Meeting 4 — Prophesy! *********************** .. tags:: content|mission|Mission, content|church|Church, content|resurrection|Resurrection, content|jewish-traditions|Jewish traditions, method|text-work|Text work, method|sharing-questions|Sharing questions, type|formative|Formative Introduction for the facilitator ================================ This is the last group meeting at the retreat. Let's not be afraid to give more space to participants if a need for summary and synthesis is visible. The meeting concentrates around the concept of Christian immersion. Some participants may already be past this stage, some may seemingly be past it. For others it may be a turning point. We do not have to settle this (we shouldn't!). The meeting is designed so that it has value for everyone regardless of the moment where they are. As an animator please dedicate time to think about where you yourself experience immersion "naturally", and where it is a challenge for You. Key will be Your testimony to show that faith is not watched, nor participated in, only incorporated. My Christianity is not a label, nor even a tattoo - it is in every cell of my body and soul because all this was immersed in the death and resurrection of the Word. Please let's not skip the last task with writing down one's dream about the Church. One who has agency dreams, one who cares. And this is the goal of the meeting - not reform of the Church, nor big resolutions but reaching one's dreams, our dreams. And let God bless them. Inclusion? Connection? ====================== We are after experiencing the Eucharist connected with the seder. Let's start by sharing reflections on this topic: * What was developmental for You in the experience of the seder? * What did you discover in the very concept of connecting Eucharist and Seder? We wanted very much to experience this time together with you and together connect Christian experience with Jewish. Connect more than include! Inclusion is a one-way action, connection two-way. We wanted to meet these experiences so that they mutually affect each other. One could paraphrase Benoît Vermander SJ: What fruits does the tree of Christianity planted on Jewish soil bear? Should one expect sweet or bitter fruits? A parallel question quickly appears: the entry of Christianity into Jewish land is ultimately accompanied also by the entry of Jewish thought and sensitivity into Christian land... Step by step, even if it happens still in a quiet and shy way - the heritage of both traditions transforms and enriches itself. Let's ask ourselves then if we perceive such reciprocity! * What from Your current experience of faith did you see in experiencing the Seder? * In what way did the seder allow You to look at the Eucharist and your faith? Presence ======== Seder and Eucharist are a science of presence. Often in religious life we concentrate on the presence of God (that's understandable!). However, this is not the only presence of which this is a school. It is also a place of practicing our presence, our being "in now". Let us read: One can for example justify ritual washing of hands before a meal, saying that it is a reminder of a similar rite performed by priests in the Jerusalem Temple. However, characteristic for Jewish piety is not remembering the reason, but forgetting all reasons and making space in the mind to be aware of God -- A.J. Heschel, Man seeking God * In what situations does "remembering reasons" make it difficult for me to make space in the heart? * Do I have an experience of "liberation" from thinking about reasons? How far Heschel goes speaking about "forgetting all reasons". He talks about the topic of piety, but it is a universal thing. Perhaps someone of us has experience of learning a foreign language when at the beginning they very carefully follow the reason for using every word, analyze its grammatical correctness etc. One can already communicate with others in this way. However, at a certain stage we "forget about reasons" and immerse ourselves in the language so much that "words flow by themselves". .. note:: For some animators the example of 4 steps of competence may be close here: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence. Let's want such spirituality that goes through the stage of caring for every reason, to immersion in which one simply is! Where I pray the rosary and do not have a lecture in thoughts on how to do it correctly. Where I see a table in the altar, broken bread in the host, and brotherhood in passing the sign of peace. * How can we help each other in passing in faith to such presence? Immersion ========= Immersion in spirituality opens to a completely different taste of it. Duty gives way to desire. Prayer becomes conversation. Perception of the Gospel ceases to be closed in the pages of the Holy Scripture. The Church does not have towers and stained glass windows, but faces of brothers. And nothing here is blurred. On the contrary - everything sharpens even more then and is transparent. Let us read: They can however practice seeking