Part 2. The Body

Part 3. Centering Prayer

Part 4. The Jesus Prayer

Part 5. Doing the Jesus Prayer

Part 6. Watching the Mind

Part 7. Lectio Divina

From the Preface:
The narrative that follows is a compilation of interviews, meeting minutes, official documents and historical data. Of all these resources, the memories of the parishioners are, by far, the greatest treasures. Documents provide accurate data, of course, but the vignettes that are stirred in discussing the past bring forth a warm and loving picture of St. Michael’s. In many ways the parish, although a larger community 50 years later, has retained much of the special character described in the early days.

To read the rest, download the PDF file.

Available June 2002 from St. Michael's Parish Office or though the publisher at www.cowley.org.

OVERVIEW

Part 1: Practice

• Ch. 1 Getting Started
• Ch. 2 Praying with the Will, the Mind, and the Heart
• Ch. 3 Abiding in Christ

Introduction:

For some, the term contemplative prayer may be intimidating. Perhaps when we think of contemplation, we envision pious, holy mystics who are lost in rapture. While a few such saints have always existed (and many of them have been contemplative), there are also other ways of being contemplative that are far more ordinary. Silent prayer that has no other purpose than to be present to God is also contemplative.

I assume that because you hold this book in your hands, you are attracted to this way of being with God. I do not assume that you are experienced in it. Nevertheless, if you are, my hope is that you will benefit from what I have to say about my experience with contemplative prayer. I share with you a particular approach which I have learned over years of practice. I suggest that you try it long enough to get to know in your own experience what I am talking about, instead of reading it simply out of curiosity.

And so we begin with instruction and discussion about the doing of silent prayer. Before we talk about what it means or where it leads, it is best to just pray, and see for ourselves what happens. The first chapter in this section presents a practical instruction and orientation to the kind of contemplative prayer with which I work. The second chapter goes into more depth about how we can pray contemplatively with our whole being, and the third suggests ways of praying contemplatively in Christ.

Part 2: Context

• Ch. 4 The Contemplative in the Church
• Ch. 5 Traditional Disciplines
• Ch. 6 Finding Support

Introduction:

A regular practice of contemplative prayer is challenging for anyone who undertakes it. We sometimes get bored with it, find ourselves lacking stimulation and direction, and at times we even lose our way. To move as pilgrims towards an agenda-free, open-hearted encounter with the living God is a potentially overwhelming thing. It is a journey into a sacred mystery, beyond the limitations of our little worldview, beyond even our capacity to comprehend.

This is why we must put our private practice of contemplative prayer within the larger context of the church's life. The contemplative needs the church's saints, sacraments, community, spiritual directors, traditional disciplines, scripture, theology, and other seekers. We need experienced guides, companions, maps, signposts, and food for the journey.

The chapters that follow in this section explore the many ways in which the rich tradition and resources of the church can support a private practice of contemplative prayer. For me, this support has been critical for the long haul, and has removed from my shoulders the burden of continually renewing and maintaining something I cannot, on my own. This context has also proved to be a source of great joy and discovery, the end of which I will never reach in this lifetime.

Part 3: Transformation

• Ch. 7 Going Deeper
• Ch. 8 Learning from Difficulty
• Ch. 9 Becoming Free

Introduction:

For the Christian, the purpose of faith and prayer is the transformation of our lives, so that they resemble the quality of being that Jesus Christ shared with us. He called this quality the kingdom of God, and promised that we could come to know it, in some measure, in our lifetime.

As we give ourselves to God through a practice of regular contemplative prayer, and as we live out this life of prayer within the context and support of the church, transformation by the grace of God takes place. We were created by God with great potential, and fulfillment of this potential is possible in Christ. "Be perfect [whole, complete] as your heavenly Father is perfect," Jesus said (Matthew 5:48). Just before he died, he declared to his disciples "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11). Contemplative prayer is one way of moving, by grace, into this fulfillment.

However, the journey of transformation only begins in earnest when we move beyond the initial delight of discovery, into the darkness of our hearts. We must encounter our inner demons and falsity, walk through suffering and the way of the cross, and detach from all that keeps us captive. The chapters that follow address the contemplative movement into this darkness, by which God brings us into the light of resurrection.

EXCERPTS

Praying with the Will, the Mind, and the Heart (From Chapter Two)

Most who seriously pursue a spiritual path eventually learn that the journey they have undertaken must encompass all of their life. Over time, nothing is left out. We must bring into our faith the relationships we live with, our work, the world we inhabit, our beliefs about life, our heart-felt longing for God, our emotions and personal struggles, our physical health, and everything else. When any one of these dimensions of our life suffers, our whole being is affected. Spirituality cannot be cordoned off as one discreet dimension, having only to do with the "soul," as if our lives were like a popular magazine, with a spirituality section distinct from those that have to do with politics, economy, health, and human interest.

One common and useful way of seeing the holistic nature of our life in God is to invoke the familiar balance of body, mind, and spirit. Our physicality, our mental-emotional states and our spirituality are inseparable, completely intertwined. Jesus himself recognized this when reminded us of the first commandment, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength (Mark 12:30). We must learn to love the Lord in ways that employ all our God-given capacities: emotion, intellect, will, activity, and soul. In the most influential spiritual tradition of the Christian West, monasticism, this holistic approach to life in God includes the practices of prayer, study and work (in another book, I explore these traditional Benedictine disciplines).

But the holistic claim of God on our life not only has to do with these large dimensions of our being and activity. Wholeness must also extend into the way we pray, too. Every historic religion tradition of prayer and meditation has methods of doing this. Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Christians all have ways of praying that include body (bowing, incense, chanting, sitting, and breathing). All include the mind (study and reflection, watching the mind). All involve the heart (devotion, opening the heart, surrender, and letting-go into God).

In this chapter I would like to go deeper, beyond the rudimentary instructions of the first chapter, into a holistic way of praying contemplatively. I offer this 3-dimensional model in order to not only present the wholeness of prayer, but also to address the differing needs of a diversity of people. At varying times, each of us might be better served by an approach to prayer that emphasizes either the heart, the soul, the mind, or our strength. In any given period of prayer, it is also possible to flow from one of these dimensions to the next.

One way of seeing how we can pray with heart, soul, mind, and strength is through the traditional model of the individual's journey of faith that has been taught throughout Christendom, East and West, especially in the middle ages. This model sees the journey as including purification, illumination, and union with God. Purification can be seen as the approach to God that includes strength, the body, effort, and the will. Illumination involves the mind, and union the heart.

