HOLY WISDOM AND THE PANDEMIC

The following is the text of an email sent to Rachel Cooke at The Guardian in response to an article on 'understanding the pandemic through the arts'  
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/19/mary-beard-twelve-caesars-interview

Dear Ms Cooke,

I was interested to read your article concerning Mary Beard’s comments that the arts might help us understand what we went through in the pandemic.  Whilst realising how much Ms Beard has to offer and delighting in her presentations, I was reminded that, not long ago, society would have turned to religion to help that understanding. For religion was known to offer a fount of wisdom drawn from streams which have flowed for thousands of years from deep within the human and divine story.  Sadly, the actions of some may have convinced others that – far from being a place to turn to for enlightenment – religion is for bigots, fundamentalists, and the unenlightened.  But that storehouse, if neglected, is still there.

More than a prop or fable, God has been realised as the seat of wisdom.  People have been reminded of the need to treasure up God’s ‘words’, to ‘incline’ their hearts to understanding the depths of divine revelation and find the ‘knowledge’ that comes from God.  Drawing on these ancient ways the Church (and other faith groups) still has access to that wisdom of the ages to enlighten questions arising from the pandemic, and some of her members would be able to unfold this.

The outburst of that dark, hidden force was a shocking reminder that we are not in charge of our destiny but subject to powers beyond our control. Our forebears would know that we need to turn to God and say, ‘insh’allah’ – thy will be done - not in blind resignation, but with faith that God will bring life out of death and light out of darkness for God desires the good of creation.  They would (as many still do) pray: ‘Deliver us, Lord … from every evil … ; that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, … ‘ for the pandemic carries another, darker, virus – the virus of fear.  Faith teaches us to face life with caution and beware the danger of being trapped by anxiety and worry.  Faith teaches us to look to God as that creative source of life which lies beyond the darkness.

Ms Beard has the knowledge to open the wisdom of the Arts, but religion has the ability to offer a deeper wisdom, the divine wisdom of the ages contained in the pages of so many sacred books and in the experience of saints and mystics.  Perhaps you could find some room to share this, too?

With best wishes,

yours faithfully,

(Fr.) John-Francis Friendship TSSF

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?

PANDEMIC RESOURCES

During this pandemic there have been many suggestions as to how we might cope with the awful stresses and strains caused by lockdown.  Frequently the media report on a variety of physical exercises that can relieve gloom and despair; we are reminded that nature is a great healer and that time spent in the countryside, in woods or parks, can be very beneficial.  But few, if any, address the deeper needs that are often forgotten or even unrealised; the need of our inner being, the heart of who we are – that ‘immortal diamond’, interior castle – which needs our attention.  If we’re concerned with our physical well-being, why are we not equally concerned with the centre of our being which determines so much about who we are and how we cope with life.

The Church (of England) has so many resources it could offer people and I hope these simple Exercises might encourage others to share the hidden wisdom of our Faith which can be of such help.  If you have comments you would like to make or additions to the Exercises, do leave a message.

There are various ‘spiritual exercises’ we can undertake, and I want to draw your attention to  a few that can really help in this time which many find to be filled with anxiety and fear.  Firstly, of course, it’s important to acknowledge that we do have an ‘inner-being’!  That we’re more than skin, muscle, brain and bones.  That we have what’s been traditionally called a ‘soul’, our God-given identity, which lies in the heart of who we are.  And, because it is God-given, it is beloved.  We are loved in the deepest part of who we are and no one and nothing can destroy that love because it is of God – we don’t own it, control it or  have it at our disposal.  We need to ‘hear’ that, accept and own it – we are loved in the depth of our being, loved with Godly compassion, so it’s important that we practice sitting in that compassionate gaze which God turns towards us so that we can be enfolded in God’s compassionate love.

Christians realise that Jesus is all compassion, and any spiritual exercises are best practiced with him who – ‘though we cannot see him – is closer to us than our breath.  So, here are exercises you can practice – in the comfort of your chair or, if you have one, using a prayer-stool.  Decide how long you’ll spend – how long would you give to physical exercises?  Fifteen minutes?  Half an hour?  Here are some you might try – but remember, they need to become part of your life if they are to have any effect.

(NB.  You can download these from Google docs. by pressing the 'Download' button)

_______________________________

BEFORE YOU BEGIN:  A preparation

EXERCISES

EXERCISE 1:  Learning to breathe

EXERCISE 2:  Becoming centred

EXERCISE 3:  Simple exercises

EXERCISE 4:  Natural exercises

EXERCISE 5:  Words of life

EXERCISE 6:  Imagining the Word

EXERCISE 7:  Relishing Life

EXERCISE 8:  At the centre of our being

EXERCISE 9:  The music of the heart

JUST THINK ABOUT

REFLECTION 1:  PSYCHOMACHIA - psycho what?!

REFLECTION 2:  INSHALLAH - as God wills

REFLECTION 3:  CHRISTMAS IS COMING - without the kids?

REFLECTION 4:  LOCKDOWN AND LONELINESS

REFLECTION 5:  LIVING WITH THANKSGIVING

REFLECTION 6:  COPING WITH FEAR

REFLECTION 7:  THE ONLINE 'JESUIT GUIDE' - to the pandemic if not everything ..

