Canon Henry Liddon was
quite right when he spoke to the clergy saying ‘Our end is the conversion and
sanctification of man’. It’s what the church is for, and its ministerial
priesthood, sharing in the priesthood of Christ, calls the common
priesthood of the baptised to be conformed more and more to the image of the
Crucified Lord, Our Saviour Jesus Christ.
This is achieved by a variety of means, but particularly by
prayer: where humanity speaks to and more importantly listens to God. It is a
mark of the intimacy of our relationship with the divine that it is to be a
regular constant conversation so that God may be at work in us. In our prayer
we praise God, not because He needs it, but because it is right and good humanity,
the creature to praise its Creator. We intercede for our own needs and for
those of the world, and we plead the sacrifice of His Son which alone can heal
the wounds of sin which mar our fallen human nature. In our humble talking to
God and in the silence of our hearts there can a space for God to speak to us,
to transform us, in the power of His Holy Spirit.
When Paul writes to Titus, in this evening’s second lesson, he
is concerned with the ordering of public worship, and particularly prayer. Here
in a Cathedral we are not unacquainted with decent ordered worship, as one
might well expect. We have standards, which are rightly high, and can serve as
an example and an encouragement, but we are first and foremost a community of
prayer, which invites people to draw ever closer to the God who loves us, who
saves us, and redeems us.
We pray for the Church and the World, for the living and the departed,
for the sick and those in need, which is excellent and acceptable to God. We do
so in order that we may strive to live an ordered, quiet, peaceable life, and
thus may be drawn ever closer to the godliness which is the path to true holiness
of life in Christ. His Salvation which is for all people is both an event – His
sacrifice upon the Cross of Calvary, and a process – through the outpouring of
His Sanctifying Grace in the Sacraments of the Church, nourished by the Word of
God in Holy Scripture, the Revealed Truth of God’s love for us, and through
remaining close to God in prayer, that our human nature can be transformed and
perfected in Christ. It is the will of God that all people may be saved, the
invitation is offered to all, freely, it costs nothing, it may be resisted and
even refused, yet God in His love and mercy offers it. We do not deserve it, we
cannot earn it, it is a gift which is offered and has to be accepted.
There is one mediator between God and humanity, Our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, bearing witness to
the love and mercy of God, and offering himself freely as a sacrifice upon the
altar of the Cross, where as priest and victim he makes the one perfect and
sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. This simple
world-changing fact is at the heart of our faith: Christ died for our sins,
yours and mine, and was raised to give us the hope of eternal life in Him. This
is what we preach, it is what we pray, and what we live, so that we may be
drawn closer to Him.
It is wonderful, and yet it is not easy – for two thousand years
the church continues to call humanity to repentance, and while our human
efforts may be haltering, nonetheless the call to conversion and sanctification
is a constant one, of which we need to be constantly reminded, each and every
one of us, so that we can support and forgive each other, and pray for and with
each other.
I would like to end with some words of Mother Mary Clare slg:
Today
we can easily become
paralysed
by a sense that
there
is nothing we can do
in
the face of so much suffering,
such
lack of love and justice
in
man’s relationship with man,
but
the Cross of Christ
stands
at the heart of it all,
and
the prayer of Christ,
now
as always
is
the answer to man’s need.
No comments:
Post a Comment