Saint John says, ‘I saw the word in God’

Posted on October 15, 2016 by shepsewell

Titelumschlag Eckhart Society

St John says, ‘I saw the Word in God.’ God is abstract being, pure perception, which is perceiving itself in itself. St John means that the Son is in the Father, in his nature. ‘I saw the Word with God.’ Here he is referring to the intellect which, flowing into God eternally, proceeded forth from God in distinction of Person, namely, the Son. ‘ I saw the Word before God.’ This means that the Son is ever being born of the Father and that he is the image of the Father. ‘In the Word there is only the Word,’ refers to the eternal emanation of creatures in the Word. ‘I saw the Word under God’; the Son becomes man, as God said, ‘I have loved you in the reflection of my darkness.’ God’s darkness is his nature which is unknowable. Good people know it not and no creature can divine it; therefore it is a darkness. While God was flowing in his own darkness the Son was not distinct from him. In the darkness of his nature the Father flowed as Person so far as he was pregnant. The Father gave his Son birth and gave him his own nature; he gave him not his Person: his nature he can give away but he can give to none his Person for that is the product of his unborn essence. The Father spoke himself and all creatures in his Son; the Father spoke himself to all creature in his Son. The Father turning back into himself speaks himself in himself; he flows back into himself with all creatures. As Dionysius says, ‘God proceeded himself,’ meaning that his hidden nature suffices him, which is concealed from creatures. The soul cannot follow him into his nature, except he absorb her altogether, and then in him she is made dark of all created lights. The darkness of creatures is their incomprehensibility in their simple nature, that is, in the nothing from which they were created. In this uncreated light they discern his uncreatedness. Into his uncreatedness they flow in the reflection of his darkness.

–‘Tell me, good Sir, do Father, Son and Holy Ghost speak the same word in the Godhead or has each a different word? ‘ — In the Godhead there is but one word; in it the Father in the Godhead speaks into his unborn essence and into his born essence, the Father flowing into his Son with all that he is and the Son speaks the same word, and the Father and the Son flow into the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost speaks the same word. They speak this one simple word in their essence and each speaks the same word in his own Person, and in their common nature they discourse the truth and the Persons receive the essence as it is essentially. Yet the Persons receive from one another. They bow down to the essence in praise, lauding the essence; and the unborn essence pronounces its unborn word in the Persons, lauding the Persons, and the Persons receive the essence every whit and pass it on to one another. This unborn essence is self-sufficient, without birth and without activity. Birth and activity are in the Persons. The Persons say they are the truth and that creatures have none of the truth. When the soul attains to this divine speech she speaks this very truth and is the Deity to every creature as well as to herself. This comes of his indivisible nature and therein creatures are a matter of the will. The bad are bad and the good good, the Persons preserving justice in the Godhead. They give the bad their due and the good theirs.

hosios_loukas_diakonikon_arch_-_dionysius_areopagite

St Dionysius says, ‘God is the Prime Cause, and God has fashioned all things for himself who is the cause of all; and his works are all wrought in the likeness of the First Cause.’ Father and Son show forth the first cause, and the Son is playing in the Father with all things for he proceeded forth from him. The Son plays before the Father with all things, the Son plays below the Father with all things. The Father begat his Son with his Godhead and with all things. The Father begat his Son in his Godhead with all things. The Godhead is the several Persons and the fullness of the Persons. The Godhead is not given to any thing. On coming to its knowledge the soul sees God and glancing back into herself she sees that the Godhead is in all things. Receiving into her the likeness of the creator she creates what she will but cannot give it essence: she gives it form and is herself its matter and its eternal activities are in her; these are in the eternal birth. Its temporal activities are in time, where God gives his works essence, form and matter out of nothing, which the soul is unable to do; God reduces his works to the unity of Christ and this order shall not pass away but shall be raised up to the glory of the one. Soul, transcending order, enters the naked Godhead where she is seen when God is seen in the soul as God. This soul has God as God in her, she has gotten in her the image of her creator.

