things – and thus to venerate matter because God in Christ entered the material world.  All these concepts and more are shared, in one way or another, by all religions.  So why, if we agree that everything speaks of the wonder of God and our own mortality, why does religion seem to create such misery for so many?

When I see the heavens, the work of your hands,

the moon and the stars which you have arranged,

what are we that you should keep us in mind,

men and women that you care for us?

Yet you have made us little less than gods;

and crowned us with glory and honour,

gave us power over the works of your hands,

put all things under our feet.  (Ps. 8)

But that, if you like, is the problem.  We have power, the power of God, in our hands.

RELIGION AND GOD

The world, for many, speaks of a mystery that is called God and people have long desired to probe and explain something of the meaning of this word.   Soon we will say:  We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.  No problem there, whatever our religion. 

But then we affirm some amazing things concerning God: that he became human, suffered and died (impossible, Muslims would say) but rose again and lives forever.  Whoah, Jews would exclaim!  Not so.  The seeds of conflict are already there.  And so are they within religions.  Shi’ite or Sunni, Catholic or Protestant, Zionist or Liberal; religions divided amongst themselves.   And it’s no use simply saying that conflict is all due to religion: it’s clear that non-religious division exists within societies.  Tory or Labour, Republican or Democrat, the English and the rest of Europe.  We seem to thrive on disagreement, conflict and separation.  We are far from the little girl who, looking up at the stars said, “We’ve got lots of different points of view, but God has lots of different points to view from.”

THE PROBLEM OF DIFFERENCE

So, perhaps we should all be the same.  Wouldn’t that make the world a better place?  No conflict, no difference, everyone the same as … me…  When I am at my best??? 

Well, maybe you as well, but I’m not sure about her…

Yes, if everyone were like us that would be OK,

though I know you have some faults so it would be better if everyone were like me…

You understand, I’m sure, the problem.  Difference is of the essence of creation.  And, as S. Paul  reminded his readers, what makes us different is that we look for ‘a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (who) will transform (us) so that we may be conformed to … his glory’ (Phil.3:21)

GOD IN CHRIST

So this God whom men seek and in whose Name some will fight and die, the one who reveals his beauty in the mystery of creation, is to be found in Jesus.   

To proclaim that we believe in God is in Christ is not to say that we understand what that means.  Just that we believe that life is ‘more than’: more than all the boundaries we place upon it because of our limited perspective.  That we are loved with a Divine Love that desires to unite us in Love.  The mystic knows this: the purist may glimpse that might be true but such a God is too big for them.  The challenge of the embrace of Divine Love, the embrace of God in Christ, is too freeing – too dangerous.  Their need for certainty entraps them.  So they become driven to kill off those who want to make God too big.  Yet -

"… the love of God is broader

than the measure of man's mind.
And the heart of the eternal 

is most wonderfully kind."

So wrote Fr. Faber in his famous hymn,

Who can God be for me?  Well, S. John in his Letters tells us that those who live in love, live in God and God lives in them.  And that is the love that made the worlds and, like a consuming fire, will never go out.  That is the God in whom I am to believe.  The whole of creation, you and I, made for love, by Love and only truly knowable by lovers.  Science may answer ‘what’: faith seeks to understand ‘why’.    Who is the God in whom we believe?  God is love and all we need to do is abandon ourselves to that Love.

OUR DIVINE LOVER

During Lent I am reading the ‘Spiritual Letters’ of Sr. Wendy Beckett, whom many of us will know through her television appearances as the ‘art nun’.  In the opening letter she wrote:  

‘What we cannot accept is that we are the beloved, or to put it more concretely… that I am the beloved.  He longs for me, He presses on my heart with a tender, humble, hunger for me.  He wants to possess me…’   Always His love drives Him to possess – one might call this the prayer of living?  …  To be so loved and so wanted is so terrifying and so awful we can see why we shrink from believing it.’  (p.3)

CONCLUSION

In my work of Spiritual Direction I have the privilege of travelling with people who are seeking to live with a greater awareness of themselves as Beloved and to respond more freely to that Love.  It was this sense of at-one-ness with Love and the desire to be fully abandoned to God that drove Jesus on and that, finally, was the cause of his crucifixion.  And it was by Love that he was transfigured him and brought from the depths of hell.  That was the awareness of God that led S. Augustine to compose the poem whose opening verse I quoted and with which I will end.

