Praying for Christian Unity

How many of us know that we are in the middle of the week set aside by the Church for prayers for Christian unity? I would guess that it passes most of us by without a great deal of thought. This is of course a great sadness, because we know that for Jesus, one of the things which he prayed for during the Last Supper was that we may all be one. He prayed this prayer in order that our witness as his disciples, should be testament to the world that it was the Father who sent him. These words are his final ones to his disciples gathered together before his goes to his fate. What are we to make of them?

I think that we have become a bit blasé about the whole concept of Christian Unity and tend to treat it as something which is no longer high up in the order of importance in matters ecclesial. We have we contend, more urgent issues to think about within our own denominations, and that the larger and wider topic of ecumenism can be left for a little while longer, for a time when our own concerns within the context of our own communities have been resolved. Well maybe, but it does us no good to disregard what Jesus himself prayed for, and so, one week in the year is the least we should be prepared to offer in the cause of true and faithful ecumenical action. The very word ecumenism refers to a “sense of renewal of the house” which as Christians we all inhabit together, by virtue of our common baptism. However, as we read in the Second Reading at Mass this weekend, we have from the very outset of the Church been prone to prioritise our own preferences and thus create differences. St Paul reminds us that at the heart and centre of our faith are the deeds and words of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, and we must never neglect or forget this. Of course, doctrinal and liturgical differences matter, and we strive with all our resolve to heal the wounds that have so bruised our fractured unity. We pray that with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the clear desire on the part of our Church leaders to steer the barque of Peter in the direction of unity, such wounds can and will be healed.

But what of us here now? What can we do? Well, we can make the effort to become involved in the work of ecumenism. As our new parish emerges shouldn’t we also be reaching out to our fellow Christians in common mission and discipleship which can be achieved by becoming closer and more united in our witness? Perhaps a group of parishioners might like to start up such a collaboration. If so let me know and we can see what can be done. As for celebrating this special week we are invited to prayer at Kingswood Methodist Church, Lambourne Drive, Wollaton at 6.30pm on Sunday. Let’s make the effort and help steer the barque.

The Chosen One of God

We have begun the new liturgical year and next week we will dive into Matthew’s gospel with the narrative of the call of the first disciples. But before we do, on this Second Sunday in Ordinary Time the Church always gives us an offering from the Gospel of John. In year A it is the exchange between Jesus and John the Baptist. In year B it is the encounter between Andrew, Simon and Jesus and in year C, it is the Wedding feast at Cana. The Church uses these Second Sundays to continue the “epiphany” theme and as it were, so as to “tag” the forthcoming gospel year, be it Matthew, Mark or Luke, with a Johannine sub-heading, which puts into our minds a particular feature about the nature of Jesus. In year C we are told that Jesus let his glory be shown. In Year B we are invited by Jesus to come and see and be taught by him and in Year A, as we will read this weekend, Jesus is identified as the Chosen one of God.

In Matthew’s gospel this theme of Jesus as the Chosen One is specifically addressed by Matthew who quotes from the prophet Isaiah, equating Jesus with the Servant of the Lord. Here is my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, the favourite of my soul (Mat Ch 12 v 18). It makes us call to mind the voice of the Father on the mount of the Transfiguration: This is my Son, the beloved; he enjoys my favour. Clearly Matthew is identifying Jesus with the figure of the servant, as the one who will be the light to the nations so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Indeed, Matthew will close his gospel with these very words, endorsing the truth that Jesus is the one who has been given the authority to command the apostles to go and make disciples of all the nations.

Here then is something that we can all focus on. As disciples ourselves, chosen by the Chosen One to be advocates of his message of diaconal service, we can by keeping these thoughts in our minds, pick up on the challenge of living out our own service of the word in our daily lives. Our understanding of what this means and implies will be deepened and widened by what we hear Sunday after Sunday in our reading of Matthew’s Gospel. That the example of servant leadership which Jesus lives out can become the model that all leaders, both religious and secular, strive to express. As we discover anew and explore the treasures of the Matthew’s gospel, we must be willing to open up its store of delights, to be shared amongst us, so that each one of us can find that what is being offered to the words are pearls of greatest value.

