I used to be really enthusiastic about the Week of prayer for Christian unity (18th-25th January), especially in my twenties, I would almost jump for joy at the thought of it. I would not be a Christian had there not been for both Catholics and Protestants who influenced my journey, nor would I be who I am today without those influences. Because of that, prayer for unity has been my daily bread all throughout my adult life.
Through my Baptist friends in Croatia, where I’m from, I learned of the importance of making a commitment to Christ, of saying ‘Yes’ to God, and of making my prayer more personal, more real. From Catholics I learned of the need to belong to a Church community, and that while personal relationship with Christ is important, there is more – God wishes more than a personal relationship with us, He wants to have an intimate relationship with us.
But then a few years ago my enthusiasm for ‘ecumenical matters’ was challenged because I saw that progress on this journey is sometimes very slow. Differences that could enrich us sometimes unfortunately divide us, and it is easy to get discouraged. I went through a year where I did not attend any of the ecumenical gatherings, and I did not go around visiting different Churches, as I sometimes would, rather I withdrew into the silence of not-doing and prayed to somehow be able to recommit to this call. Since then, I decided to focus more on Jesus and His desire for unity rather than on the reality of our Churches, and to rely on the fact that if He wants unity so strongly so as to make it His dying wish, it must then somehow be possible. I don’t need to understand how.
Jesus’ prayer
More than Two Thousand years ago, on the night before He died, after He washed the disciples feet, and after the Last Supper, at which as some Churches believe He established the Eucharist, Jesus went to pray. He asked three of His closest friends to accompany Him. When we know we are facing death, like He knew, we think and pray for what is most important to us. Jesus prayed to the Father to glorify Him and he prayed for all those who believed in Him, but then He said:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message [which is us], that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21)
Jesus prayed for us, and we are still gathering fruits from that prayer. Whenever we pray for unity between Christians we join Jesus in this prayer, we accompany Him into the garden like Peter, John and James did. It is a testament of perseverance in prayer that this week of prayer for Christian unity has been taking place regularly for over 100 years now. However, the very fact that this week exists highlights that we have ‘a problem’, that we are not yet united, as Christ would wish us to be. There should be no special ecumenical gatherings nor special services where we gather together. It should be normal that we come together, it should be part of our daily reality, and I know that for some of you it is, but on a global scale unfortunately we are still not united, not enough anyway.
Is Christ divided?
‘Is Christ divided?’ is a theme that Canadian Christians chose for us this year. We know that Christ can never be divided, and we are each in His heart, individually and each Church too, in His heart we are united, but our reality often does not show that. I think it is not a problem that Churches are different, perhaps that is even good because diversity of Christian expression can be enriching. But unfortunately some of our differences happen to be divisive. Paul said to the Church in Corinth I hear “that there are quarrels among you” (1 Corinthians 1:11). This sounds familiar as sometimes there are quarrels among us as well, especially when talking about the ‘hot-button-topics’. I must say that those make me feel very uncomfortable and I often don’t know how to address them. And I actually wonder how we will ever find unity in some of them; unless we allow each other to remain different. When we encounter those we realise there are gaps between us and it can be hard to stand in the gap because that’s where we encounter the pain of our disunity. I don’t think that any one of us can bridge those gaps, only Jesus can, Jesus is the bridge, but we as His followers need to be bridge-builders.
Perhaps the time has not yet come
A few years ago I heard that ecumenism was in winter; I am not sure if this is true, but even if it is – winter is important. There can be no spring or summer without winter, winter is a time of preparation, of healing, of restoration. Recently Pope Francis said how “we have not yet managed to take necessary steps towards unity between us and perhaps the time has not yet come”. It made me think: “Perhaps the time has not yet come” – I never thought of it this way. God takes time, and from my experience He does so especially when something is important to Him; I wonder whether at least sometimes it is true that the more important something is to God, the more time He will take with it. That is very hard for us to comprehend, as we would like to rush things, I know I would. But throughout ‘the times of waiting’, the in-between times, the Holy Spirit is active and there are fruits on the way that maybe we would miss otherwise.
I believe that for God journey is important as well as the goal; maybe we are not yet ready to receive the fullness of unity, and whatever God is doing in each of us and in each of our Churches at this time, is important too. Sometimes we do not see God’s work fully, it is hidden from our eyes, but that does not mean that He is not active. We cannot rush spring into winter, seasons have their natural flow too.
