|
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.
|
