Forgotten Dreams

When I dream, I like to see myself as ordained as a minister of God and giving the Eucharist to the faithful, exhorting the young and old to faith in Jesus and pastoring to the people. When I wake up, the world is a blur. What was clear in my dream, suddenly makes no sense. I’m not a minister. I’m not a pastor.  There is no easy, magic way to ordination. But I am awake... and I have been since the 5th January 2012. You see that was the day when I, after a number of years of sensing a calling to Holy Orders, took the plunge and spoke to my parish priest/minister/pastor/leader (insert clerical title here) about how I could realise my vocation.

I say spoke but being very nervous and conscious of the possibility of rejection I actually sent him a letter. A long winded apologia which I hoped would persuade him that I could do something more than sit in a pew.

Back then I was a layman, a fully fledged armchair theologian, and pretty new to (though knowledgeable of) Anglicanism. I had no primary degree, and had left school at 16 like most working class protestants and don’t play golf. I’m not “happy clappy” nor do I go in for the “we need to be cool to relate to young people” understanding of the Church and well I knew this would all stand against me. Yet in spite of the doubts I took my chance, confident that God’s Will would be done.

After the morning communion for Epiphany I gave him the letter. I outlined my thoughts and ambitions and asked if he was free for a meeting to discuss the same. I was nervous, scared and worried that he would think I was completely mad, and reject my vocation, or that he would read it and then do the old "oh I didn't get a chance to read your letter fully, but I'll talk to you about it next week" before never speaking of it again, or worse still that he would ignore it completely. I had Rev. Ricky Yates, of the excellent ex-pat blog www.rickyyates.com praying for me and quite a few more friends and family offering up prayers like the apocalypse was coming I was confident things would go as I hoped, if God willed.

Thankfully things did go to plan. The Archdeacon (I should say my parish priest/minister was also my Archdeacon) passed my letter onto a Canon, who as Director of Vocations was to schedule a meeting with me to discuss the next stage. Then if he was happy he would schedule a meeting between His Lordship the Bishop and I. A week or so later I was then given a sheet explaining that the Church of Ireland is a Christian Church found throughout Ireland and another one explaining that the Clergy needs to change and become more like business leaders.

I have heard nothing since. Everything had started out as black and white. Somewhere down the road, the line went blurry. The colors started to run, got smudged and gray. Now I simply don’t know what is going on.

The Archdeacon has since retired and been replaced by Robert Millar who blogs over at http://robbloging.blogspot.co.uk/ and who seems to blog as often as I do. The Bishop has got facebook and regularly posts about meeting potential ordinands and the Canon recently posted a nice little poem he wrote on a clergy “away day” but I’m still sitting here... in much the same position I was all that time ago wondering what God’s plan for me is.

Well that’s a lie, I know God is calling me to be a priest, not a deacon, and I know he wants me to live out the Eucharist within my community, encouraging others to come to know Christ more personally and then helping them to live out the giving nature of the Eucharist in the world around them. I know he wants me to teach others about the faith, and indeed about the Church. I know he wants me to care for the old, the sick and dying. I know too that he wants me to care for the young, the cool and even the uncool. I am to show the world God’s love at work in me and how that love impacts them.

Yet I cannot figure out for the life of me how I can ever  do that to the extent to which I am called as long as the Church pretends I don’t exist... sure I can be a good Christian, show others God love and become a Sunday school teacher as a layman, but can I give the gift of Holy Communion? Can I look after and tend to the flock of Christ?   

So at present I’m in purgatory, suffering torment and not knowing what’s happening. Actually at least with the concept of purgatory you know you’re going to heaven at the end... I’m stuck in more of a limbo of the damned type place, something very similar to C.S. Lewis’ Grey Town in the “Great Divorce”. It’s rubbish and I just want direction one way or the other but well it looks like I’m doomed to stare endlessly at this wall of silence that has been erected around me.

