Spiritual vitality and authenticity
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 6:22AM
Robert Gallagher

The church’s spiritual vitality and authenticity 

According to A.M. Allchin, Evelyn Underhill saw the restoration of the religious life in the Anglican tradition as a sign of the church’s “spiritual vitality and authenticity.” She wrote that, ”the religious life sums up, and expresses in a living symbolism, the ideal consummation of all worship; the total oblation of the creature to the purposes of God.”

Two ways of participating

Most of the church's religious orders have two ways of associating with this expression of spiritual vitality and authenticity: as professed members and as associates. 

Professed Members (those having taken life vows) of the religious orders have found a special place in the heart of many of our parish churches. They have served as teachers, community workers, sacristans, and officiants at the Daily Office. They have visited to lead retreats and quiet days and offer spiritual guidance. Possibly most importantly they have stood and knelt with all the faithful in the Holy Eucharist and Daily Office. 

Associates of the various orders are clergy and lay, women and men, who have a special relationship with a particular community. They share in the life of, and have a rule of life consistent with the charism and traditions, of their order. 

In the parish church

A parish is blessed by the presence of a religious community in its life. In a few places you have a long -standing practice of sisters or brothers serving as part of the parish’s staff.  For example, at Saint Mary the Virgin, Times Square there are now two Franciscan Friars in residence and before that two sisters from the Community of Saint John Baptist. More commonly in recent years is the presence of newer forms of the religious life such as the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory and the Sisters of Saint Gregory

There are also thousands of associates of the orders scattered throughout the church. Many serve on vestries, in service and liturgical ministries, and as faithful parishioners grounding the parish's heartbeat of prayer and worship. They may add a dimension and perspective about living the Christian Life. An internal dialogue can be set off among parishioners about how deeply and completely the Life is to be lived.

The work of the incarnation

You are the Body of Christ....That is to say; in you and through you the method and work of the Incarnation must go forward. You are meant to incarnate in your lives the themes of your adoration. You are to be taken, consecrated, broken, and made a means of grace; vehicles of the Eternal Charity.  Evelyn Underhill

Many of the early women's religious orders gave themselves to nursing during times of plague and war. For them this was a way of participating in the Incarnation. 

 

From Sister Kate's "Memories of S. Saviour's Priory" --
In the autumn of 1870 dropping cases of smallpox begin to occur, increasing rapidly as the winter set in severe and early. The poor starving people, huddled together with doors and windows closed to keep out the bitter cold, rapidly succumbed to it. The Sisters struggled on as best they might, stripping their own beds and blankets for them, and keeping a supply of beef-tea going day and night. 
A panic seem to spread around; people shrank from performing the last offices for their nearest relatives; the Priory was besieged day and night with people imploring to be visited, with piteous cries for help, sad stories from the inflicted houses of clothing and bedding compelled to be destroyed for fear of spreading infection, and the sufferers being reduced to the direst necessity.
  

 

The Community of St. Mary

This is the community of Constance and her Companions who gave their lives in Memphis during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878. The Community of St. Mary (CSM) is an Episcopal religious order of nuns with independent houses located in Greenwich, New York, Sewanee, Tennessee, Mukwonago, Wisconsin, and also in Malawi and the Philippines.

Associates of St. Mary's (in their Eastern Province) "are Christian men and women who undertake a Rule of Life under the direction of the Community. They share in the support and fellowship of the sisters, and of one another, while living dedicated and disciplined lives in the world. (The Community of St. Mary today has three autonomous Provinces; an Associate belongs to the whole Community, but has a principal tie with one Province.) Each Eastern Province Associate has a relationship with a particular sister who keeps in touch on a regular basis."

         An overview 

 

 

Consider becoming an associate of one of the church's religious orders. 

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The icons are from my collection - "The Anglo Catholics." At the top of the page is an icon was written by Christine Simoneau Hales. It's called "The Restoration of the Religious Life.' The images are of Mother Harriet Monsell, CSJB, Richard Meux Benson, SSJE,  James Otis Sargent Huntington, OHC, and Priscilla Lydia Sellon. The second is of Constance and her Companions written by Suzanne Schleck.

 

Postings on the inner life and the virus

You know, and they know, that they are offering their lives      

Intercessions and the virus  

Solitude

The mystery of the cross

Solitude in Surrey 

We'll meet again

God's not indifferent to our pain 

Endures all things

Becoming an Associate of a Religious Order

People Touch

Spiritual vitality and authenticity 

The path of servanthood

Down into the mess

Missing the Eucharist 

In you we live

Faith to perceive

Faith to perceive: In your great compassion  

Turn everything that happens to account

We no longer know what to do

 

Postings on Parish Development during the Virus

Power from the center pervades the whole 

To everything there is a season

Faith to perceive: Remaining inseparable

Article originally appeared on Congregational Development (http://www.congregationaldevelopment.com/).
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