Many of the medieval authors on the subject tended to see this schema as a kind of ladder, suggesting that the rank beginner must first focus solely on purification: repentance, change of behavior, the use of the will and determination in order to turn to a more holy life. For these authors, purification is the process of moral conversion, which starts when one stops sinful behaviors and begins pious ones. The intermediate, having mastered moral purification, then moves on to illumination: being guided by the Spirit into a greater understanding of the self and God. Illumination is the process of study and reflection whereby one develops faith and learns about what the Bible and the Church's theology teaches. The advanced few then climb to the heights of contemplative union, leaving behind all else. Union is seen as the state of being completely under the influence of God's grace, whereby all separation between human and divine is overcome, and one receives the inflow of God's joy, peace, and other fruits of the Spirit.

There is some truth to this ladder-like view. It is hard to grow in our understanding of the faith if we haven't yet put behind us behavior that prevents such understanding. It is hard to find union with God unless we've done some conversion of life and also examined our faith. However, the medieval ladder approach as such is more hierarchical, systematized and linear than the teaching of earlier writers who proposed it in the first place.

More ancient Christian mystics understood that every Christian has to continually employ the will and effort, since the process of spiritual purification goes on through all of life; every Christian must always seek spiritual illumination through understanding and learning; and every Christian has access to conscious union with God, at least from time to time, no matter how "rudimentary" or "advanced" we are spiritually. They are really just three overlapping dimensions of our relationship with God, rather than three distinct stages we must pass through. While one of these practices may need to be more dominant in our lives at times than others, we will always need to attend to all three. As Thomas Merton said about the accessibility of union to all who seek it:

Any moment you can break through into the underlying unity which is God's gift in Christ.

And so if we look at purification, illumination, and union in this way, we can see that this model proposes not only a ladder of perfection, but also a way of entering into relationship with God through various means, each of which is called for at various times.

Traditionally, in this three-fold schema, purification has usually addressed that part of our faith life that has to do with moral behavior, the avoidance of sin and the practice of virtue. Illumination has had to do with study and learning, and union with contemplative prayer. However, for the purposes of this chapter, which concerns itself with the development of a practice of contemplative prayer, I will confine my discussion of these three dimensions to the ways in which they relate specifically to contemplative prayer.

Purification can be practiced in contemplative prayer through our will and effort.. To begin with, we must get up in the morning, we must try, we must work at developing a habit of contemplative prayer. We must also bring awareness through our body in a concentrated way, sitting still, keeping our consciousness fixed on our breath, our senses, on a word or phrase. By employing our will, we bring attention to our practice. The Buddhist training in mindfulness is a good example of this part of prayer. Our lives become more purified through this attentive effort in prayer.

Illumination comes as we learn about ourselves in the silence of contemplation. We watch our mind and emotions at work in the form of involuntary thought and emotional activity (commonly called "distractions"). By doing so we come to understand more about ourselves as we really are; we grow in self-awareness. Prayer developed by Ignatius of Loyola and his religious order, the Jesuits, is an example of this kind of prayer, which examines both the conscience and what comes up in the imagination. Our lives become more illumined through this process of prayerful self-awareness.

Union is the underlying reality of our life in God, of which we seek to be conscious in contemplative prayer. Specific practices for this include surrender, not being effortful or self-aware, letting go of all thought, and sitting in silent, loving devotion to the One who is all in all. We open the heart to that which already is: our union with God. Centering Prayer focuses on this particular dimension of contemplation. We see our unity with God more and more, through this prayer of opening and surrender.

Here, then, is the way in which I'll be approaching a holistic contemplative practice. Loving God with our strength includes effort and will, physical dedication, attention, and concentration, and this leads to a kind of purification, simplification, and clarification of our life. Loving God with our mind and heart includes watching involuntary thought and emotions in the silence, coming to illumination through self-awareness. Loving God with our soul includes opening the heart and surrender, which leads to an experience of our union with the divine.

My own orientation to contemplative prayer is through the Eastern Christian prayer of the heart. This kind of prayer is also known through one of its forms, the Jesus Prayer, or by the Greek word for "stillness," hesychasm. While its name "prayer of the heart" seems to emphasize only the third dimension of prayer (union) that has to do with surrender and opening the heart, it actually encompasses concentration (purification) and self-awareness (illumination) as well.

I will say much more about this in the next chapter, but for now it might be helpful to know that in this most ancient and continuous of Christian contemplative traditions, all three dimensions I address here come together: the will, the mind, and the heart (attention, awareness, and opening to God). It is for this reason that many of my examples and quotations come from this tradition. But in using these examples, I do not mean to imply that this holism is absent from other Christian contemplative paths. The same patterns can be seen throughout the wide diversity of our rich history of spirituality and mysticism. It is just that for me, the clarity of this three-fold inter-relationship is more evident in the prayer of the heart.

Again, it may be that right now, one of these three dimensions of prayer will speak to you more than the other two. It may be that your personality is generally more oriented to one than the other. But as every religious tradition teaches, we are called to broaden our practice of prayer and meditation so that it utilizes, eventually, our whole being: the will, the mind, and the heart. We can do this through praying with concentration, self-awareness, and opening to God. By the grace of God, we are lead through these means to greater purification, illumination, and union.

The Contemplative in the Church (From Chapter Four)

The first section of this book is concerned with the development of a practice of contemplative prayer. This is primary, for we can only look at contemplation from the inside out, by becoming people of prayer. And as Thomas Merton said, "if you want a life of prayer, the way to get to it is by praying."

Now it is time to consider the essential context for that life of prayer, which is, for the Christian, in one form or another, the Church and her tradition that is embodied in worship, teaching, community, and service. I believe this context is essential for all Christians who seek spiritual growth and maturity for several reasons. The first is that community is something basic to the very nature of Christianity. Secondly, left on one's own, it is all too possible to develop spiritually in unhealthy and unbalanced ways. Finally, without the broader context of the faith tradition and its community, we will eventually run up against our own personal limitations and stop growing. The Church provides a wisdom, challenge, depth, diversity, support, corrective, historical continuity, and ritual life that simply cannot be found on one's own.

At the outset, however, let me be clear about what I mean by Christian community. The modern American parish form is not the only kind of Christian community. In fact, it is entirely possible that whole segments of our population are never likely to feel drawn to parish life because of the parish's tendency to take on cultural qualities that have nothing to do with the faith: dressing up, sitting quietly in rows, listening to and singing particular kinds of music, forming committees, creating and fulfilling ambitious goals, etc. So when I say that Christian community and tradition in some form is essential to every Christian, I recognize that not everyone is going to benefit from the parish as it tends to be in our culture.

