A prayer for today

This prayer comes from the final verse of a song by Jeffrey Rowthorn ( 1978) which was used when the Pope was in the U.K. recently. In a way it is ironic as so many feel prevented from doing what they might by rules and hierarchy.

Faith , hope and love restoring,

May we serve as You intend ,

And, amid the cares that claim us,

Hold in mind eternity.

Caedmon's Prayer and Mine

A Prayer from the Northumbrian Community which states exactly what I would wish for my life.

This is a prayer to celebrate the life of Caedmon whose day of celebration is the 11^th of February. That seems a long way away from high summer - it is August as I write this – unless you look out of my window today and see grey rain sheeting over the Yorkshire countryside.

Caedmon’s Prayer

I cannot speak unless you loose my tongue.

I only stammer and I speak uncertainly;

But if you touch my mouth my Lord

Then I will sing the story of Your wonders.

Teach me to hear that story through each person ,

To cradle a sense of wonder in their life,

To honour the hard-earned wisdom

Of their suffering,

To awaken their joy

That the King of all Kings

Stoops down

To wash their feet

And looking up

Into their face

Says

‘I know – I understand.’

Veni Sante Spiritus

Veni Sante Spiritus  

You are a fragrant breeze – blow away all that is not in your will.

Words that come from three sources. As I write a man is singing ‘Veni Sante Spiritus’,

In front of me open on my desk is a book celebrating the Pope’s recent visit to the UK .

On the left hand page there are the words of a song  which include the words ‘Lord, I seek to do your work, touching the world with your kindness.' Something I try to do , but which rules and hierachies at times make difficult.

A few minutes ago I watched a web cast  from the American Catholic Council. http://vimeo.com/27732775 , A woman prayed asking the  Spirit to come ‘You are a fragrant breeze’  and then I looked a the right hand page in front of me  - a prayer in Scots Gaelic   - I t includes the words ‘You are a fragrant breeze’ and then the prayer continued ‘Blow away all that is not in your will.’

A coincidence some would say  - haven’t they heard of ‘God instances.

One step forward, one step back.

One step forward, one step back.

There are very confusing things going on in the Roman Catholic Church. The reports tell us that in the past few days the pope has allowed the ordination of a married theologian in his native Germany – the father of two children. ‘Is he so desperate to find theologians who agree with him? ‘was one very cynical reaction. Why this man and not others? What about married deacons who are told they can never become priests , yet who work so hard within the limitations imposed upon them.

At the same time in America Phoenix Cathedral officials have stated that females will no longer be able to serve at the alter – this is in contravention of established  practice right across that country.   The reason/excuse given is that this will encourage more boys to become servers and such boys are therefore more likely to become priests.

How can a less inclusive church be an encouragement to anyone but bigots? Yet talking to a cleric only yesterday evening he is finding, as I do, that on the whole it is younger priests who are the most conservative. Why is this? Is it because they are too young to remember the joy and freedom of Vatican 2? Is it the way they are being taught in ever fewer seminaries?  What about the charismatic Catholic churches in Africa? What would their opinion be?

Surely the call of God to choose priesthood comes from God, not from  negative practices by clerics– although of course the Church has its part to play in helping such young people to test and further their vocation.

Confusion

The Vatican has just announced a new list of candidates for the title of Doctor of the Church.  The list includes a number of women . Yet those same women would be excluded from so much in church life  - could certainly not be priests or  ever have any say in who would be pope. How does that work? In the  later days of the Latin mass they would not even have been allowed to serve at the alter.

Teresa of Avila has been often quoted as believing that she should be a priest – so she was presumably pro the ordination of women  or at least able to discuss or consider it as a possibility. Yet this is the same pope who has condemned others for this same feeling – forced a bishop to retire early for even mentioning it.

Is it any wonder that people are confused about the Church's position on this topic.

I would love this to be …..

I would love this to be …..

So many blogs are about such things as gardening, art, cooking crafts – things you would never have imagined making. Do they have specially shaped magic fingers?

