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An Invitation.

Kent’s answer to California: Margate, looking across to T’s apartment.

Dear Friends,

I had a message from our contributor Doug Woelke in California, inviting all Agnellus readers to join in the on-line summer school course organised by RCIA in his Mission.

It certainly looks worthwhile! Doug writes:

If you could be so kind and visit the web site, click on the Summer Bible Study Tab, and take a look around.  Although I have a schedule for the course, the timeline is more for me to meet than for participants to adhere to…the beauty of an online study is that folks can opt in at their leisure. click on the Summer Bible Study Tab, and take a look around. 

You can visit the website here: www.missionbiblestudy.com I have copied the course syllabus below; as Doug says, you can take your time to get the taste of what the Scripture is about by concentrating on small extracts. I urge you to take a closer look.

Creation – Course Syllabus

• At the start of each session, you will be given a few short questions or ideas to consider when reading, pondering, and studying the source reading for each weekly session.
• TAKE YOUR TIME…you have all week to read and reread the references…ponder, meditate, and pray on the readings.

Course Outline

Week 1 (11 – 17 June 2017) Introduction to the Creation of the World (Gen 1:1-2:3)
Week 2 (18 – 24 June 2017) Creation:  Day One  (Gen 1:1-5)
Week 3 (25 June – 1 July 2017) Creation:  Day Two (Gen 1:6-8)

02-08 July 2017 – No Session (Holiday Week)

Week 4 (09 – 15 July 2017)  Creation:  Day Three (Gen 1:9-13)
Week 5 (16 – 22 July 2017)  Creation:  Day Four (Gen 1:14-19)
Week 6 (23 – 29 July 2017)  Creation:  Day Five (Gen 1:20-23)
Week 7 (30 July – 05 August 2015)  Creation:  Day Six (Gen 1:24-31)
Week 8 ( 06 – 12 August 2017) Creation:  Day Seven (Gen 2:1-3)
Week 9 (13 – 19 August 2017)  Review of the Creation Story (Gen 1:1-2:3)

Doug sent this picture of the Holy Door at his church, the Mission of San Luis Rey. The door is open, you are welcome to enter!

8 May: In the place of God’s presence

Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it

…this is the house of God, the gate of heaven.

Genesis 28: 16-17

Every place is the house of God, the gate of heaven. Often, when pushed and pulled by noise and movement, it seems God is nowhere – but break the word open and you have the truth: God is now – here.

How do we become awake and receptive to this presence? We might try two things:

The first: To find or create a physical space in our home or environment where we purposefully [and regularly] go to be open to God.

This is likely to be somewhere where we feel at home or comfortable. It could be a corner of a room in the house, where a chair waits, a candle just sitting there invites you to light it and a bible rests ready to restore your soul. Such a space works in a similar way that a church building does. A church is made of bricks and mortar like so many other buildings but you know when you enter why you are going there. Walking in, sitting down, you become open to God who is in that place. The dedicated space in your home becomes your ‘church’; through daily practice you have only to go there to begin the act of prayer.

Your ‘holy’ place could also be a garden shed, a bench in the park where you sit in your lunchbreak, or a place where you regularly walk. What helps is to make your going to whatever space you choose intentional, in just the same way that you choose to visit a friend or family member.

The second: Each day to purposefully seek God in a place that up to now we have found uncomfortable and that seems to work against any sense of God’s presence.

I can think of a few: For example, I rarely enjoy walking along Borough High Street, near London Bridge, where I sometimes work. There is no green of tree or plant to soften the concrete. The pavements are thronged with people walking against the flow of wherever it is I want to get to. The traffic is noisy. Why even try to seek God here? Because God is here and now. So as I walk along I breathe out my hurry and worry, and breathe in God with me. I pause long enough to see the faces that pass me, the cars moving by, the sky framed by the buildings and ask the Lord to help me see well, with an open mind and heart. Perhaps I will hold the line of a psalm as I walk along, dodging those who cannot see because their eyes are trained on the screen of their mobiles.

Where is such a place for you – somewhere that is a regular part of your life? Or perhaps it will be a time of day more than a physical place: perhaps the time when you first get in from work and all the emails are awaiting you, or the commute home on a busy train.

