We are all of us judged every day. We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children and by our dreams. We are judged by the faces of the people we do not love. Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have.
How does your GAFCON grow? We know that in North America it is through separation and intended competition with the existing provinces. In England GAFCON grows via Evangelical organizations. Its strategy mimics that of what we know here as entryism, a tactic by which an organization encourages members to infiltrate another organization in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely.
For something short of ten years, the two priests, then constituting this small religious group, carried on the work at Holy Cross Mission Church, which afforded them an unparalleled opportunity amongst the poor and depressed.
Ascetical theology isn’t fundamentally about thinking and while deeds are involved it’s not fundamentally about specific acts either—it’s about our habits: how we think, how we feel, and ultimately how we behave towards all of the players in the relationship—God and our neighbors, which includes the whole of creation.
Julian lived in a time of great upheaval. The Black Death swept through Europe several times, killing millions and almost certainly touching Julian’s family and neighbors. The Catholic Church was in schism, and the theology of the day was that God was angry with a world of sinners and inflicted these ills as punishment.
The whole point of Jesus giving us the final exam in the middle of the course is not to frighten us into failure, but to inspire us to recognize and begin to actualize our true identities. The purpose of this parable is not to scare us into contriving a lot of humanitarian acts in order selfishly to acquire salvation.
God isn’t looking for a creation of puppets, whose every action God controls. God isn’t looking for robots, created to do exactly what God says. No, God has created a universe and from it He is working to build a household of members who do, who act, who unleash God’s blessings they have stored within. Each according to ability.
In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, “I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery.
The wild goose is a Celtic symbol of God’s Spirit. Hundreds of migrating wild geese alight on Holy Island each year. They include Canadian Brent and Pink-footed geese. A BBC TV programme entitled Hidden Forces stated: ‘We’ve only just begun to unravel some of the magnetic senses which guide the geese across the world.’ Some geese return to a place after over thirty years of absence.
I recently returned from a 10-day journey to Palestine, Jordan and Israel. This trip was an opportunity to spend time with the new Episcopal Bishop of Jerusalem, Suheil Dawani, whose diocese spans Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Syria and Palestine. What I saw, heard and experienced has brought me to a place where I can no longer sit back and assume that in time all will be well in that troubled part of the world.