I would like to invite you now for a moment to reflect on one or two things from your own tradition through which you experience God the most intimately, something that if you could you would like to share with all other Christians. (pause here for a moment to think before you read further) Or maybe there are things in another Christian tradition that you wish your own Church would emphasise more. Until we are able to share those freely, our unity will be incomplete.
Healing our divisions
God wishes to heal our divisions; in Isaiah He said “I have seen their ways, but I will heal them” (Isaiah 57:18). Sometimes in the Gospels when Jesus healed He would ask “what do you want me to do for you?” but I think that here when we pray for Christian unity we need to reverse the question, “Lord, what do you want me to do for You?” Because the Church in all its branches is ‘the body of Christ’, when we allow our divisions to be healed we help Jesus’ wounds to heal as well. I believe that our disunity is painful for Christ, it is heart-breaking really. Also our disunity is a distraction because our job is to build the kingdom of God, and together we could do that much better.
We can never achieve unity on our own, no matter how much we desire it. We can assist God, we can prepare the ground as we are doing these days, but ultimately unity is going to be God’s work, unity is going to be a gift. Someone that I know, who wished not to be named, said: “we must continue to plant the seed of unity. When it falls on good ground it will produce fruit. Good ground is ground prepared with love. We must be receptive and make the ground good. The ground will then receive the seed and produce the fruit of unity. The seed is the word of God” and this week the Word is: ‘That they may all be one’. We must keep planting this seed.”
Recently I was told that from God’s perspective “delay is not a denial, not even withholding” and because “our lives are so linked up with those of others, so bound by circumstances” that delay has to be sometimes; if God would let our prayers always have an instant fulfilment, it might “in many cases cause another, as earnest prayer, to go unanswered”.* This may be applied to our quest for unity. If there seems to be a delay, God knows what He is doing. Maybe He is preparing us for this gift of unity, let us prepare ourselves too. Amen.
* From A. J. Russel [ed.], “God calling. A devotional diary”
(Adapted from the address given at the Ecumenical Healing Service in St Ann’s, Dawson street, on Sunday 19th January 2014)
Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland
Lenten Reflection: A Compassionate Triduum
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020As we embark on these three holy days of Jesus’ betrayal, death & resurrection, we participate in God’s compassion in the most literal sense, “suffering with” Jesus and those who loved him.
Tonight, as we join Jesus and his disciples on the evening before his death, we note the tenderness with which Jesus washes our feet and the intimate generosity of that last supper. Help us, Lord, to treat each other tenderly and generously.
Later, in the garden, we stand in solidarity with all those “who wake, or watch, or weep this night”. We suffer with both the betrayed and the betrayer. Forgive us, Lord, of our betrayals, even as we forgive those who betray us.
Tomorrow, we mourn. As we experience the pain of parting, of absence, may we remember those for whom this is not a spiritual exercise but a lived reality. We pray for those experiencing grief and loss.
And finally, as we reach the astonishing joy of the resurrection, we remember that participating in God’s compassion means sharing not just pain, but also hope, because Christ’s resurrection is a promise that “more can be mended than we know”1.
Jesus, by your dying we are born to new life: by your anguish and labour we come forth in joy.
In your love and tenderness, remake us.
Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness: through your gentleness we find comfort in fear.
In your love and tenderness, remake us.
Your warmth gives life to the dead: your touch makes sinners righteous.
In your love and tenderness, remake us.
In your compassion, bring grace and forgiveness: for the beauty of heaven may your love prepare us.
In your love and tenderness, remake us.
—St Anselm
1From Francis Spufford’s book, Unapologetic
Lenten Reflection: Compassion as Slowing Down
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020Lydia is the Education Advisor for Bishops’ Appeal. She wrote this piece as a spark piece, effectively ignited by a reflection given by Jessica Stone from the Church’s Ministry of Healing: Ireland on tapping into God’ infinite reservoir of compassion. The result has been a joint Lenten reflection series on the theme of Compassion.