There are other models of Christian community where the tradition is celebrated and handed down, which operate under slightly different cultural norms: monasteries, spirituality centers, seminaries, street ministries...far too few, really. But until additional alternatives begin to be more common, the parish as we know it in our culture is the most likely place to find Christian community and its traditions, and quite often, it is a good place to do so.

For a contemplative in particular, remaining grounded in the Church and her tradition may present particular difficulties. We can be introverted, individualistic, wary of external forms of religion, and rooted in our own personal experience. The parish, by its very nature, is more extroverted, institutional, and based upon objective and external forms of authority and teaching.

I can't count the number of times I've been told by someone that they're "into spirituality, not organized religion." I'm certainly glad that our generation has seized the importance of a personal, meaningful appropriation of faith, I fully understand the serious failings of our institutional Church, and I also know how much more deeply some experience God when they are alone in a mountain meadow than when they're in Church.

But I am also afraid that we are left with a lot of people who lack the kind of depth, continuity, balance, commitment, and wisdom that comes from an immersion in a faith community and its tradition. Any form of spirituality, if it has any depth, is rooted in and carried forward through history by "organized religion" and its rituals, stories, teachings, and community, even its hierarchy, buildings, and budgets. The institution is what holds together and passes on the spiritual experiences of great numbers of people over a long period of time (as the Church has done for the contemplative tradition).

The Church offers to the spiritual seeker, to the contemplative, a community of other seekers, who will offer both support and challenge. She offers deeply symbolic, historically grounded rites that express humankind's deepest longings and truths. There are opportunities to serve those in need, time-tested disciplines of spiritual practice, sacred texts and theological and moral guidance. The Church is certainly not perfect. But even her imperfection is of benefit to the spiritual seeker, who must find ways of being spiritual in an imperfect world, and who must also encounter his or her own limitations as they bump up against those of others.

A documentary film called "Monastery" was done many years ago on the Trappist community in Spencer, Massachusetts. One young monk made a comment in an interview that has remained with me every since I saw it. He said that the monastery "is just like everyday life in the world; the only difference is that we put a frame around it." I believe that the same thing could be said of the Church in general.

In the local, regional, and worldwide Church we gather all sorts of people together to engage in all the normal sorts of human activities that we do elsewhere: administration, education, fundraising, social service, community-building, and personal relationships. The only difference is, we put a frame around all of this life. The frame is Jesus Christ and what he called the kingdom of God: love, forgiveness, justice, and worship of our Creator. This is an enormous difference, for it tells us that as the Church we are invited to live our everyday life together in a certain way. Agreeing to this ground rule, we can then set about doing administration, relationships, education, and service to others with a very different kind of orientation and goal.

As such our Church life together becomes a microcosm of everyday life, focused in a particular kind of way so that it will serve as a training ground for the rest of life. St. Benedict called the monastery "a school for the Lord's service." For the seeker, life in the Church becomes a training school that prepares one for the rest of life.

How can a contemplative, in particular, learn in this school? How we expand our practice of contemplation so that it is not limited to formal times of prayer, but includes our life in the Church? In the pages that follow, I hope to offer some responses to these questions.

Suffering and New Life (From Chapter Eight)

Becoming Christ includes an embrace of the cross. Jesus' path must become ours, and his path includes the cross. After all, Jesus spoke frequently of his own suffering and death which would come as an essential part of his journey. When Peter tried to deny this fact, Jesus rebuked him, even calling this denial demonic: "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things"(Mark 8:33). Jesus then extended his cross into the lives of his followers: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross."Just after he said this, he was transfigured in glory on the mountain top, in the presence of Peter and James and John. In this series of sayings and story, glory is related somehow to suffering, and Jesus will not let others deny this reality. Not only that, he teaches them that their own spiritual transfiguration will somehow involve suffering.

In our day there is a kind of popular spirituality that denies the cross, that runs away from darkness and difficulty instead of embracing it as part of our journey into holiness. This spiritual positivism claims that we can experience joy and enlightenment by getting rid of anything "negative," and by focusing on the "positive." While endemic to new age spiritualities, spiritual positivism is not limited to them. A tendency in this direction is found in the church as well. This is why we had to move the liturgical celebration of Good Friday (with its very sobering reading of the Passion Narrative) to Palm Sunday: in order to "catch" the worshipers on Sunday who would otherwise avoid Good Friday, thus skipping directly from the Hosanna! of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the Alleluia! of the resurrection.

For some, there is a benefit to the practice of positive thinking, and it is certainly human to try to avoid suffering. But I'm afraid that Jesus would respond to spiritual positivism that denies the cross by saying that its followers have set their minds not on divine things, but on human things. For the path that leads to God leads through the cross, at some point.

A practice of contemplative prayer brings us to the cross. Certainly life will do the same, but in contemplative prayer we are given a way of working with the cross. The difficulties of our life will arise in silence with God, and God will not magically fix or take them away. We must learn patience and humility, sitting through our pain with an open heart. We must learn to just be present, with our difficulty, to God. Instead of closing down around it, we open it up in love and adoration, in complete trust and vulnerability. By doing so, our pain is joined to God, and it is redeemed. We are transformed. Our suffering is no longer just "ours," a private possession: it is part of the pain of the world, part of the cross. Gazing at the cross, our private suffering is lifted up into Christ, who shares it and thus helps us transcend our prison of pain. But even more than that, Christ redeems our suffering, moving us into resurrection, so that we are made new people in him.

Detachment, Freedom, Love (From Chapter Nine)

The early contemplative fathers of our tradition developed this spacious way of seeing all without judgment, accepting whatever came in life as part of the tapestry of existence. They would intentionally put themselves in situations where they knew that their attachments would be challenged, and where they would learn to take on the wider perspective of life in God.. Such radical practices loosen the grip that is clenched around the way we want life to be, and allow for a movement into a greater freedom of spirit.

This spacious, freedom of spirit was called, in the desert tradition, apatheia. Despite this Greek word's obvious connection with the word apathy, contemplative apatheia is anything but apathetic. While some may believe in the stereotype of the contemplative as a self-absorbed, uncaring and unfeeling person removed from the passions of life (and some contemplatives may fit this description), it is a false stereotype. Contemplative detachment, true apatheia, leads to a spacious view of life as God sees it, which leads to freedom and love. For the contemplative, detachment is freedom from attachments, not a distancing from people and from life. Detachment is liberty from the prison of all that enslaves us and keeps us from engaging in life with joy, peace, clarity, and love.

