Steven Croft

St. Hilda and the General Synod

Today is St. Hilda’s day and I’m on a train this morning travelling to London to the General Synod.  The Synod is due to debate and vote tomorrow on the Measure to enable women to be made Bishops in the Church of England.

The vote has been a long time coming.  It will be very close.  I found it strangely comforting when I was praying this morning that the Synod’s day of preparation is dedicated to Hilda.

Hilda is one of the great Saints of the north of England.  Her life is recorded in Bede’s history (mainly in IV.23 but with references elsewhere.  She died in 680 AD at the age of 66.  Bede tells us that her life was divided into two parts: she lived for 33 years “most nobly in secular occupations” and another 33 “even more nobly in the monastic life”.

Hilda founded a monastery at Monkwearmouth then a year later moved to the new community at Hartlepool.  Some years after that Hilda moved to Whitby to “found or organise” the monastery there:

“She established the same regular life as in her former monastery and taught the observance of righteousness, mercy, purity and other virtues, but especially of peace and charity.  After the example of the primitive Church, no-one there was rich, no-one was needy, for everything was held in common and nothing was considered to be anyone’s personal property.  So great was her prudence that not only ordinary folk but kings and princes used to come and ask her advice in their difficulties and take it.  Those under her direction were required to make a thorough study of the Scriptures and occupy themselves in good works to such good effect that many were found fitted for Holy Orders and the service of God’s altar”

The monastery at Whitby was a mixed community.  Hilda had authority over women and men.  She taught from Scripture, exercised oversight, counselled individuals and established institutions.  Bede goes on to tell us that no less than five men from this monastery later became bishops “all of them men of outstanding merit and holiness”.

Hilda’s reputation spread far and wide:  “she brought about the amendment and salvation of many at a distance who heard the inspiring story of her industry and goodness”.  For the last six years of her life her body was racked with a fever, “but during all this time she never ceased to give thanks to her Maker or to instruct the flock committed to her both privately and publicly”.

Hilda lived in a moment of great cultural change and great missionary opportunity.  Monasteries were alternative communities striving to set a model of radical discipleship.  They were lively centres of prayer and scholarship and mission and points of stability around which a civilisation was able to grow.  Hilda was not the only woman with the responsibility of leading such a community.  The names of other women in similar positions are scattered through Bede’s narrative.

1,400 years ago, at the beginning of the Church in these islands, the English church found a way to use the gifts of women in teaching from scripture, in leadership and oversight, in mission and pastoral counsel.

We live today in a moment of similar cultural change and great missionary opportunity.  We see the beginnings of alternative communities of mission.  The Church of England in our generation must not miss the opportunity to make the very best use of the women God has given to us in teaching, in leadership and oversight, in mission and pastoral counsel.  In our generation this means saying yes, tomorrow, to the Measure to enable women to become bishops.

Earlier this year, I was invited to lead a seminar at Soul Survivor, a Christian festival for young people, on women in leadership.  I shared the seminar with Jude Davis, a colleague from the Diocese of Sheffield and one of the youngest ordained women in the Church of England.  Soul Survivor positively encourages women in leadership and ordained ministry but many of those who come are from churches which are much more cautious (often on scriptural grounds).

Hundreds of young people, mainly women, came to the seminar.  Many of them were keen to serve God with the whole of their lives within the Church and in wider society in leadership roles.  Many of them were being held back by the hesitation they sensed in the Church towards women in leadership and, in particular, the Church’s hesitation about women as bishops.  How many of them, I wonder, were the Hildas of our generation with the capacity to lead many to Christ, to bless God’s church, to be leaders in God’s mission?

Of course we must respect those who cannot accept this move on grounds of their reading of scripture or tradition.  Of course we must make provision for them.  Of course we must build trust and behave in such a way as to deepen that trust within the body of Christ.

But there has been enough delay.  It’s time to move forward. 2014 will be the 1,400th anniversary of the birth of St. Hilda.  It will be a fitting year for the consecration of the first women as Bishops in the Church in her native land.

Eternal God
who made the abbess Hilda to shine like a jewel in our land,
and through her holiness and leadership blessed your church
with new life and unity:
help us, like her, to yearn for the gospel of Christ
and to reconcile those who are divided

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Steven Croft

Remembrance in Rotherham

Highlights of the week included a visit to the primary school in the village of Laughton on Tuesday.  The school is the oldest school still in existence in South Yorkshire and celebrated its 400 birthday this year.  It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the oldest school in the County has a strong Church connection.  It takes the commitment of Christians to cherish and guard institutions from one generation to the next.  The school is small, warm and friendly with a really high proportion of special needs children (though I wouldn’t have known unless someone told me).  As well as celebrating a 400th birthday, I was also there to dedicate and open a new quiet space in the playground for children who want to sit and talk rather than run around.

