kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth

Revive your Church with the breath of love

My reflection based on last week’s Collect was on the phrase, “Fill your Church on earth with power and compassion“. This week is on the phrase, “Revive your Church with the breath of love”. In some ways it feels as though those two phrases have got mixed up somehow, and this week’s should have come first. But perhaps this one should come before any other. Which, I guess, makes it especially appropriate for this Day of Pentecost: the day, nearly two thousand years ago, that the Church was born — we think of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church because it’s when the apostles first went out among the people and began spreading Jesus’ message, thus establishing the beginning of the Church.

“It’s all about the love”, as Steve put it in a recent comment. As long as there is the breath of God’s love in our Churches, everything else will, I believe, come right in the end.

So what is the standard of love that we should be aiming for? St Paul gives us that wonderful, and famous, description of love in his first letter to the Corinthian Church:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13 (NRSV)

Is that an impossible standard for our Churches to achieve? I don’t believe it is. With us being strengthened with the gift of faith, and God breathing his love into our Churches, anything is possible.

But God’s love isn’t something we should be keeping for ourselves, whether personally or corporately. No, we need to share it with those around us. We need to become channels for that love to reach those who need it. And the truly amazing thing is, no matter how much of God’s love we give to others, it never diminishes how much we have for ourselves. Give it all away, and yet retain all of it. Because God loves each and every one of us, as if there were only us to love.

Yes, with God breathing his love into our Churches, there really can be a revival! A revival based on love.

Holy Spirit, sent by the Father,
ignite in us your holy fire;
strengthen your children with the gift of faith,
revive your Church with the breath of love,
and renew the face of the earth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Day of Pentecost
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council

Walsingham

I took myself off to The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham for a few days recently. The intention had been to make it a retreat-cum-pilgrimage; however, it didn’t quite work out like that. My health rather let me down, and I spent most of the time just sitting or lying quietly. But in many ways that was just what I needed. I did manage to join in with a couple of the services. And the rest of the time I just soaked up the peaceful atmosphere.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham is a beautiful place, tucked away in the Norfolk countryside. I try to get there at least once a year, though mostly just for a day, or even a couple of hours. For me, it’s somewhere that heaven touches earth. Here’s a link to the Shrine website, where you’ll be able to find out much more about the place than I can include in a blog post.

Below you will see a few pictures taken on my recent visit to Walsingham. There are 30 photographs in all, and each one links to a larger version.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fill your Church on earth with power and compassion

When you look at the churches around about — certainly here in England, and much of Europe, not sure the same would be true for all of the world — it’s very often relatively easy to see something of the power they have enjoyed over the centuries. We have a magnificent legacy in the buildings that are our churches and cathedrals.

The picture above is of Ely Cathedral, our diocesan cathedral. It dominates the fenland skyline for miles around and is a truly wonderful building, both inside and out. Find out more about the cathedral by clicking this link: Ely Cathedral. Much the same can be said of the church I attend at Godmanchester, pictured left: it’s always a welcome site, from many miles away, on a journey home. Again, more information can be found on the church website: Godmanchester Church.

Buildings like these don’t spring up from weak Churches. No it needs power to build them. And, while the purpose of building such magnificent buildings is more about God than an overt display of power, power is, nevertheless, one image that is projected by them.

Our Churches aren’t so good at displaying their compassion however. Perhaps that’s because compassion isn’t so easy to picture in something physical. Sometimes you can’t help but wonder if it even exists when you look around at all of the arguing and disagreements between the Churches, both of the same denomination and different ones. It must give a poor image of God at times when you see some of the pettiness that causes untold misery to people everywhere.

But there is compassion in our Churches; both institutional and individual. At Godmanchester, I think, we’re very good with pastoral care. There’s a whole team of people who’s role it is to care for others in the congregation and the town: and a whole lot more people who do the same in an informal, and, too often, unrecognised way. With the other Churches in Godmanchester that is expanding all the time. We’re in exciting times; made more so because the care and compassion is about care and compassion, and not about bringing more people into Church.

And when you read Church websites and magazines, you can see the same kind of things happening all over. The compassion and care is there within our Churches, it’s just that it happens quietly, less visibly.

So, while I would want to pray that our Churches here on earth will be filled with power and compassion: I would also want to pray that they, particularly the compassion, could become more visible; so that more of those who need it can access it. It’s one sure way of sharing God’s love with those around us.

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the father. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Seventh Sunday of Easter
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council