All of us struggle with attachments: how we think we're supposed to be, look or feel; possessions; being liked; being a "winner" or even a "loser;" having a certain lifestyle; particular beliefs about others; and even the smallest, most insignificant details working out the way we want them to (like getting through an intersection before the light turns red). As long as we live, we will always, to some degree, be attached, at least from time to time. Such is the human condition. Detachment is the process of de-attaching. It is not the process of becoming an unfeeling automaton; it is de-attaching from the things that enslave us. As a contemporary commentator on the desert fathers noted:

Apatheia destroys the attachment to "passions," but these refer not to the God-given emotions...but rather to sinful, inner attachments to selfishness, rooted by sin in the natural passions. The sign of having attained this state of integration on the body, soul, and spirit levels is when the Christian can occupy his or her mind and heart with the continual presence of God.

This integration, this liberty of spirit is apatheia, which frees us from everything that stands in the way of our enjoyment of life, of God, and of others. The path to this detachment is, I believe, feeling and observing our true attachments in the moment (especially in silent prayer), then learning how to dis-identify with whatever has captured us, and moving into a place of seeing our attachments within the context of whole picture.

This spacious, big picture, which includes our human attachments but also the beauty and truth of life within and around them, is the divine perspective, a gift of the Spirit. It is seeing with God's eyes. This spacious perspective gives us the ability to be free and present to God in ways that are impossible when we are caught up in our attachments instead. Spacious detachment, apatheia, moves us out of our illusions and brings us back to reality, back to our true selves. Two contemplative fathers put it this way:

When the intellect is no longer dissipated among external things or dispersed across the world through the senses, it returns to itself; and by means of itself it ascends to the thought of God.

—Basil the Great

The one who has apatheia has returned to himself, has entered into the treasure house that is within. - Isaac the Syrian

Returning to ourselves, we are able to be the person that we actually are in Christ. We are able, at least at times, to experience freedom from sin, suffering, and all the things in life that temporarily possess us.

What are we doing when we worship and what does it have to do with our life?

Dancing in Time

Liturgy marks time. Our week is marked by the celebration of the resurrection on the morning of the first day. The week, as well as our lives, are a new creation. Liturgy also marks even larger cycles. The liturgical seasons of the church year provide a way of acknowledging the passage of the seasons of nature. By them we also observe certain basic truths about our life in God. Every year we go through the same journey, from Advent through Pentecost, and in so doing so we revisit the touchstones of our faith. Over time we make them our own. It may be that we are never exactly in sync with the seasons, but that doesn’t matter. We may never really experience repentance during the six weeks of Lent. God’s nearness may become real for us in the middle of summer rather than at Christmas time. This is not a problem. What is important is that we walk the journey every year so that these themes become a part of who we are. We begin to look at our experience through the lens of incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection.

Advent

The church year begins in Advent. This is observed at a time of year, four weeks before Christmas, when the sun is at its lowest. The days are short and the nights are long. In many parts of the world it is cold. We turn inward. Seasonally speaking, Advent is a time of waiting for the sun. We wait for the light to overcome the darkness. On a purely natural level, this is a time of expectation.

The readings during Advent reflect this natural reality. We are a people who live in darkness, awaiting the coming of God’s light. Christ’s birth is immanent, and we can hear its approach. We remember our sins which keep us in darkness. We stand looking ahead to the coming of God in our lives.

The church used to focus her attention upon the need for repentance during this season, as a way of properly preparing for the coming of God into our lives. This was marked by the use of purple altar hangings and vestments, the color of penitence which is also used in the season of Lent. But now more and more parishes put the emphasis upon expectation and hope. Repentance is a part of preparation, but it should not dominate. The color that is used more now is blue, which was, in fact, the color for Advent in parts of the medieval church. Blue is the color of the vast sky and the immense ocean. Blue brings us out of the closeness of our wintry isolation and opens us to god’s transcendence. Blue is also the traditional color for Mary, who at this point in our story is quite pregnant. We wait with Mary, honoring and imitating her willingness to carry Jesus into life.

On the first Sunday of Advent, an evergreen wreath with four candles is placed near the altar. The first is lit this first Sunday, and one more candle is lit on every subsequent Sunday, culminating in all four the last Sunday. This heightens the sense of expectation. We can see the light that begins to break into the darkness even now, and it is growing. The use of evergreen symbolizes the constant presence of God, the ever present newness of our life lived in Christ.

As we celebrate this annual festival of expectation, perhaps we can learn to hope. Now hope is a tricky thing. It can be the fervent expectation that things will turn out the way we want them to. Hope can be a way of expecting that God will, in fact, behave just as we think is best.

Not only does this lead to disappointment, it undermines our faith. There is another kind of expectation that is healthy. This is the inner knowledge, coming from experience, that tells us that God’s life in us will deepen. We learn over time that life is good and that even if things turn out tragically, life will still be good and we will still be able to appreciate what is before us. This is a mystery of the cross and the resurrection. It is not that we can have the hope, the faith that we will be spared from crucifixion. It is a deep knowledge that even when crucifixion comes, we will, in time, be resurrected. This deep knowledge is like a foundation, giving us equanimity and bringing peace to our days, no matter what the circumstances. This is what Jesus referred to as the coming of the kingdom of God. For him, this kingdom was both breaking in, even now, and yet it was still to come in its fullness. His followers could see the kingdom of heaven through Jesus’ love and healing miracles. They could also expect that in the future, they would know the kingdom when it would be realized fully. The coming of this kingdom figures strongly in the season of Advent. Like the candles of the Advent wreath, the light pierces our darkness even now, and it is growing into its fulfillment in us.

And so during Advent we make an annual pilgrimage to our hope. We revisit the reasonable expectation that we have the ability to enjoy this moment, and that God will give us the grace to grow into this ability. We will still act for change, we will work for what we need and want, we will strive for justice and peace. But we can do so without anxiety, without the clinging fear for what will happen if it doesn’t work out.

Christmas

In pre-Christian popular religion (called paganism by some Christians) the festival of the winter solstice was extremely important. This is true of all nature-centered religions: Celtic Stonehenge, Chaco Canyon and the ancient Southwest Native American Anasazi, the Zapotec’s Monte Alban in witness to the popularity of this universal festival. In a time when one’s yearly survival depended upon the warmth and light of sun and the coming of spring, the solstice was no small matter. It represented the annual victory of life over impending death. It was the solstice that prompted the church to place the festival of Christmas at this time of year. We don’t know when Jesus was born, but the early church sure knew when the winter solstice was. We moved in and used the symbols with which the people were familiar. Christmas took on meaning immediately.