On Wednesday, I led our final Deanery evening on Re-imagining Ministry for Mission in the Ecclesall Deanery in the city of Sheffield.  Lots of good people and lots of good questions.  More than a thousand people have come to this series of 12 evenings to reflect with the Bishops and Archdeacons on God’s grace and future patterns of ministry in the Diocese.  If you would like to know what happened and where we are going there is a PDF of the special booklet on our website here:  http://www.sheffield.anglican.org/index.php/follow-the-tour-2012

But the main reason for the post today is my visit to Rotherham this morning for the Remembrance Sunday.  There were around 500 people in the Minster for the special service and at least as many again at the Cenotaph afterwards for the Act of Remembrance.  There was a sense of reverence and occasion in the town as many different generations gathered.  These have been difficult weeks for Rotherham with some tough stories in the national press.  In those moments its important to record the good days and the normal days and the annual rhythm of the year.

This is what I was able to say in the Minster this morning:

“No-one has
greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15.13). The words of Jesus
Christ, spoken two thousand years ago on the night before he was crucified, the
night before he lay down his life for his friends.

 

The words have
echoed down the years and they continue to have a special meaning for those
caught up in armed conflict and for all of us today as we remember.  Today is the one
day in the year when we call to mind those who have given their lives in war,
those who have born terrible cost through injury or bereavement or through some
other great sacrifice.  It is one
day.  But that one day is a symbol for
all of the quiet, private acts of remembrance which happen in homes and hearts
throughout the year.  We owe a great
debt to the men and women of our armed services.  That debt is both past and present.

 

The first world
war is real to me because, when I was fifteen years old, I sat and listened to
my grandfather tell the story of life in the trenches, of how he was shot and
left for dead in no man’s land in the Battle of the Somme, kept alive by a
trickle of rainwater.  He was found and
rescued after three days.  He told me how
one of the stretcher bearers was blown up and killed on the way back to the
front line.  How he carried shrapnel in
his leg and head for the rest of his life and was never able to work normally
again.  Every family here
will have that kind of story and worse.
It wasn’t that my granddad was always talking of his war
experiences.  He told me once and that
was all that was needed.

 

And for many, of
course, the memories are much more recent and raw, more acute and vivid:
memories of friends and family who have been killed; of units facing action; of
loved ones in danger; of the uncertainty and risk, of courage and heroism in
Iraq, in Afghanistan or some other theatre of war. We make our solemn
act of remembrance today.  A symbol for
all the quiet, private acts of remembrance which happen in hearts and homes
throughout the years.

 

We live in an age
which does not find it easy to speak of death or suffering.  Most of the time much of our society is in
denial of the reality of death for all of us, not just those who die in
conflict.  We do not want to face it but
all of us will meet our death one day and we are afraid.  We cover up our
fear.  We pursue pleasure and prosperity,
we occupy ourselves with trivia, we worship fame and celebrity. But it is no
surprise that with every year that passes people have fewer resources within
themselves to cope with tragedy and sudden death.

 

Our society seems
gripped by mood swings.  For much of the
time, people give the impression that life is one long party.  Then a tragedy strikes and we see a vast public
outpouring of grief and questions but questions which find no easy
answers.  We must do better
for our children, for our young people, for the generations still to come.

 

I stand here to
remind you today that the Christian faith is the ancient birthright and
treasure house of this country.  It is
the faith which shaped our nation, our traditions, our heritage, our values,
our institutions.  The Christian
faith is the place where the deepest questions about life and death, suffering
and pain, meaning and purpose find answers which satisfy.  The Christian faith proclaims the love of God
for each person in creation, the equality and worth of every individual, the
value of sacrifice, the possibility of forgiveness, the offer of eternal life,
the wisdom to live well in good times and in bad, the strength to build
marriages and families and communities which endure.

“No-one has
greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15.13). In this Act of
Remembrance today we honour those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for
their country.  But in this Act of
Remembrance we dare to look further at our questions and our fears and our
hopes for the future.  And as you speak
aloud those questions and hopes, I appeal to you to begin the renewal and
rebuilding of your family and your community and your nation by turning again
in a deep and personal way to the ancient and ever new Christian faith, to
Jesus Christ, the one who laid down his life for his friends, to the only one
in history who has overcome death and who offers to each one of us eternal
life.

O God our help in
ages past, our hope for years to come,  Be thou our guard
while troubles past and our eternal home.

 

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Steven Croft

A powerful and helpful prayer

Every once in a while I come across a prayer which helps me pray.   I normally stay with it for a while, trying to use it every day.  Sometimes I paste it into the prayers I say each week.

A few weeks ago, I found a prayer of St. Augustine in a copy of a sermon someone handed me to read (for a different reason) and it spoke to me very powerfully.  I don’t remember seeing the prayer before but when I looked it up, clearly it is known and used, particularly in Roman Catholic circles.  However I think it deserves to be better known in the Church of England.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) was a Bishop in North Africa and is one of the most influential of the Latin Fathers of the Church.  The prayer isn’t from one of his major works but is thought to date from early in his time as a bishop as he wrestled with a number of complex issues and his own sense of inadequacy before them.

It’s a beautiful prayer of dedication to God.  I think I would rank it alongside the Methodist Covenant Prayer for the power of the words and the honest dedication to God’s cause.  Perhaps Augustine’s prayer influenced John Wesley.