REFLECTION 8:  DEPRESSION, DESOLATION AND DARKNESS

REFLECTION 9:  FULLY HUMAN

REFLECTION 10:  CONTEMPLATION IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC

A BOOK: The Mystery of Faith which is introduced here contains helpful information about ... Faith.

If you would like to be advised when other Exercises or Reflections are added, please send an email to: jff2209(at)yahoo.com requesting to be kept in contact.

_________________________

John-Francis Friendship TSSF
November 2020

PANDEMIC EXERCISES

THIS POST HAS NOW MOVED TO:

https://francisjon.blogspot.com/2020/11/pandemic-resources.html

John-Francis Friendship TSSF
November 2020

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 …

VIRAL THOUGHTS 2 - THE SILENCE OF GOD (Part 1)

WELCOME to the first of two short reflections on ‘Godly Silence’.

I WONDER IF YOU’VE NOTICED HOW QUIET THE WORLD IS?  Taking the bus to Tesco on Thursday, the roads were strangely empty and, apart from all the applause at 8 o’clock on Thursday evening, our neighbourhood is hushed. And so, it seems, is God. I’m sure there are many who wonder at the apparent Divine silence in the midst of this pandemic and consider that confirms there’s no such thing as ‘God’; or, if there is, God is certainly not good, otherwise he would have done something, a view which many embraced, for example, in the face of the horrors of past Holocausts.

Many have tried to understand why God seemed absent when needed by his people.  Some have realised that, having created humankind in freedom, God cannot step in and interfere – God has to remain hidden. Others say that to deny God in the face of tragedy would compound the nature of evil, whilst many realise that to take God out of the equation simply limits the resources we have to cope in such situations. And some, looking at how suffering is dealt with in the Book of Job, realise it’s right to cry out about it whilst not letting it become overwhelming, something that we also see in the way Christ lived through his Passion, which we’ll shortly recall during Holy Week.  They look at the events of that Week and realise – God is right there, in the heart of pain and loss, suffering and death, through the agony of crucifixion when even Christ cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’  Yet, in the end, he commended himself into the hands of his Father.

There’s a mystery to suffering which we can never fully understand, but one thing is clear. The generational upheavals societies experience due to war or disease reveal what lies within – both the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’. Without such appalling tragedies, would we ever know what lay in the depths of our humanity?

I WAS BORN a year after the end of the last World War and, for a long time, knew nothing of its horrors.  My generation were told “You’ve never had it so good.” and that, for many, was correct.  Occasionally some might have suffered from disasters, floods and storms, but it was people living in countries remote from ours who experienced war, famine and infectious epidemics. And I, for one, wondered at people who, in such places, were still able to proclaim their faith in God, who said inshallah, it is God’s will.  Could disaster be God’s will?  Is that what they meant?  As part of a generation who believed widespread disease had been medically eliminated and that any sickness could be cured by a visit to the doctor, the thought that pain and suffering were the context of belief suggested a cruel God was the cause.  It is God’s will.    Now, for a while, the West – like most of the rest of the world – is again subject to those twins of pain and suffering and in it all, there seems only a Godly silence.

FOR SO LONG we, in so-called advanced societies, haven’t needed God, “we’re all atheists now” one BBC news presenter asserted recently.  Only in emergencies might God be privately addressed, as some turn to this ancient Mystery for solace.  But we no longer need a supernatural magician to solve our needs.  We expect them to be answered instantly – at the press of a button – and forget the long, patient, creative and sometimes, painful ways in which those needs are answered.  Whatever lies beyond our immediate human comfort-zone isn’t of great interest to many who are satisfied by spending hours on their i-phone, visits to the pub and gym, holiday’s in far-flung places and Saturdays watching sport.  Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that – in moderation – but ‘Life’ for many has lost any sense of mystery and is merely something which ought to give us what we want when we want it. Now, when that life has suddenly ended for a while – and may not return for some – there can be feelings of dread, dis-orientation and profound confusion – even anger.  Our landscape has profoundly changed and we’re going through a seismic, spiritual shift.  Yet still some say: God is there.

GOD IS PRESENT in so many small and great acts of kindness and compassion, of selfless service and outreach (as far as possible). God is still there in the wonder and mystery of the rest of creation which, at times like this, we need to contemplate.  And God is there in silence, as God has always been.  There for us in the same way he was when another nation found itself in a wilderness, lost and confused, longing for what had been and tempted to complain; there long ago when someone sat, fearfully, at the mouth of a desert cave and wondered at the sound of sheer silence; there when a Man was driven into the desert for forty days, tempted to despair; yet where, in the silence of solitude, he found himself.  There when people flocked to the emptiness of the Desert at the start of Christianity.  There for those Religious who embrace solitude and silence. There as we must fast from that which we normally look to, to feed us.

GOD IS PRESENT in our hearts, a place some rarely visit.  When you’re occupied with so much else, stillness and silence can be qualities to be avoided avoid.  So, let us pray: ‘Penetrate my heart, O God, by the radiance of your glance’ because it’s the person who befriends these two, solitude and silence, who can enter that holiest place. 

