What Do You Seek?

Wisdom from religious life for today's world

Friendship

• Publisher: Canterbury Press Norwich
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781786223470
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

John-Francis Friendship spent twenty-five years as an Anglican Franciscan friar. Drawing on the whole breadth of monastic history and experience, he looks at core aspects of monastic and religious life and applies its practical wisdom for living well in today's world. Chapters include: • Knowing your heart's desire and pursuing it;• Counter-cultural living – the spirit of poverty, chastity and obedience;• Clothing yourself in Christ – getting into holy habits;• Living in community – how to get along together;• God in all things – seeing the whole world as divine;• For the sake of the kingdom – serving those in need;• Living with thanksgiving – shaping the eucharistic life.What Do You Seek? draws on a vast wealth of spiritual wisdom accumulated over the centuries to offer inspiration and courage for living with integrity and hope today.

1. For the Love of God

‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,

it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Those who love their life lose it,

and those who hate their life in this world

will keep it for eternal life.

Whoever serves me must follow me,

and where I am, there will my servant be also.’

(John 12.24–26)

It was Maundy Thursday 1976 and the Mass of the Last Supper had begun when I arrived at Hilfield Friary, home to a large community of brothers of the Society of St Francis (SSF). Set on the northern slopes of the Dorset Downs, I’d driven the final few miles through lanes studded with primroses and cowslips before turning off into what had been a farmyard. Along one side lay the chapel created from an old cow-barn where, on entering, I felt a need to ‘kneel where prayer has been valid’, as T. S. Eliot wrote in Little Gidding.

Surrounded by the Divine in nature and liturgy, this Life seemed to offer something of immense importance. It was as if I’d arrived at the start of something; the questing I’d experienced and the way I’d felt increasingly out of step with the world suddenly didn’t trouble me. I sensed being invited into a deeper relationship with Jesus, to love and serve him in the way of St Francis who, joyfully, beckoned me to follow. The struggle to have any priestly vocation recognized fell away: the doorway through which I’d passed into the mystery of the Eucharist opened to my future.

I needed (and still need) to give attention to what I encountered: a community living out the Parable of the Loving Father (Luke 15.11–32) where, knowing myself a sinner, I felt welcomed. What was the point of seeking to make ever-more money, having the latest car, promoting myself (and being judged), becoming a ‘success’ when none of that really satisfied? Here was an invitation to step out of the rat-race and stand in the presence of God who called into my emptiness. The Life touched the deepest place of my being, offering a glimpse of a ‘new Eden’ where I could start afresh with Christ, the new Adam, who spoke once to another youth: ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me’ (Matt. 19.21).

After we had left the altar having fed on Mystic Food, I discovered that the community opened its doors for other ‘wayfarers’ who had tramped the lanes to this place of hospitality. I reflected on sharing supper with Brothers, guests and those who found it difficult to fit into society, realizing this was a taste of kingdom living where all things were being created anew. Here was hospitality human and divine – the essence of Religious Life – accepting us, warts and all. Much later, when I became Guest Brother, I discovered that many valued the way they knew the brothers wouldn’t judge them by those ‘warts’ but were there to share their burdens.

Called by God

The Lord called Samuel again, a third time.

And he got up and went to Eli, and said,

‘Here I am, for you called me.’

Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy.

Therefore, Eli said to Samuel,

‘Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say,

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”’

(1 Samuel 3.8–9)

When Eliot wrote about ‘kneeling in prayer’ he was recalling the chapel in Little Gidding, Huntingdonshire where, during the reign of Charles I, its manor house became home to an attempt by Nicholas Ferrar, scholar, courtier and deacon, to develop a community involving his extended family. It lasted from 1626 until 1657 after which, for much of the following century, the Church of England lapsed into a stupor before two revivals began – first Evangelical and then Catholic. But Ferrar’s community was considered ‘romish’ and the foundations that had sustained the Church for one and a half millennia were mostly swept away until, on 26 March 1845, Jane Ellacombe, a young woman who became known as Sr Anne and died nine years later, began living a form of solitary Religious Life near London’s Regent’s Park.

Catholic Christianity is for all, for the whole of man, and for all time. The church cannot be national, nor exclusive, it is for all. It is only in the Church that real equality is to be found – where all are baptised with one baptism and all partake of one bread. (Raynes CR 1959, p. 57)

Letting go of my old life didn’t prove easy, and I resisted the process at times, especially as aspects of my ‘self’ needing redemption were revealed. That’s what happens if, like the Mother of Jesus (she-who-listened), we say ‘yes’ to God – even tentatively. As time went on, I realized this (often painful) remaking and reshaping was the most important thing that can happen – more important, and more satisfying, than any external makeover – if we are to reflect God’s glory. That is what makes us fully human, and it begins with turning the eye of the heart to God with faith, hope and love.

We must remember that our life as Religious is not something over and above the ordinary Christian life. It is only the ordinary Christian life developed under such regulations as are rendered necessary for individuals, because the Church at large has fallen away from her true spiritual calling of conscious and habitual union with Christ. (Benson SSJE 1900, p. 6)

Beginnings and Endings

‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

For those who want to save their life will lose it,

and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world

but forfeit their life?’

(Matthew 16.24–26)

Giving up home, job and friends wasn’t easy but, beneath my fears, I felt the drawing of Love, for these endings were the means of a new beginning. Slowly, I began to discover that deeper than the attraction of other loves lies the call of One who longs to draw us into union, a union we read existed ‘in the beginning’. Before any talk of sin and the ‘Fall’ there’s the account of how humankind bears the image of its Creator who was pleased – delighted – with creation (Gen. 1.31) and lived in harmony with all things.

The wonder of creation

Now I live in a city I often walk in our nearby ancient woodlands. Depending on the season I can breathe the aroma of dead leaves, feel the sharpness of frost, see the greenness of foliage, and sense a deep, intimate at-oneness. I can open myself to the Creator by looking with my inner eye beneath those outer forms into creation’s heart. As I do, I realize a sense of wonder which enables thankfulness, a thankfulness leading to deep joy.

Genesis tells of how we became a living human being when God breathed into our flesh, a primal act about which the hymn at Night Prayer (Compline) reminds us:

O Father, that we ask be done

Through Jesus Christ, your only Son;

And Holy Spirit, by whose breath

Our souls are raised to life from death.

Religious Life is an attempt, by the grace of God, to nurture fertile ground from which God might bring about a new creation. It invites us to open our ‘nostrils’ to God’s inbreathing; to regain the divine image by giving primary attention to loving God. Such a life might be ‘on the edge’ but its focus is reconciliation; just as God is a Trinity of Persons existing in a never-ending communion of love, so Religious Life invites us to make real Christ’s prayer, ‘thy kingdom come’.

Existential crisis

That invitation can speak powerfully if, lost in the speed and demands of life, you want quality rather than quantity. Gradually – suddenly – I saw beyond what money buys, tasted a freshness of faith, and awoke to ...