The English translation I was given didn’t really flow so this is my attempt at a revision:

Jesus, Master,
May I know myself and know you.
May I desire nothing if not you.
May I forget myself and love you.
May I do everything because of you.
May I humble myself and exalt you.
May I think of nothing if not you.
May I die to myself and live in you.
Whatever happens may I accept from you.
May I renounce myself and follow you
and always long to follow you.
May I flee myself and fly to you.
May I be worthy to be defended by you.
May I fear myself and fear you,
that I may be among those chosen by you.
May I mistrust myself and trust you.
May I be willing to obey because of you.
May I cling to nothing if not to you
And may I be poor because of you.
Look upon me that I may love you,
Call me that I may see you
And in eternity may I delight in you.
Amen.

I’ve reproduced the Latin text at the end, together with the reference.

There are several things I love about the prayer.  It is Christ-centred with every line ending with “you”. It is self-aware.  There are two lines in particular where the same word is used for myself and for God:  “May I know myself and know you”; “May I fear myself and fear you”.  There are three lines where the phrase “if not” is used:  “May I desire nothing if not you”; May I think of nothing if not you”; “May I cling to nothing if not to you”.  There are four or more lines (depending on what you include) where the opposite words are used.  I softened the word “hate” in line 4 to “forget” following the traditional English translation but that disguises the opposition to love.  The others are humble and exalt, die and live, mistrust and trust.

Like much of Augustine’s writing, the prayer is deeply scriptural and faithful to scripture but draws the ideas and lines together in a way which distills biblical truth and addresses it back to God and to myself.

Several of the lines have already challenged me deeply: “Whatever happens may I accept from you”; “And may I be poor because of you”.  Several have made me think – especially the three which end “because of you”.  There are patterns in the prayer and the language but they are very subtle.

The final three lines are especially beautiful and worth learning as a short prayer in their own right.

Like all good prayers, this one is a call to holiness.  It’s a prayer for quiet days and retreats, for moments of special dedication or seasons of pondering the way forward.

 

Domine Jesu/ Noverim me,
noverim Te/ Nec aliquid cupiam
nisi Te./ Oderim me et amem
Te./ Omnia agem propter
Te./ Humiliem me,
exaltem Te./ Nihil cogitam nisi
Te./ Mortificem me, et
vivam in Te./ Quaecumque
eveniant, accipiam a Te./ Persequar me,
sequar Te,/ Semperque optem
sequi Te./ Fugiam me,
confugiam ad Te./ Ut merear defendi
a Te./ Timeam mihi,
timeam Te./ Ut sim inter
electos a Te./ Diffidam mihi,
fidam in Te./ Obedire velim
propter Te./ Ad nihil afficiar,
nisi ad Te./ Et pauper sim
propter Te./ Aspice me, ut
diligam Te./ Voca me, ut vidam
Te./ Et in aeternam
fruar Te./ Amen.

Oratio Sancti Augustini qua petitur intima
Jesus Christi cognotio ac sequel
In Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, Typis
Polyglottis Vaticanis 1952 n.88

 

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Steven Croft

Goodbye to Rome

We leave Rome in a couple of hours.  The Synod concluded on Sunday morning with a Mass in St. Peter’s with the Pope presiding.  Pope Benedict spoke from the gospel reading about the healing of Bartimaeus.  According to Augustine, the fact that Mark tells us the name of Bartimaeus’ father suggests that he has fallen from prosperity into poverty.  The Synod on the New Evangelisation has been for all those who have lost a sense of richness in Christ and now need healing and spiritual sight again.

The Synod Fathers all concelebrated at the Mass which was a remarkable occasion.  Ann and I were both seated with the Fraternal Delegates, between the Orthodox and the Methodists!  Since the Synod concluded its been good to have a couple of days off in Rome visiting some of the sights and paying a return visit to the Anglican centre at lunchtime today.

I take many good things away with me.  It has been an unusual privilege to take so much time to listen to the deliberations of another part of the Church and of the global Church.  The hospitality and welcome here has been generous.  I find my ecumenical passions have been rekindled.

It’s been stretching intellectually to think about mission through a different set of words and attitudes and to see familiar questions through very different spectacles.  I will go on thinking about the themes of the Synod for many months to come.  I find my commitment to finding new ways forward in apologetics and catechesis and formation for ministry has deepened still further.

It’s been interesting and meet and listen to so many different bishops from so many parts of the world.  As I have said a number of times in this blog, there has been a sense of a group of people seeking Christ and seeking Christ’s way and fully aware of their own need for further conversion.

The biggest piece of learning though has come, I think, from returning part way through the Synod to lead an evening in the Laughton Deanery just south of Rotherham.  As I listened to the comments of the people across the deanery about the joys and questions they wrestled with, I realised very profoundly that this was the same conversation I had been listening to in Rome.  The whole Church across much of the world is asking the same questions and having a similar conversation.