Cakes are particularly popular, the more brightly coloured and sickly the better - put cake into a search engine and see what you get.

However, although I do garden and cook and enjoy both, God has placed something else on my heart fore this blog .

Philippians 4 v 6-9 Paul’s words to his beloved church at Philippi are what God is using to speak to me just now ‘Keep doing all the things you learnt  from me and have been taught by me and have heard or seen that I do. Then the God of peace will be with you.  

To priest is a verb

An active verb. A verb that goes somewhere and does positive things for God and the people . I know my grammer teacher would raise his eyebrows at priest, a noun, being used as a verb, and I did study linguistics at university, but nevertheless it is a verb. The person cannot be separated from the action of being a priest – otherwise they are a sham, a waste of space, a nothing. Wearing your collar back to front no more makes one a priest than standing in a garage makes one a car. I am not trying to denigrate the priesthood , but explain it.

On several occasions in recent months people have acknowledged me as a priest  - as someone serving my community because of my relationship with God and  my response to his call on my life.  These are people who haven’t seen me serve the Eucharist ,  and I certainly haven’t been wafting incense about, but I have been trying to put a few lives into a better relationship with Him – I have lived an imperfect life of course, but have lived it walking as best I can   with the Spirit. In Galatians 5 v 25 it says  ( Good News Bible) ‘Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep step with the Spirit’.  I see others around me doing their best  in this world to serve the people Christ died for, because of what Christ has done for them That for me is the priesthood we should all be aiming for. 

Male and female were created in God’s image and likeness, equal yet different. It is the “equal yet different” which necessitates the female embodiment in ecclesial leadership and theology. Jesus was quite aware of this, and so was the early church. Jesus, in his bodily maleness, radically assumed the feminine bodily gifts of giving birt

This is part of a longer discourse from the Prairie Messenger , an article to make us think by Marie-Louise Ternier Gommes

Male and female were created in God’s image and likeness, equal yet different. It is the “equal yet different” which necessitates the female embodiment in ecclesial leadership and theology. Jesus was quite aware of this, and so was the early church. Jesus, in his bodily maleness, radically assumed the feminine bodily gifts of giving birth, both in the way he lived and in the way he died. Jesus revealed in his total personhood that the capacity of women’s bodies to bear, deliver and nourish new life belong to God’s very nature. If this were not so, why else would the Son of God choose to take human form in a woman’s womb? Why else would Jesus break social and religious barriers by carrying on a profoundly theological discussion with a Samaritan woman and reveal his true identity to her, something that greatly unsettled his male disciples? Why else would the risen Jesus commission a woman, Mary Magdalene, as the first apostle to spread the Good News of his resurrection? Why else does the apostle Paul praise women disciples as leaders in their house churches? Why else does St. Paul stress so frequently in his letters that we are “a new creation in Christ” and that “everything old has passed away”? If this means nothing, then why baptize women “in Christ” at all?
Something tragic has happened in our 2,000-year history. Female leadership in the early church lost its prominence once worship moved from the private to the public sphere, now suffering from historical amnesia. The current ecclesial gender imbalance, in which women’s ways of knowing, understanding and witnessing have been relegated to the margins of ecclesial vision or are primarily perceived through male eyes, seals off a rich and much-needed resource for theology, spirituality and liturgy. Women’s fundamental human experience and her ways of knowing and living are seldom consulted in the church, let alone reflected in official church statements. Even in today’s time of ecclesial crisis and decline, women’s ways of mediating, perceiving and resolving remain largely untapped at higher levels of church governance. And so, church leaders stumble through mea culpas and feeble attempts to fix and to re-energize the spirit of the Gospel, wondering why it is not working. In the meantime the spiritual health of both men and women continues to suffer from breathing with only one gender-lung.
The Lineamenta (preparatory document) for the 2012 Synod on New Evangelization urges the church to take a hard look at its own means of proclaiming the Gospel, asking how to tap into the religious experiences of especially those Catholics who no longer feel at home in our faith family. This invitation to ecclesial self-examination could offer a prime opportunity to re-evaluate the church’s relationship to its own women and to listen deeply to their ecclesial pain.
The bIood and water flowing from every woman commingles with the blood and water flowing from Jesus on the cross in one great act of birthing a new world, recalled vividly in every eucharist when water is mixed with the wine/blood of our Lord. Jesus was flesh of Mary’s flesh and blood of her blood, having grown in her womb for nine months; as his Blessed Mother, at the Lord’s crucifixion it was equally Mary’s flesh that was tortured and her blood that was spilt for our salvation.
St. Thomas Aquinas said, “What has not been assumed, has not been redeemed.” Every woman knows intimately, even if she is not a biological mother, her God-given vocation to transform ordinary food and drink into the body and blood of a new human being. In every conception and birth God’s great incarnational and eucharistic work is revealed in and through a woman.
Why then is it considered heretical to claim that God could well call a woman to stand at the altar and act in persona Christi — my Body, my Blood? And if God indeed calls her, how is she to respond? If, and only if, it is not God’s will (all other criteria and claims are subject to this one) that women serve as priests, then how can the church’s bishops open wide the tap of wisdom and gifts in half of God’s image and likeness? For the sake of the Gospel, the need for the new evangelization, the spiritual wholeness of all God’s people and the overall future of the church, we have little choice but to engage such questions.