Now mark the difference between the work of God and creature. God has done all things for himself, for he is the universal cause and all his works are wrought in the likeness of the first cause and creatures all work according to the likeness of the first cause. That is the intention they have towards God. God made all things from nothing, infusing into them his Godhead so that all things are full of God. were they not full of the Godhead they would all perish. The Trinity does all the work in things and creatures exploit the power of the Trinity, creatures working as creatures and God as God, while man mars the work so far as his intention is evil. When a man is at work his body and soul are united, for body cannot act without the soul. When the soul is united with God she does divine work, for God cannot work without the soul and the soul cannot work without God. God is the soul’s life just as the soul is the body’s, and the Godhead is the soul of the three Persons in that it unifies them and in that it has dwelt in them for ever. And since the Godhead is in all things it is all soul’s soul. But in spite of its being all soul’s soul, the Godhead it not creatures’ soul in the way it is the Trinity’s. God does one work with the soul; in this work the soul is raised above herself. The work is creature, grace to wit, which bears the soul to God. It is nobler than the soul as admitting her to God; but the soul is the nobler in her admissibility. This creature which has neither form nor matter nor any being of its own, translates the soul of her natural state into the supernatural.

To his eternally elect God gives his spirit as it is, without means; they cannot miss it. Creatures God is going to make at his good pleasure he has known eternally as creatures, for in God they are creatures albeit nothing in themselves: they are uncreated creatures. Creatures are always more noble in God than they are in themselves. In God the soul shall see her own perfection without image and shall see the difference between things uncreated and created and she shall distinguish God from Godhead, nature from Person, form from matter. The Father is the beginning of the Godhead, he is the well-spring of the Godhead, overflowing into all things in eternity and time. The Godhead is a heaven of three Persons. The Father is God and a Person not born nor proceeding any; and the Son is God and a Person and born of the Father; and the Holy Ghost is God and a Person proceeding from both. St Paul speaks of the uncreated spirit flowing into the created spirit (or mind). This meeting which befalls the created spirit is her saving revelation; it happens in the soul who breaks through the boundaries of God to lose herself in his uncreated naught. The three Persons are one God, one in nature, and our nature is shadowing God’s nature in perpetual motion; having followed him from naught to aught and into that which God is to himself, there she has no motion of her naught. Aught is suspended from the divine essence; its progression is matter, wherein the soul puts on new forms and puts off her old ones. The change from one into the other is her death: the one she doffs she dies to, and the one she dons she lives in.

‘Christ Triumphant’ – John De Rosen – Saint John’s Episcopal Church, Memphis, Tennessee (note Saint John as an old man at the foot of the cosmic cross. He is usually seen as a young man).

St John says, ‘Blessed are the dead that die in God; they are buried where Christ is buried.’ Upon which St Dionysius comments thus: Burial in God is the passage into uncreated life. The power the soul goes in is her matter, which power the soul can never approfound for it is God and God is changeless, albeit the soul changes in his power. As St Dionysius says, ‘God is the mover of the soul.’ Now form is a revelation of essence. St Dionysius says, ‘Form is matter’s aught. Matter without form is naught.’ So the soul never rests till she is gotten into God who is her first form and creatures never rest till they have gotten into human nature: therein do they attain to their original form, God namely. As St Dionysius hath it, ‘God is the beginning and the middle and the end of all things.’