Christ is the representation of the victory of light over darkness. The prophet Isaiah is read at Christmas, proclaiming the coming of God’s light upon those who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death. The prologue of the gospel of John is also read, telling us that in Christ, the light came into the darkness of the world and the darkness did not overcome it.

On Christmas, the vestments are changed to white and gold, signifying the brilliance of God’s light. Hymns and carols are sung that recall the light of the star which guided the wise men to the manger, and continue to guide us to God as well. At the end of the liturgy, often an acolyte distributes a light from the creche, so that the candle is lit in the hand of each person in the worship building. We are enlightened as the room positively glows. We take this light out into the darkness of the night. Like a light, God is present with us. The twelve days of Christmas, which make up the season, are a time of remembering the birth of Jesus, the beginning of his lifetime of light on this earth. In Jesus, we say that God was enfleshed in this man’s life. This is the Incarnation, the making-flesh. Incarnation is the presence of God in this world of matter and time, the immanent reality of the holy in the midst of the every day. In Jesus, we see the holiness if God. But God’s enfleshment is not limited to Jesus; this particular incarnation points to the universal incarnation of God in all creation. Christmas is a celebration of matter, of flesh, and blood, of creation. The love of God is such that we can see God in the world in which we live. I’m not sure why the church is so afraid of pantheism; perhaps it is pantheism’s tendency towards idolatry, mistaking the created world for its Creator. Perhaps it is also self-hatred, a fear of our own bodies and the potential destructiveness of lust in its various forms. I’m sure that as a radical interpretation of the Incarnation, pantheism and unbridled hedonism would not be healthy for the Christian church. But can’t we take the Incarnation seriously enough to become panentheistic (which is to say, God in all)?

The Christian liturgical churches are very earthy. We lay our hands on each other for ordination and healing. We eat bread and drink wine. Priests smear oil on the heads of people when they are sick or being baptized. Bishops sometimes lightly slap the face of those being confirmed, reminding them of the suffering which is entailed in the Jesus path. We bring up cash to the altar at a high point in the Eucharist. Everybody hugs each other during the peace. We sprinkle or dip ourselves in baptismal water. In matrimony, we celebrate the joining of a man and a woman in matrimony, we bless the sexual act which seals their spiritual union.

This earthiness is a celebration of presence of God in all Creation. Sexual abuse of self or others is a problem, but we must realize that it is anti-Christian to be anti-sex. Alcoholism and addiction to other substances is rampant, but it is anti-Christian to hate the pleasure of food and drink. Materialism is the besetting sin of our culture, but it is anti-Christian to scorn the beauty of art, gardens, fabric, architecture, handcrafts, gifts, furniture and other worldly stuff.

We are people of the earth. We are made in the image of the creator. As such we are co-creators, working with God’s materials and God’s skill which flows through us. An overly sin and salvation-based faith can obscure this basic reality. Before there is separation and the need for salvation, there is the joy of life. This is our birthright.

Christmas is a joyous celebration of the goodness of the earth, the holiness of this world. God can be seen and known in this life just as assuredly as God can be seen in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus’ life attests to this. He lived in the kingdom of heaven, eating and drinking and laughing and touching all the way. Our practice should be one which leads us back into the goodness of our bodies, the stuff of our lives and the earth. This appreciation can grow through the celebration of the sacraments of the church. It can grow through a daily prayer experience of being present to what is, in this life. It can certainly grow through a yearly celebration of the light and goodness of God’s incarnation in this world.

Epiphany

The season of Epiphany follows. This is the time that we think of God’s light in Jesus spreading out into the world. It begins with the visit of the three wise men to the manger. They were the first who came from far away to see Jesus. Their contact with this light symbolizes the beginning of its dissemination. Jesus is presented in the temple next, which is the consecration of this new life which has come into the world. The baptism of Jesus follows, which began his movement into his adult ministry among people. Throughout the season, we hear gospel stories of Jesus calling his disciples, and of their response. They begin to move in the light. Finally, at the end of the season, Jesus is changed into glorious light in the vision of Peter, James and John on the mount of the transfiguration. He is fully seen, and he is transparent to the light of God. During this season the church uses the color of green. This is the color of growth, of the plant world that so depends upon light for its nurturance.

As we hear of the light of Christ being spread into the world, we are reminded of the same in our lives. We are called out of isolation into the world. We are to be agents of the spirit of this light of God.

For very good reasons, evangelism has become a distasteful word. We have learned to be careful about television hucksters, robotic door-to-door mouthpieces for religious systems, and smiling friends who want us to validate their recent change of life by doing what they did. We feel as if we are being manipulated because we are. Evangelism has become a guilt and pressure trip designed to get people to accept a specific ideology. In the more liberal churches, evangelism is often a code word for getting more bodies and their money into their building. Snappy programs are provided for new member greeting, inclusion, involvement and commitment. There is nothing wrong with being friendly and helping folks feel at home in a new community. But the kind of evangelism that focuses on numbers is just another form of fearful, grasping materialism.

True evangelism requires something more of us than salesmanship. True evangelism asks us to know something of God’s presence in our lives, to be aware of its real effect upon us, and to be willing to share what we know of it with others who express a need for it. When we talk to a friend who is going through and divorce about our own struggles with pain and healing, we are being evangelical. When we share our story of death and resurrection of alcoholism and recovery, we are evangelists. When we describe the effects of our meditation to a stressed-out friend who has asked about it, we are evangelizing. Whenever we tell what we know of the effect of God’s light as we have experienced it, we are spreading the gospel, the good news, of God. All we can share is what we know. It is arrogant and foolish to speak about ideas of which we have no real experience.

Just as Jesus’ light began to spread out of the world, so does ours. The most profound sharing of this takes place without our even trying. As we practice our religion and the daily discipline of prayer, we are changed. We become lighter, more balanced, less fearful and bitter. This is apparent to those who need it themselves, and to those who have eyes to see it. They will ask. As I examine the gospels, I do not see Jesus spreading the light of the gospel by trying to convince people of their need for his doctrine. I see a man who has been transformed by God’s light, a man who is completely transparent to God within him. Others are drawn to this, and he responds to their unique situation as he sees it. He speaks to them of their life, and of his experience of God as he knows it. This sharing is the light-spreading evangelization for Epiphany.