The pie

Todays writing may not seem to be very spiritual , unless one considers marriage as a sacrament to be renewed and refreshed each and every day.

The Pie

Since my husband retired he has been busier than ever. He arranges barn dances, feeds the homeless, mows the garden, cycles miles and paints the sheds and studies hard. We wonder how he ever fitted in going to work. He rises at about 6 or even earlier – a legacy of working in very hot climates, when he took language classes before breakfast  - something I have managed to overcome.

Today as I descended the stairs at a more civilised hour I could hear the sound of chopping from the kitchen. John makes wonderful bread. Last week he produced 5 jars of marmalade. Today he was making his first ever apple pie with fruit from the garden. The biggest bowl we own was full of apple pieces gradually turning brown. I rushed for the lemon juice – found only a drop so used grapefruit instead – but does it really matter if apples are brown?

I had breakfast, made tea and took mine into the office and settled to work.

Then came muffled cries for help of various kinds – the sound has to hit several walls if John is speaking in the kitchen and addresses me in the office.

‘Have we got a baking tin?’ This I interpreted as ‘Please get me a tin out of the cupboard’ – I ignored that. Then came– ‘Do the apples need sugar?’ ‘Do I use granulated? Is this granulated?  How do you make pastry?  The answers were, ‘Yes, No, and a brief explanation. He’s made pastry before.

All this from a man who, when I was very ill for a prolonged period, cooked dinner every day for the whole family as well as getting two small children off to school .

I just went into the kitchen. He has completely emptied the fruit bowl. The compost bowl is full of very extravagant peelings. The flour is scattered with a fine snow of plain flour – he nearly used self raising, but changed his mind. The work surface indicates that he didn’t flour it before rolling out his pastry. But he is a grown man. He can clear it up.

I’m waiting now for ‘What temperature should I put it on.’

But it will be a beautiful pie we will all enjoy - although it may take us several days before it becomes just a crumbly memory.

But have I got a man out there or a boy of nine?  Definitely a man , but one who seems at present to need lots of contact  - lots of support – as he ventures into the new world of his future.

A home study - Love in all its aspects

August  - week 3

Blessed be the Lord our  rock

He is my love our fortress;

He is our stronghold, our Saviour

Our shield, our place of refuge

Lord, what is man , that you care for him; mortal man, that you keep him in mind;

But you do Lord, You do and so much more than that -  You love us.

We don’t really understand, but we do so appreciate.