Research was carried out on a group of Divinity Students who were given the story of the Good Samaritan as the theme for a sermon and then told that they were delivering said sermon in ten minutes on another side of campus. As they rushed to make their deadline they came across a person, clearly in pain and in need of help. Every one of them stepped past the person pleading for help in order not to be late. Time and again our reasons for looking the other way, for cultivating indifference or for choosing not to see others is our busy schedules, the importance of our rushing and the things we pile into our direct vision that then excuse our ignoring of what is in our peripheral vision.
Slowing down is not lazy, it is compassionate.
Reflecting on how I structure my day, I must admit that much of my time in between the last and the next deadline is taken up with processing the previous and preparing for the next appointment, the next task, the next event. I regard this approach to my day as focused and give myself a pat on the back for my time management skills. However, if this becomes the only mode in which I engage the world, I have no doubt that I will, and have in the past, stepped over a person in need whilst on my way to advocate for the rights of the oppressed. Things or people that challenge me to divert from my carefully planned day or life can become irritants, inconveniences. Taking time to reflect, to look around, to notice others brings what is in our peripheral vision into our direct gaze and challenges us to reprioritise our time.
Often one of our reasons for not responding to others needs is because we choose not to see them. When this practise becomes habit our not noticing becomes learnt behaviour that we actively need to address in order to unlearn it. Therefore it can also be said that compassion is not so much an emotion we possess but a discipline that we craft.
With our blinkers on all we can see is a blur in our periphery, a potential inconvenience that, once we speed up, will soon be behind us and no longer pose a challenge to how we are living. I would even argue that the speed by which we live our lives is sometimes a shield that we hide behind, protecting us from the vulnerability of really engaging with others. In terms of our immediate relationships – our spouses, our siblings, our children and our friends – how easy does it become to side-line them for schedules? They are right there but we can’t really see them. We don’t take time to sit and acknowledge their presence, to insist on quality time, to schedule them into our diaries first and dig our heels in about honouring those commitments. Often we justify our actions by arguing that what we are doing is for our loved ones when actually our greatest human need is to be seen, to be valued and to belong. By that standard what our loved ones want most is our time.
Beyond the boundaries of our immediate lives, living constantly in the fast lane means that issues – global issues, human issues – become someone else’s concern. Slowing down in order to reflect means we are opened to a world that not only shapes us but that is shaped by us. And if we buy in to the rat race of work and consumerism that we are told dictates our success and our worth, we fail to join the dots and see how we are interconnected and how our not seeing means we are actively creating a disconnect. God’s call for us to love Him and love others becomes infinitely easier when we cut ourselves off from all those who do not come into our line of tunnel vision. The challenge arises when we see that tunnel vision as actively creating an injustice by removing our obligation to love others by making them invisible. A popular slogan asks the question ‘Is it Just Us? Or is it Justice?’, implying that when we keep our eyes on ourselves and do not look beyond ourselves we cannot address injustices that we cannot see. Here we are going even further by saying that we perpetrate injustices because we fail to see.
Without trying to romanticise or essentialise a continent based on one experience, my first trip to Africa as a 19 year old student was to a small town in Southern Uganda. Every morning as I walked to work strangers would stop me and engage in a ritual of asking me how I was. The questions surrounded the health of my family, how well I slept and my plans for my day. The discomfort I felt in trying to arrive to work on time whilst repeatedly being stopped meant my responses were curt and distracted. One day a minister reiterated to me a well-known modern African proverb– ‘You have the watches, but we have the Time’. The issue was not around values such as punctuality and professionalism versus tradition but around relationships and maintaining the integrity of their place in the throes of any given day.
Within the framework of this community model an individual does not exist for himself or herself; one only exists for others and as a part of a wider network. In fact, some teachings would assert that the individual does not and cannot exist without others; such is the depth of the connection. This is echoed in Ubuntu, the South African philosophy that simply states ‘I am who I am because you are who you are – I cannot live without you’. We cannot live in isolation; the blinkers must come off and we must admit to our existence only in relation to others. When we do this, we are in a place to acknowledge the areas in our fast paced lifestyles that might need adjusting in order live out the rhythm of this truth with any authenticity. We must take time to reconnect, to realign ourselves with our existence that is dependent upon those things and those people that we have relegated to our peripheral vision.