The Church of England, through the grace of God, has found some creative ways forward in mission and the transmission of the faith.  However we have much still to learn from others in different churches and in different parts of the world.

So I am bringing a great deal back with me to the Diocese of Sheffield: a bigger sense of the Church, the world, the gospel and the questions we face and a deeper sense of both the past, the present and hope for the future.

Many thanks to all those who have been following the journey through this blog.  It has been good to share it with you.  The blog will continue though the subjects will be more diverse.

PS: my favourite ice cream flavour (out of many sampled) was lemon.

 

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Steven Croft

The Propositions from the Synod of Bishops

So when all was said and done, what was the outcome of the Synod of Bishops?

After agreeing the Message from the Synod (the Nuntius – see yesterday’s post), the Synod turned its attention on Friday evening and Saturday morning to agreeing the final list of Propositions. The Propositions go forward to a small group elected by the Synod who do further work on them before submitting them to the Pope as guidance for the future.  Normally they are not published at this stage but a copy has been made available online here:  http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/sinodo/documents/bollettino_25_xiii-ordinaria-2012/02_inglese/b33_02.html

There are 51 Propositions.  They were read aloud (in Latin) on Friday evening and Saturday morning.  The reading took several hours.  The Fraternal Delegates were not given the text at this stage and nor, of course, did we have a vote.  The Synod Fathers voted on the Propositions both by marking and signing their own texts and by an electronic vote on each Proposition in the full Synod session.  I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets when I say that there was not a great deal of dissent on any of the votes although there were, I gather, some significant alterations made to some of the Propositions after they were examined in small groups.

Many of the Propositions simply affirm or re-affirm present practice in the light of the New Evangelisation.  However, to my Anglican eyes and ears, there was a significant and clear overall direction emerging which resonates with recent Anglican reflection on mission and the transmission of the faith.  Here are eight points worth noting in this respect.

1.  A permanent call to mission.
The Synod represents a further development in reflection on the New Evangelisation in that the Roman Catholic Church clearly perceives a permanent call to engage in God’s mission and to the transmission of the faith both in the countries which have been traditional mission fields and the countries traditionally regarded as Christian (see Propositions 6, 7, 40, 41).

It is proposed that the Church proclaim the permanent world-wide missionary dimension of her mission in order to encourage all the particular Churches to evangelize (7)

The Propositions recognise this both in theory and in suggesting various structural responses, including a permanent Council for New Evangelisation as part of every Bishop’s Conference (40), establishing the study of the New Evangelisation in Catholic Universities (30) and the New Evangelisation to be the integrating element in the formation of priests and deacons (49):

Seminaries should take as their focus the New Evangelization so that it becomes the recurring and unifying theme in programs of human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation in the ars celebrandi, in homiletics and in the celebration of the sacrament of Reconciliation, all very important parts of the New Evangelization.The Synod recognizes and encourages the work of deacons whose ministry provides the Church great service. Ongoing formation programs within the diocese should also be available for deacons.

New Evangelisation therefore comes to occupy a central place within theology and practice similar to that of the mission of God in many of the Protestant Churches and the Five Marks of Mission within the Anglican Communion.

2.  Inculturation
Inculturation is a key concept in the Propositions, introduced as one of the first substantial paragraphs (5).  It’s prominence reveals the dilemma at the heart of so much of the transmission of the faith: how do we communicate an unchanging gospel in a changing world?  Answers are not supplied but there are significant clues in the rest of the document (12, 13, 19).

3. Secularisation (8)
There is an awareness of secularisation in the Propositions as throughout the documents (8).  However there has been little in depth analysis of the problem.  The Synod has rather reversed my view of traditional Roman Catholic strengths and weaknesses in theological method.  Before the Synod, I held the impression of a Church which was strong in its philosophical theology and weaker in its reflection on Scripture.  Actually the Synod has provided wonderful examples throughout of deep Scriptural reflection, many of which will stay with me for a long time.  However it has been less strong on philosophical theology.  There has been little attempt to analyse the roots and causes of secularisation which I associate with Hans Kung and other theologians of the post war generation.

4. The right to proclaim and to hear the gospel (10, 15, 16)
This is rightly a strong theme. The freedom to preach the gospel is felt to be under attack both in the secularised West and in some places from militant Islam.  The worldwide Church needs to make clear its stance not to impose faith on anyone but to assert the right of everyone to choose their religion.

5. Initial proclamation (9)
Proposition 9 calls for major pieces of work to be done on the initial proclamation of the gospel.  This work is to be both theological – describing the heart of the gospel – and pastoral – describing strategies for communicating the faith.  It calls for serious and welcome attention to the theology of evangelism.

6. Apologetics (17, 18, 19, 20, 54, 55)
A major new initiative is called for here though its shape is less precise. Theologians, universities, new media experts, artists and scientists are all called to be involved.  There have been similar calls recently within the Church of England for a major new initiative in apologetics and for more resources to be invested here.

7. Adult Catechesis (28, 29, 37, 38)
Amen to this sentence:

One cannot speak of the New Evangelization if the catechesis of adults is non-existent, fragmented, weak or neglected.