Then up spake the loving soul, ‘Lord, when enjoyest thou thy creatures?’ — ‘That do I at high noon when God is reposing in all creatures and all creatures in God.’ St Augustine says, ‘All things are God,’ meaning, they have always been in God and shall return to God. So when St Dionysius says,’ All things are naught,’ he means they are not of themselves and that in their egress and their ingress they are as incomprehensible as naught. When St Augustine says, ‘God is all things,’ he means he has the power of all things, one more noble than he ever gave to creatures. And St Dionysius’ dictum, ‘God is naught,’ implies that God is as inconceivable as naught. As King David sings, ‘God has assigned to everything its place: to fish the water, birds the air and beasts the field and to the soul the Godhead.’ The soul must die in every form save God: there at her jouney’s end her matter rests and God absorbs the whole of the powers of the soul, so now behold the soul a naked spirit. Then, as St Dionysius says, the soul is not called soul, she is the sovran power of God wherewith God’s will is done. It is at this point St Augustine cries, ‘Lord thou hast bereft me of my spirit!’ Whereupon Origen remarks, ‘Thou art mistaken, O Augustine. It is not thy spirit, it is thy soul-powers that are taken from thee.’ The soul unites with God like food with man, which turns in eye to eye, in ear to ear. So does the soul in God turn into God; and God combines with the soul and is each power in the soul; and the two natures flowing in one light, the soul comes utterly to naught. That she is she is in God. The divine powers swallor her up out of sight just as the sun draw up things out of sight.
What God is to himself no man may know. God is in all things, self-intent. God is all in all and to each thing all things at once. And the soul shall be the same. What God has by nature is the soul’s by grace. God is nothing at all to anything; God is nothing at all to himself, God is nothing that we can express. In this sense Dionysius says, ‘God is all things to himself for he bears the form of all things.’ He is big with himself in a naught; there all things are God, and are not, the same as we were. When we were not then God was heaven and hell and all things. St Dionysius says that ‘God is not’, meaning that he bears himself in a not, namely, the not-knowing of all creatures, and this not draws the soul through all things, over all things and out of all things into that superlative not where she is not-known to any creature. There she is not, has not, wills not, she has abandoned God and everything to God. Now God and heaven gone, the soul is finally cut off from every influx of divinity, so his spirit is no longer given to her. Arrived at this the soul belongs to the eternal life rather than creation; her uncreated spirit lives rather than herself; the uncreated, eternally-existent which is no less than God. Wherewith being all-pervaded to the total loss of her own self, the soul at length returns without herself to eternal indigence, for what is left alive in her is nothing less than God. Thus she is poor of self. This is the point where soul and Godhead part and the losing of the Godhead is the finding of the soul, for the spirit which is uncreated drawing on the soul to its own knowledge she comes nearer to the not-being of the Godhead than by knowing all the Father ever gave. [The gift of the Father is the positive existence of all creatures in the Person of his Son and with the Son the Holy Ghost as well. For the Persons must be looked on as inseparate, albeit distinct illuminations of the understanding.] And so far as she attains this in the body she enjoys the eternal wont and escapes her own.

We ought to be eternally as poor as when we were not and then our kingdom shall not pass away, abiding as it does in God whose it is eternally. The Godhead gave all things up to God; it is as poor, as naked and as idle as thought it were not: it has not, wills not, wants not, works not, gets not. St Dionysius says, ‘Be the soul never so bare the Godhead is barer’: a naught from which no shoot was ever lopped nor ever shall be. It is this counsel of perfection the soul is straining after more than after anything that God contains or anything she can conceive of god. Saith the bride in the book of Love, ‘The form of my beloved passed by me and IGo cannot overtake him.’ It is God who has the treasure and the bride in him, the Godhead is as void as though it were not. God has consumed the form of the soul and formed her with his form into his form. Now she gets all things free from matter, as their creator possesses them in him, and resigns the same to God.

Ours to contain all things in the same perfection wherein the eternal wisdom has eternally contained them. Ours to expire them as the Holy Ghost has expired them eternally. Ours to be all things’ spirit and all things spirit to us in the spirit. Ours to know all and deify ourselves with all.

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Easter III

Posted on May 4, 2014 by shepsewell

Abraham’s Oak – Henry Ossawa Turner

Pausing, looking back toward where the story began there is symmetry, a type–antitype. The place God began his self-revelation was at Mamre, which wasn’t much even then except for one world-class oak, In fact the place was known as the Oak of Mamre as the tree gave it about its only reason for being.