Returning to the story of the Good Samaritan, the Priest, the Levite and the Teacher of the Law were all rushing and the importance of their rush justified their skirting of the man beaten and left for dead at the side of the road. Another reading of the story sees Jesus as the suffering and bruised man on the side of the road and the person who helped him as the one who responded to the true call of God to serve, to love and live out the radical message of self-sacrifice for others in everyday life. All the Good Samaritan did was value the life in front of him, step out of his self-made rhythm and step into another more responsive mode of being. He slowed down and so deviated from his plan in order to participate in an infinitely bigger, more compassionate Plan.
What is blossoming in your life this Spring?
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware.
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Everywhere around us flowers are blossoming, trees are blooming, birds are singing, the whole of creation carries a message of new life. And yet, Spring is not a timid but a brave season. Little seeds planted in the soil first have to brave the darkness before they grow enough to pop-up their flower-head into the daylight. Often as they sprout in early Spring they are welcomed with wild wind, with rain and they need courage in order to keep growing. Flowers believe in Spring, somehow they know that a time of winter’s aridity will not last forever, they know that nature can change its course when warmer days come and as they blossom Spring will gradually heal the memories of darker winter days. In your soul there is a garden where flowers can bloom too.
At this time in your life can you notice areas that are blossoming? Those might be areas where you need to cultivate a little bit of courage. Is there a seed within your heart that needs nurturing, protection and encouragement in order to keep growing until it is ready to blossom? If a seed is to grow and develop well the soil needs to be ready, so you may need to do some preparatory work first, but that is okay.
Take time to reflect on what has been blossoming for you in these first three months of the year. Set some time for prayer in order to talk to Jesus about it….or listen what He is telling you. You may also wish to journal about it, so that later in the year you can revisit the wisdom you gather at this time. I wish a blessing of thousand flowers upon your soul, and a soothing love of God to accompany you through life.
Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland
Lenten Reflection: Compassion as De-framing
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020Lydia is the Education Adviser for the Bishops’ Appeal. She explores the theme of compassion in this the second reflection of the joint Lenten Series between Bishops’ Appeal and the Church’s Ministry of Healing: Ireland.
Knowledge is Power. This famous saying first attributed to Sir Francis Bacon has been unpacked and analysed from a multitude of perspectives over the centuries. Knowledge provides confidence and security and its pursuit is certainly applauded as a desirable trait.
However, there is a flipside to this that can create a false encounter that prevents truth from surfacing, because our collected learning becomes our reality of someone instead of that someone being allowed to present themselves without our preconceived ideas or notions of them. Our knowledge has replaced the reality in front on us and speaks for them instead of allowing them to speak for themselves. With whom we feel connected, and for whom we feel empathy is not the other but our controlled pre-labelling of them. In order to practise genuine compassion, the challenge is to relinquish that control – a purposeful self-emptying – not least so that we can tap into God’s infinite reservoir of compassion so eloquently spoken about in last week’s reflection.
From genuine connection flows genuine compassion.
Our stance becomes one that dies to the presuppositions that kept us safe and powerful in the knowledge of others and instead leaves us vulnerable to being transformed by the truth that meets us. Particularly when the encounter is with a person or group perceived as marginalised or impoverished our preconception is that we have the opportunity and the obligation to transform them, to better them, to fix them, even to save them. In those moments the truth of them retreats and they remain completely unknown to us. When we respond according to achieving our own goals, even the goals of our good intentions, then the other becomes not a recipient but a means to our end.
And yet, if we respond to the Holy Spirit’s call to self empty, we become aware of the Divine Presence in the encounter ‘spinning the web of attention between the two who are facing each other’ (John V Taylor). The response that the Holy Spirit commands is one that moves away from pre-judgment, fear and a desire to control. It envelopes these by de-framing the self, by removing the power and by de-framing those who face us by allowing them to break free from the boundaries and minimising labels that we have imposed on them.
The beauty of the other exists beyond the self. It is awesome beyond the capacity of the self to be awestruck by it and it is independent of any reaction the self may have to it or any relationship the self may form with it.