The Synod has rightly paid major attention to the development of catechesis, building on the publication of The Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Attention is focussed here on the formation of catechists.  Again there have been similar calls recently for a new focus on catechesis within the Church of England and for the development of new materials.

8. New ecclesial communities (43)
Finally the Synod is extremely positive and affirming of all that the new ecclesial communities (movements such as Sant’Egidio) have brought to the life and witness of the Church since Vatican 2.  Again this has been evident through the Synod.  In Church of England language, this is about living out the mixed economy church on a macro rather than a micro level: points of relationship, connection and integration are key between new movements of mission and the established structures of the Church.

Since Vatican II, the New Evangelization has greatly benefited from the dynamism of the new ecclesial movements and new communities. Their ideal of holiness and unity has been the source of many vocations and remarkable missionary initiatives. The Synod recognizes these new realities and encourages them to utilise their charisms in close collaboration with the dioceses and the parish communities, who in turn, will benefit from their missionary spirit.

Overall then there is a significant agenda here. This has been a prayerful, biblical, united and humble Synod which has taken a further step of placing the idea of the mission of God and evangelisation at the heart of the theology and structure and purpose of the Church.  It’s been a privilege to take part.  Thanks be to God.

Postscript:
If you read the Propositions or the Message please bear in mind that the translations are reasonably accurate but don’t always read that well.  It’s worth persevering!

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Steven Croft

The Message from the Synod of Bishops

I returned to Rome on Friday morning (this time with Ann) for the final part of the Synod of Bishops here.  It’s been good to step back in to the conclusion of the process which began three weeks ago.

While I have been away the Synod has been working mainly in small groups of about fifteen people.  Each group works in the same language (there are six different languages at the Synod).  The groups have been working on the two main outputs.  The first is the Message (Nuntius) which was read in the main assembly yesterday and the second are the Propositions which form the basis for the advice to the Pope on future direction.

The groups had the opportunity to look at initial texts for the Message and then to approve a second draft.  The Message runs to some 14 pages in the official booklet.

You can find the full English text here:  http://en.radiovaticana.va/articolo.asp?c=633215

The Message is essentially a pastoral document from the Synod to the whole Church.  The Synod Fathers I spoke to were very pleased with its tone and content.  Reading it through yesterday, the Message does authentically represent the Synod I’ve been part of.   It’s a helpful summary of the main themes of the New Evangelisation.

The Bible passage chosen to frame the Message and to stand as a model for the New Evangelisation is the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4:

There is no man or woman who, in one’s life, would not find oneself like the woman of Samaria beside a well with an empty bucket, with the hope of finding the fulfillment of the heart’s most profound desire, that which alone could give full meaning to existence. Today, many wells offer themselves to quench humanity’s thirst, but we must discern in order to avoid polluted waters. We must orient the search well, so as not to fall prey to disappointment, which can be disastrous.

Like Jesus at the well of Sychar, the Church also feels obliged to sit beside today’s men and women. She wants to render the Lord present in their lives so that they could encounter him because he alone is the water that gives true and eternal life.

This is a powerful story of cross cultural evangelisation in a situation of great need and, it seems to me, holds great lessons for our age.

The Message goes on then to draw out some of the principal themes of the working document for the Synod which have flowed through all of our discussions.  The new evangelisation is all about a personal encounter of faith with Jesus Christ:

The work of the new evangelization consists in presenting once more the beauty and perennial newness of the encounter with Christ to the often distracted and confused heart and mind of the men and women of our time, above all to ourselves. We invite you all to contemplate the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, to enter the mystery of his existence given for us on the cross, reconfirmed in his resurrection from the dead as the Father’s gift and imparted to us through the Spirit.

The Fathers call the Church to courage, to hope rather than despair and to a serious spiritual conflict, again using language from the interventions.  They issue a bold call for personal conversion for ourselves even as we seek to recall others to Christ:

We firmly believe that we must convert ourselves above all to the power of Christ who alone can make all things new, above all our poor existence. With humility we must recognize that the poverty and weaknesses of Jesus’ disciples, especially of his ministers, weigh on the credibility of the mission. We are certainly aware – we Bishops first of all – that we could never really be equal to the Lord’s calling and mandate to proclaim his Gospel to the nations. We know that we must humbly recognize our vulnerability to the wounds of history and we do not hesitate to recognize our personal sins.

The middle part of the document introduces different aspects of the new evangelisation which will be the theme of the Propositions (more on these tomorrow).  So there are sections dealing with the family, the parish, with schools, with catechesis, with the ordained and lay, with young people.  There is a notable section on contemplation clearly responding in part  to Archbishop Rowan’s address:

A testimony that the world would consider credible can arise only from an adoring gaze at the mystery of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, only from the deep silence that receives the unique saving Word like a womb. Only this prayerful silence can prevent the word of salvation from being lost in the many noises that overrun the world.

Being at the side of the poor also receives a special prominence, again picking up comments made during the Synod.

