Archbishop Rowan Williams’ speech

Sometimes the Archbishop of Canterbury can be hard to follow, in both the written word and when he speaks. But the speech below wasn’t at all like that.

Revive your Church in our day

It seems so appropriate that we should be praying for a revival of God’s Church this week, of all weeks. Not only is it the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, which is just another Sunday within Ordinary Time, that long period of growth in the Church Calendar, but it is also the first Sunday of the Lambeth Conference.

There has been so much that is negative around the Anglican Communion recently. And now our Bishops have an opportunity to begin to redress, at least, some of that. It would appear that there are some 650+ Bishops there. So, although that means there are quite a few who’ve chosen to stay away (not all on matters of conscience of course), there is enough to be able to say they speak the mind of the Anglican Communion.

I was heartened to read about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s opening address; these words are from the Church Times blog:

THERE are no magic words to heal the wounded body of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury has told bishops at the Lambeth Conference.

His own prayer for the conference was “not that after two weeks we will find a solution to all our problems but we shall, as I have written more than once, in some sense find the trust in God and one another that will give us the energy to change in the way God wants us to change.”

If this is the tone we can expect from the rest of the conference, we just might see something really positive come from it. And it seems that, on the whole, the Bishops are really rallying around and supporting the Archbishop of Canterbury. My prayer is that the conference will indeed spark a revival within, at least, the Anglican Communion.

Gracious Father,
revive your Church in our day,
and make her holy, strong and faithful,
for your glory’s sake
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Ninth Sunday after Trinity
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council