SAINT AUGUSTINE'S, GRAHAME PARK
  • ABOUT US
    • Identity Statement >
      • Mission through the Eucharist
      • Sant Augustine of Canterbury - Legacy
      • Serving the Catholicity of Church - A Compassionate Mission
    • 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 Old Testament study with Rabbi Gordon
    • Daily Online Bible Study
    • Daily meditations on the readings of the Mass
    • Sermons
    • The Rule of Saint Benedict in the life of our community
    • A Selection of Prayers
    • A Short Catechism - Christian faith
    • How to pray the ROSARY
    • Media Resources
    • 'Monastery Without Walls'
    • An Ignatian Spiritual Retreat
  • BLOG
  • 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'

Love never suspended (John 9:1.6-9.13.34-38)

3/22/2020

0 Comments

 
Today, when in Christian churches public services are suspended, we find ourselves in a similar situation than Jesus’. To start with the good news, that we are with him in this similar situation. Sunday worship is for the people, not the people for Sunday worship. Sunday worship is for people’s health, in the most comprehensive sense. It serves the health of our souls, its eternal health, and also our mental and bodily well-being. Now, the suspension of public service wants to save people’s life and safeguard their physical health.

It is a shock for the people, as Sunday worship is part of our mental well-being, and a tool of our physical renewal. It is a shock for the priest, for whom the Sunday worship with their brothers and sisters is always the high point of their week. This being together with the Eucharistic community is the core of our identity, who we are.

Yet, we can have a look at this serious constraint on all of us in a different way. And this seeing our changed routines differently, is equal in significance to today’s miraculous healing in the Gospel when the blind man regained his sight. In the light of divine grace we can recognise that not coming to church, giving up this part of ourselves, can be done out of love. Our self-discipline can and will save someone else’s life.

‘Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam (a name means “sent”)’ This sending for us is the beginning of a learning curve. We will learn to see our faith differently, including our church activities. We are called to recognise and live by the Spirit of Encouragement on a daily basis. Our eyes are sent to get use to the light of Jesus’ presence in our worries, in the work of the medical stuff, in the suffering of the sick, in our joint efforts to overcome the threat to our life. We need to keep praying. We need to remain connected with our churches – via prayer and other forms of support. That is why it is important to remain a praying community. Our printouts for ‘Sunday Worship at Home’ might be a good help in order to maintain the prayer life of our mother church via both our personal and these set prayers.

The news, we all know, are terrifying. Still we don’t know whether it will liberate the forces of our ‘the shadow side’. Individual and collective fears, selfishness, antisocial behaviour, God forbid, violence and crime. What has been happening now is equal to the social and mental trauma caused by war. This fourth Sunday of Lent could not be a more timing message. Its name is ‘Laetare’, rejoice! The stakes, as mentioned, are high. Saving lives, containing the virus, social solidarity - are the practical implications. However, there is a crucial aspect to our remaining faithful to God and neighbour. This is the spiritual stake. If we remain a praying family of God - now scattered in our homes but centred on the prayer life of the church - we will have a chance to go through these horrors psychologically unharmed. The trauma can break the psyche of our children and that of ours, and can leave seriously wounded. Remaining daily in Jesus’ healing presence gives us the chance to remain who we had been before the epidemic. All the joys of our live, the banal joys and hopes of it, needs to be preserved and re-planted into the future, when its time comes.
So let this verse of today’s Gospel be our promise and strength. ‘So the blind man went off and washed himself, and came way with his sight restored.’
 
22.03.2020

0 Comments



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

    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
    • Identity Statement >
      • Mission through the Eucharist
      • Sant Augustine of Canterbury - Legacy
      • Serving the Catholicity of Church - A Compassionate Mission
    • 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 Old Testament study with Rabbi Gordon
    • Daily Online Bible Study
    • Daily meditations on the readings of the Mass
    • Sermons
    • The Rule of Saint Benedict in the life of our community
    • A Selection of Prayers
    • A Short Catechism - Christian faith
    • How to pray the ROSARY
    • Media Resources
    • 'Monastery Without Walls'
    • An Ignatian Spiritual Retreat
  • BLOG
  • 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