My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ

Recently, while preparing for a meeting, I came across an interesting article on the spiritual formation programme of the Duke University Divinity School. Stressing that theological education is about forming people for ministry, they ask their students, "What are the practices and convictions that form, nurture and strengthen Christian identity and life?" This is a profound question. It not only challenges us to identify the beliefs and practices that nurture us in our Christian life and ministry, but also compels us to ask what those to whom we minister need to nurture and strengthen their Christian identity and lives. It is a question that shapes both our identity as Christian leaders and our ministry.

Because of this question the seminary sees study, prayer and service as an integrated whole, in which each informs and shapes the other in such a way that one does not exist intelligibly without the other. That integration provides an essential balance which is critical to living the Christian life; praying our life and living our prayers. Sadly such integration is often lacking and the result is a visible dichotomy between what we believe and how we behave.

David Kelsey, Professor of Theology at Yale, says that the words of Jesus, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength' remind us "that love for God is not only an emotion, a passion and a willed commitment to the Beloved, but also a fixed attentiveness on trying to understand the Beloved." Even the briefest reflection on those words is enough for us to realise that we do not love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Instead of passion, our love for God is a low intensity emotion devoid of passion, our level of commitment scarcely one that demands great acts of will, and our attentiveness to God not so much fixed as erratic and occasional.

It is the last of Kelsey's points that is critical. There is little point in berating ourselves or our parishioners for our lack of love. Nor is it a matter of trying to whip up passion or redoubling our efforts for we do not grow in love by trying harder. The answer lies in an attitude of attentiveness to God. The 17^th century Carmelite, Brother Lawrence, spoke of it as an act of constant recollection, of practicing the presence of God. For Brother Lawrence this involved four steps:-

1. A daily recommitting and giving of himself totally to God;
2. A daily renunciation of everything that is not God and a desire to live as if it were only God and him in the world;
3. Ongoing attention to the presence of God in which everything he did, no matter how small and insignificant, was a deliberate act of love and devotion for God;
4. Intentionally refocusing his attention on God whenever he found that his mind had drifted away.

Jean-Pierre de Caussade stresses this same attentiveness to God. He says that we must "…give ourselves to God and put ourselves entirely in his hands, body and soul." For him attentiveness to God involves a particular kind of "abandon" - a moment-by-moment active self-offering of whatever we are doing. His thinking is summed up in his wonderful phrase: " ... the sacrament of the present moment" in which every moment of our lives becomes a sacramental encounter with the divine love.

"What are the practices and convictions that form, nurture and strengthen your Christian identity and life and those entrusted to your care?" Brother Lawrence says, "Practice the presence of God;" Jean-Pierre de Caussade says, "Live the sacrament of the present moment." And you? What do you say?

May we live the sacrament of the present moment,

And may our people see us as having been in the presence of God.

+Brian

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