Colleagues List, June 2nd, 2019

Vol. XIV No. 44

GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address: waholst@telus.net

This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.

If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,

write to me personally - waholst@telus.net

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Dear Friends:

I include today an introduction to the writings of the
English Carmelite nun Ruth Burrows who seems to be
better known in the UK than in North America.

Hopefully, this Orbis Spiritual Masters recent release
will change that. I thank colleague Robert Ellsberg of
Orbis for providing this material for all of us.

The other selections I am sharing will hopefully pique
your interest as well.

Blessings on your life and work.

Wayne

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SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice -

RUTH BURROWS
Essential Writings
Selected with an Introduction
by Michelle Jones

Orbis Books, Maryknoll Productions
Maryknoll, NY. May, 2019. 176 pages.
$31.45 CAD. ISBN #978-1-62698-312-0

Publisher's Promo:

“Ruth Burrows is one of the most challenging and deep exponents in our time of the Carmelite tradition —and indeed of the fundamental gospel perspective.”—Rowan Williams

"Ruth Burrows is one of the great spiritual writers of our time.”             — James Martin, SJ

"Reading Ruth Burrows, or meeting her, makes you realize
more than ever that our Christian faith is far from dead.
We are very much alive!" -- Ron Rolheiser, OMI

--

Ruth Burrows is the pen name of Sister Rachel, OCD, a nun in the Carmelite monastery in Quidenham, England, and the author of more than a dozen books on prayer and the mystical life. Describing the central theme that runs throughout her work, she writes: “God offers himself in total love to each one of us. Our part is to open our hearts to receive the gift.” That theme is reflected in the writings assembled here, beginning with her personal discovery of the gift of God; the gift of God to each person; the realization that we are created to receive God’s gift; and the call to open ourselves to this gift and to be transformed into the gift of God for others.

Michelle Jones is a lecturer in theology at the Australian Institute of Theological Education. She is the author The Gospel Mysticism of Ruth Burrows: Going to God with Empty Hands (ICS Publications).

--
 
Introduction:

Sister Ruth (b. 1923) has lived in enclosed (Carmelite)
communities in England since she was 18. She has written
many books on the Christian life in general, and the
Carmelite spiritual tradition in particular. She is known
in the Anglican community of the UK as well and is a
favourite of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Roman
Williams, who has recommended her work for reading
within his own church community.

Living with ... extreme sensitivity to life's fragility has meant
that Rachel suffered from profound and relentless anxiety -
which, during her younger years, was expressed in depression,
moodiness, fits of rage and self-loathing. She was an
extremely lonely person as a child.

God was not someone she found a helper in those days,
and she found God to be absent from her life. For years she
was bereft of any divine consolation. She felt herself to be a
living contradiction and a failure.

Gradually, she discovered that it was in this desolation of
spirit that  God actually dwelt for her. While she knew she
needed to "get a grip on life" she learned that it was in this
vacant place that she found Jesus and that it was in her
fragile form of humanity that he could be experienced for her.
The theology of the incarnation of God in humanity began
to grow for her.

The writings of St. Therese of Lisieux and her message of
"littleness" and "nothingness" began to speak to her. (The
mystical experience developed profoundly to her as it did
to others in similar lost straights likeJean Vanier.) Her 
message of "vulnerability" evolved into a message of great
spiritual meaning and power. Over time she was able to
share much with others who felt similarly hopeless.

Ruth Burrows, her pen name (used to protect many people
she had helped and from whose experience she shared)
was able to translate much of the wisdom of the great
mystics into a lived reality.

We can have great confidence that the Jesus that we will
meet in her book and excerpts gleaned here are similarly
present within us, inviting us through our own messy
fragility into the eternal community of hope.

- discovered and interpreted from the Introduction

--

 

Christian Century Interview

March 22nd, 2012

 

"Prayer is God's Work"

  https://tinyurl.com/y3kgg396

--

My Thoughts:

I have learned, over time, that the mystical experience
is not something for which I have easy proclivities.

My spirituality was largely shaped in a Protestant ethos,
and I still need to depend on others to bring these 
understandings to the surface for me.

I have struggled with the meaning of mysticism for
much of my life.

This does not mean that I am unwilling to grow in my
understanding of faith's mysteries, however.

Books like this help to open the door to new meanings.
Perhaps it would be the same for you.

_____

 

Buy the book from Amazon.ca:

https://tinyurl.com/yxqlloev

Buy the book from Orbis, Maryknoll:

https://tinyurl.com/yylrjt62

*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

William Shantz,
Thunder Bay ON

Foundation of Marriage

In contemporary Western culture, the popular foundation of
marriage seems to be love..

Of course, also: "God is love";  "Love",  It's what makes a
Subaru, a Subaru"; Mac Donalds,"loving you";  and people
of all sexes and genders routinely end conversations by
saying/writing, "love you".

Has LOVE become God?

Another, more traditional, foundation of marriage has been
procreative endeavour.

