Pentecost - 18th May 2024
- Reflections Archive
I felt Iwanted to speak to you this afternoon, on the eve of Pentecost, butit is so hard to find words for all we’ve been through in recentweeks, and indeed over the last year. I am exhausted and empty and Ithink not alone in feeling that way. At a time like this we need tohear the message of Pentecost, of the coming of the Paraclete, thecomforter. We celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit on the disciplesof Jesus and the gift of that same Spirit in our own lives, a Spiritthat brings strength and life.
To be alivemeans to embrace death, our own and of those we love. There can be nolife without death and the constant cycles of decay and regenerationin the natural world of which we are part. But it is hard to losesomeone we love and to hold to a hope of new life beyond death. Istill can’t quite believe that Sr Mary John is now buried six feetdown in our graveyard, that she’s not about to walk into the roomfit and well. We have had to let go conversations we may have hopedto have with her, questions we wanted to ask. Death cuts off thepossibility of resolution and leaves us with loose ends that cannever be tidied up. We have to live with unfinished business.
AsChristians we acknowledge this brokenness of the world but also knowthat eternal life is ours in the here and now, not just somewhere inthe future. The gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to embrace allthat life throws at us, to be present to what is happening and toallow God’s healing touch to transform the situation. Outwardlynothing may change but inwardly we can feel the assurance that ‘Allshall be well’. The message of the death and resurrection of Jesusis that the abundant life to which God calls us is found in the midstof the pain and mess. It is the contemplative awareness of whichRichard Carter writes so eloquently in his ‘Letters from Nazareth’that we are called to develop, that opens our eyes to God’spresence in all things and situations, however hard and painful.
In myconversations with Sr Mary John I have become very aware that theword ‘contemplative’ does not sit comfortably with many in thiscommunity, or at least it did not with her. But my impression is thatthis arises from the idea that contemplative awareness is an esotericgift for the special few and not something that us ordinary folksshould aspire to. Clearly there are mystical gifts that seem to begiven to some in a special way but there is the simple sense of God’spresence that is a gift for all the baptised. We have only to openour hearts to the Holy Spirit to know this gift and thetransformation of awareness that this brings.
But how?There are as many ways as there are people who pray! And we can makeit horribly complicated. But the Eastern Orthodox teaching on prayerof the heart I find very powerful in the way it calls me back tosimplicity. ‘Put your mind in your heart’ is the way they teachfor coming to a felt sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Andthis is not just a metaphor but is taught as a practice which isphysically embodied. Theophan the Recluse and others write that weshould place our awareness in our chest, in the area of the heart, asthe place from which we pray to God and from which we come to see theworld. So simple yet utterly transformative, at least in my ownexperience. The ‘cave of the heart’ has become for me a safe andsolid place deep within that gives me the ability to hold firm toGod’s love in the midst of all that is happening. The ‘Epistle ofPrivy Counsel’, another favourite of mine, also takes us into thisterritory, of simply resting in the sense that ‘God is my being’.
We areabout to enter into a week of retreat, with time to slow down, bestill and silent. Allow yourself to be carried by the rhythm of ourlife, the praying of the offices, time in the garden or working onpractical tasks, times of silent prayer. A rhythm which is theparticular gift of our Benedictine life.
I pray thatit will be a time for each one of us to open to the Spirit in our ownway and be led into that precious sense of God’s presence within.The Spirit teaches and guides us, brings healing in our broken placesand leads us into abundant life.
I pray forall of us:
Come, Strengthener and Advocate,
Awaitedgift of God most high,
The springing well, the fount oflife,
The soul’s anointing, fire of love.
Amen.
Mother Anne - 18th May 2024
- Reflections Archive