Arise, shine out for your light has come

Friday’s feast of the Epiphany and today’s celebration of the Baptism of Jesus have much in common. Both are experiences of revelation. Both present Christ to the world. Both display the divinity of Christ as a ‘showing forth’ of the Word or Logos. Both express Christ as incarnated and made present amongst us. It is our response to this reality which marks us out as Christian. The challenge we have, as we begin this new year of the Lord 2023 is this: are we going to respond?

The Epiphany is the great feast of ‘lambent beauty’ as the hymn puts it. The light of Christ shines forth to illuminate and enlighten our minds. The magi came to find the Christ child and having found him, they offer him their gifts. In return they themselves are given something precious which is revealed to them, and the pathway of their lives is changed. Are we able to come to Christ in a similar way? Are we prepared to give to Christ the things we regard as most valuable so that he can in return change them and provide us with a new and more profound pathway of understanding, by showing us how to use them in a different way?

The Baptism of Jesus is a moment of radiance when John is illumined in mind and heart and sees and understands the awesome reality of what is happening. Jesus takes his place with us and alongside us as ‘Emmanuel’, God with us, emerging from the waters of the Jordan to take on the mantle of the Servant of the Lord. The one who will bring forth a new covenant, a light to the nations. Can we see ourselves as taking up this call to be servants to each other and if so in what capacity?

We have a new pathway to walk as our new parish emerges. It will be a pathway along which the treasures and gifts of renewal and recommitment will enrich and strengthen our understanding of how our Christian witness is to be received. Each one of us will have our part to play in this renewal and we must allow the Spirit to stir up in us the desire to make God’s presence known. We must bring our gifts and have them transformed. We must take up the calling which our baptism invokes and shed our reticence, realising that we are beloved by God and endowed with his grace and his truth to proclaim his gospel.

The message of these two great feasts of the Epiphany and the Baptism of Jesus must not pass us by. They must be revealed in us and through us and make each one of us arise and shine out, so that the light of Christ is to be seen, transforming pathways and encouraging us all to walk in the light of the Lord. 

Thinking of Family

The Feast of the Holy Family was yesterday and today we have the celebration of Mary Mother of God. This short reflection ponders on them both. The thoughts of a new mother for her child are full of hopes and expectations with a richness that soars beyond what reality tells us to expect, and it is only when the hard facts of life hit home, that reality becomes the landscape in which the challenges of life emerge as the learning experiences which define us.

Whatever Mary pondered in her heart for her son, reality would always rear its head to intrude and to interrupt with its sharp edges and harsh necessities. Whatever the reality of life in Nazareth was like, the basics still needed to be done, and what this involved above anything else was love. The things which Mary treasured were, as with any other young mother for her child, fashioned out of a deep instinctive love for her son. Jesus had to grow up, he had to learn, he had to be told off, he had to be praised and made to feel an essential part of the family. In essence, his life was shaped, and his thoughts were formed, by the love that was poured into him by his parents. Without doubt that involved learning about God, and the importance of understanding that what nourished and nurtured his upbringing was the ease with which God’s presence, through the love of his parents for him, was evident to him. This truth, of making the presence of God’s love the bedrock of his life, was fashioned and shaped in him by his parents, by the community in which he was brought up, and by his wider family.

To make the love of God the bedrock of our family life may not be a bad resolution for the New Year. Jesus was born of a woman; his parents taught him what to value and how to sense the essential goodness in people. They taught him that what mattered was to heal and to restore, to make whole and to forgive. Essentially, they taught him how to love. Into this experience, divine revelation was born, and because of this experience, divine revelation was made comprehensible. The more we are able to touch this experience, the more we are able to accept it. The more we are able to accept it, the more it will fashion us and shape us into fathoming the depths of our humanity so as to access the inexhaustible heights of the Divinity, because the Son of God was born of a woman, who treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.