Amen

Prayer

For those yet to believe (Isaiah 55:6-8;)

In our case we think ahead to Liz and Shaun’s wedding  - a Christian  service where those who attend include many who have no real faith even if they are nominally Christian .

“Seek the LORD while he may be found;  call on him while he is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways  and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

For Christians we know

¹⁵ Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, ¹⁶ I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. ¹⁷ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit^[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

For those who are Christians and who seek to do the will of God in a particular ministry  - I think of those involved in such things as ‘Healing on the Streets’, the trip to Zambia, CBBC, ( Sunday school)  the hospital chaplaincy, feeding the homeless and all the rest  - a cry for power

Acts 4 v 29, 30 “Now, Lord,…. enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.  Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

Bible Study

We are going to consider today one of the great classic passages on love, one that almost everyone is familiar with, but too often people just read chapter 13 and failed to include the verse before  where Paul says ‘ I will show you a more excellent way’ and then goes on to describe love.. Also the first verse of chapter 14  ‘Eagerly pursue and seek to acquire this love – make it your aim.’

Many years ago a friend called Rene Catchelin, a great grand daughter of William Booth,  challenged a group of us to read 1 Corinthians  13 and put our names in place of the words love. So I read from v 4 onwards ‘Margaret is patient, Margaret is kind. Margaret does not envy, does not boast – I soon came to a staggering halt.

1 Corinthians 13 -  Amplified Bible

¹IF I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such ^[a]as is inspired by God's love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

²And if I have prophetic powers (^[b]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God's love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).

³Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or ^[c] in order that I may glory, but have not love (God's love in me), I gain nothing.  ⁴Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

⁵It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].

⁶It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.   ⁷Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].  ⁸Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy (^[d]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].   ⁹For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect).  ¹⁰But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).  ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.   ¹²For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as ^[e]in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand ^[f]fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been ^[g]fully and clearly known and understood [^[h]by God].  ¹³And so faith, hope, love abide [faith--conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and divine things; hope--joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love--true affection for God and man, growing out of God's love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Closing prayer  - adapted from ‘Shine, Jesus, shine  ( Graham Kendrick)
Lord, the light of your love is shining
In the midst of the darkness shining;
Jesus, Light of the World,  shine upon us,
Set us free by the truth You now bring us, Shine on us, shine on us. 
As we gaze on your radiant  love
May our faces display Your likeness
Ever changing from glory to glory
Mirrored here may our lives tell your story,
Shine on us, shine on us, Amen

A quote from a Buddist nun

SEEING OURSELVES CLEARLY

When we begin to see clearly what we do, how we get hooked and swept away by old habits, our usual tendency is to use that as a reason to get discouraged, a reason to feel really bad about ourselves. Instead, we could realize how remarkable it is that we actually have the capacity to see ourselves honestly, and that doing this takes courage. It is moving in the direction of seeing our life as a teacher rather than as a burden. This involves, fundamentally, learning to stay present, but learning to stay with a sense of humor, learning to stay with loving-kindness toward ourselves and with the outer situation, learning to take joy in the magic ingredient of honest self-reflection.

To this I feel I must add these words from Taize

Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us.

Let not my darkness and doubts speak to me.

Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within me.

Let my heart  always welcome you

St Kevin

Seamus Healey brings out the dark Celt in m. He tells ht estory of th esaint stretching out his hand in prayer and how a bird laid an egg on it, so that he was obliged to stay in the same position.  I am reminded of a time long ago - sitting at the bedside holding out my hand to a child who was unable to respond. I sat there for many hours while nurses and doctors came and went . I didn't even notice my own needs for drink, or food or sleep. I just sat with my arm extended. It must have ached, but I was unaware of any pain, just of the fact that she was unconcious They wanted to move her to another hospital, but even when the trolley came and I had to move just  a few feet I was reluctant. It was as if, when I let go, I would not be able to reconnect with this child I  loved so much, so beautiful in her stillness, and so far way. 

