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A Workshop for the Lord!

 

Bishop Lindsay Urwin OGS, the Shrine Administrator writes:

It feels a bit strange to talk of the ‘end of the season’ at the Shrine just as the Church itself is gearing up for her New Year, but it’s the way of things and I must admit, after the rigours of the pilgrimage season, we are grateful for the slow down and the opportunity after the Advent Retreat to take a breather! Of course the daily pattern of prayer continues throughout and, along with the inevitable frost, a lovely stillness descends on Walsingham, only interrupted by the lively annual Christmas Eve Crib Service - and then the great feast of Mary the Mother of God.

While the rest of the world is getting over a hangover, or reflecting on a good time that wasn’t, for the Church, the first of January brings the joyous celebration that takes us to the heart of our faith; that extraordinary and unpredictable  ‘jumping of categories’, as Michael Ramsey called the taking of human flesh by the living God. The Lord through his Mother has given Walsingham a particular calling to proclaim this essential doctrine.  We may all make our predictions about what the New Year will bring, but on the first day we remember what has already been and is - the one who was brought by the great overshadowing and is still alive and still with us.

Without this truth the Church literally has no being and no business. Like Mary the Christian appropriately and understandably asks, ‘How can this be?’ but this is a question of mechanics rather than arising from doubt. It was Zachariah who doubted when visited by the same angel and he was struck dumb. Mary believes and in stark contrast is led to exultation in the song that is so rightly a part of the Anglican daily rhythm. Even in the darkest days of destruction and when devotion to Our Lady waned
-  was even lost - yet the Magnificat was said and sung at Evening Prayer. If little was said of her, at least her own words were in constant use!

The fourth century St Basil of Caesarea sees in Mary, the Virgin mother of Emmanuel foretold by the famous prophecy in  Isaiah  (7:14). She is called to collaborate with the power of the most High by the offering of her own body, so that the Son, who is of mysterious and transcendent origin, can be born. With an almost delightful realism, Basil speaks of Mary’s womb as the “workshop” for the Lord.

In the well known ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, countless people will invite that same Christ to be ‘born in us’. Oh that I may sing those words with meaning and from the heart! How I would be changed!

People sometimes speak of doing ‘work’ on themselves in their attempts at self-improvement or self-understanding.  Nothing wrong in that, save the danger of introspection. But more important surely is to allow the Lord to work on you. He will do so with gentle persistence, and will not give up. But it requires your assent, your willingness and your availability. Augustine of Hippo says somewhere that God has so much to give us, but our hands are too full, there is no where for him to put it!

In the coming year St Basil’s insight will be our theme at Walsingham. The original Holy House in Nazareth was a place where God worked a miracle. Many have experienced our own little replica in Walsingham as a place where he continues to do great things. So perhaps we can legitimately speak of the Holy House as a ‘workshop’ for the Lord. With Basil we will think of Mary as the true ‘workshop’ of the Incarnation and we will be encouraging all who come here to imitate her and discover afresh, or even for the first time, what it might mean to allow the Spirit of Jesus to do a great work within them and through them.

Pray for us here as we pray for you.

+ Lindsay


The Administrator's Advent 2011 letter to all Priests Associate. Click here to read and/or print.


A Letter from the Master of the Guardians and the Administrator regarding the creation of the Ordinariate. Click here to read and/or print.



 
   

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