Late have I loved you,

Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!

Lo, you were within,
but I outside, seeking there for you,
and upon the shapely things you have made
I rushed headlong,

I, misshapen.
You were with me but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,
those things which would have no being
were they not in you.

You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
you lavished your fragrance,
I gasped, and now I pant for you;
I tasted you, and I hunger and thirst;
you touched me, and I burned for your peace

Amen.

THE PRESENTATION

They came in faith,

as people do,

in answer to the call.

Approached the holy place

where no-thing dwells in silence.

Love’s altar

where all is consumed

and no-thing left

- no ashes or desires -

but sacred space

where God is All.

What, then, must I bring

to offer in sacrifice?

The precious gift of life

to lay on Love’s altar.

And in that offering

a sword will pierce through

to where the heart’s blood flows

that fire and blood co-mingle

as life pours out

in freely offered love.

LOVE ACTUALLY IS ALL AROUND

THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD (Yr. C)

Sermon preached in the Church of All Saints, New Eltham

at Parish Mass on Sunday, 13^th January 2013

X

INTRODUCTION

“Father, I’d like to have Jimmy christened!”

That’s a request I found was often made although, like buses, they either all came at the same time or there were none for ages.   It is, of course, an important event in the life of a family, as well as the church.  For us it means another member has been added to Christ’s body, the church.  For the family I guess it means many things.  From “It’s what we should do for our baby” to “We want her to be blessed by God.” 

Of course, it’s not just babies who are Baptised.  Many come to the Sacrament as adults (I was 17 when I made my decision to be Baptised and Confirmed) and Jesus, of course, was baptised by John when he was in his early 30’s.  Centuries ago the Western Church separated the one Rite of Christian Initiation into Baptism and Confirmation but, in essence they form a whole.

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

Today the Church, as part of the Christmas cycle, celebrates that event, the Baptism and - in a sense Confirmation - of Jesus.  All the gospels tell us that his cousin, John, presided at that event.  Matthew tells us that John performed the Baptism in the context of calling people to repentance (3:10): Mark actually opens his gospel with the story and speaks of the way people “confessed their sins” (1:5).  Luke tells us that John “went through the whole Jordan area proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (3:3) for Baptism was – and continues to be – associated with a change of life.  It involves recognising the errors of ones ways and desiring to live a new life.   Now that, clearly, causes questions when we baptise babies.  They can hardly repent of their past life.  Instead the new life offered through Baptism is accepted on their behalf by their parents and godparents. 

But today we also need to pause and ask the question, “Why was Jesus baptised if he was sinless?”  Well, the answer lies in the nature of this event.  What all the gospel writers are agreed upon is that he joined in a general movement that was occurring in Judaism that concerned how men and women could live out a ‘purer’ form of their faith.  It was, if you like, a reaction against the corruption of ‘official’ Judaism.  Groups such as the Essenes (of which John may have been part) were trying to live out their Jewish faith in a more radical way. 

So one could say that Jesus was ‘associating’ himself with this more radical form of Judaism; he embraced Jewish fundamentalism at a time when Israel was occupied by foreign troops and ruled by a puppet regime.  It all sounds very familiar!  And, if that were the whole truth of the matter, Jesus may have become just another radical preacher.  But we need to probe deeper.

WATER

First of all, all our readings concern, in some way, that most basic element – water.  Water brings life – and, of course, death.  It has come to symbolise starting afresh, and it has been used as the passage to eternity.  We might look at a perfect sunset over the ocean, but we know the destructive power of a tsunami. 