There are many ‘others’ in our lives. Even those close to us, bound to us in intimate relationships – our partners, children, parents – can benefit from our de-framing of them in order that our almost intuitive and automatic knowing of them does not replace the truth of them. As we spin the thread of our connected lives further out into the world, the other becomes our neighbours, our colleagues, the sick, the elderly, those living with disabilities, the Travelling community, the International community, the poor both locally and globally. Immediately, even these few examples spark emotions linked to stereotypes of those who have been named. At once, we feel a certain way towards an entire group of people and that framing of them either creates a type of compassion based on our presumptions, or it ignites revulsion that quashes all potential for encounter or for compassion.
How do we overcome this? We must again return to the Divine Presence in the midst igniting the possibility for genuine encounter, calling us to move beyond the boundaries of our narrow definitions and diminishing preconceptions to a place of seeing with ‘fresh eyes’. As we allow the frames we have mounted to be taken down, then we realise we never quite beheld the picture we insisted it contained.
The Lent, take time to think of your opinion of two groups of people: 1 group you know well and the other that you only know about.
St. Patrick, a missionary of God’s love
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye of every one that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
(from St. Patrick’s Breastplate)
St. Patrick is one of my favourite people from our Christian past. He was not born in Ireland but probably either in what is today known as Wales or in the North of France. At the age of 16 he was taken into captivity to Ireland, and as he admits in his “Confessions” at that time he “did not know the true God”. This is the image I have of that incident as it was happening: Patrick was on a ship, with thousands of others being kidnapped at the same time, and as they are being taken to Ireland, the Trinity looks down from Heaven; God’s gaze, like the lights on a stage, focuses on Patrick and God says, “This is the lad I want, I choose him to do my work”. That decision and Patrick’s openness to it changed the history not only of Ireland – but it changed Patrick too.
That same gaze is on us too. St. John of the Cross, a Carmelite mystic, speaks about a God who “constantly gazes at the universe, with a look that ‘cleanses, makes beautiful, enriches and enlightens’” (I. Matthew, The Impact of God, 112.). Same as Patrick, we need to allow to be captured by that gaze of God’s love; the gaze that will water the thirsty well of our souls, and nurture it with God’s Presence. St. Patrick’s Breastplate is a very good prayer for practicing the Presence of God, especially if we pray it slowly, attentively. It brings to our awareness that Christ is everywhere we go. As Jesus said, “I am with you until the end of times”.
Now we remember Patrick as a saint, but he did not become who God intended him to be overnight. It took years for God’s plan to slowly enfold in his life. God used Patrick’s captivity for a good purpose; He made Himself known to Patrick, perhaps through those long moments of minding sheep and cattle somewhere on the Irish hills. Patrick’s calling was shaped like a pearl that is being formed out of dust. Dust coming into a shell is like any bad experience we might have in life. God’s grace and the presence of Christ transformed what could have been an extremely awful experience of captivity by forming Patrick into one the greatest missionaries the world has known. God can use any of our life difficulties too to draw us closer to Himself and to His purposes for us.
As I was reflecting on Patrick’s life a thought struck me: God was here before Patrick, God had a dwelling place in Ireland then, and He dwells here now. Patrick was open to recognise Him; Christ dealt with Patrick on a very personal, heart-to-heart level, as He does with us today as well. When Patrick came back to Ireland it was to give back to Ireland only what he himself received here – faith in Christ. Patrick is an icon of someone who mirrored God’s love to the people of this island, and through the communion of saints he does so to this very day. Patrick came to show Ireland, and all of us here, that we are the Beloved of God, which is after all the central message of the Gospel.
Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland
Tapping into God’s Compassion this Lent
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020Thirteenth century theologian Meister Eckhart said, ‘Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion.’ We see this happen when Jesus heals the blind men in Jericho (“Moved with compassion, he touched their eyes”), when he feeds the multitudes with a few loaves of bread and some small fish (“I have compassion for the crowd” he says), when the father in his parable welcomes the prodigal son home (“his father saw him and was filled with compassion”). Time and again, we see that Jesus “had compassion on them”, or “was moved with compassion”, or “filled with compassion”.
I’m really grateful that that’s how it’s phrased, rather than, “And Jesus was such a compassionate person that he . . . cured, or fed, or forgave”. Undoubtedly, Jesus was–is–compassionate because we know that compassion is part of God’s nature. “For the Lord is compassionate and merciful” Ecclesiastes tells us. But Jesus’ life and stories invite us to participate in the kingdom of God. He shows us how to do it.