Lent

Lent is the next liturgical season of the church. The decorative furnishings of the church are covered or taken out. There are no flowers used during this season. To set the tone, liturgy often begins with penitence and absolution. The clergy are vested with purple, the deep passionate color of repentance and suffering. Music is subdued. Alleluias are forsaken. In many parts of the world, the bareness of Lent is matched by the winter as it drags on. The season begins with the imposition of ashes, a gripping awakening of our own mortality. We say “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We are called to return from separation to our essential unity with God: right now, because life is short. And if we ever doubt that there are a myriad of ways in which we still separate ourselves from God and one another, it only takes one look at the daunting litany of Ash Wednesday to bring us back to reality.

The readings of Lent are powerful. On the first Sunday we hear the story of Jesus’ forty-day fast and temptation in the desert. Like him, we are made aware of the temptations of ambition, despair and materialism. Prophets wail laments about the injustices of Israel’s monarchy, and we reflect upon our own social injustices. The prophets call Israel, and now us, to change our ways. In Lent we go through a forty day journey, along with Jesus who fasted in the wilderness for forty days, and with the sojourning Israelites centuries before who were lost in the same desert for forty years. In biblical symbolism the number forty simply represents a long time. The season of Lent is long enough to give us a yearly taste of what happens in our lives at other times; our journey through the desert takes a long time. We all come to know the lost emptiness of that place, and Lent assures us that even though it is always long, it is a natural part of the journey, and therefore good.

In terms of seasons, Lent is the best known. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it is because the church has made more of this season than the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and Easter. The churches fascination with Lent is well known: hair shirts, penance, giving up pleasures, fasting and confession. In the history of the church there has been more actual practice during this season than any other. People go to extra masses and confessions, they abstain from things and they take on extra good works. Why is this?

Part of the reason is that guilt is easier than real practice. The alcoholic says “poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.” To practice the hard work of recovery is much harder than self-pity. I an told that when I was young, my natural father used to come home drunk and hold me in his arms, weeping about what a bad father he was. I would have preferred that he had changed and thus avoided the divorce which soon came. I weep for a lifetime about the father-shaped hole in my life, because he didn’t do anything more than weep then. Lenten self-loathing can become a handy way of avoiding what is necessary.

But self-loathing is not what repentance is about. The Greek New Testament word for repentance is metanoia, which means turning. We do not sit in our sin, moaning about the mess we have made. We see our separation, stand up and turn towards the light. It is not a one-time turning, either. Most difficult issues require that we repent over and over again. A monk was once asked what his life was like in the monastery. He said “we fall down, get up and walk, fall down, get up once more and walk, fall down...” This is life. Perhaps Lent is popular because it is so real. Life is filled with the practice of turning every day.

Lent brings the judgment- that is, the truth, not the condemnation - of God. Like Israel, we stand under the truth about ourselves and reflect upon who we are, what we have done and what we have left undone. Judgment never feels good, but we can embrace it when it comes rather than hide from it? To see ourselves as we are is a tremendous life-giving gift. Without it, growth is impossible. With it, we can be free from the things which have been controlling us from their hiding place in the dark. Brought into the light by the judgment of God, they lose their power. This is the forgiveness of God, who stands ready to renew us as we face the truth. Lent is an annual opportunity to do this self-examination, to stand under the light and look. Lent is an annual opportunity to remember that all year long we can receive the truth, turn and live.

Holy Week: Palm Sunday

At the end of this season, we enter into the passion and mystery of Holy Week. We begin with the triumphal entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. He has, at this point in the story, become quite popular. The crowds are buzzing about his recent resurrection of Lazarus, after he was four days dead in the tomb. They know of his healing power and there is a rumor that he is the Messiah, the long awaited one who will liberate Israel: perhaps from Roman occupation, perhaps from their sins. A crowd gathers and Jesus is regaled as a conquering hero. Naturally, the religious and civil authorities are nervous.

The church celebrates this day in a strange way. Not trusting the people to come to church on any other day other than Sunday, we observe both the triumphal entry and Good Friday’s crucifixion on Palm Sunday. The truly pious then go back in time during the week to pick up the rest of the story in between the Last Supper). The crucifixion story is repeated on Friday itself. Many years ago in our parish we started believing that people would come to church on Good Friday, to hear that part of the story. We also figured that if someone wanted to avoid the cross in their life, it would take more than the passion narrative presented on a Sunday to change that. So we stuck to the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, giving due respect to that event.

Playing with the liturgy of Jesus’ triumphal entry, we are given the opportunity to do two things. Together with the crowd in Jerusalem, we voice our gratitude and wonder for Jesus, the one who brought us the way of life. But we also know what is coming. We have, in the back of our minds, the knowledge that we, too, will betray his way. We will deny the immediate presence of God. We will fear, cling, hate and refuse to forgive. This is the way we are. Today we turn to God and tomorrow we turn away. It helps to know this, to act it out in liturgical play. That way we will be less likely to be disillusioned about our fickleness.

Maundy Thursday

On Maundy Thursday the church continues with the passion story. It is the evening of Jesus’ and the disciples’ last meal together. In our parish, we gather in the informality of the parish hall. Prior to the meal, we hear the gospel of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and we do likewise to each other. Like Jesus did, we continue with the consecration of the bread, which is laid out upon the head table. This is distributed to all. A simple meal of dried and raw fruits, vegetables, cheese, nuts and bread follows. After the meal, like Jesus, we take the wine, consecrate and distribute it. Finally we make our way silently into the worship building where we hear the account of Jesus’ agony and plea for companionship and prayer in the Garden of Gethsemene. The altar is completely stripped and we sit silently in the near dark, awaiting the betrayal and arrest which is to follow. An all-night vigil ensues, with individuals coming as they wish during the night.

This liturgy can be a powerful experience. The foot washing can humble us. Once people get over touching such an intimate naked part of someone else’s body, it can become an act of servanthood. We awaken our human ability to give freely of ourselves to another, to lavish tender compassion upon even a stranger.

In the informal Last Supper Eucharist, we may come to see that every Eucharist is a meal. We gather as a family of faith around the table that is the altar. In this meal we re-enact a meal which sealed Jesus’ intention to be with us every time we do the same. This Maundy Thursday Eucharist can also bring home the fact that every meal at home, every lunch with a friend, is a holy sacrament of God’s presence in food, love and nurture. We break bread together and something deeper is broken open and shared between us: God’s being.

Good Friday

In the darkness of the night watch, anything can happen. I used to live about a ten-minute walk from the church, and I’d get up at about 2:30 a.m. on Maundy Thursday for an hour of prayer during the watch. I would walk down the ditchbank, under the moon, sometimes through the snow. When I go, I enter into the worship building, seeing the votive candles, one or two other pilgrims and a stark, bare altar with the door to the reserved sacrament standing open, revealing an utter emptiness that bespoke of Jesus’ abandonment. This is the beginning of a hollow feeling that always continues for me through the next 24 hours of Good Friday. I sit in silence, allowing myself to be empty. It’s good to be there, and the time passes swiftly.

