In my spiritual life, I am always waiting to be approached by others. This is largely a deliberate choice based on a belief that others will be better able than myself to judge my gifts, my potential, and my worth. But I have to acknowledge that it fits comfortably with my own underlying shyness and a sense, not so much of unworthiness as of inadequacy: an unwillingness born of an assumed – and possibly wholly imagined – disqualification which makes persistent attempts to manifest itself as a fear of finding myself out of my depth. I have no such fear or sense of inadequacy in any other area of my life, though the underlying shyness does reach into most corners.
But, having made a conscious decision to respond willingly if and when approached for some form of assistance or involvement, when somebody did ask me to do something, the request concerned what may have been the only task for which I felt completely unqualified and to which I felt unable to answer ‘Yes’. My immediate but unspoken response was the thought, “Dear Lord, are you doing this on purpose?” Of all the things I could have been asked, I had never anticipated the words, ‘Eucharistic Minister’.
But, having made a conscious decision to respond willingly if and when approached for some form of assistance or involvement, when somebody did ask me to do something, the request concerned what may have been the only task for which I felt completely unqualified and to which I felt unable to answer ‘Yes’. My immediate but unspoken response was the thought, “Dear Lord, are you doing this on purpose?” Of all the things I could have been asked, I had never anticipated the words, ‘Eucharistic Minister’.
So, not only are there tugs that continue to draw me to people I know in one parish: people who already know me far better than anyone else, but I am also slowly but surely being drawn deeper into another community elsewhere. I have told myself for years that if and when I am asked to do something, I shall do it. But why did it have to restart with the one thing I would have to decline?
I have just searched my own blog for something completely unrelated to anything here, and was struck by the following words in one of the posts that came up (20.7.08 Loosely bound). ‘A sense of belonging is at the heart of the experience of being a Christian. The initial understanding of that fact – being part of a supportive group of similarly minded individuals, … down through parish and otherwise local communities, to small intimate groups of close spiritual friends – is valuable and valid, but the belonging goes further than that. … it ends where in fact it truly begins: within ourselves. When we find ourselves alone, without any form of human support from within that community, we still belong to it, and we must hope to become aware of the truth behind our collective sense of belonging: that each one of us belongs to Christ; He has claimed us as His own, not ‘en masse’ as what we see and feel as the Church, but individually: He has claimed you, and He has claimed me. We each belong to Him.’
I continue to enjoy the experience of finding my own words speaking back to me in this way, but though my first reaction was to feel the above would help me to resolve the choice which seemed to be formulating in my mind – even before I had become fully aware that a choice was involved – reading through those words again has dissolved not only the choice but even the thoughts and reasons behind my writing of this post. Looking back has distracted me from the train of thought which brought me here today, but in so doing I now feel that it has put me back on the right track. There is a choice which could be made; I could choose to be an exclusive and definite part of either one parish or the other, but perhaps that is not what I am being asked to do. Why should I not be equally seen and known in more than one place? Not through choosing to visit another church merely for a change of scene, or style, or preacher, or because of past connections, or convenient mass times when something clashes with one’s usual Sunday routine; not even through more persuasive effects such as some form of discontent or particular attraction; but through an awareness of belonging which is not restricted to the manmade and functional boundaries of parishes.
It is certainly not unusual to belong to, or to be involved in, more than one form of spiritual community today. As John Finney writes in his book ‘Emerging Evangelism’, this is an “important point which is likely to become more important with time. Many people are members of more than one community. It is possible to be a member of the Franciscan Third Order and also a member of the local church community. It is also already the case that many Christians look to their engagement with New Wine, Soul Survivor, a retreat centre or Walsingham as an important part of their spiritual life which goes alongside their membership of a local church.”
Ultimately we are all there is. We are it. We are the Church. And that is not the terrifying thought that it may at first appear to be. We have only to see ourselves and the Church through the eyes and the mind of Christ. God’s Word is there for all to see, every day of our lives. And this is where we all need our priests to be the priests Christ is calling them to be. They are all included in that one all-encompassing ‘We’. They are not separated from it; they are not above it, or ahead of it. Nor are they at the centre of it by any appointment or form of recognition other than that received from God in their vocation; a calling confirmed and manifested through the respect, reverence, spiritual intimacy and true fellowship found in the needs of the people among whom they are called to minister.
'You have called me by my name. I hear you Lord.'