the presence of our Lord in all things, like e.g. in conversation, walking, looking, tasting, listening, thinking and in all activities; for it is true that His Divine majesty is in every thing through his omnipresence, power and essence. -- St. Ignatius * Where in everyday life does "seeking the presence of our Lord" come easiest to You? * Where would you like to find him in everyday life? * Where is the Gospel even though you do not hear jingles and the name of Jesus? It does not come by itself. Immersion is a difficult stage that requires effort on our part. However, the Church does it all the time. Do we send children for a 5-year theological course about the Eucharist before they are at Mass, or rather immediately allow them to participate? Do we start learning prayer from theory or rather invite someone to sit next to us? * How can you learn immersion? Without incense =============== We meditated today on a fragment of the Holy Scripture about leading a quiet and peaceful life. Let's look at these words through the prism of the encyclical Evangelii nuntiandi: Let us read: Above all the Gospel must be proclaimed by witness. Take a Christian or a handful of Christians who, in the midst of their own community, show their capacity for understanding and acceptance, their sharing of life and destiny with other people, their solidarity with the efforts of all for whatever is noble and good. Let us suppose that, in addition, they radiate in an altogether simple and unaffected way their faith in values that go beyond current values, and their hope in something that is not seen and that one would not dare to imagine. Through this wordless witness these Christians stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of those who see how they live: Why are they like this? Why do they live in this way? What or who is it that inspires them? Why are they in our midst? Such a witness is already a silent proclamation of the Good News and a very powerful and effective one. Here we have an initial act of evangelization. -- Paul VI The world needs prophets. It also (primarily?) needs such prophets about whom Pope Paul VI writes. Let's allow ourselves however to "verify" the pope's sentence by our own experience. * What testimonies of life pull me up? * If I feel spiritual distress, do I look rather for testimony of word or testimony of life that will "refresh" me? The culture of immersion in experience and Christian testimony ceases to be "obvious". Perhaps for many of us it is no longer the "first means of evangelizing". One does not need to be sad because of this. One can see in this a task and grace in which we can participate. God sees in us a royal, priestly and prophetic nation. Each of us has His grace to lift other people up. Without incense, without service - by drinking tea, eating supper, attentive listening. Or maybe we are not called to "measure" so that we know how to deal with searching for meaning in 80%. When we think so then we permanently need 20% drip supplied from outside. Maybe we are called to deal in 150%. So as to be able to "bear one another's burdens" when someone next to us temporarily loses meaning from sight, and life is too difficult? Let us read: Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. But we beseech you, brethren, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. -- 1 Thes 5:11-13 * What is "strong despite negligible power" in me? * Who "climbs up" on me? Let's not be afraid to aim up! Confession ========== Let's open our notebooks on one of the last pages. You will find there a place to fill in the text "I dream that the community of believers….". Let's complete this text now. Let it stay with You and return to it after some time. Share it with someone. Prayer ====== Turn the page now. There is a prayer of our retreat diaconia written there, which I want to pray with You now. .. note:: Alternative variant to be discerned by the animator: If you think that it will give life to the group then you can propose that within the prayer willing persons read their dreams. Let what we desire become the content of prayer. Then at the end reading the prayer by the animator will be a collect. Content of the prayer: | God, who created heaven and earth, who loved man and led him in the history of salvation. Whom you created in the Garden of Eden and for whom you asked in the Garden of Olives. You made a promise to Abraham and led the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery, who accepted a human body in the person of Jesus Christ and founded the Church. Be glorified in the work of your Church, in people who gather in Your name, in communities in which they live, in families, in hardships and joys of everyday life. | | We ask, bless people and their dreams about the community of believers. Let them be realized in the Church they create. Make them open to spiritual reality in everyday life and able to function in it in such a way as to point to You, not only during conversations, but with simple gestures like drinking tea with a friend.