We are in the midst of a rich week at Good Shepherd. We have just concluded our second three-day program retreat in our new retreat house. This week’s retreat was entitled “To Charm and Attract: The Mutual Ministry of Priest and Musician” and was led by the Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold, XXV Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and a good friend of this parish. Gathered for this retreat were clergy and musicians from across the country and Episcopal Church, some of whom work together in parishes. Over the course of three days, Bishop Griswold led retreatants in a conversation about how to prayerfully reclaim “our first love,” referring to the indicting words in the Revelation to John addressed to the Church at Ephesus. The pressing question over the course of this retreat was how, in the midst of the busyness, challenges, and frustrations of ministry, to hold on to that first love of a vocation to serve God in the Church. Over the retreat’s three days, we heard from early Church fathers and the words of holy Scripture. We were honest about the difficulties faced by those in ministry, and we acknowledged that there are few easy solutions to conflicts and tensions within working relationships in the Church. And yet, in the joys and stresses of service to the Church, this week’s retreat was a gentle reminder that it is possible—indeed necessary—not to forget that “first love” and passionate desire of a call to serve our Lord
It just so happens that this weekend we will further reflect on theological desire when we welcome another prominent cleric to Good Shepherd, The Rev. Dr. Sarah Coakley, formerly Norris-Hulse Divinity at the University of Cambridge, UK, and one of today’s foremost Anglican theologians. Mother Coakley has explored issues within religious feminism from an Anglo-Catholic perspective, rooted in patristics and the Church’s deep spiritual tradition. Mother Coakley will lead an Advent Day of Prayer and Reflection this Saturday, December 3, at Good Shepherd from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., focusing on “The Asceticism of Desire in the Anglican Tradition.” Perhaps the main thesis in one of Mother Coakley’s books can serve as an invitation into the upcoming weekend with her: “only a revived, purged—and lived—form of ‘ascetic’ life will rescue the churches from their current theological divisions and incoherences over ‘sexuality’; and only the same authentically ‘ascetic’ life will be demanding enough to command the respect of a post-Christian world saturated and sated by the commodifications of desire” (The New Asceticism, London: Bloomsbury, 2015, pp. 5-6).
In her rigorous scholarship and prayerful practice as a priest in both the Episcopal Church and Church of England, Mother Coakley has sought to address current challenges that modernity poses to the Church without eschewing the deep well of the Church’s spiritual and ascetical tradition. in fact, the Church’s rich spiritual tradition speaks powerfully and freshly to contemporary challenges. As she poses later in The New Asceticism, how do we move “beyond ‘libertinism’ and ‘repression’” (p. 140)? The underlying question to her work on asceticism, as I read it, is this: how can the Church reclaim authenticity, honesty, and unity by engaging theology with faithful and prayerful living, rather than devolving into superficial and divisive polarizations, whether from liberal or conservative points of view?
In addition to her discussions on Saturday, Mother Coakley will also lead periods of contemplative prayer, a kind of prayer that is perfect for Advent, where we wait silently on God’s grace to purge and purify our desires. Mother Coakley will also celebrate Mass as part of Saturday’s day retreat. And on Sunday, Mother Coakley will be the preacher at Sung Mass and then lead us in a conversation on “Advent Fire and the Call to Transformation” after Mass.
It’s not too late to register for Saturday’s day retreat and Sunday’s adult formation class. I hope you will make time in the busyness of December to join us in reflection on the great benefits of the ascetical life and how it can be integrated into our own “secular" lives outside the Church. Please join me in welcoming Mother Coakley to the parish, and I hope to see you on Saturday and Sunday!
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle