Remembering God who became a child

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In his book Seek That Which Is Above, published in 1986, the then Cardinal Ratzinger says that
“Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope… It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.”

During Advent then, we are called to remember Jesus coming as an infant in a manger and to anticipate his coming again as the culmination of the kingdom of God. We reflect on God’s past, present, and future redemptive acts in history. We celebrate the coming of Jesus the Christ – whose life, ministry, death, and resurrection inaugurated the reign of God – and we await its fulfilment. That is what sustains us in a world that makes no sense. We know that Jesus has come as the fulfillment of God’s promise, and we know that his ultimate reign will surely come someday.

As we await that ultimate reign, we are called to live as if it were already here. We are called to be “a community rooted in energizing memories and summoned by radical hopes.” 

We believe that Jesus is Emmanuel – “God with us.” He continues to be “with us” at every moment of every day. During the season of Advent there are many ways in which we can become more open to the Lord’s presence. They include spending time in daily prayer, reading the Scriptures, worshipping together as a community, and attending to the needs of our sisters and brothers. 

During this time as we prepare to give gifts to others, we are invited to reach out with compassion to people in need, aware that in serving the hungry, the homeless, the sick and imprisoned we are truly encountering Christ.

Lesley Robinson.
Rev Lesley Robinson is CMH:I Board member

Stop and let Advent happen

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“One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home.”
Michelle Blake 

Tune in into your heart and recognise the sentiment you find yourself in at this time of year. Are you joyful? Rushed? Worried? Peaceful? Looking forward to Christmas? Dreading Christmas? Thinking of all you need to do?

Maybe none of these apply, but you have your own list of things that give you joy, and those that take it. Last Sunday was the first Advent Sunday. I was walking in Dublin, and soon found Grafton street to be too busy, as if everyone had to ‘do’ something that day. I went to a near-by church and found shelter in His quiet presence. 

In many ways, this is a busy time of the year for many people. Advent, however, invites us to slow down. Slowing down is not only so that our soul can take a break from busyness, but more so that we can direct our focus towards God. It is like carving a way for God to invade our reality by allowing Him to be with us in our day-to-day lives. See what works for you. Five minutes of silence three times a day. Reading a Scripture passage reflectively, allowing God to speak to you. Nurturing our hearts with God’s presence will help us prepare for Christmas interiorly.

The world at the time of Jesus was not a perfect place, and it is still not perfect. Yet among all that turmoil, all that is not right, all that needs changing – Jesus comes. Take comfort in that. Over the weeks, as His light will be increasing allow it to increase also within you. With His light, we can start healing the darkness in the world.

Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland

Sabbath, a discipline of rest

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Jesus thought us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Connecting with God through various moments of our day is when we can put this prayer into practice. 

How would our life be different if we made a conscious effort to pause, a few times a day, in order to bring our awareness to God’s presence in and around us?

Most of us have busy lives, so pausing for a moment of quiet, will at least at first take an effort. But it will also mean opening our hearts towards God, and allowing the reality of heaven to inform our earthly reality of every-day-ness. This can happen as simply as letting the beauty of the world invite us into brief moments of inner rest. A tree outside the window, its leaves warm yellow and red in Autumn, can be a pointer towards God and the beauty of God’s creation. I look at the tree, and allow some of God’s love to sip gently into my heart. I treasure the love God has for me, and now I can share it with the people I interact with. “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven”.

In his book “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality”, Peter Scazzero reminds us of God’s commandment to keep a Sabbath every week. He says, “The Sabbath calls us to build the doing of nothing into our schedules each week”. Scazzero mentions the four principles of the Biblical Sabbath: stopping, resting, delighting in God, and contemplation. I am not sure about you, but I often take a ‘day of rest’ when I am sick. I usually find it restoring. Yet I need to revisit my approach to Sundays, to what most of us would consider a day of rest in the week. Sabbath is to be rooted in our resting in God. It most specifically invites us to allows the quality of heaven to penetrate our daily lives for twenty-four hours each week. “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven”. But we don’t find it easy to put this into practice. It is countercultural. 

Every seventh day we are asked by God to pause, to imitate God who rested after six days. This day of rest can then inform our week, and smaller moments of rest we may want to incorporate in the rhythm of our lives. In any given year God gives us “over seven weeks (fifty-two days in all)” of rest (Scazzero). Imagine, seven weeks of rest! Seven weeks of allowing God’s reality to penetrate ours more fully. Seven weeks of allowing “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven” to become reality.

Most people take January as an inspiration to change something in their lives, by taking on the new year’s resolutions. I think November is a far better starting point. At the end of a year there is no pressure that ‘we won’t succeed’. We can try out something new, slowly. In this case, we can try incorporating rest, especially resting in God into our routine. By January we will have gathered some of the momentum, so it may not be as difficult to continue. 

I think if we all attempted to take this on board, our inner worlds would change. We would have more peace, more love, and we would bring the quality of God’s presence everywhere we go.

Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland

Taste and see

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In Autumn we are gathering the fruits the earth produced, grateful for its provision. Autumn is an in-between time, between the warmth of the summer and the dark nights of winter. It is a time of gratitude for this year’s gifts, and a time of letting go, when leaves change their colours and they fall. It is a time when we can be grateful for the fruits that this year bore in our own lives. Those fruits are inner, less visible, and they require times of reflection in order to be noticed and savoured. 

Sometimes the earth has to struggle through droughts or excessive amounts of rain, through conditions that are not always ideal for the crop, plants, flowers, trees. And yet even then the earth still produces its fruit. We, too, sometimes struggle through challenges in life, and while none of us enjoys going through them, they can be opportunities for growth, and opportunities for healing. I know I have grown more through struggles, than I have grown through the good times. More difficult times also expose our need for each other, and our need for God. Life has both, and though we label life’s challenges as ‘negative’, and the easier times in life as ‘positive’, all of the human experiences can produce fruits that are ‘good’. 

The Psalmist tells us, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (34:8). This evokes something physical, something that we can see, touch, and even eat; something almost Eucharistic. 

When Jesus encountered the disciples after the Resurrection He “showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marvelling, He said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them” (Luke 24:40-43). It was to show them, physically, that His Resurrection was real. They would have the bones of the fish Jesus had just eaten as a reminder, and in a way as ‘a proof’, that this was truly happening before their eyes. God is concerned about every aspect of our lives, our heart, mind, soul and body too. Our physical reality as well as our spiritual, inner life are important to Him. 

No matter what you have been going through, whether gathering fruits from a bountiful season, or labouring to see fruits that come from the times of struggle, know that God is with you. He is near. Whenever we allow Him, it is He who produces fruit in our life.  

Taste and see what the Lord is producing now.

Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland

Invitation to AGM

Our Annual General Meeting will take place on Tuesday,
27th November 2018 at 1.30pm in Egan House/ St Michan’s Church,
Church Street, Dublin 7. Everyone is welcome to attend the AGM.

Healing is the mission of the whole Church.

Wellspring

Come find peace and rest before the season of Advent. Our one day retreat, Wellspring, is a little oasis amidst the busyness of life where you can be nurtured in silence, invited to engage with healing prayer, Scripture and mindfulness.

Wellspring will take place on Saturday, 24th November 2018, in St Patrick’s Church, Dalkey. St Patrick’s Church is not far from the beautiful Bullock Harbour. There will be time to walk outside; to participate in guided reflections; to avail of one-to-one discussion with a spiritual director; or just take time to relax and read.

During the day you are invited to engage with God in a very personal way, allowing Him to love you in the way you need the most at this time in your life. 

The facilitators for the day are Dr Iva Beranek and Carol Casey. Suggested donation to CMH:I is €25. Please bring your own sandwich for lunch and we will provide tea and coffee. The retreat starts at 9.30am and finishes at 4.00pm.

Please note that places must be booked in advance (hello@ministryofhealing.ie).

Meeting Christ in Advent: Praying the Advent antiphons

You are all invited to a retreat for clergy and lay people organised by the Commission on Ministry.
It will be led by Dr. Bridget Nichols from Thursday 15th to Saturday 17th November, 2018.
Retreat commences 5pm Thursday and ends 2pm Saturday 17th.

The venue is Dromantine Retreat and Conference Centre, Newry, Co. Down.

Give yourself a gift, and take time out to prepare for Advent.

Booking Form

Name
Address
Phone Number
Email
Dietary Requirements
Approximate Time of Arrival
Any other requirements

Please send completed booking form together with retreat fee of €130 (£115) to

Dr Catherine Smith,
Church of Ireland House,
Church Avenue,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6 or email to catherine.smith@rcbdub.org

Cheques should be made out to: ‘The Representative Church Body’ or if electronically: BIC: BOFIIE2D IBAN IE09 BOFI 9000 1710 0531 14. Please put “Advent retreat” as reference for electronic payments. 

Wellspring

After the summer break, we invite you to be refreshed through prayer and reflection at our one day retreat, Wellspring. It takes place on Saturday, 8th September 2018, in St Patrick’s Church, Dalkey.

During the day participants are invited to be nurtured in silence, to engage with healing prayer, Scripture and mindfulness. St Patrick’s Church is not far from the beautiful Bullock Harbour. There will be time to walk outside; to participate in guided reflections; to avail of one-to-one discussion with a spiritual director; or just take time to relax and read.

This is a day where we encourage each participant to use the resources we provide in a way that nourishes them the most.

The facilitators for the day are Dr Iva Beranek and Carol Casey. Suggested donation to CMH:I is €25. Please bring your own sandwich for lunch and we will provide tea and coffee. The retreat starts at 9.30am and finishes at 4.00pm.

Please note that places must be booked in advance (hello@ministryofhealing.ie).

Loving the enemy – a way of healing our attitudes

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“Loving our enemies is the core of the Christian message and the challenge that Jesus presents us. If we want to know what Jesus is about, and what following Jesus is about, then the call to love our enemies is as close to the center as we can get.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen

Jesus left us certain instructions that are very much counterintuitive. A commandment to love our enemies is one of them. Our world seems rather polarised at the moment, we fluctuate to those we agree with. If someone asked who our friends are, we could tell them, but we could probably also tell them who are not-our-friends. Perhaps we do not call them ‘enemies’. But those we don’t agree with: we too know them by their name.

Our churches, our Facebook feeds, are filled with people we love and agree with, as well as those we disagree with. If you have struggled with loving people that you fundamentally disagree with on some core issue, you are not alone. I have too. Yet it is very clear that God calls us to love each other. Jesus said, “Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12). To love also those we disagree with is to have God’s attitude. It is an essential ingredient needed to transform the world into a better place. And it is possibly also one of the least exercised muscles in our Christian faith. 

Bréne Brown, public speaker and research professor at the University of Huston, in her most recent book “Braving the Wilderness” says, “the choices we’re making to protect our beliefs and ourselves are leaving us disconnected, afraid, and lonely. Very few people are working on connection outside the lines drawn by ‘their side’”. Her book challenged me. While we may justify excluding or not engaging with those who hold views we disagree with, Bréne Brown says this is a dangerous approach. It leaves us more isolated, whereas we all need human connection.

Unless we constantly bring to our awareness that God loves each and every person, we will retreat in labelling and sorting each other out. We can love those that we experience as different, because God already loves them. This does not mean we will stop disagreeing on certain issues, but perhaps we can find ways of connecting beyond the disagreements. Personally I started to consciously bless individuals and groups of people that for whatever reason are not ‘my people’, and that I find difficult to love. 

If we could hold sacred the connection between us, the God-given-dignity we each have, together with the views that are central to our identities, perhaps we would be able to engage with more trust, more grace and invite God to enter into the space between us that creates separation and disconnect. I’m not saying this would be easy, otherwise we’d already be doing it. But if God was allowed to fill that in-between space, we might be able to look at each other through God’s mercy and grace.

Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland

Christ Church Cathedral welcomes refugees and asylum-seekers

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‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me’—these words of Jesus may be familiar to us, yet like so much of what Jesus had to say, it can be a challenge putting the teaching into practice. To welcome, to make space for another, in particular a stranger, is not always easy. It may mean reprioritising time and resources. It calls on us to make an emotional investment, to learn about someone else’s story, to appreciate what he or she has been through in the past and to walk alongside and embrace hope for the future. 

We in the cathedral have worked over the past year towards the designation ‘Cathedral of Sanctuary’, awarded by the organisation Places of Sanctuary Ireland. Places of Sanctuary is a network of groups in towns, cities and local communities which share the objectives of promoting the integration, inclusion and welfare of refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants. To this end, we have sought ways to engage with those in the asylum process and living in direct provision, to welcome them to our city, and to contribute the cathedral’s voice to the necessary task of awareness-raising around the direct provision system and its problems. We believe it is important that we devote resources and make space to engage with those who are marginalised by this system. 

This year was our first year to mark Refugee Week and we wanted to engage in a variety of ways. The first event was ‘Prayers of Lament, Prayers of Hope’, an evening of quiet and reflective prayer. This offered space for scripture, song and silence, and those attending were invited to write down a prayer, light a candle or simply be present in prayerful solidarity. 

We also partnered with the Irish Refugee Council to host a free screening of Chinese artist and filmmaker Ai Weiwei’s visually impactful documentary Human Flow. We were delighted to further our ongoing relationship with Our Table, an asylum-seeker led group whose aim is to highlight the need to end the direct provision system in Ireland, by facilitating change through conversation over food. Our Table were on our grounds for four days selling their delicious food creations, prepared by founder, asylum-seeker and Ballymaloe-trained chef Ellie Kisyombe. Their events also included an appearance by author Melatu Uche Okorie whose book, This Hostel Life, is a reflection on her experiences in direct provision. We very much consider Our Table as part of our community now and we hope to continue to partner with them in the future.

Pictured are Our Table members using the cathedral’s crypt kitchen.

Abigail Sines.
Rev Abigail Sines is Dean’s Vicar in Christ Church Cathedral