MIGHT THIS BE A TIME, then, when our culture has the opportunity to discover its depths?  When, un-distracted by noise and activity, we can see what we’re capable of through all those acts of selfless generosity; when we have the opportunity of realising what lies within in the silence of our hearts.  No longer able to travel to far-away places we suddenly have the chance of discovering our hidden, silent soul.  But we need those who have travelled further into the depths of the heart, the centre of our being, to guide us on the way.  Those who have realised that prayer is more than just asking for things, it’s a way of heart speaking to Heart.  That’s the subject for tomorrow evening, at the same time, when I’ll also offer some reflections on the connection between silence and prayer.  In the meantime:

Be silent,

still,

aware,

for there,

within your own heart,

the Spirit is at prayer.

Listen and learn,

open and find,

heart-wisdom.

                             Christ.

VIRAL THOUGHTS 1 - IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC: Living the Eucharist

AT A TIME when public celebrations of Mass have been prohibited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are expressing real hunger for the Eucharist.   As I read some of their posts, I recalled words I wrote in my book, Enfolded in Christ: the inner life of a priest.  Although they were written with clergy in mind, I hope they might speak to a wider audience:

‘THE EUCHARIST cannot be contained within the church for it is greater than the liturgy we celebrate.  Teilhard de Chardin SJ, the early 20th c. palaeontologist, geologist, philosopher and priest, expressed this most profoundly in his Hymn of the Universe probably written on the Feast of the Transfiguration in 1923 when he was living in the Ordos desert of Inner Mongolia. Lacking the necessities for Mass he was led to compose his majestic Mass on the World which opens with one of the most remarkable statements ever made about the Eucharist as he realises the need to raise himself beyond any symbols to offer all that lay before him ‘up to the pure majesty of the real itself.’

He acknowledges that the words of Christ, spoken by the priest over bread and wine, flow beyond those forms to the whole Body of Christ. In fact they reach into the cosmos itself so that all matter is affected by them. His Eucharist may lack bread and wine but before him lie the elements of creation that will provide the substance for celebration. His ‘prayer of consecration’ contains a wonderful invocation that the ‘radiant word’ would embrace and breathe life into the depths of creation so that Christ’s hands might ‘direct and transfigure’ all that is brought into this Eucharistic act to remould, rectify: ‘recast it down to the depths from which it springs.’  Over what greater celebration could a priest preside? 

Teilhard reminds us that all are invited to ‘live eucharistically’, to live out of that great ‘sacrifice of prayer and praise’ and look at the world with wonder and awe, recognising all things as a sacrament of the Divine. He realised that Eucharistic spirituality overflows the Liturgy to embrace life itself and is made real as we seek to discern everyday holiness. The way we walk down the street with thankfulness in our hearts offering to God all that we might encounter – the joys and sorrows, brokenness and wonder; the conversations we engage in, the sights that greet our eye whether that be in a green and pleasant place or amongst the houses, shops and factories of a neglected inner-city streetscape – all are the matter for our ongoing celebration. Our calling is to incline the heart to the real presence of Christ in all things.

(Eucharistic) spirituality, then, involves living with the intention of making of each moment an offering to God. The Eucharist is central to how our spirituality evolves because it is the nexus linking that which lies at the heart of our relationship with God and God’s creation, the place where Divine Love is most fully revealed. To be lovers of God-in-all-things must be the focus of our lives, not parishes, schools, cathedrals or whatever. They are the context. But we are called to love God and to live out of his compassionate Heart realising that the life which we celebrate is one that emerges from his sacrifice to which we are conjoined.  Sacrifice is at the heart of priestly life, an ‘Act of Communion’ with God in love. It is the means whereby we attain and rejoice in our true, Godly, life.  At the altar we join all our small sacrifices to his one saving sacrifice and beyond the altar we seek to live sacrificially that we may share in the life of our great High Priest. For in Jesus we see how one person can belong utterly to God.

Gerard Manley Hopkins also recognised this and shared his exuberance in the poem God’s Grandeur:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil….

But it’s not easy in the hum-drum of daily life.  What often happens as we walk down the street or sit on the train is that we notice life, shrug our metaphorical shoulders or cross our metaphorical arms and get into a conversation with that ‘evil spirit’ who happily waits just out of sight, ready to cast a critical glare.  He plays some old tapes about how awful things are and gently leads us down the spiral into the place of darkness. It’s then we need to wake up and realise that the sursum corda is not only necessary in the Liturgy: we are not to look on the world with a critical glare but a contemplative gaze. And when we catch ourselves going down that spiral we need to return to the simple spiritual practices which can re-awaken us to the wonder of creation – even though the glory may be smeared with dirt:

May you be well; May you be happy; May you know the compassion of Christ.'

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When it’s possible to re-open churches, or where it’s possible to look into churches, I hope that the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed for people to see, for such Exposition is a continuation of the Eucharist and a powerful means of encounter with Christ.

Fr. John-Francis Friendship, March 2020,
extract from Enfolded in Christ: the inner life of a priest, p.110