Finally the Fathers have a message for the Church in each different continent, mirroring the presentations given from the different Bishops Conferences at the beginning of the three weeks.  There is a paragraph for each and these were read out by someone from these continents in different languages at the assembly.

I looked with some care, as you would imagine at the message addressed to Europe and I have to confess that I was somewhat disappointed here.  The treasures and achievements of the past are mentioned alongside the twin difficulties of aggressive secularisation and hostile regimes.  The paragraph concludes with these words:

May the present difficulties not pull you down, dear Christians of Europe: may you consider them instead as a challenge to be overcome and an occasion for a more joyful and vivid proclamation of Christ and of his Gospel of life.

I think I was hoping for a bit more in terms of future direction.  Overall, though, I think the Message is an accurate summary of the themes of the Synod.  It has a pastoral heart, it is written in love for the worldwide Church, it carries something of the spirit of Vatican 2, and it is Christ centred and gospel centred as the Synod has been.  It deserves to be read widely and studied carefully by Christians of all Churches.  We are called to do as Jesus did: to sit and listen to thirsty people, to serve them and allow them to serve us, and bear witness to the one who gives the water of life.

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Steven Croft

Living the mixed economy: from Sheffield to the Synod

I came back to Sheffield for nine days on Wednesday of last week to fulfil a series of essential engagements in the Diocese here.  One part of my attention and prayer has been on what is happening in Rome and I’ve continued to keep up to date with the Synod through the daily bulletins on the Vatican website.

The Synod is mainly meeting in groups through these days and developing a series of propositions which will then be voted on in the plenary Synod before going forward as the basis of a message from the Synod to Pope Benedict XVI.

My public engagements in these eight days are in one way a normal snapshot of the life of a Bishop in the Church of England at the present time.  In another they provide a good worked example of the ways in which the Church of England is engaging with the transmission of the faith in our present context.

I came back to Sheffield with a renewed appreciation of the significance of the Anglican experience in mission in the present moment.  As one person said to me in Rome, we have been working at this question of the secularisation of society and appropriate missional and pastoral responses for a long time and in an increasingly intentional way.  It is not, perhaps, surprising, that ways forward developed in an Anglican and British context would be relevant elsewhere to Churches grappling with similar challenges.  The Roman Catholic Church has already acknowledged the importance of the Alpha Course in evangelisation.  I’ve heard similar comments over the last few years from the Protestant Church in Germany and from other parts of the world about fresh expressions of church.

In my address to the Synod I talked about developing fresh expressions of the church for a new mission context.  In the Church of England we have become used to talking about the mixed economy church: traditional congregations alongside fresh expressions of church within parishes or groups of parishes.  The term mixed economy was originally coined by Archbishop Rowan Williams in his time as Bishop of Monmouth.

So what I have I been doing in this reasonably typical week?  On Wednesday evening I attended and led one of twelve Deanery evenings across the Diocese looking at re-imagining ministry for mission.  This one was in the Laughton Deanery, just south of Rotherham.  I began the evening by asking people what questions they were wrestling with at the moment.  They gave a particularly rich series of answers: how to pass the faith on to children, to young adults, to those beginning the faith.  I felt as though I was in exactly the same conversation as the one I had left behind in Rome.

On Thursday evening, I attended the opening of a new building serving a community project led by Church Army Evangelists which relates to some of the most needy people in the city.  The work is an attempt to serve and listen to and witness in a particular sector of city life through pioneer ministry.  On Saturday morning I was with a local parish for a morning teaching on the beatitudes and the importance of being a Christ-like Church.  On Saturday evening, we were at St. Thomas, Philadelphia for a gathering to celebrate the Forge Youth Ministries, which serve over 800 young people across the city in sports, in ventures of different kinds, in small missional communities, in discipleship and mentoring.  On Sunday morning I was at St. Peter’s Greenhill on the edge of Sheffield where a year ago I instituted a young pioneer minister as Vicar and he brought a team of young adults into a traditional parish.  A year on there has been significant growth both in the 9.30 traditional service and in the new 11.00 am informal worship.  There were many young families and a new ministry with children.  Finally yesterday evening I licensed new honorary canons in the Cathedral at a beautiful service of choral evensong.

As we reflect together on the transmission of faith in this part of the world, we need to begin from the point that we are increasingly a diverse society.  To reach every part of that society we need many different approaches, many different pastoral responses, many different expressions of the church bound together by a common understanding, vision and goals.  A diocese and a parish is increasingly made up of these many different communities and ministries.

But at the heart of them must be the call to go, to listen, to serve, to form community and to bear witness to the gospel in many different places as an ordinary yet extraordinary part of the life of God’s Church.  And the goal for them all must be to become Christ like communities, a sacrament of God’s presence in God’s world.

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Steven Croft

Ecumenism, enculturation and the silence of the West

Today is my last full day in Rome.  I leave first thing in the morning to return to the other beautiful city built on seven hills (Sheffield).  Today is also the last full day of the five minute interventions.  We’ve heard around 160 so far.

There were two significant themes for me this morning and one significant question.

