A Word from Fr Jim
It was beautiful to welcome Rev Stephen Taylor to the Church last Sunday. He spoke beautifully about his own faith and challenged us to be more than Churchgoers.
He also invited us to the Methodist Church down the road on Saturday 5th November and I’m hoping that my friend Rev Nigel Pierpoint (the rector of Taney, Church of Ireland) will visit us shortly to preach and celebrate with us as we prepare to celebrate our 40th Anniversary and the launch of our Building Hope by Meditation and Service. I thought you might be interested to read what Fr Laurence recently wrote about our parish.
“I visited the parish of the Ascension of the Lord in Dublin recently. It is hard to describe the experience of the renewal of the community there. Even the word ‘renewal’ sounds like an insider’s word whereas the experience felt equally Interior and outward directed. With everyone involved in the process, I felt as if we were being carried up and beyond an old perception of Church into something much older, closer to the source from which Church – consciousness is born. Being renewed means returning to the wonder of birth and entering the river of life in a different way. It was not just a renewal of an institution but of Individuals collectively sharing a deepening vision .I learned from this that the vision and commonality, not buildings or bureaucracy, is the real Church.”
It was delightful to have had Rev Stephen with us. In my dancing days back in the 60’s; 1960’s that is. I used to go dancing in the beautiful Metropole Ballroom. There I often danced with Students of Divinity from Trinity College. Their wish and mine was that one day soon we would united in one Faith. Unfortunately that has not happened.
Whence will that come to pass.