So it’s significant, at least to me, that his acts of compassion are not attributed to a personality trait, something you could test yourself on with a helpful online personality quiz. “Which of the twelve disciples are you?” asks a recent quiz making the rounds on Facebook. You could be St John (kind and caring), or St Thomas (intelligent and argumentative), or any of the other 12 and their associated characteristics. But seen that way, compassion can seem like a burden, something that, if not helpfully built into your personality profile already, is a virtue you must try, and many times fail, to achieve.
Jesus, however, was moved or filled with compassion, in what seems to be a spontaneous response to the suffering before him. I like to imagine that he was tapping into an infinite reservoir of God’s compassion that’s available to us, too, at all times and in every place. Maybe we don’t have to rely on our own reserves because there is an open and eternal invitation to receive God’s compassion and to take part in it. Participating in God’s compassion is not a burden, in no small part because it involves the relief of experiencing God’s compassion towards us.
So in this season, which offers us 40 days to try–and inevitably, sometimes fail–to discipline ourselves, I’m recalling the surprising splash of God’s limitless compassion.
What images are speaking to you this Lent?
How is Jesus inviting you to participate in God’s compassion?
Is Christ divided?
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020I used to be really enthusiastic about the Week of prayer for Christian unity (18th-25th January), especially in my twenties, I would almost jump for joy at the thought of it. I would not be a Christian had there not been for both Catholics and Protestants who influenced my journey, nor would I be who I am today without those influences. Because of that, prayer for unity has been my daily bread all throughout my adult life.
Through my Baptist friends in Croatia, where I’m from, I learned of the importance of making a commitment to Christ, of saying ‘Yes’ to God, and of making my prayer more personal, more real. From Catholics I learned of the need to belong to a Church community, and that while personal relationship with Christ is important, there is more – God wishes more than a personal relationship with us, He wants to have an intimate relationship with us.
But then a few years ago my enthusiasm for ‘ecumenical matters’ was challenged because I saw that progress on this journey is sometimes very slow. Differences that could enrich us sometimes unfortunately divide us, and it is easy to get discouraged. I went through a year where I did not attend any of the ecumenical gatherings, and I did not go around visiting different Churches, as I sometimes would, rather I withdrew into the silence of not-doing and prayed to somehow be able to recommit to this call. Since then, I decided to focus more on Jesus and His desire for unity rather than on the reality of our Churches, and to rely on the fact that if He wants unity so strongly so as to make it His dying wish, it must then somehow be possible. I don’t need to understand how.
Jesus’ prayer
More than Two Thousand years ago, on the night before He died, after He washed the disciples feet, and after the Last Supper, at which as some Churches believe He established the Eucharist, Jesus went to pray. He asked three of His closest friends to accompany Him. When we know we are facing death, like He knew, we think and pray for what is most important to us. Jesus prayed to the Father to glorify Him and he prayed for all those who believed in Him, but then He said:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message [which is us], that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21)
Jesus prayed for us, and we are still gathering fruits from that prayer. Whenever we pray for unity between Christians we join Jesus in this prayer, we accompany Him into the garden like Peter, John and James did. It is a testament of perseverance in prayer that this week of prayer for Christian unity has been taking place regularly for over 100 years now. However, the very fact that this week exists highlights that we have ‘a problem’, that we are not yet united, as Christ would wish us to be. There should be no special ecumenical gatherings nor special services where we gather together. It should be normal that we come together, it should be part of our daily reality, and I know that for some of you it is, but on a global scale unfortunately we are still not united, not enough anyway.
Is Christ divided?
‘Is Christ divided?’ is a theme that Canadian Christians chose for us this year. We know that Christ can never be divided, and we are each in His heart, individually and each Church too, in His heart we are united, but our reality often does not show that. I think it is not a problem that Churches are different, perhaps that is even good because diversity of Christian expression can be enriching. But unfortunately some of our differences happen to be divisive. Paul said to the Church in Corinth I hear “that there are quarrels among you” (1 Corinthians 1:11). This sounds familiar as sometimes there are quarrels among us as well, especially when talking about the ‘hot-button-topics’. I must say that those make me feel very uncomfortable and I often don’t know how to address them. And I actually wonder how we will ever find unity in some of them; unless we allow each other to remain different. When we encounter those we realise there are gaps between us and it can be hard to stand in the gap because that’s where we encounter the pain of our disunity. I don’t think that any one of us can bridge those gaps, only Jesus can, Jesus is the bridge, but we as His followers need to be bridge-builders.