As distinct from Creation and Reproduction, Procreation
requires the participation of precisely one male and one female.

What most men fail to notice is that when a male speaks/acts
a want (as distinct from a hedonistic 'liking') - to his wife, she
has a virtual 'magical' capacity to givebirth to a reality/future
corresponding with the want he has declared.

Only males can so impregnate - and only females can so give

birth!  (Sorry, Virginia and Virginio, 'There is no Santa Claus').

Any number of males and/or females can cooperate to create

something.  But the 'magic' of marital procreation requires

exactly one male and one female...

Questions??

--

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log
May 29th, 2019

"The Oneness of Life and Love"
  https://tinyurl.com/y4jbhkmc

--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
May 27th, 2019

"Jean Vanier 1926-2019"
  https://tinyurl.com/y3oep6r6

--

Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, ON

Sermons and Blog
May 31st, 2019

"Invitation to Intimacy"
  https://tinyurl.com/yyrrmfqj

*****

NET NOTES - June 2nd, 2019

VANIER IS GONE, But
His Model for Living Takes Root

Religion News Service
May 30th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y2foy5yp

--

WHAT IS A GREAT EULOGY?
The Evolution of a Farewell

Religion News Service
May 28th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yy4rmuvm

--

THE CURSE OF SEX TOURISM
Shame on Those Who Allow This

UCA News,
May 28th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y65d4mrs

--

MODI'S INDIAN RE-ELECTION
A Turning Point in
India's Political History

La Croix International,
May 30th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y35oawr4
You must register to read this article

--

THE GANDHI FAMILY HELPED FOUND INDIA
It is Now in Demise, A Sad Development

The Atlantic
May 30th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yymeptzs

--

INDIA IS NOT PROTECTING ITS CHRISTIANS
Nationalist Politics Not Serving Common Good

Christianity Today,
May 20th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y2gjke4u

--

FRANCIS WOULD SPEAK DIRECTLY TO TRUMP
Declares His Opposition to Building of Border Wall

Huffpost,
May 29th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yxn84dcd

--

GOING ON PILGRIMAGE -
RELIGIOUS OR SECULAR - IS IMPORTANT
Spiritual Travel A Most Worthwhile Activity

National Catholic Reporter,
May 29th, 2019
https://tinyurl.com/yym8vkbc

--

CRISIS OF FAITH?
CANADIAN ATTITUDES TO CATHOLIC HANDLING
OF CLERGY  SEXUAL ABUSE - Angus Reid Institute
May 27th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yytbrja8

--

Assessment -

CANADIANS SAY CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS
FAILED IN RESPONSE TO SEXUAL ABUSE
Angus Reid Poll Details the Story

America Magazine,
May 30th, 2019
 

https://tinyurl.com/yyzbmmal
 

*****

 

WISDOM OF THE WEEK

From Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:

The measure of our compassion lies not in our service to
those on the margins, but in our willingness to see ourselves
in kinship with them.

- Gregory Boyle, S.J.

--

If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality
beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only
life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones,
pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever.

- Timothy Keller

--

Christianity is being concerned about your fellow man,
not building a million-dollar church while people are
starving right around the corner.

Christ was a revolutionary person, out there
where it was happening.

- Fannie Lou Hammer

--

 

A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens
– as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys
a sleeper – that is the preaching of Christ, calling: Wake up!

Be converted! That is the church’s authentic preaching.
Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil
what is miscalled prestige, must disturb, must be persecuted.
It cannot get along with the powers of darkness and sin.

 

- Oscar Romero
 

--

Every moment of our human life is a moment of crisis;
for at every moment we are called upon to make an all-
important decision – to choose between the way that
leads to death and spiritual darkness, and the way that
leads towards light and life; between interests exclusively
temporal, and the eternal order; between our personal will,
and the will of God.

- Aldous Huxley

--

Your holiness makes you as conspicuous as the sun
in the sky. You cannot hide your Christian character.
Love cannot be hidden any more than can light. Least
of all, it cannot be hidden when it shines forth in action.

When you exercise yourself in a labor of love, in any
kind of good work, you are observed. We may as well
try to hide a city as to hide a Christian. It is the purpose
of God that every Christian should be in open view.

We are to give light to all that are in the house.

- John Wesley

*****

CLOSING THOUGHT - Dorothy Day

We may be living on the edge of eternity – but that
should not make us dismal. …The early Christians
rejoiced to think that the end of the world was near,
as they thought. Are we so unready to face God?

Are we so avid for joys here that we perceive so
darkly those to come?
(end)

*****

For those interested -

LAST ACTS MINISTRY PROGRAM ACTIVITY FOR THE YEAR

ST. DAVID'S SPIRITUAL TRAVELERS'
REPORT TO THE CONGREGATION ON
OUR TOUR TO EAST EUROPE AND RUSSIA

Sunday, June 9th, 10:00AM Service

Scriptures and Presentations are related to the theme.

Welcome!

*****