Seek God there, and you will find. It may not be anything dramatic or immediate. God inhabits the ordinary, and moves within the waiting heart.

CC.

April 20, Easter Thursday: ‘…while I was still with you.’

Image from: http://theproclaimedword.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/disbelieving-and-wondering-luke-2436-48.html

… While I was still with you…

Luke 24:35-48 ”

So if He was no longer with them, saying those words, … where was He? Two of the disciples, just returned from Emmaus, were sharing their memories of meeting Jesus.

This was when they became aware of Him ‘among them’.

It does not say He walked in or even ‘appeared’ so we don’t know how long He had been there, but while they were talking about Him, He stood among them. Perhaps Jesus’ reference to being ‘with you’ in the past tense, implied a different mode of presence from that the disciples were experiencing, post-Resurrection. Jesus, having entrusted Himself to His friends in His words and in the breaking of bread, would now be present ‘among them’ in the sharing of His memory and His love.

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus walked beside the disciples as they were discussing their memories of Him. He explained to them how to find Him in the Scriptures. Then He brought them to recognise Him in the breaking of bread. When they finally realised that He had been present as they shared His memory on the road, in the sharing of Scripture and in the sharing of bread, Jesus disappeared. Why?

Perhaps He had only appeared to their eyes in order to teach them how He would be present to them from now on. He would not need to walk physically ‘with’ them as a man because His life had been completely shared ‘among them’ and entrusted to them for the spreading of His Kingdom.

FMSL

26 March: “Is Christianity Dead?”- Our Response to BBB: Introduction: I am far from home.

Cross from a cave in the Tatra Mountains; many of this week’s pictures come from Poland. This one tells me that we are on pilgrimage, leading us through some dark places: “One step enough for me”.

One of Agnellus’ friends, who writes as Beauty Beyond Bones, was moved on Boxing Day to ask, Is Christianity Dead?

As editor of Agnellusmirror I felt moved to reply, and firstly sought a  response from Doug. He’s given a straightforward Scriptural reflection which is out today. Then, as our friend makes some observations on young people, I was well into addressing those when I was sent this link to the English version of the introduction to the Church’s next Synod on Young People . Pope Francis and the Bishops are inviting responses again, so read, share and respond!

I will be looking at the document during my discussion with BBB during the week.

WT.

22 March: Wayside Pulpits

Altrincham Market Cross

Early Franciscans, such as Blessed Agnellus of Pisa, our patron, often preached in the open air, maybe at a cross erected as a town’s Speakers’ Corner, like this one, reconstructed in Altrincham, Cheshire. The Reformation saw most of them demolished in England.

When we travelled to the North of England recently there were the usual old trailers, parked in fields beside the motorways and advertising  anything from the local builder to  sofas or insurance on-line. There was a cluster in West Yorkshire that reminded me of the  ‘Wayside Pulpits’ that non-conformist churches  display, with their elegant calligraphy proclaiming a Bible verse or seasonal message. ‘Prepare to meet thy God’ read one of these trailers, with a lot more text besides, too much to take in with a passing glance.

One of the firms that arrange these ads boasts that they offer 7-10 seconds of dwell time guaranteed. That’s 7-10 seconds of a driver not fully aware of the road – guaranteed.

The weather was worsening; just a few miles up the road we witnessed a collision.

I don’t suppose the church or individual who had these billboards parked there intended readers to be meeting their God so soon after reading their message, but this is irresponsible and dangerous preaching. It is also illegal. Time to stop it!

MMB.

10 March, Human Will VI: Renunciation of the Will?

 

 

Yesterday’s post ended praising the will as a vital faculty of the soul.  Today we are considering the notion of renouncing the will.  But why would we want to renounce something as wonderful and necessary as our will?  Didn’t we establish that the will is good?  That it is an ally of the reason and an enabler of the life of virtue?

It is important to reflect that when the idea of the renunciation of the will occurs in spiritual writings, the literature is not talking about the will in this vital sense, nor in the sense of willingness, as we discussed in yesterday’s reflection.  The recommendation to renounce the will is referring to that in us which is turned away from God in an ongoing attitude of wilfulness.