The next morning I walk as in a dream, waiting for the terrible drama which is to unfold at noon. For three hours we gather in the barren church. We contemplate during long silences, fifteen minutes at a time. These are punctuated by readings from the passion narrative, long chants and homilies. Time is stretched thin and my belly growls from fasting. We enter into the death of Jesus.

Jesus emptied himself during his three hours on the cross, his three days in the tomb, and his awakening to new life. This experience of death and resurrection is found in our lives any time that we find ourselves empty, dying to the demands and fears of the false, self-centered life of the ego. It is normal for all seekers, and even for some non-seekers to whom it just happens. Grace visits us when we die to self, and we are born again. A man stares at the bubbles in the dishwater and suddenly he moves from despair to wonder. A meditator is assailed by demons, and then she breaks through to the clear sky beyond. An alcoholic hits a vile bottom of ugliness, and then begins anew as if an innocent baby. A gang member awakens from the surgery which removed a bullet from his chest and is finally able to surrender to love. This is the death and resurrection of Christ. God does this everywhere, to anyone who seeks and allows it.

Holy Saturday

The brief liturgy of Holy Saturday is a continuation of the emptiness of Good Friday. We come to the church and simply remember Jesus’ death, and our own dying to self.

Easter Day and Season

In our parish, the primary liturgy of Easter is the Great Vigil, which begins in the darkness of pre-dawn on Sunday morning. We gather outside and light the paschal flame, signifying the powerful grace of God who brings light into darkness. Following the deacon onto the dark church, candles are lit throughout. During the long rite of readings, which chronicle the many death and resurrection events of the people of Israel before Jesus, the pre-dawn light increases. As the sun rises and shines triumphantly through the stained glass, the gospel of Jesus’ victory over death is chanted.

We have walked together this Holy Week journey from initial triumph to humble servanthood, from betrayal to emptiness and death and finally to the enlightenment of new life. There are no guarantees that we will feel the sentiments of these realities as we carry them out liturgically. But acting out this passion play every year, we spiral down deeper and deeper over time into the heart of life, of ourselves, of God. When we come up against circumstances that require our death and resurrection, we are more and more likely over the years to know what to do. We learn, through practice, how to surrender to God’s grace.

During the Easter season, we stumble around in the light, recovering from this journey. For seven weeks we hear stories of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances and listen to the accounts of others who have passed from spiritual death to new life. We bathe in it week after week. Towards the end of the season, we celebrate Jesus’ ascension into heaven. This is the acceptance of his departure, knowing that we cannot forever have our mentors and examples by our side. We must finally stand alone. To make this spiritual solitude possible, we remember that God is within us, a powerful force of love and life. This the feast of Pentecost is celebrated, when the disciples had an ecstatic experience of sacred presence after Jesus’ departure.

The Season after Pentecost

From the Feast of Pentecost until Advent, we go through what the Roman Catholic Church calls “Ordinary Time,” which it is. Our focus changes from week to week, with no overall theme. Feast days are celebrated on Sundays in the midst of it: Trinity Sunday, our Patronal Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, All Saints, Christ the King, etc.

In Summary

The cycle is complete. We begin with Advent’s reasonable expectations and hope in the ultimate goodness of God-in-life. During Christmastide we celebrate the enfleshment of God in this world. Our realization of the incarnation of God in this world is spread out to others like the light of Epiphany. We undertake a Lenten journey of self-reflection and turning to God, culminating in surrender and Easter resurrection. Finally, we move out of this cycle with the Pentecost knowledge that God is within us to make all of this manifest in our day-to-day life.

"O sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth Say among the nations, The Lord is king" —Psalm 96:1,10

We are a delegation of United States church leaders who visited Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine from April 16 to 27 under the auspices of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCCCUSA). Our journey to the Middle East has been a pilgrimage for peace.

In the course of the trip, the delegation met with Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders, as well as key political leaders. In each country we encountered apprehension and fear, despair, and occasionally, hate. We also experienced the resilience of the human spirit, not born from political optimism but rather through hope in the judgment and mercy of the One God worshiped by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We were heartened everywhere we went by the commitment of both religious and political leaders to seek to build bridges of dialogue and common action.

We emphasize the urgency of the crisis in the region and our sense that the Middle East and, indeed, the entire world, stands on the brink of a catastrophe if a comprehensive peace is not achieved soon. Continually, we heard pleas for outside intervention and of the urgent need for the United States to take decisive action to constrain the Government of Israel to abide by United Nations resolutions and to do so as a matter of the highest priority.

We are grateful that many local and regional religious bodies are profoundly engaged in efforts for peace, truth and reconciliation. In addition, King Abdullah II of Jordan spoke of his own commitment to interfaith dialogue. We pledged to him our support for those efforts and articulated our eagerness to work directly with him and those religious leaders he will soon bring to the United States.

We expressed our condolences and deepest sympathies to Israelis and Palestinians who have lost family members and friends to the senseless violence over the past months. Members of the delegation visited hospitalized victims in Jerusalem. Delegation members also participated in ecumenical food and medicine aid convoys to Jenin, Bethlehem, and Beit Jala where we personally witnessed the devastation caused by the Israeli Defense Forces. We were alarmed to find that the damage extends beyond fighting carried out against Palestinian resistance forces to include intentional destruction of Palestinian civil society. The impact of the Israeli invasion and destruction of Palestinian infrastructure has exacerbated the feeling of broken promises and shattered hopes. We urge the Government of Israel to cooperate fully with the United Nations investigation of events that took place in Jenin.

Throughout our journey the standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem remained of grave concern. We offered our prayers and services and expressed our objection to the withholding of food, water and medical supplies to those inside the church. We discussed the situation with the leaders of the churches who are the custodians of this holy site as well as with Canon Andrew White of Coventry Cathedral in England, the only church representative directly involved in the negotiations between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to bring a peaceful end to the siege. We asked Israelis and Palestinians to respect the sacredness of the Church of the Nativity, and of all religious sites and buildings, Christian, Muslim and Jewish.

We call upon Israel and the Palestinian Authority to agree to an immediate ceasefire, to end all attacks upon civilians and civilian institutions, and to exercise the highest degree of restraint in responding to violations of the ceasefire. We condemn equally and unequivocally both the suicide bombings and Palestinian violence against Israeli society and the violence of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. All are counterproductive to achieving peace with justice. Repeatedly, we were asked to understand the context of desperation and hopelessness that has led Palestinian young people to be willing to kill themselves and Israeli citizens. Similarly, we were asked to understand the depth of fear among the Israeli public that has led to an intense onslaught against Palestinian refugee camps, towns, and cities. Both societies are caught in a cycle of violence and revenge.