I am now considered a relic, and a bit of a High Churchman because I advocate the Prayer Book and see nothing wrong with the clergy wearing coloured stoles. My new minister on the other hand feels that vestments (White surplice and black preaching scarf) are now outdated and a tad pointless and so I am witnessing them being phased out in my parish, so too is the prayer book and it’s not looking good for any music written before the 1980’s. Evening Prayer has been replaced with Compline, or our new “Songs 4 Praise” service where a worship band blocks the view of the altar and begins playing “modern worship songs”. No one else notices these changes, those who do love them. Yet for me it’s really hurtful. I pray the daily office, morning and evening and my lectionary was based around that Sunday’s Eucharistic reading... my spiritual life revolved around communion with God and his Church. Now Communion is no longer celebrated on Saint’s Days (saint’s are an uncool bunch apparently) and it has been dropped from the Sunday Evening service which I usually attend (my parents attend their own Church in the morning) and I feel a bit lost and a bit left out. Celebrating Compline at 6 o’clock on a Sunday when I do it every other evening just before bed just feels wrong but it doesn’t matter because apparently I’m the only person who actually bothers to recite the daily office... apart from monks... and as I’m not a monk then I must of course be either:

a) A Crazed fanatic

or

b) A “holier than thou” type  

I feel like a traditionalist Roman Catholic does about Vatican II, I feel like the Church I knew has gone and the Church I now find doesn't want me... which worries me because I am a convert and to be blunt I am wondering if the Church I converted to actually exists anymore.

I know of course that God brought me into the Church of Ireland for a reason and I believe it was to bring into his service as part of Holy Orders but I realise that I like many others will have to face the possibility of moving across the water to England and attempting to “start again” as one friend, who has also felt called to Holy Orders and like myself has faced “the wall”, described it. The Additional Curates Society, which is significantly “higher up the candle” than me, is holding a conference for young men considering vocation later this year at Saint Stephen’s House, Oxford. 

They have offered me a grant to fly me over, cover the costs of my food and accommodation and I've even been offered a lift from Birmingham to Oxford  with one of the speakers. Sounds wonderful... and only a small part of me feels like a refugee fleeing to a more welcoming land (even if it is only for a weekend).

I think I shall go, just to experience again the strange beast that is the Church of England, and really just to have the opportunity to be heard by someone who wants to listen to a young fool like myself. Yet there is a part of me that wonders why I should have to go all the way to England just to speak to someone about vocation but I suppose it is not for mere mortals like me to understand such a mysterium fidei.

On another note, just last night I stood with my fiancee at the ruins of Saint Colman’s monastery on the shores of Lough Neagh and looked at the High Cross of Ardboe.  It was a nice night, sunny though a tad cold and I was just listening to the birds and to the waters crashing onto the shore as I looked out towards Counties Antrim and Down, as no doubt the monks must have done centuries before. As I stood there, for the first time in what has seemed like an eternity, I felt God’s presence in a very real way... no gimmicks or miracles, just a sense that he was close to me. Then as we stood there, I turned and kissed Julie, and I knew that everything would be alright.

James

Dark days...

This morning David Black got up, got dressed and headed to work. While driving along the motorway a car with Dublin registration plates drove up beside him and fired a number of shots which left him seriously wounded. His car veered into a ditch.

He died at the scene.

The Grand Master of the Orange Order said earlier "David was a devoted and loyal member of Montober LOL 661 for approximately 30 years, as well as a fine prison officer. His professionalism throughout the worst of the Troubles and beyond is in stark contrast to the cowardly and faceless terrorists who today have left a wife without her husband and two children without their father.

Our thoughts and prayers are with David’s wife, Yvonne, his children Kyle and Kyra, and wider family circle at this deeply traumatic time. They can be assured that the Orange fraternity will rally around them in their hour of need."

David’s death brings to 337 the number of members of our Institution who have been murdered by terrorists since 1969. David’s crime like many of those before him was to wear the uniform of his country, serving the community as a member of the security forces. We owe it to him and all other murdered brethren that the perpetrators of this evil deed are brought to justice.