Perhaps if we look at the use Holy Scripture makes of the concept of the will we might better understand what we are doing when we renounce the will.  In both the Old and New Testament, the concept of the will is used predominantly of the will of God.  In speaking of the ‘will’ of God, we mean his designs, his plan for humanity.   But the bible isn’t a text-book, explaining God’s will in the abstract, as though God were one thing and his will another.  As an inspired text, Scripture gives the prayerful reader an encounter with God himself.  This is, in fact, an encounter with his will, for God’s will is not separate from himself: it is himself.

In the daily practice of lectio divina, which is the slow and prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture, we have the unspeakable privilege of encountering God.  This is why lectio has the power to speak to us on such a deep level.  This encounter with the living God elicits a response of awe, reverence, love, and above all, faith.

It is faith that is the important word in this reflection as we consider the concept of the renunciation of the will.  In the faith-filled encounter with the Holy One through lectio divina we are led by the Holy Spirit to give our very self to God.  This surrender of the self is not an agonised act.  On the contrary, it is a spontaneous response of love to the encounter with Love himself.

Giving our very self to God: this is what is meant by the renunciation of the will.  We place our whole being at God’s disposal – we give him our will.  But in giving God our will, we are certainly not left with a void inside.  In giving our will to God, we unite our will with God’s will, and we live from that “place” of union and love.  It is the “place” the Lord himself described when he says in the Gospel of John, ‘Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home in him’ (John 14:23).

SJC.

THE CELESTIAL CITY – Gothic Cathedrals.

May I share a notice from our friends at the Canterbury Gregorian Music Society. You’d be made most welcome!

THE CELESTIAL CITY – Dr. Jeffrey Miller

Posted on January 24, 2017 by helennattrass

Saturday 25th February 2017 10-1
Canterbury Cathedral Lodge
(small audio-visual room)
A morning workshop of talks and chant around gothic cathedrals
Jeffrey Miller holds research and teaching posts at the University of Cambridge and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. His principal interests are in Gothic Architecture in Europe, including its materialization and meaning in medieval communities. Our morning will consist of two talks and two singing sessions. The talks will look at how mediaeval architects related their vision of a cathedral to passages in the Bible referring to the Temple of Jerusalem. How were the decorations and adornments conceived and realized? Cathedrals were important places for the civic and spiritual life of cities. How did communities decide where these buildings should be and how they should relate to the layout of their cities? We might also have a sneak preview of the end of the world. Questions such as these will be used to frame the two talks by our guest. In between we will discuss and sing some chant for the consecration of churches (and the end of the world?).
Free for members £5 for non-members
includes hand-outs, music and light refreshments
Further information from: jonathan.butchers@gmail.com

Autumn Evening Lectures at the Franciscan International Study Centre.

Fr Austin McCormack will be speaking on Thursday evenings this term. I recommend these to any Christian, including those from Reformation traditions who may wonder what we Catholics are all about.

Start time 19.00. You are asked to make a donation to cover expenses.

The subject of the course is:

“What is theology saying?”

2. 20/10: What did God really reveal?

3. 27/10: How about Papal infallibility?

4. 03/11:  How should we explain the Eucharist?

5. 10/11:   Who is Jesus Christ?

6. 17/11:  What difference does Grace make?

7. 24/11: What about Original Sin?

8. 01/12: What morality did Jesus teach?

9. 08/12: Should we renounce the world or change it?

10. 15/12: Is there salvation in other religions?

July 22, John Cassian VI: Conversion of Thought

In modern language, we might say that the eight evil thoughts, as enumerated by John Cassian, are our “shadow side”, for, says Cassian, “they exist in everyone, yet no one knows of them until they are laid open by the teaching of the elders and the Word of the Lord”.

No one knows of them because, as we would say now, we deny that side of ourselves.  Yet, far from suggesting that the confrontation with our evil thoughts is a sign that we are back-sliding, Cassain tells us that this is a sign of progress.

What are these evil thoughts?  According to Cassian they are:

gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, sadness, sloth (or acedia), vainglory and pride.

To explore his treatment of each vice would go beyond the scope of these posts.  But, it is still worth noting that these tendencies, Cassian maintains, are just part of the human package, like it or not.  This is not such bad news, however.  The fact that we have the ability to see these tendencies within ourselves is a sign that God is there, providing the light by which they are seen (Conferences 23, XVII, 3).

SJC.