Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News: Transforming flame

In the evening of the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you,’ and showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.

John 20:19 – 21a

It is a thousand times easier to transform a room with a new coat of paint, new curtains and furniture than it is to transform our bodies like those in Biggest Losers, and if you’re a Biggest Loser’s follower, they do use language like transforming their lives. And I agree that making physical changes can indeed assist in transforming our lives. There are improvements to relationships, self-image and general wellbeing.

But there are also other experiences that can equally be life-changing, life transforming: falling in love marriage, having children, losing parents, acquiring disability through emotional or physical trauma, serendipitous luck, separation and divorce, disease. Mention should be made of the thrill of skydiving and base jumping. But then I need to include religious conversion. I write here not of the conversion to or from Catholicism, Buddhism or any religious persuasion. The conversion I write of is the conversion in which the experience is so dramatic and extraordinary that it is impossible to refuse to assent to the changes to which you are impelled.

Such is the experience of the first disciples on the Jewish feast of Pentecost in the city of Jerusalem. As they hide in trepidation in their room, while the outside world was gathering from its four corners to celebrate the gift of the Law on Sinai, the sound of a great wind, followed by what appear to be tongues of fire appear. The disciples are impelled by an overwhelming drive to leave their haven and to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, to proclaim the new Law, the commandment of love. Their enthusiasm is so infectious that not only do the assembled hear in their own language but over 3,000 are baptized. We attribute this life transforming event to the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.

But how can we put our finger on this gift, and how does it bring about change? The writer of Acts doesn’t tell us with any clarity. But the fear and anxiety that was present is lifted like a theatre curtain. Whatever it was that raised that ‘curtain’ will remain a mystery (that is, something beyond our understanding), yet you and I are invited to share in the journey of those first disciples, to be a part of the fiery energy that drove them to the streets. This is true transformation – everything I say and do, the way I look at the world and my relationships is now viewed through this incredible change that has overtaken me. It begins when I am fully open and available to the God who loves me, when at last the curtain of my uncertainty, my doubt, my humanity is lifted once and for all, and when once and for all I say yes to his invitation.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

The Desert Fathers and Mothers by Richard Rohr

Practical Prayer

In the same way as the early Church, the desert Christians were deeply committed to Jesus' teachings and lived practice. Their chosen solitude and silence was not anti-social but a way to become better at seeing clearly and at loving deeply. Withdrawal was only for the sake of deeper encounter and presence.

Diana Butler Bass describes the natural flow from solitude to prayer to active love:

"[Jesus' invitation to] 'Come follow me' was intimately bound up with the practice of prayer. For prayer connects us with God and others, 'part of this enterprise of learning to love.' Prayer is much more than a technique, and early Christians left us no definitive how-to manual on prayer. Rather, the desert fathers and mothers believed that prayer was a disposition of wholeness, so that 'prayer and our life must be all of a piece.' They approached prayer, as early church scholar Roberta Bondi notes, as a practical twofold process: first, of 'thinking and reflecting,' or 'pondering' what it means to love others; and second, as the 'development and practice of loving ways of being.' In other words, these ancients taught that prayer was participation in God's love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves, away from the familiar, and conforms us to the path of Christ." [1]

Through their solitude, the abbas and ammas learned to be sparing and intentional with their words and to preach more through their lifestyle than through sermons. There were few "doctrines" to prove at this time in Christianity, only an inner life to be experienced. Abba Isidore of Pelusia said, "To live without speaking is better than to speak without living. For the former who lives rightly does good even by his silence but the latter does no good even when he speaks. When words and life correspond to one another they are together the whole of philosophy."[2]

An old abba was asked what was necessary to do to be saved. He was sitting making rope. Without glancing up, he said, "You're looking at it." Just as so many of the mystics have taught us, doing what you're doing with care, presence, and intention is prayer, the very way to transformation and wholeness. As other master teachers have taught in many forms, "When we walk, we walk; when we chop wood, we chop wood; when we sleep, we sleep." As you know, this is much harder than it first seems.