God and two archangels some say or perhaps God, the Trinity, dropped by for lunch with Abraham and his wife Sarah. Since most have not seen an archangel and no one at all has seen the Trinity, it’s a little hard to know where one left off and the other began. It is safe to say that neither wife nor husband recognized their guests until all was revealed over lunch.

Abraham & the Three Angels – James Tissot

Abraham bent over backwards showing hospitality that day and Sarah would have baked a cake if they had given her warning. The holy ones gravely accepted Abraham’s spread under the spreading branches and then got on to the business at hand. You know how it turned out of course. The childless couple had a boy come new-year and Sodom and environs became the Dead Sea by year end.

Turning toward home, see the script? Cleopas and his companion are running away from home and bump into Jesus and then it all becomes clearer over supper. Both stories come to the moment of insight because of hospitality. Extending ourselves in service of the comfort and welcome of the stranger will often lead to gifts unforeseen. Do not neglect hospitality for some have entertained angels unawares. So you never know who might put their wingtips under your table, either expensive shoes or feathers. Prepare to hear the good news.

Jesus came near Cleopas and his un-named companion on the road from Jerusalem and Emmaus. Let’s get the actors straight on our program before we get confused. Hegsippus (early historian) records that Cleopas was the brother of Joseph the husband of Mary and step-father of Jesus our Lords. His companion may have been his son, Simeon. who became bishop after James, Jesus’ brother, was martyred?

Cleopas and company are running away from the scene of the crime. Their deepest hopes have become their deepest wounds. There is no one more cynical than a deeply wounded idealist. Their eyes were “held” so they did not recognize him. When they explain their distress, Jesus showed them, beginning with Moses and so showed them that another way to read and understand the Scriptures was exactly what happened to Jesus. Thus he reframed their history and made bad news into good news.

Anyone who has lived for very long has come to know that sometimes the only thing worse than the disappointment of not getting what we want is the remorse of getting exactly the thing longed for only to learn how bad it was for us and our souls. Of course, hopefully we learn from the consequences of getting what we want. It may well be that our “wanter” is broken. Actually it has been since Adam at the apple. It may be that God knows better what we need and want than we do.

Emmaus – James Tissot

They come to Emmaus, perhaps to the family home, where Cleopas and his older brother Joseph were brought up. It was there it happened. They were sitting at the old family table, the very one that for all their lives on Friday they had the prayers and only the day after the Passover Supper where again they had eaten and told the story of rescue, how God brought them out of Egypt into the promised land and where they hoped for Messiah, the anointed one of God.

Here Jesus did what is always done at this table, all Christian tables, at this service of Holy Thanksgiving.

Supper at Emmaus – Abraham Bloemaert

The four movements of the Eucharist, He took, he blessed, broke and gave.

He Took

In reply to Satan who suggested he turn loaf-shaped stones into bread Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone.” Of course he doesn’t live without it either. In the only story told by all four Gospels (other than the passion) Jesus took a lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish and fed 5000 people. If Jesus is God, then he was on the ground floor when the Universe began and if you can make matter from scratch then he can stretch molecules of bread in hand.

Supper at Emmaus
– Diego Velazquez

What folk should have learned that day was (and is), whatever we make truly available to Jesus can (and will) be used. In addition, we should have learned by now that when Jesus takes something (any old thing) it is transformed and it becomes enough..
Now, think of all the “castoffs” of our lives. . It is a hoot seeing what Jesus does when he up-cycles what we distain into something needful. Today, look around, take inventory and then offer what we find to Jesus. He can do more with less than anyone I have ever I have ever known.

HE BLESSED

A couple makes promises and then is married but when they are blessed their relationship is filled with divine content. Having taken the bread, ordinary stuff to sustain life in the body, Jesus now makes the bread “different/holy” and it is no longer just bread, but, like Manna in the wilderness, it is the bread of Heaven.

Blessing changes things. It changes relationships. It changes effect. It changes value. To be blessed by God gives dignity and worth. If we are worthless by all human standards not so with God, divine love and blessing creates value where none existed before.

