On the Feast Day of Evelyn Underhill

The constant danger for those of us who enter the ranks of the ordained is that we take on a role, a professional religious role, which has the potential to gradually obliterate the life of the soul, if we fail to be grounded in something larger than ourselves: the Living God.

The changes in the church and society in the 20th century to our present day have caused many clergy to lose clarity about their role and function. In this I refer to dedicated, faithful people with considerable strength in vocation, who have become confused and uncertain about how best to be ordained persons in today’s church. There is a related issue of the clergy in whom this confusion has led to an erosion of self-esteem or even faith. No one action seems called for, but the concern is acute.

I have been in ordained pastoral ministry for close to 30 years, long enough to discover that the care and feeding of my own interior life is not auxiliary to a faithful vision of ministry, it is the foundation. But the question remains: Can professional ministry be an expression of the life of prayer and a path of discipleship to Jesus?

Our ordination vows mandate a vital and vibrant personal faith and life of prayer. How do I or any minister in the midst of the varied pressures and activities of our professional lives discern and ground that doing in our being in the presence of God?

Many parishes and Dioceses look for priests and Bishops who are skilled managers and corporate business leaders. Yes, those skills are needed, but the stress needs to shift from skills and function to that of character formation and symbolic identity,  and to the inwardness and spiritual substance of priesthood and the pastoral vocation.

Today is the Feast day of Evelyn Underhill, a prolific teacher, Anglican spiritual writer and guide of the contemplative mystical tradition of prayer in the church. In a letter she wrote to the then Archbishop of Canterbury about the state of  clergy training in England she says:

"The real failures, difficulties and weaknesses of the Church are spiritual and can only be remedied by spiritual effort and sacrifice, and that her deepest need is a renewal, first in the clergy and through them in the laity; of the great Christian tradition of the inner life. The minister's tool for ministry is his or her own being in vital relationship with God. ”

I remember my father, a priest of the church for  47 years, when asked what was the secret of his success in ministry said: "Its not rocket science. Just fulfill your ordination vows! "

The political and theological issues in the church pale in significance to the real crisis in our midst. You can be absolutely right in your biblical views and be inwardly fragmented and powerless. There must be a radical recovery of pastoral identity as the practice of spiritual guidance and direction, which becomes a catalyst for the transformation of congregations. The crisis of the church is first a crisis of identity, of pastoral identity. I write this as an Episcopal Priest in a denomination that is at this time plagued with conflict and confusion.

The priest is, before all things, a Christian soul, given to prayer, that is, the disciplined practice of the presence of God, centered in the Eucharist, and grounded in a daily rule of office and silence. To pray and teach souls to pray, it is all, for given this everything else will follow.

Axios - to be worthy of the calling,

Rob+

P.S. Photo is of Nancy's Hydrangeas in our back yard

Comments

[Fritz Edmunds]

Something compelled me to check your blog just now. It did not disappoint, my friend. Thank you for taking your ordination vows, and for fulfilling them so well. Your insight is settling and calming in an oft' tumultuous world.

[Rob Lord+]

Thanks Fritz. We all help each other on this journey. My love to your family,

Rob+