Grace and peace from God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
I continue to pray that God will show us the path and illuminate our way and that we will honour God as we journey through this life. In the last two weeks I spent a lot of time reflecting on our spiritual versus (along with) our practical journey. The ideology of our faith and the practicality of the world we live in clash at the point of parish ministry. And we live in the tension of that space. It is true and noble and good to say that deepening our spiritual life and being more prayerful and reading scripture and enhancing our worship life together are the aims and objectives of “being church” but this must have a practical application aspect to it. Technically it is called praxis verses theory. As Franciscans we are taught that you cannot “think yourself into a new way of living- you have to live yourself into a new way of thinking.” This means that things only become real to you when they are things that you do in your life. Discipleship is a way of behaving, participating in the world and conducting your affairs, rather than acknowledgement of a set of principles to think by.
The challenge with this practical religion is that you must embrace all things as holy and be willing to engage with God in every aspect of your life. Your faith cannot be sanitised and clinical, it is messy and it is emotional and it is wrestling with God as opposed to simply chanting slogans.
As I repeatedly speak to, this means that the liturgy, the songs we sing and of course the scriptures, as well as our interaction with others must be held up as a mirror – reflecting to us what the impact, the meaning and the outcome, the fruit of our faith/belief/religion is. To do this our lives must be lived contemplatively – reflectively, analysing the events of our lives to determine what our actions are reflecting about our relationship with God. This way we remain repentant, and we grow.
In the Words of St Paul ( Eph 3:16ff) “ I ask that out of the riches of God’s glory Christ may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Then as you live your lives and put your faith and belief and religion to work you will be transformed and grow in the likeness of Jesus your saviour.
Be assured of my prayers for you as you seek the Lord and his transforming love.
Amen.