Water – life and death, hope and despair.  In a way, we have absolutely no control over water; some pray for rain, others pray for the rain to stop.  Like the air we breathe, water is something we long for, and something we fear.  Perhaps it’s those properties of water that make it such a perfect symbol of the grace of baptism.

Water is one of the most evident features in scripture.  From the opening words of Genesis, where the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep, through the story of Noah and the covenant between God and God’s people, to the Red Sea, and then to today’s anointing of Jesus’ ministry through his own baptism, water has woven the story of God’s life and ours together.

Baptismal water flows today: in our passage from Isaiah, we’re reminded that even as we pass through raging waters, God is with us.  Overflowing rivers will not drown God’s people.  And why?  Because the word of the Lord – those wonderfully reassuring words – through Isaiah says, “Do not fear not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Of course water here is an image.  Earthly water and fire – another image in today’s passage – can do us bodily harm.  Water and fire bring life and death.  But when we dig deeper we realize that God is reminding us that no earthly thing can keep us from the love and comfort of God.  Even if nature overwhelms our bodies, God’s spirit is with us.  God’s love comforts and heals.  This isn't just an historical telling of the start of Jesus’ ministry. This message is for us, too. But you might say, we know this story. We know it’s important to be baptized. But do we take our baptisms seriously today?  We certainly still take water seriously, its ability to affect both life and death, but if we really took our baptism seriously, wouldn’t our world and our church look different? 

Think about those promises we all made at our baptism, or were made for us – promises we renew each Easter at the Great Vigil Mass of Easter:

-           We promised to keep alive the apostles’ teachings and the prayers. 

-           We promised, as those people did at the Jordan, to acknowledge our sins, repent, and           return to the Lord. 

-           We promised to see Christ in each other and to respect the dignity of every human being.

-           We promised to work for justice and peace.

We didn’t promise just to think all these things would be nice.  We promised to DO something about them – to WORK for them.  That’s what we are reminded of today.

That is why we have a lectionary cycle.  It is why the church asks us to consider the story of our salvation, and everything that entails, over three years’ of readings.  It helps us to look at all God has done for us; to remember that no matter what, God cares deeply for us and promises to be our strength.  Hearing again and again the story of John and Jesus at the Jordan should cement in our minds that we must keep the mission and ministry of Jesus alive.

A RE-CREATING GOD

So we know it’s through Baptism we are to share in this new life in Christ.  And all the gospels recount that the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus.  Here is a new creation made possible by God.  And here is God saying to Jesus, and to us, you are my beloved.  Perhaps this is the most important message the church has to preach to our society.  We are loved more deeply and more intimately than we can ever imagine.  And the more we love, the more we reveal the glory of God.  I sometimes try and focus on this fact.  Walking down the street, travelling on the tube, sitting in the park – all this, all this abundance of life – is given because of love.  It can fill the heart with wonder.  The trouble is, most of us, most of the time, don’t even notice. 

In a society where makeovers appealing to our insecurities and doubting our worth, occupy the TV networks to an alarming extent, we need to shout out to people that they are beautiful in the sight of God.  Open your eyes and see the signs of glory in your lives.

CONCLUSION
Today, in churches around the world, people are still being baptized, still being washed in the living waters, still thirsting for God's grace and a word of forgiveness and life, still waiting to be included, to find their place in the story of healing and salvation, still longing for the chance to start their life again.  And there is that voice constantly speaking to each of us: ‘You are mine, and I love you.’

It’s easy to feel that things are getting worse and wonder what God is doing, but this Feast, together with last week’s celebration of the Epiphany, proclaims the manifestation of love.  Divine Love in the darkness.  Love actually, as the film maintained, is all around, creating, sustaining and revealing.  For all men and women – and the whole of creation – is God’s beloved.

Amen.