Patronal festival, Community of the Holy Name
Preached at Community House, Cheltenham: 7th August, 2010
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
'And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him'. (Col 3:17)
As the incumbent of St Peter's Eastern Hill, I am delighted to be invited to preach on this occasion here in the chapel of the Community House on this Holy Name festival. This community and that parish go back together to the earliest foundations of this expression of the religious life for women in this diocese. We rejoice in the on-going presence of Holy Name sisters as part of our ministry team and we give thanks. A day like this brings together sisters, oblates, associates, friends and supporters to worship, to celebrate, to enjoy each others company and to reflect and consider.
I also speak as a Third Order Franciscan. While my formal association is relatively recent, I have over most of my adult life found experience of community, of holy place, of holy people in that tradition of Christian living and spirituality. I have found it a rich and challenging spring from which to draw living water. The international and ecumenical dimensions are significant and for someone trained in history, the story of the centuries adds depth. Being 'seriously joyful' is central to the Franciscan charism I think. For my personality type anyway, that works. It both addresses the key presenting issues of authenticity and integrity as well as asserting strongly that to be Christian is not to be grim. Surely it is a matter of deep concern that so many outside of Christianity would perceive that grimness to be a key attribute of people of faith.
Still, wherever we come from though, for each of us who has any sort of experience of the Christian faith beyond the simply individual and personal, there stands the challenge to be part of the corporate, the community, the body of Christ. Where might we find this? How might we best live this? Is there a particular part that we would wish to commit ourselves to? For most here today, the answer to that question is clear.
What indeed might God yet have in store? In many senses that is also the task for all the wider Church to ponder as well this Community of the Holy Name, as we all face the facts of a shaky institution with an apparently steadily ageing constituency. What might a further generation bring and what is it that we who are here now are called upon to cherish and to hand on in hope and trust, towards a different future beyond our present knowledge.
PD James some years ago wrote a remarkable book 'Children of Men' which was also made into a far less remarkable film. Being PD James it is a thriller with significant doses of Prayer Book religion. It is set in a very grim Britain no far from now when there have been no children born for many years — and that is terribly sad and disturbing. It ends with a new Bethlehem, new hope, desperately fragile hope. I have always considered this work to be parable for the Church of our generation in so many aspects of its life. But at its heart is the utter conviction that God has not abandoned this creation and that God will not — even though it may seem that all that is to be valued and honoured is simply not being renewed. We are each called in our particular or community circumstances to a generous hearted faithfulness, remembering a text that Bach set to a cantata: 'God's time is altogether the best time'.
A couple of months ago I was here at Cheltenham with a parish group. We had a late morning mass like this, then lunch with the rest of the community and then an afternoon session that developed somewhat surprisingly. Four of the sisters present sat in a row and each, one after the other, spoke of call and vocation and service as they have experienced this in the context of this Community of the Holy Name. It seemed to me that we were actually seeing the two key present strengths of this Community in the clearest focus: firstly the witness and example and inspiration of lives of prayer and service actually lived and secondly all this gently offered in the context of this welcoming and hospitable collection of buildings that is the Mother House — such a really pleasant peaceful place to be.
I think I said at the time that in some 35 years of direct contact with this community I have never heard sisters speak together in such a way — too often the role has been behind the scenes: functional, supportive yes but self-effacing to the point of invisibility whereas there was actually so much more to be shared and received. Our experience on that parish day was very powerful and we did indeed come away in thanksgiving. I have no doubt that however the future is to be experienced so far as the Community of the Holy Name is concerned, those two key strengths that I have noted will be central factors.
It is a formula that is tried and true. Some form of community life honouring both God and the needs of those around is attractive. The continuing strength of oblates and third order type communities is evidence of this. All of our religious communities can attest to this. It is another way for the people of God both to offer support and to receive strength and encouragement. In particular then the regular round of worship and prayer is something that is offered for far more than those immediately present — it puts flesh on the idea that 'the voice of prayer is never silent, nor dies the strain of praise away'.
This is potentially very attractive to others beyond the Community, especially if it is also placed in the context of potentially good simple but beautiful food and welcoming potentially residential hospitality. The Holy Cross monastery of Mount Calvary, Santa Barbara California was exactly such a place — sadly destroyed in bushfires a couple of years ago but now finding new expression once again. People do come. People do want to share and to grow, drawing on the love, the experience and the example of lives lived for God in community, for the sustenance and the hope that they themselves need. There is a deep hunger for such opportunities for corporate regular worship around a core community and peaceful hospitality. This is the ministry of proximity, of presence.
I have no doubt that this place and this community could even more intentionally be such a thing, offer such a presence, if that indeed was seen by this Community to be in God's discernment for the next generation. There is certainly a vision in this for a future that is exciting and possible and yes different, yet potentially full of a quiet hope and gift. All that is necessary is already here.
And what a splendid resource the text from Colossians, which is our epistle this morning, offers us for further prayerful reflection and consideration. This and every Christian community is called upon to be renewed, now in this present time. The characteristic qualities to be taken on as one takes on a new garment are many and rich: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness and above all love. Be people of peace and be thankful. Teach and be taught. Gratefully offer worship and do everything as if it was the Lord himself at work in you. All these are themselves signs that this is God's call at work, God's choice, God's gifts to those who are in God's eyes 'holy and beloved'. A new life in Christ, new indeed every morning, perhaps even starting again from the beginning as we do from time to time have to do. Some in the community will be better than others at some of these qualities, but the hope and the promise remains that together in the community of faith there is all that is necessary, if only we are able to lift up our hearts.
'And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him'. (Col 3:17)
Revd Dr John Davis, vicar St Peter's Eastern Hill Melbourne.
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