The first was ecumenism and the new evangelisation.  There were significant interventions both yesterday and today from Cardinals here in the Vatican on this theme.  Cardinal Coccopalmerio spoke yesterday in favour of a “renewed relationship between the other Churches and ecclesial communities”.  He said:  “The division between Christians is not entirely innocent in terms of the de-christianisation of the Old Continent”.  If we are seeking a new evangelisation of Europe, unity is vital.  He focussed his remarks on a plea for urgency in the dialogue between the Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches especially in Russia and Romania because consumerism and relativism which have become “the subtle poison that pushes them towards a devastating secularisation”.

Today Cardinal Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity spoke in even stronger terms. He said that division among Christians is a scandal which endangers that most holy of causes, the preaching of the gospel.  He recalled the historic Edinburgh conference of 1910 which was the beginning of the global ecumenical movement: the original roots of that movement are in common concern for mission.  He drew the attention of the Fathers to the unity of the Church found in the martyrs of the 20th Century (see yesterday’s blog).

Enculturation was the second theme which struck me this morning.  Sorry about the long words.  Enculturation is the process by which the gospel needs different languages and forms in different places.  We had several pleas for greater listening to local culture,  a plea for more local decision making about liturgical texts and patterns, a plea for enculturation to be more complete.  These voices came from Asia and Africa predominantly where the members of the church can sometimes still feel caught between two cultures: their own local culture and that of the missionaries who first brought the gospel.  There was a general sense in the Synod that this matter of enculturation is a profoundly challenging part of being a global Church and a single communion.  The direction of the comments was  clearly a plea for greater freedom and local decision making.

And finally, the silence of the West.  One of the abiding privileges of the Synod is attending to voices from all across the world.  Just this morning we heard very movingly from Syria and from Haiti of Christian faith in the midst of catastrophe.  The Synod has heard clearly the voices of Asia and Africa, of South and Central America and the voice of the Middle East , Oceania and Eastern Europe.

The Synod has not heard as clearly, in my view, the voice of the North America and Western Europe on the new evangelisation.  In the initial presentations from each continent, the presentation on Europe was more reflective of the former communist states than western Europe.  There was a single presentation from America which focussed on South and Central America.

There have, to be sure, been some individual interventions from these areas but they haven’t been frequent and nor have they articulated as clearly as some of the others a single position.  If there is a theme uniting them it is a willingness to ask a series of more difficult questions arising from, for example, the abuse scandals, or the situation of the divorced and remarried.  Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham, made a very good intervention yesterday on the need for deep listening to the multiple cultures around us and for deep dialogue with them as key to the new evangelisation.  There was a similar contribution this morning from a Swiss bishop.  This is not so far from the question of enculturation above, but the culture we are listening to is pluriform and rapidly evolving, and we ourselves are swimming in it.

There is an irony here because the Synod and the new evangelisation are explicitly attempting to address the questions of faith in the historically Christian countries of Europe and North America.  I may of course not be hearing things correctly.  But it seems to me that there is some more listening still to do to the real questions the Bishops from North America and Europe are bringing.  It is to these questions that the Synod will need to apply its wisdom in the small group stages.

Later this afternoon, the Fraternal Delegates will be invited to speak for four minutes each.  I hope to post what I plan to say later this evening.

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Steven Croft

Of small communities and modern martyrs

The Synod resumed this morning with a series of very fine presentations from many different parts of the world.

Two themes came across very strongly to me today.  The first was the theme of small ecclesial communities or base ecclesial communities.  These feature strongly in the working document for the Synod.  In paragraph 80 we read:

“The younger churches are working to enliven parishes which are oftentimes extensive, animating them internally through a programme called Basic Christian Communities or Small Christian Communities.  Their stated purpose is to foster a Christain life which is better capable of sustaining of the faith of their members and illuminating through their witness various areas of society, particularly large, sprawling cities”

At the turn of the millennium, base ecclesial communities were associated especially with the Roman Catholic Church in South America and with a theology of liberation.  It seems that over the last twelve years, since Pope John Paul II’s call for a renewal of evangelisation, many, many bishop’s conferences have adopted small ecclesial communities as a major programme for parish renewal, for equipping the laity and for mission and the fruits seem very significant.  There no longer seems any specific link with liberation theology.

So we heard a few days ago of these communities rejuvenating parishes in the Philippines and key for the nurture of individuals and families.  They offer more intense experiences of the faith and many encounters with the Lord.  Today we heard from Thailand in a similar way of B.E.C. as “a new way of being church”.  The parish is enabled to become a community of communities.  Every Diocese and every parish is encouraged to have a pastoral committee to promote and develop these small communities. They are seen as essential in equipping people for witness and service.  In Zimbabwe the Church in encouraging small Christian communties in similar ways.  In Ethiopia these small communities have been vital in developing lay ministries and a missionary orientation for the whole church.  I

n India since 2000 there has been extensive renewal and transformation in parishes through the same means:  “People gather to reflect on the word of God, to pray, to serve together, to experience community and to grow in personal encounter with Jesus.  Gifts and charisms of the Spirit are placed in the service of the church.  There is a reflection on life’s experience and an equipping in service to the neighbourhood”.  These small Christian communities call for a new model of leadership from the priest and the integral formation of the laity who are called to serve the kingdom of God.