Luther was Right!

A Wall Mural, Northern Ireland

Martin Luther was right... deal with it.

Okay he wasn't right about everything but he was most certainly Biblically correct to say that Christians are saved "Sola Fide" (by Faith Alone). Indeed Pope Benedict XVI himself declared "Sola Fide" in one of his public addresses to the faithful in St. Peter's Square way back in January 2009 and affirmed that Luther had correctly translated Paul's words as "justified by faith alone".

It's hard of course to understand the context of October 31st 1517, when a young Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door of Wittenberg Church and ignited the centuries in the making reformation but those events led to Luthers realisation that it was (as Pope Benedict XVI said)  "the faith of a Christian, not his works that saved him."

Of course Benedict XVI, being exceptionally crafty, qualified his statement on faith by defining it as an "identification with Christ expressed in love for God and neighbour", thereby blurring the lines between faith and works beyond recognition, but hey he's the Pope and it's his job to promote his Church's teaching.

Yet this does not overshadow the very real reformation going on within Rome, a reformation that started pretty much thanks to Luther. It is hard to imagine Trent or Vatican II having occurred without the Reformation and certainly many of the attempts by Pope Benedict XVI to promote prayerful reading and understanding of God's Word along with a more greater emphasis on the proclamation of God's Word have come about thanks to a new appreciation of the Reformers, and Benedict himself admit as much.

This Reformation day, let's stop this whole revolution/reformation malarkey. Let's stop the idolisation of the Reformers, and their demonisation. Instead let's look forward to a time when the Word which once divided us can, as one Catholic Bishop said "unite us once again" and we can all be part of a Bible centred, Christ focused Church.

Literary Labours

Over the past five weeks I have been on a crash course of AS level religion. I’ve studied the Abrahamic, Mosaic and Davidic covenants, and looked at the conflict between Ahab and Elijah. In the coming weeks I will be looking at Amos, Hosea and Micah before spending December revising everything in preparation for the January exams.

Tuesday evenings from 6:30pm to 8pm, that’s all the tutor led instruction I get on the Old Testament and I am expected to study the notes I am given the rest of the week. This I do with diligence and with a certain sense of enjoyment. I like learning new things about God and I have discovered quite a few things about the covenants and prophets that I was simply ignorant of before.

Truth be told I’m finding it all a little strange. On the one hand I left school at 16 with good GCSE’s and this course is what I would have been doing had I remained in college until I was 18. Ergo it is more difficult than any course I have done before, yet I am finding the work terrifically easy. I suppose my private reading list, and my knowledge of theological terms and concepts has greatly improved my range of knowledge. Also the amount of study time I am putting into the course is helping greatly, and I now can give a detailed account of each narrative with relative ease (with more verse quotations coming daily).

Of course this impacts on other things. I’m scared to do anything unrelated to the course. The other day, for example, I was in a Christian bookshop and really wanted to buy and read C.S. Lewis’ “The Great Divorce”.  I didn’t buy it  because I was worried my brain would fill up with quotes and chapters of Lewis’ at the expense my studies.

It has also meant that I haven’t been able to comment on Vatican II, which started 50 years ago this week and which has led to some positive changes within the Latin Rite, and also a considerable number of negative changes.

I haven’t been able to comment on the new abortion clinic in Belfast, the first in Northern Ireland which is currently being picketed.

I haven’t been able to comment on so many other things I would have liked to and I haven’t been able to watch Downton Abbey, Homeland or Boardwalk Empire... yet in just a few weeks I will be sitting in my exams and for a little while at least (until February) I will be free to enjoy myself.

Pray for me in my studies, my “literary labours” as Saint Aquinas called them, that I could remember what I read and hear, and that I could have good writing skills in my exams, answering the questions fully and to a high standard so that I could come one step closer to serving God within Holy Orders.