SAINT AUGUSTINE'S, GRAHAME PARK
  • ABOUT US
    • A Brief History of the Estate
    • Resources for our DCC members
    • Our personal data policy
    • Contact us
    • Financial Support
  • WHAT'S ON
    • This week's services and newspaper
    • Sunday School and Mass For Children
    • LIVE STREAM - Services/Prayers
    • Our Youtube and Facebook Channels
    • Our Social Media Notice Board
  • DONATIONS
  • SPIRITUALITY
    • PASTORAL CARE >
      • Visiting the sick
      • Weddings/ Reading of Banns
      • Funerals, bereavement
      • Baptism
      • Monastery Without Walls - Join Us
      • Confessions (Reconciliation)
    • Daily Online Bible Study
    • Bible Study Group on Thursdays >
      • Latest Session
    • Sermons
    • A Selection of Prayers
    • A Short Catechism - Christian faith
    • How to pray the ROSARY
  • GALLERY of our Events
    • Photo-meditations
    • For Children
    • Confirmation 2017 >
      • Confirmation and First Communion 2016
  • Hall Rental
  • YOUTHWORK
    • Art Workshops for children
    • Guitar Classes
  • our SOCIAL MEDIA
  • NURSERY

Our Biblical Blog /'Examined Life'

A definition of the Eucharistic community (Judges 6,25-end; Hebrews 5,11- 6 end) /Monday after the Sunday After Ascension Day, BCP Lectionary/

5/14/2018

2 Comments

 
There is a fantastic definition of the Eucharistic community. The local Christian community is one ‘which is giving itself up to God’s love’. It is this self-offering that makes us Christians belonging to the new, and not to the old, creation. (Zizioulas, Being as Communion).
Our communal experience of giving ourselves up to God’s love in the Eucharistic worship is a crucial one. Through this surrender to the Source of Life, we are no longer dissolved in the faceless inertia of the culture in which we live. For this is what individuals and communities suffer most: the inertia, the impersonal inertia of ‘this world’. In this ‘telos-less’ sea (where there is no purpose, no ultimate meaning, no ultimate responsibility and accountability), it is impossible to have an identity. The soul and the heart gets ultimately inflated. In the ‘old creation’, the human person ceases to be grounded in love. No wonder that the sense of God, the desire for worship disappears from social consciousness.
Our first reading, Judges reminds us of the effort that one must make in order to have God’s (love’s!) revealed Presence. ‘And the Lord said unto Gedeon, Take thy father’s young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it; and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock.’ (Judges 6,25-end)
Our second reading invites us to reignite our trust in God’s promises. This awareness is particularly important in a culture which is defined by ‘zero talk about the Biblical God.’ It is only through the mentioned conscious act of ‘giving ourselves up to God’s love’, that these promises will come alive and support us - on our journey, facing ‘this world’. Becoming a Eucharistic community is not an option. This is the only gateway to survive and not to be dissolved, and melted into the images of ‘the faceless gods’, which is our age.
Let us ‘feel’ the healing power of God’s promises. ‘For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name…’
 
(Personally, as far as I understand things when trying to make sense of my experiences, this rediscovering what the Eucharist means, and it compels us to do, is the only option for the ‘renewal initiatives’ of the Church of England. The new forms of mission, ‘fresh expressions’, will lose impetus and life, if they don’t intend to become Eucharistic communities; and defined by the Eucharist. The point I am making is that the Eucharist will reveal a hole ‘programme’ to learn about and internalize. Attempts of renewal remain groundless, if we are not facing the ‘Catholick DNA’ of the Church. There is a lot to reflect on what this ‘Catholick DNA’ is…)
 
13.05.2018

2 Comments
Beo's Musings link
9/19/2023 05:36:31 am

Thank you for sharing.

Reply
Mature Gay Waukesha link
5/11/2024 01:25:36 am

Grreat reading

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    newmansermon4advent.docx
    File Size: 23 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    newmansermon4advent.pdf
    File Size: 108 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    j_h_newman_advent_sermon1.pdf
    File Size: 107 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    j_h_newman_advent_sermon1.docx
    File Size: 23 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    living_in_imagination_vs_real.docx
    File Size: 260 kb
    File Type: docx
    Download File

    living_in_imagination_vs_real.pdf
    File Size: 179 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    Support OUR FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN

    Soliloquy

    These are verbal Icons, expressions of how the world is seen from Saint Augustine's..

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    June 2023
    May 2022
    March 2022
    November 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • ABOUT US
    • A Brief History of the Estate
    • Resources for our DCC members
    • Our personal data policy
    • Contact us
    • Financial Support
  • WHAT'S ON
    • This week's services and newspaper
    • Sunday School and Mass For Children
    • LIVE STREAM - Services/Prayers
    • Our Youtube and Facebook Channels
    • Our Social Media Notice Board
  • DONATIONS
  • SPIRITUALITY
    • PASTORAL CARE >
      • Visiting the sick
      • Weddings/ Reading of Banns
      • Funerals, bereavement
      • Baptism
      • Monastery Without Walls - Join Us
      • Confessions (Reconciliation)
    • Daily Online Bible Study
    • Bible Study Group on Thursdays >
      • Latest Session
    • Sermons
    • A Selection of Prayers
    • A Short Catechism - Christian faith
    • How to pray the ROSARY
  • GALLERY of our Events
    • Photo-meditations
    • For Children
    • Confirmation 2017 >
      • Confirmation and First Communion 2016
  • Hall Rental
  • YOUTHWORK
    • Art Workshops for children
    • Guitar Classes
  • our SOCIAL MEDIA
  • NURSERY