What we will give up, Jesus will take up. What Jesus takes up, he blesses as he did that day when the children came running to him. And what he blesses has merit and dignity if for no other reason, because he blessed them. If God can do that with ground wheat seed mixed with water and baked, what can God to our lives?

HE BROKE

The most solemn moment in any Eucharist is the “fraction” – the actual breaking of the bread. On a day with low humidity there is a discernible “cracking” sound heard through the room. In that moment we are confronted symbolically with the suffering of Christ.
The rubric (stage direction) in the Prayer Book is, “The celebrant breaks the consecrated Bread. A period of silence is kept.” What can we do in face of his sacrifice other than be silent? I believe that the breaking of the bread is all the broken things in our lives, our souls and bodies, those things done, those things left undone, are all (everyone) broken there as well. It is a good breaking, like re-breaking a leg that was inadequately set, in service of fullness of life.

HE GAVE

What Jesus’ taking, blessing and breaking make, he gives. It is food. It is life. It is healing. It is celebration and it is joy. Above all it is Viaticum, literally “food for the journey.” That which God requires of us, God in grace provides us. We need not grow hungry, forced to eat fast-food along the shoulder of the road. Lest we succumb to the junk-food at the Jiffy Mart, Jesus provides us nourishment such that we will arrive prepared to do what needs doing.

When we come for “solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal;” (BCP. Page 372) then we miss the best part. And what is the best part, you ask?
Why, the best part is going out and doing what Jesus said for us to do and seeing that indeed it is happening. What’s not to like? Join a ministry team and find out. These are the four movements of the Eucharist.

THEY WENT

In truth there is a fifth movement: they went. Having the last say, the Deacon exhorts, “Go and do what needs to doing. If you have been fed – be bread.” (My language)

Jesus gave them the bread, they eyes were no longer “held” and they recognized him. Then he vanished. Then, no longer tired; (interesting how that happens) Cleopas and company marched immediately from Emmaus back to Jerusalem with the news of Jesus’ resurrection. Upon arriving they discover that the risen Christ has been busy and there afore them.

Our hearts burned as he reframed the scriptures to include Messiah’s “failure” death upon a tree, they marveled. It’s really a simple matter, you see. Their unconscious got it even if their eyes were “held” and the same, beloved, is true in our own day.

Ever since Emmaus, Christians know that Jesus shows up when the bread is broken. We don’t have to see him with our physical eyes. Our hearts will tell us even when our eyes fail us. Pay attention to the awaking fascinations of your soul. The soul turns unconsciously to God, as sunflowers follow the sun. .

JWS

Tradition is th…

Quote

Posted on December 1, 2013 by shepsewell

Holy Spirit 27 (Photo credit: Waiting For The Word)

Tradition is the action of the Holy Spirit making available the past in a new idiom and time.

Richard Valentasis

FROM MINSTER TO MINISTRY.

Posted on November 19, 2013 by shepsewell

An outline of the concept of “monasterium”

By Douglas Brown (Reader)

“Stand at the cross-roads and look : ask for the ancient paths; ask where the good way is; and walk in it.” Jeremiah 6 :16

“Renewal is often in the simple recovery of the eternally true”

[This is not a definitive study. It is only an outline, warts ’n’ all! It will not say the last word!]

“Monasterium” emerges from a study of the Celtic Church. It does so largely unaffected by the shadow of the current “nostalgia” for Celtic times. It is arguably a “distinctive” of that Church, but may not be wholly unique to that era [the writer believes the idea reverberates down history in various ways – if only as echoes – while it is not exclusive to any one tradition]. However, because Celtic times are presently “in favour” and able to avoid the “noise” of disputes concerning other periods of history, it does allow the concept of monasterium to stand clear.

Colonies of Heaven is not a Biblical phrase, though it sounds like it. Yet it is probably the best phrase to convey the idea of monasterium.

