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Charles Whitehead is chairman of the English National Service Committee a popular speaker and retreat giver. He encourages us to find spiritual nourishment
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One of the biggest challenges the western Church faces is a future with fewer priests and religious. In Britain and Ireland we've been spoiled - we've enjoyed a much higher ratio of priests and religious to laity than in almost any other part of the world. But that's changing rapidly, and more and more parishes will soon be without a resident priest. At the same time there will be fewer religious brothers and sisters, as many of the great teaching and nursing orders face the need to care for their own elderly members at a time when vocations have fallen to a trickle. It's inevitable that they won't be able to provide for our spiritual needs the way they did in the past. A Starvation Diet? A few years ago, I listened to an Italian Archbishop controversially telling the people at a big conference that most of them would not survive if they relied on what they received in their parishes. "You're living on a starvation diet and you must do something about it, or you'll suffer a slow spiritual death!" he told them. I've heard similar comments on other occasions, and if this is true for us and we're not receiving enough for our spiritual needs, rather than suffer the slow spiritual death the Archbishop speaks about, perhaps we need to do something about it ourselves. If our expectations for teaching are not being met, then we must face up to the challenge of finding our own nourishment, our own wells of life. Increasing numbers of laity are taking advantage of the opportunities for theological and pastoral training offered by colleges and religious institutes, but not everyone has the opportunity for formal study. So if we're feeling spiritually hungry and there are fewer priests and religious, what should we do? It's not too difficult to find what we need - Jesus himself tells us where to look: "If any man is thirsty, let him come to me! Let the man come and drink who believes in me!" (John 7:37). "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst" (John 6:35). We need to come to Jesus. Everything that is good in the spiritual life will lead us into that close personal relationship which is the heart of Christianity - there's no substitute for this. We need to be drinking deeply from the living water Jesus offers us. Where can we find it? Drink from the wells of the Church When we think about the wells of spiritual life, there's a wealth of things from which to choose: seminars and programmes of teaching; retreats and conferences; spiritual books; magazines and periodicals; stories of heroes and heroines of the faith; church documents; prayer and devotional aids. All these are useful for our growth, but the places where we encounter Jesus most intimately are in the Eucharist and the Scriptures. As this is the Year of the Eucharist, it's an excellent time to think about the importance in our lives of this sacrament of sacraments, often referred to as the source and summit of the spiritual life. Pope John Paul sees it as strength and food for our journey, and that's exactly what we're looking for: "In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his body and blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of hope. If, in the presence of this mystery, reason experiences its limits, the heart, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, clearly sees the response that is demanded, and bows low in adoration and unbounded love." (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 62).Do our hearts bow low in adoration and unbounded love as we encounter the risen Lord in the Eucharist, or is it something we just take for granted? Perhaps we need to take a fresh look at this amazing gift. Word and Sacrament
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus listened as Jesus taught them from the Scriptures, and recognised him at table through the simple gesture of the breaking of bread. Both the word and the sacrament will always reveal Jesus to us, and whilst we may not be able to receive the Eucharist every day, there should always be time to read the Scriptures. I follow a daily programme that takes me through the whole Bible in a year, and there are a variety of ways of doing this. I also use "Bible Alive" to help me reflect on the Mass readings of the day, and since 1976 I have rarely been without "Every Day with Jesus" by Selwyn Hughes, a practical devotional aid to Bible reading. Later this year we'll be celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Dei Verbum, the great Vatican II document on Divine Revelation which exhorts us to read the Scriptures. As St. Jerome reminds us ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. Christ, through the Holy Spirit will open our minds. When we study the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is there to help us understand what we are reading - to open our minds. "If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, open our minds to understand the Scriptures" (Catechism 108). Of course it's always possible to misunderstand a passage of Scripture - to take it out of context, to be confused by apparent contradictions, to be burdened by the sense of our own inadequacy, or to decide we know everything and are therefore qualified to be the saviours of the world! There will always be the danger of exaggerations and misunderstandings, but the positive results of searching for our own spiritual food far outweigh the risks. Revelation is a vital part of the life-changing work of the Spirit, and this is the central message of the Charismatic Renewal. We must allow God to be God, and never forget that it's "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord" (Zech.4:6). So let's trust the Holy Spirit to guide us as we read the Bible - God's own well of spiritual life for all his people. "Unblocking the wells" Some of the spiritual wells available to us may have become blocked or obscured. The water will be there, but we may not find it because the rubbish and mess around us has blocked up these tried and tested sources of new life. Isaac had the same challenge in Genesis 26: "Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up " (verse 18). In Isaac's case, the water from the wells meant the difference between life and death for his people and their flocks. For us, access to the wells can make the difference between spiritual life and death, but many things will distract us - the influence of today's materialistic society, events which are beyond our control, the attitudes and actions of others. We need to rediscover the wells, unblock them, and draw up the living water that Jesus offers us. "Mature Christian personalities" If more people were drawing life from the wells of the Church, we would have a much more informed and involved laity - something the Church both needs and wants. As Pope John Paul expressed it when addressing the ecclesial movements and new communities on the eve of Pentecost 1998: "There is so much need today for mature Christian personalities, conscious of their baptismal identity, of their vocation and mission in the Church and in the world!" If we are to be these mature Christian personalities, we must leave our childhood behind and grow into Christ, trusting in Paul's promise: "Then we shall not be children any longer, or tossed one way and another and carried along by every wind of doctrine, at the mercy of all the tricks men play and their cleverness in practising deceit" (Eph.4-.14). So if there's no-one willing or available to help us progress from childhood to maturity, then we must open our lives to the Holy Spirit, put our trust in Jesus, and drink deeply from the wells of the Church. Each of us is responsible for our own spiritual life, so it's just no good sitting around complaining that we're hungry and thirsty. We need to do something about it before it's too late. © Charles Whitehead
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The
Church also tells us that she venerates the Scriptures just as she venerates
the Lord's body: She (the church) never ceases to present to the faithful
the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's
Body. In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment
and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, but as what
it really is, the word of God. In the sacred books, the Father who is
in heaven, comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them."
(Dei Verbum 21; Catechism 103-104).