THE
P RTAL
June 2011
Page 16
F ather Peter’s P a ge
The Right Time...
Many of you
reading this column may have already experienced going to
a close advisor to discuss joining The Ordinariate and receiving the equivalent of
the following observation: “Of course, I fully understand your desire to join The
Ordinariate – in fact, if truth be known amongst ourselves, I am even contemplating doing so myself – but
this is not the right time”.
The problem with this kind of
advice is that it often contains
some of the following
inferences:
“You really should wait
until ‘X’ or ‘Y’ happens”
... and that usually mans,
until General Synod has
made a certain further decision;
or Parliament has endorsed
something. This argument, though,
can be applied ad infinitum.
There can always be found
some event in the future to replace an old one that has
been overtaken.
“There are good/brighter people (and by implication:
‘better than you’) who have decided to stay”. This hides
the fact that you are letting another person’s decision
settle what is right for you. All of us in our Christian
pilgrimage have to reach the point where we make our
own decisions – not others for us.
“Are you 100% certain?” The fallacy here is that
if one was actually 100% certain there would be no
decision to take! We know in our life that many of
its important decisions – often the most important –
are made without this kind of guarantee of certainty:
‘Should I marry ‘X’?’; or relocate to a new job?
Of course, we must weigh up all the factors; but
‘Acts of Faith’ are just that: Something done, not with
absolute certainty, but with the strong assurance that
one is doing God’s will.
“But your wife/friends/closest advisor would not
approve”. This is the most invidious because it plays
on our sensitivity: No-one would want intentionally
to cause hurt or pain to those we love or admire. (Re-)
Read David Newsome’s book: The Parting of Friends
– the description of the agony among the Wilberforce
family in the 19 th Century to remind oneself that
‘Conversion is costly’.
In the end one must do
what one believes God,
(in his goodness for
you), wishes you to do.
[As you may well know
from past experience -
although you must never
exploit it – those who really
love us will go on doing so; and
often secretly admire you for your courage and
conviction.]
What many fail to acknowledge is that to postpone or
to procrastinate is – in itself – the making of a decision:
albeit one by default and often the wrong one.
Remember the challenge of the hymn:
Once to every man and nation,
comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision,
offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever,
’twixt that darkness and that light.
Then to side with truth is noble,
when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses
while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue
of the faith they had denied.”
May God give you strength – as He will - to make
the right decision.
Father Peter