Firstly, our “citizenship is in Heaven”, and there is no doubt that the Celtic view of life was rooted in the awareness of the heavenly as pervading the whole of life. We know this to be a “sacramental” view of reality. The Celts would say that heaven began about “one foot six inches above our heads”, but this did not necessarily mean a dual view as such, earth here, heaven there. There was as well a heaven/earth unity – especially as earth was increasingly affected by redemption and its transforming power: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. Heaven wove its way into all earthly things and activity : yet as the sky is above our heads in a day to day sense, so heaven was “one foot six inches” above us. Our deistic temptations perhaps place heaven at a greater distance!

Secondly, to lose sight of the awareness that the Celts had of heaven, is to lose sight of the dynamic context of their faith as it translated into works. Our day and age places a kind of “taboo” on things heavenly, and hence there is a danger of decoupling what we see of the Celtic Church’s works from their faith. Equally, Heaven is best experienced in Worship, and worship was central to the life of the monasterium within and without. Even now one hears of guides at monastic sites dismissing ancient worship as though it were something peripheral at the best and something wholly cloistered, remote, isolated and irrelevant at the worst. But for the Celtic Church, worship that did not engage with the world outside was not worship. Earth was His footstool and that was the Altar – so they took their instructions from the Throne of God before whom they stood in worship.

If worship was key, then so was Prayer. That also follows from prioritizing Heaven. Prayer, it can be said was nearly “without ceasing” – in the good times of the whole monastic movement. Some argue that it was this constant prayer that first created Europe and then preserved it more intact than not from tendencies to destruction from within as from without. Hence Prayer was fundamental and critical and put beyond any possibility of mere lip-service.

Thirdly, “it is a model of the Church that looks outwards”. It is true that the Celtic Church did not need to articulate mission statements :mission was simply assumed and implemented as part and parcel of their strategy. It was expected. [Many were not allowed to serve in the place where they were trained. Others had what seemed to be a kind of “wanderlust”]. It was the Celts who, by taking the Gospel to Russia, were one of the foundational influences in that territory. And their tactic was the same whether near or far. Send people, use “presence” and engage the surrounding districts by the “ripple” effect.

Finally, to be aware of heaven, and God revealed in all things, was not to deny the position of Christ. The Celts would have resonated with Benedict : “our goal is Christ”.

The idea of Colonies of Heaven works out if we think, not so much of monasterium, but of “Minster”. The latter translates the former, in any case. But Minster Churches were Mother Churches, spawning offspring Churches. They were the core resource. One centre, one strategy, many tactics and many localities. [cf the Trinitarian resolution of the “One and the Many”]. Various kinds [as we would say] of outreach, by multi-talented, multi-task Teams [as we would call them], effectively assured the development of daughter churches as gifts were discerned amongst those new Christians at the new localities. [There is some overlap between Monastic cores and the later Parish cores – but we can leave that discussion on one side for now].

Teams [usually at least three to begin with] were ordained and lay folk.

The focus was LIFE, and the Celtic Church for all its austerity was renowned for its cheerful people. Also as Gregory wrote of Benedict, “for that holy man could not have taught anything but what he had first LIVED”.

After that the tools used to grow were : a ministry of presence and welcome, pastoral work, generous and constant hospitality [whereby some have entertained angels unawares], and generous works of relief, including healing. These were the “cutting edge” tools [though we might not think so, sometimes believing them to be more like blunt instruments] – at the “coal face”.

The later phrase also points up that People came first. There was much interest in the discernment of gifts, because that decided the fit with the tasks to be done – and the fit with the Team. And because time constraints may be less critical, we can say that for today, the retired and aged have a distinct place and contribution!

It was “collegiate”, a Family-like effort [cf, “muintir” the Irish word for Minster and meaning “family”, too], a Team in Community, a “collaborative” [chaplain-like] ministry. It was not individualistic. In fact, monasticism from the outset of the cenobitic movement was much like dealing with an extended family.