The delegation finds that the following are critical components of a just resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

• an end to the cycle of violence;
• the affirmation by Palestinians and by Arab states of the right of the State of Israel to exist within secure borders;
• the establishment of an international peacekeeping force, agreed upon by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to oversee the Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and maintain order until a peace agreement can be fully implemented;
• the end of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza;
• the cessation of the building of new Israeli settlements and of the expansion of existing settlements in the West Bank and Gaza;
• abandonment, dismantling, or other disposition of settlements that negate the geographic integrity of a viable Palestinian state, under the terms of a negotiated peace agreement;
• the sharing of Jerusalem by the two peoples and three faiths so that Jerusalem may truly reflect its name, City of Peace; and
• the commitment by Israel to address the issue of the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
• We state these concerns out of deep love, affection, and respect for Israelis and Palestinians - and because of our commitment to making real the vision of a free and independent Palestinian state living alongside a secure Israel.

Israel is a state like any other state with the same privileges and responsibilities. It is entitled to full recognition of its legitimacy within the international community, including by the Arab states. It is responsible under international law to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza begun in l967, which holds the Palestinian people hostage. At the same time, Palestinians cannot expect to achieve the dignity, rights and respect they have sought for so long without ceasing acts of violence against the civilian population of Israel.

We are deeply concerned for the future of a viable, indigenous Christian presence in the Middle East. The Arab Christian population has declined precipitously in recent decades. Christian leaders shared with us their belief that a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is key to halting and, hopefully, reversing this decline. This must happen quickly before Christians are left with only tiny groups of people who serve as custodians of our most holy places. Christians provide vital leaven to the entire region. Thriving, growing communities of Christians will contribute to the healing and peace process, thereby providing a bridge to reconciliation and hope.

Our delegation leaves the Middle East convinced that an enduring peace can be achieved if the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories ends and if the establishment of a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure State of Israel follows soon. In the context of the World Council of Churches (WCC) "Decade to Overcome Violence," we welcome the WCC's 2002 focus on ending the illegal occupation of Palestine and supporting a just peace in the Middle East. The delegation urges NCCCUSA member churches to support the development of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel sponsored by the WCC. We challenge our member churches and congregations to take action and become aware of and foster the ends of peace. We encourage our members to participate in the ongoing ecumenical prayer vigil for peace in the Middle East that was initiated on the First Sunday of Advent 2000.

The prophet Zechariah said, "The angel told me to give Zerubbabel this message from the Lord: 'You will succeed, not by military might or by your own strength, but by my Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts." (Zech. 4:6) The word of the Spirit in our day is a call to all people of faith to be witnesses to the way of peace. That witness begins with unceasing prayer. It calls us to be reconcilers, to stand for truth, forgiveness, and justice in every place. Only thus may we sing to the Lord a new song.

Issued April 30, 2002 by:

• The Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
• Ms. Elenie K. Huszagh, President, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
• The Rev. Janet Arbesman, Vice-Moderator, 213th General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• Bishop Vicken Aykazian, Diocesan Legate and Ecumenical Officer, The Armenian Orthodox Church
• The Rev. Mark Byron Brown, Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC, representing the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr., Senior Minister, The Riverside Church, New York, NY
• Dr. Joe Hale, United Methodist Church, Former General Secretary of the World Methodist Council
• The Rev. Robert S. Jones, National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., St. Paul's Baptist Church, West Chester, PA
• Archbishop Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim, Patriarchal Vicar of the Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church for the Eastern United States
• The Rev. William Shaw, President, National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., White Rock Baptist Church, Philadelphia, PA
• The Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley of Deering, NH, representing the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church
• The Rev. James R. Wetekam, Media Director, Churches for Middle East Peace
• Mr. James Edward Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist Church

We grieve with those who have lost companions and loved ones, and pray for those who have so tragically died. We pray for the President of the United States, his advisors, and for the members of Congress that they may be given wisdom and prudence for their deliberations and measured patience in their actions. We pray for our military chaplains, and for those serving in the Armed Forces along with their families in these anxious and uncertain days. We also pray "for our enemies, and those who wish us harm; and for all whom we have injured or offended." (BCP, page 391)

At the same time we give thanks for the rescue workers and volunteers, and all those persons whose courageous efforts demonstrated a generosity and selflessness that bears witness to the spirit of our nation at its best. We give thanks too for all those who are reaching out to our Muslim brothers and sisters and others who are rendered vulnerable in this time of fear and recrimination.

We come together also in the shadow of the cross: that unequivocal sign that suffering and death are never the end but the way along which we pass into a future in which all things will be healed and reconciled. Through Christ "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." (Col. 1:20) This radical act of peace-making is nothing less than the right ordering of all things according to God's passionate desire for justness, for the full flourishing of humankind and all creation.

This peace has already been achieved in Christ, but it has yet to be realized in our relationships with one another and the world around us. As members of a global community and the worldwide Anglican Communion, we are called to bear one another's burdens across the divides of culture, religion, and differing views of the world. The affluence of nations such as our own stands in stark contrast to other parts of the world wracked by the crushing poverty which causes the death of 6,000 children in the course of a morning.

We are called to self-examination and repentance: the willingness to change direction, to open our hearts and give room to God's compassion as it seeks to bind up, to heal, and to make all things new and whole. God's project, in which we participate by virtue of our baptism, is the ongoing work of reordering and transforming the patterns of our common life so they may reveal God's justness - not as an abstraction but in bread for the hungry and clothing for the naked. The mission of the Church is to participate in God's work in the world. We claim that mission.

"I have set before you life and death.choose life so that you and your descendants may live," declares Moses to the children to Israel. We choose life and immediately set ourselves to the task of developing clear steps that we will take personally and as a community of faith, to give substance to our resolve and embodiment to our hope. We do so not alone but trusting in your own faithfulness and your desire to be instruments of peace.

Let us therefore wage reconciliation. Let us offer our gifts for the carrying out of God's ongoing work of reconciliation, healing and making all things new. To this we pledge ourselves and call our church.

We go forth sober in the knowledge of the magnitude of the task to which we have all been called, yet confident and grounded in hope. "And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." (Romans 5:5)

"May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13) --Statement from Bishops of the Episcopal Church Released by the Office of the Presiding Bishop