Ad Clerum
Ad Clerum necnon Cleram – Candlemas/Lent 2008
Dear colleagues,
I don’t always begin these letters with the health bulletin, preferring to bury them somewhere later on, but this week’s good news merits a bit of emphasis. On Monday last, I had a bone marrow biopsy, which revealed that all was very well indeed; no leukaemic cells were visible. The background to this is quite simple. Each time I relapsed, it was five months on from treatment, which in this case was around Christmas Day. So I have been living in a state of suspended animation since then, watching carefully the blood counts at each Clinic. No wobbles were manifested – rather the reverse, because the counts were rising, and all in spite of a heavy cold, which might have absorbed some of them slightly. (This is what normal blood cells do all the time.) But blood counts, important as they are, are capable of providing a misleading picture, concealing less favourable movement under the surface, in the bone marrow. I won’t even try to describe what a marrow biopsy is like, in case you are squeamish! As someone said to me, it is ‘exquisitely painful’. But I suppose I’ve got used to it, having had several so far.
What does all this mean? Well, it means that I have crossed a very significant hurdle indeed, and while there are a few more yet to come, I’ve made more significant progress than before. Needless to say, the doctors are delighted. And when the phone call came on Monday afternoon, a sigh of relief came over us all. I have to confess to finding it quite hard to come to terms with this now. I’ve been very reluctant to book much in the diary at all, even quite ordinary things. But I’ve got quite used to resisting the pressure of the usual round of pressurising e.mails and (gently) bossy phone-calls! As I sit tapping out this letter to you, there is an intray of stuff that is just going to have to wait. You all know the game – it’s called distinguishing between the really important from the merely urgent.
You were due another letter at this time anyway, because Lent will very shortly be upon us. This year, it’s the earliest it can be, hot on the heels of Candlemas, only a few days earlier. The change of gear from the Christmas season will be very abrupt indeed. Not being in the position of having to organise Lent Courses (even though this year I’m part of the York Course on the Lord’s Prayer!) I have the enforced luxury of observing the process from a decreasingly convalescent vantage-point. That’s a way of saying that I’m getting stronger and stronger, but I still have to watch energy levels carefully, especially at that crucial moment – when the service or the meeting has just finished. So what do I observe?
I suppose the recurring thought in my mind is the conflict of aspiration and reality. The Candlemas scene, with its bitter-sweet mixture of temple glory and suffering foretold, hurtles us towards Lent, with its regular outworking of penitence, fasting, and growth in the faith. For me, penitence means letting go of failures and weaknesses that can become obsessive during a long illness. Fasting means – this year – zero, because for the first time in my life I am being urged to put on weight, and told off if there is not regular progress in that regard! And growth in the faith is another way of saying that I must accept reality as it is, and not – like the fir tree in the Hans Andersen fairy tale – end up on the scrap heap having spent all the time moaning with regrets about what might have been but hasn’t. We can’t live our lives on a permanent basis of ‘if only’. And that applies as much to our political and social institutions as it does to our health and general well-being. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in recent months, it is that the best growth in the faith can happen silently and almost unconsciously. Past ages sometimes used the growth of the child Jesus into manhood as a pattern for this. Guerric of Igny (c.1070-1157), one of the early North French Cistercian abbots, puts it more directly in a Candlemas sermon, when referring to the candles carried by everyone on that day:
‘We have to shine not only before others by our good works and by what we say, but also before the angels in our prayer, and before God by the intentions of our hearts.’
That leads me to a request for your prayers in a particular direction. I have been giving some thought to how we draw together into a coherent message for the future the various strands that have affected and continue to affect our life together. The ‘Bishop’s Vision’ of a Church that prays to the Lord, hears and proclaims the good news, and engages with the world, leads into the KAIROS vision of a Church that is ‘leaner, fitter, and deeper’. To flavour both these, there is our commitment to ‘inspiring discipleship’, signalled by last September’s Conference and focussed on David Isaac’s Mission and Discipleship Team. And then, from a different perspective, there are the three aspects of being the Church, suggested by Von Hügel about which I wrote early last year, of balancing the spiritual, the theological and the institutional. I don’t see the need for changing any of these. What we now need to do is bring them together, and try to articulate what new forms of ministry and mission we need to aim for.
The Deaneries have responded well to the issues raised by the allocation of stipendiary clergy, and the KAIROS projects are often imaginative and invariably effective. But I have a sense that we need to think – and go – further. And the great thing about all this is that, as recent statistics show, we can do so from a position of strength: our numerical decline in regular Sunday attendance has halted, we have 17% more children and young people attending our churches, electoral roll membership is up, and festal attendance continue to rise. Although what I am proposing is definitely not a new initiative (!), but rather a synthesis of existing principles and ideas, I shall be trailing some thoughts along these lines with various groups in the coming weeks and months. I am particularly interested in exploring the Fresh Expressions/Pioneer Ministry agenda, which would address some of the areas where we are very weak indeed.
Finally, the house-keeping matters. The Chrism Eucharist, as I indicated last month, will take place as usual on Maundy Thursday, 20th March, in the Cathedral at 11.00 a.m. This is an important occasion, when priests, deacons and lay ministers of all kinds can gather round their bishop for the blessing of the oils and to recommit themselves to Christian ministry. I want to make this year’s liturgy focus on some of the things I have just written about. I therefore want to say that every single parish should be represented properly at this service, even though it’s still school term-time. (I was a parish priest once – I know all the excuses!) This invitation is not, of course, aimed at those who will be joining Bishop Keith at the Regional Mass in Winchester on the Saturday before. Then a word about the Ordinations, which have to be different again this year, because (God willing!) I plan to be in Bristol Cathedral on Saturday 28th for the priesting of our son. Both the Diocesan Ordinations will therefore take place in the Cathedral on Sunday 29th, with the Priests at 10.30 a.m. and the Deacons at 6.00 p.m. Then, finally, we have a pre-Lambeth week-end from July 11th onwards, with bishops and their wives from Ghana and elsewhere, including one from the USA and Caroline Crook, from Stockholm. The arrangements, which include hospitality all over the diocese, are being coordinated by Mark Rodel, Curate at St Jude’s, Southsea., together with a planning group. We shall be in touch with more details as these emerge. The main event is on Saturday 12th, with a Eucharist in the Cathedral in the afternoon.
With every blessing for a positive and fruitful Lent,
+ Kenneth