It is clear from these numerous testimonies that the small ecclesial community movement is coming of age in the Roman Catholic Church and is bearing significant fruit.  The small communities are an integral part of parish life and they are taking on many of the features of the church not in competition with the gathering around the priest for mass but to complement that experience.  They are vital for lay formation, equipping people for discipleship in the world and for mission.  I have not so far heard of any Church in the post Christian West give testimony to such investment in small communities but it may be that the penny will begin to drop during the course of the Synod.  The message really is loud and clear.

The second theme which came across again very powerfully was the sense of suffering and the powerful witness of the martyrs of the 21st Century. This may be actual martyrdom in the sense of dying because you are a Christian and we heard moving testimony from Croatia and Romania.  Or it may be the experience of the Church living through common experiences of great suffering as is the case in Cambodia, in Mali and in Japan following last year’s terrible events and bearing witness in acts of love and compassion.

It is very moving for me to reflect on the experience of Christians across the world in all kinds of places bearing a powerful and costly witness through their suffering in the name of Christ.  The Synod has given me a fresh and deep experience of the worldwide body of Christ.

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Steven Croft

An Anglican pilgrim in Rome

There were no Synod meetings today (as the programme says, Vacat Congregatio).  We had a pretty solid day yesterday of five minute speeches all the morning and afternoon sessions.  My cup was full, you might say.

However that does leave space in the blog to catch up on some of the other places I have been able to visit while in Rome and around the Synod meetings.  Each one has been very special.  If there is a theme it’s that an essential part of a bishop’s role is connexion: to be a sinew in the body of Christ, helping to connect the different parts.  That applies to the Church in different parts of the world and different denominations.  It also means preserving and deepening our connection to the Christians who went before us.  Let me tell you briefly about some my visits.

It was a huge privilege on Friday to accompany Archbishop Rowan and his party on a journey beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, through the excavated Roman cemetery with graves from the 3rd and 2nd centuries,  to the point directly below the dome and the altar where a grave was found in the early 20th Century which dates from the 1st Century AD and which is believed to be the tomb of St. Peter.  A very special place to pray.

The same day, it was good to visit the English College in Rome and have tea with the assembled seminarians who are mainly from the UK.  They were a lively group of around 50 students and staff and the College is clearly a great place of formation for the priesthood and scholarship.  It was good to be introduced to no less than five graduates of the University of Sheffield and to meet up again with a former Anglican priest from the Diocese of Sheffield.

This morning I visited All Saints Anglican Church for worship – a lively community right in the centre of Rome.  It felt uncannily like (in a good way) being in any parish church in England, especially the notices and celebrating the 99th birthday of a member of the choir.

I travelled on for lunch with the monastic community at San Gregorio Al Celio.  The travel directions included the phrase “turn right at the Colisseum and keep on past the Arch of Constantine” which in my world is quite similar to “the third star on the left and straight on until morning”.  San Gregorio is the church where Pope Gregory prayed with Augustine in 597 as he sent him and a small group of monks to evangelise Great Britain.  Another significant place of prayer.  In more recent times it has been the place in Rome where the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury as the successors of Gregory and Augustine have prayed together.

The Church is the care of the Camaldi Benedictine Community.  The prior, Peter Hughes, is very keen to see the Church become a place of pilgrimage and retreat in Rome for Anglicans and other Christian groups from England.  The hospitality was wonderful and I do commend it.  The community were very interested indeed in the fresh expressions movement.  At one point I found myself explaining Messy Church to this group of monks, priests and professors, with the Prior translating both ways.  They completely understood.

This evening was given over to a visit to the Sant’Egidio community in the Church of St. Bartholemew on the island in the Tiber in the centre of Rome.  Sant’Egedio is a community founded in 1968 and is one of the new ecclesial movements often spoken of at the Synod of Bishops.  It is a community dedicated to prayer and the service of the poor.  It has seen many come to faith including my two hosts this evening.  The community has also inspired some of the new monastic communities in Britain and deservedly so.

St. Bartholemew’s is the community’s own church and is now dedicated to the Christian martyrs of the 20th Century.  There are side chapels around the Church dedicated to the martyrs from different parts of the world (those who suffered under the Nazis, the martyrs of the Pacific including the Melanesian martyrs etc).  A very striking contemporary icon depicting the martyrs of the 20th Century is at the very front of the Church, forming and shaping the identity of the community.  I hope to be able to hang a copy in my chapel when I return to England.

There is much I think that the newer missionary and monastic movements in the UK such as Church Army and The St. Thomas’ Order of Mission may be able to learn from Sant’Egidio and the Camaldi Benedictines and I hope it will be possible to build a stronger connection between the different groups.

So lot’s for me to take in and reflect on, I guess for months to come.  And, in between, I’m trying to decide what to say in my own four minute intervention on Tuesday afternoon!

 

 

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