Perhaps the time has not yet come
A few years ago I heard that ecumenism was in winter; I am not sure if this is true, but even if it is – winter is important. There can be no spring or summer without winter, winter is a time of preparation, of healing, of restoration. Recently Pope Francis said how “we have not yet managed to take necessary steps towards unity between us and perhaps the time has not yet come”. It made me think: “Perhaps the time has not yet come” – I never thought of it this way. God takes time, and from my experience He does so especially when something is important to Him; I wonder whether at least sometimes it is true that the more important something is to God, the more time He will take with it. That is very hard for us to comprehend, as we would like to rush things, I know I would. But throughout ‘the times of waiting’, the in-between times, the Holy Spirit is active and there are fruits on the way that maybe we would miss otherwise.
I believe that for God journey is important as well as the goal; maybe we are not yet ready to receive the fullness of unity, and whatever God is doing in each of us and in each of our Churches at this time, is important too. Sometimes we do not see God’s work fully, it is hidden from our eyes, but that does not mean that He is not active. We cannot rush spring into winter, seasons have their natural flow too.
I would like to invite you now for a moment to reflect on one or two things from your own tradition through which you experience God the most intimately, something that if you could you would like to share with all other Christians. (pause here for a moment to think before you read further) Or maybe there are things in another Christian tradition that you wish your own Church would emphasise more. Until we are able to share those freely, our unity will be incomplete.
Healing our divisions
God wishes to heal our divisions; in Isaiah He said “I have seen their ways, but I will heal them” (Isaiah 57:18). Sometimes in the Gospels when Jesus healed He would ask “what do you want me to do for you?” but I think that here when we pray for Christian unity we need to reverse the question, “Lord, what do you want me to do for You?” Because the Church in all its branches is ‘the body of Christ’, when we allow our divisions to be healed we help Jesus’ wounds to heal as well. I believe that our disunity is painful for Christ, it is heart-breaking really. Also our disunity is a distraction because our job is to build the kingdom of God, and together we could do that much better.
We can never achieve unity on our own, no matter how much we desire it. We can assist God, we can prepare the ground as we are doing these days, but ultimately unity is going to be God’s work, unity is going to be a gift. Someone that I know, who wished not to be named, said: “we must continue to plant the seed of unity. When it falls on good ground it will produce fruit. Good ground is ground prepared with love. We must be receptive and make the ground good. The ground will then receive the seed and produce the fruit of unity. The seed is the word of God” and this week the Word is: ‘That they may all be one’. We must keep planting this seed.”
Recently I was told that from God’s perspective “delay is not a denial, not even withholding” and because “our lives are so linked up with those of others, so bound by circumstances” that delay has to be sometimes; if God would let our prayers always have an instant fulfilment, it might “in many cases cause another, as earnest prayer, to go unanswered”.* This may be applied to our quest for unity. If there seems to be a delay, God knows what He is doing. Maybe He is preparing us for this gift of unity, let us prepare ourselves too. Amen.
* From A. J. Russel [ed.], “God calling. A devotional diary”
(Adapted from the address given at the Ecumenical Healing Service in St Ann’s, Dawson street, on Sunday 19th January 2014)
Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland
Ecumenical Healing Service
Join us in an Ecumenical Service of Healing on Sunday, 19th January 2014, as we participate in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
The service will take place at St Ann’s, Dawson Street, at 3.30pm, and all are most warmly welcome to attend.
Enquiries about the ecumenical service can be directed to our Ministry Facilitator, Dr Iva Beranek, by emailing iva@ministryofhealing.ie.
Healing is a journey
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020Jesus our Healer,
we place in your gentle hands those who are sick.
Ease their pain,
and heal the damage done to them
in body, mind or spirit.
Be present to them through the support of friends
and in the care of doctors and nurses,
and fill them with the warmth of your love
now and always.
(A.A.)