The concept of monasterium helps deal with both the fragmentation of society and the increasing differences and dispersion that fragmentation creates. Some argue that we – as a society – are today moving into a post-modern tribal phase. Monasterium deals with that by a “sector” approach [handling the intense localisation inherent in tribalism]. It is wheel-like. From the hub activity radiates out by means of Teams and by the creation of cells [in homes at the outset] developing at their own speed and level. The spokes of the wheel need not be uniformly alike; variety and diversity are expressed but contained within an ultimate integrative and unifying ecclesiology [the Church of all Ages]. An over-riding collegiality and common commitment maintains flexibility. It is open door in approach – people to people. It is all something like [the best in] Group Medical Practice!

Saint Hild

Taking the Celtic “sacramental” view of reality, and linking that with their insistence that the Word of God is of greater “immediacy” [cf “lectio divina”] than we accord to it, then we can see what they meant by a “ministry of presence”. God present to us and presented to others! And where we have a sense of being “driven” – and kept close to burn-out, the Celtic way was “stability, rhythm and balance”.

Some questions arising:

How do we prioritize “collegiate” Prayer
What is our analysis of the situation confronting the Church in our locality?
What is “our” locality?
Where boundaries on a denominational/sectarian models are likely to clash, can we network/work alongside other Christian Churches/institutions, without requiring months and years of negotiation?
Are we a “hinge” people, standing at the cross-roads and responsible for handing on to the next generation?
Can we do so – or at least start – on the monasterium model, and as a collegiate of largely U3A folk?
What might Team/s mean – for us?
Can we put together a strategy with tactics?
Can we proceed step by step, walking before we run?
What are the practicalities, and what might the timetable be?

Monasterium as Minster lasted until the Parish system took over. Yet the “idea” of monasterium arguably did not disappear entirely. After all, monasteries co-existed with parishes and the influence of monasterium as a modus operandi, while it maybe was not thought of in quite the original terms, continued to inform outlooks.

The concept of Parish tends to lay claim to “people-in-a-place”, and then it is claimed that Parish negated the effects of monasterium because the latter was less static and a more “central-core-and-outlying-cluster-of-cells idea”. Yet this aspect of the whole idea may be simply be expressed as “parish is monasterium geographically re-ordered”. This is because the value of “place” is not in the sole purview of either monasterium or parish.

Alexander Pope asked us to consult the “genius of place”. It is quite a universal subject. Humans particularly need“ place” whether religious or secular – let alone whether monasterium or parish. “We are inveterate place-makers, and the way we are placed shapes the people we become. “…Life is inherently local, plotted in space and time”. We are all within the GPS orbit…for Christians the “God Positioning System”! It’s an “inescapable concept” !

The way the Church handles “place” conveys a silent message. If community and locality are ignored, then the Church can unconsciously promote that sense of displacement that, in a secular context, she criticises. Common Prayer has always meant the Community of the People of God – in a locality [before being universal]. It’s a question of feeling “at Home” and “of having a Home to go to”. Identity is spatial and local. “Global village” is still subject to the need for local erstwhile village-type village!

Neither monasterium nor parish permit an “eclectic congregational ecclesiology”. The latter works against “being at home in a locality, and even, because of commuting to Church, being at home in a community of believers”.

Although the monasterium expansion is by what we can term cells, it’s not simply a Policy of “the more the merrier” – or “the greater the number of check-outs, the greater number of people processed” Lesley Newbigin has the last word – “ the multiplication of cells UNRELATED TO THE PURPOSE OF THE BODY, is what we call “cancer” – Monasterium relates cell development precisely to the purpose of the body.

Douglas Brown/28.09.02

Holy Trinity – The Priory Church

Posted on September 8, 2013 by shepsewell

On this spot Christians have prayed for over 900 years!

Looking toward the high altar – Trinity, Micklegate

Beyond Contradiction

Gain Disguised as Loss

Tag Archives: Trinity

Saint John says, ‘I saw the word in God’