Eventually she recovered. At first she didn't know me, but I knew her and that was sufficient until fuller recovery came. We could carry on with our lives

Anything or Everything

Anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

I shrink from this thought. Do I ignore the people who don’t add to my posiitve experiences? Do I ignore the old lady on the bus who cannot really respond to me  - yet who is still grateful when anyone at all greets her and asks ‘How are you today?’

If I am honest it is easier to avoid her, more comfortable, so too often I smile and move on, glad that I boarded the bus with someone else so I have the excuse that I should sit by them.

I get on well with my neighbours , but still haven’t invited had my Chinese near neighbour, because I feel we have little in common –not least a language – but is that a reason  not to invite her?.

I have a friend, a Catholic cleric, and we meet each week.  We talk about all sorts of things  - but avoid one topic, which to me is so important, but which is difficult to express to this man who feels he cannot even begin to relate to where I am coming from – the whole conclept of   women’s ordination is so alien to his thinking that he cannot even bring himself  to look at historical evidence or the wriitngs of moderen day theologians. He is a lovely, loving man, full of the Spirit of God – so why on this one subject, does he create such strong barriers?    

Another friend, a Sikh new Chrisitsn, has so much personal baggage, that sometimes it is easier not to ask  how I can help, but then she smiles and my barriers collapse.

Being honest , there are a lot more barriers to be knocked down, challenges . to be faced.

Mathew 28 v 18 sets the standard – ‘Go and make disciples of alll nations ‘ This isn’t an option. It is a clear command to be obeyed or disobeyed I cannot choose one or the other when and where I feel like it. As part of the body of Christ I have responsibilities.  It was the fashion a few years ago for young people to wear braceelts with the initials W.W.J.D.   – What Would Jesus Do? My question is rather ‘What would Jesus have me do?’ The answer is obvious. 

What is laughter? It is life !

My youngest daughter just did not laugh. She recognised us, accepted hugs and kisses , even joined in silly games of Peek a Boo, but although on occasions her face could be said to be not quite as solemn as usual , still there was no laughter . Tears and yells on occasions, but never a giggle and she was 9 months old before she reached out, even for a toy. There was simply no positive response, yet we loved her nevertheless. Did she love us?  

Before her birth things had not gone well. I lost her twin sister at 18 weeks of my pregnancy, but Lizzie hung on. In labour her heart rate dropped as low as 18  - it could be expected to be somewhere over 130. At birth she was just a purple rag doll. It was well over two minutes before she took that first gasp  - was she damaged?  Was it permanent? – I fell into depression, deeper and deeper. But she thrived physically, met all the milestones exactly on time, and her language skills by one year old were brilliant  ‘Daddy gone work. Back later’, but still so solemn.

When she was almost 2 her sister started school and each day would bring back a book . That first week we had the breakthrough . On the way home we read Spike Milligan’s ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’ and the laughter rang out.  Her sister laughed at the funny words and so did she. They repeated lines back and forth, giggling so much they could barely get the words out.  Me, I was laughing in relief, in joy, in ecstasy . This mad Irishman had got through to my wonderful daughter when all else had failed.  She had woken up!

The harvest comes

‘I give every green plant for food

And it was so ‘ – Genesis 1 30, 31

The harvest comes  - sometimes.

Sometimes if there isn’t a spring storm to destroy the blossom.

If the fruit doesn’t get pecked by birds .

If the squirrels don’t arrive in force.

If the windfalls are collected before the slugs come.

If it is a good yea r for plums, or apples, raspberries.

If the cauliflowers don’t apparently get up and walk away.

If the lettuces don’t go to seed

If the rains come as well as the sunshine,

Then the harvest will come.

But the fruit of the earth isn’t just for us is it?

The world is to be shared, and so is its bounty;

And that includes feeding all the creatures God made – everyone.

So the harvest will come  - but not all for me.   

Thsi was a fastwrite for a course I am doing. Only after I was finished did I realise that I was actualy writing about my spiritual life - coming from God - but not just for me.