God is present with us every moment of our lives, He is nearer to us than our breath, closer than our skin, and yet there are times when it does not appear to be so. There are times when the light that darkness cannot overcome seems a little bit dimmed. Those are often times when our need for God and His touch of peace will increase.
Jesus is a God of thousand welcomes and His ministry of healing is available to all of us, yet our need for it varies depending on what is going on in our lives. We each experience hurt in life, we are each invited to grow more into wholeness, into who God has intended us to be. Jesus invites us into a deep honest relationship with Him and is there to accompany us on our journey. His deep love for each of us is experienced through this relationship of mutual love, and through people that show their care to us, some of them strangers, people we ‘randomly’ meet. Christ’s compassion and love towards us encourages us to have compassion towards ourselves and towards others; in Him is our peace. And yet healing is a journey, with its ups and downs; through it we come to know that Christ is near us, beneath us, within us, above us, with us.
Sometimes healing will involve leaving behind our ways of acting and letting God teach us His way of acting and being in the world. Rev. Ruth Patterson says that “so often in our Christian lives we are looking for a problem solving God rather than to the God who uses the problems to lead us through to greater wholeness”. For some of us the need for the ministry of healing is more obvious at certain times of our lives as we have a visible condition of illness, or we have experienced loss, bereavement, are caring for a loved one in need or perhaps are struggling in some area of our lives; and so we need support. Those times, though often difficult, can as well be times when we experience God’s grace more acutely. They can be a sort of ‘thin places’, experiences through which we have a notion that a distance between Heaven and Earth is paper thin, as Celts believed. We will often know that through those who have decided to walk this journey with us. At those times we may need a listening ear, some nurturing inner silence, a community, someone who will be ‘God with skin’ for us. Perhaps at those times, without even knowing it, we will be a God with skin for other too – by our very being.
Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland
Nurture inner silence to get ready for the Silent Night
Posted on: /in Thoughts /by CMH_Admin2020Lord, teach me the silence of love,
the silence of wisdom,
the silence of humility,
the silence of faith,
the silence that speaks without words.
O Saviour, teach me to silence my heart
that I may listen to the gentle movement
of the Holy Spirit within me,
and sense the depths which are God,
today and always.
(Frankfurt, sixteen century)
As Christmas is approaching it may be hard to find moments of stillness amongst the busyness of our preparations. Yet let us try to give ourselves the luxury of short pauses and practice the awareness that God is in our midst. We can do that while doing ordinary tasks like cooking, washing dishes, buying Christmas presents, or spending time with our family, by simply bringing to our attention the notion that God’s gaze is on us as we go about our daily activities. In this way every moment becomes sacred. This awareness will create attentiveness in us that in turn carves the interior way in our souls and makes us ready for the most sacred night of all, Christmas Eve.
Advent is a time of waiting on the promises of light in the midst of the night; a time where promises of a new dawn, while covered in a deep winter dream, or even in snow, slowly start to emerge in quiet whispers, as if the womb of the earth wants to tell us never to give in.
Take time to slow down. Listen to those quiet whispers. Even soul has its seasons. When we look inside ourselves we may recognise in which season is our soul at present. Listen to the promises that are being whispered inside your own being. The soft voice of God speaks within us each, though we have to learn to trust it. The season of our soul does not need to correspond to the seasons of the year. If your soul is in spring, summer or autumn at this time, let these other seasons speak to you, as God is present in each of them. Yet if your soul is in the season of winter; a season of resting, recuperating, restoring, allow yourself less activity, as much as your circumstances permit, and try to bask in the presence of God’s love. Finding moments of stillness is hardly ever going to be without a challenge or distractions but it is nonetheless worth trying to integrate them in our daily lives. Going for a walk is a great way of doing that as nature can nurture inner silence. However, let us be mindful that for some people Christmas is not going to be a happy season, theirs will be a different kind of silence. If you know of someone who might be struggling at this time, may your presence be like a healing balm to them.
In Advent we remember that God often comes to us gently, in silence. Jesus came to this world through the silence of the womb and Mary was the first one who embraced His reality within herself. That was her advent. Now in this Advent, let us be the womb for Him, in which the awareness of God will grow within us.
Iva Beranek
Dr Iva Beranek is the Ministry Facilitator for the CMH: Ireland