THE P RTAL
October 2014
Page 22
God With Us
A reflection by Antonia Lynn at Evensong to conclude the
‘Called To Be One’ day at Precious Blood, Borough, London
P
oor old
Ahaz; in our first reading (Isaiah 7), he demurs from asking God for a sign. Perhaps he
thinks he’s being humble or pious, or maybe he prefers to be self-sufficient. How do you discover what
God is asking of you?
Do you struggle on your own to work out an answer,
or do you sit back and wait for divine revelation? A
good discernment will always, I think, be a mixture
of both. Many of us here who have made the journey
into the Catholic Church have done so after a time of
agonising deliberation; not a few of us, I suspect, will
have come to the point where we could only say to
God, ‘Your will be done. Show me…’
God with us … plural
The sign that Ahaz is promised (despite his avowed
independence!) is the sign of Emmanuel: God with
us. Literally the word means with-us-God. Not ‘me
and my God’; God with us… plural. One of Pope
Benedict’s favourite words is gemeinschaft. It’s often
translated as ‘community’, but that is an inadequate
word. Gemeinschaft describes a group of people where
togetherness itself is the goal, where values, ideas and
faith are shared.
disunity without it. Isaiah’s prophecy of how the
sign of Emmanuel will appear - the lion and lamb is manifestly not fulfilled yet, not because of God’s
indifference but because of our fallenness. Neither do
we - any of us - live as though there really is ‘neither
Jew nor Greek; slave nor free; male nor female.’ We still
need the rules on the bus, and to feel the pain of the
disunity they bring to us all, but they are not God’s
ultimate dream for us.
to forgive and to love
Pope Francis addressed us all when he said recently,
‘We know well the sins against unity - jealousy, envy,
apathy - which come about when we place ourselves
at the centre… God’s will, however, is that we grow in
our capacity to welcome one another, to forgive and
to love, and to resemble Christ. May we all examine
our consciences and ask forgiveness… and may our
relationships mirror more beautifully and joyfully the
unity of Jesus and his Father.’
Not like a group of people on a bus: they may have
a common destination but each one is going there for
Wherever the journey takes you, take care to seek
his or her individual needs. There are rules on the bus the places where you encounter Emmanuel - God with
- no smoking, no spitting, no speaking to the driver - us. To what deeper ‘us’ are you being called?
which are largely obeyed; the passengers may form a
community of sorts, but they are separate individuals:
Our Lady of Britannia
each one the centre of their own little universe.
Thou stood on Newgate Arch and graced Pendragon’s shield,
Cardigan bore thy taper and Walsingham thy seal.
The sign of Emmanuel has been part of the
Humbly we now beseech thee as at thy feet we kneel:
discernment of everybody here today. Among those
Our Lady of Britannia, ora pro nobis!
who have joined the Catholic Church some made the
Thy beads hung from the sword-belts of Locksley’s Merry Men.
discernment as a community; others of us have had to
Thy hymns were sung by choirs, O Mother Free from Sin.
grow into one.
This land was once thy Dowry; pray make it so again.
gemeinschaft in the Ordinariate
Our Lady of Britannia, ora pro nobis!
What we have tried to do today is share a little bit of
Recall the martyrs’ deaths in Christ’s own imitation.
what that means to us, and how we have experienced
Come rack and then come rope, they braved the tribulation.
gemeinschaft in the Ordinariate. All of us here right
The ruby blood they shed cries out in supplication:
now, though, are here because of the gemeinschaft we
Our Lady of Britannia, ora pro nobis!
share already: ‘all who have been baptised have put on
Remember this, thy country, amidst the stormy sea.
Christ’: we are ‘all one in Christ Jesus’.
O may she stand united, a stronghold for the free
But foremost make her faithful to Jesus Christ and thee.
Those are words from tonight’s second reading
Our Lady of Britannia, ora pro nobis!
(Galatians 3) where, very early on, we h X\