St Martins-in-the-Field, London

In the previous post,  A Vocation Journey: meeting Br John-Francis I recalled how I had made contact with Br John-Francis, one of the members of the Society of St Francis’ vocations team. Br John-Francis had invited me to attend a Vocations Day held at St Martins-in-the-Field.

Despite  feelings of ambivalence there was stronger feeling of wanting to know more about Francis and these Franciscans I had begun to learn about. So, on the Saturday morning I headed off to St Martins to join with others who were inquiring about vocations to Franciscan religious life in the Anglican and Catholic Church - the day was jointly hosted by members of both Franciscan communities.

When I arrived I met John-Francis and the other members of the Anglican and Catholic vocations teams. We began, of course, with some time of prayer. Then the brothers and sisters shared with us stories about St Francis and their lives as Franciscans.

As I listened to them share their stories and watched a video about St Francis a particular image jogged my memory. I saw the image of a man with birds surrounding him and my mind immediately went back to my visit to the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, AZ that my friend Wendy had taken me to. Suddenly shivers went up and down my spine. It was a very eerie feeling. Not long ago I didn’t really know about St Francis or Franciscans and suddenly with a few months I had meet St Francis one two occassions; once in Sedona and now in London.

Figurine of St Francis of Assisi, Sedona, AZ.

During the day we had opportunity to spend some time looking through St Martins. I discovered a bookshop in the lower part of the Church. They had a copy of Celebrating Common Prayer a version of the Society of St Francis’ Office Book. I had come from a Church background which did not use prayer books so I found navigating this one somewhat of a challenge. However, the directions and explanations of the various Offices in the book gave me enough information to be able to learn to navigate and use the book.

At the end of the day we finished with a service of prayer for discernment of vocations. As we were leaving a remember talking to one of the ladies that had come to inquire about being a sister. I’m not sure what happened to her or any of the others, or whether any of them joined the communities they were inquiring into. Indeed as we parted I still was left with feelings of ambivalence; a theme I want to take up in the next post - A Vocation Journey: feelings of ambivalence.

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I have to say I’m not the one to quickly jump on the band wagon of the latest fad to be introduced. And I’m certainly one who is more interested in structured approaches to things. I prefer to know the who, what how, where and when of things; not the whoever comes, whatever happens approach we heard about and experienced on out last formation weekend.

But I’m also one to acknowledge insight from things, regardless of how ‘gimmicky’ it can sound at the time. We had an opportunity to experience this style of meeting leadership. Where you basically ‘go with the flow’ and essentially what happens happens.

So there we were sitting around but finally conversations began to take off. Of course what happens on tour stays on tour but I’m happy to share some interesting observations I made from the session about the experiences I have been having with formation over the last year; which as some know has been the proverbial roller coaster ride.

The main insight for me was that when it comes to participating in the formation program I’m currently involved in I sometimes feel out of phase, kind of like trying to stand in two worlds at one time and not necessarily feeling anchored in either one. The consequence seems to be a tendency toward bucking at the feeling of being out of sync. What does that mean.

Well on the one hand I feel like I’ve already survived a formation process where my world for a while was turned upside down and all over the place. Landing in pieces I felt like I had to re-establish my world as a person taking on a life in religious vows. And for a while that seemed to be heading toward a calm sea. I could see direction and began to feel as though my sense of vocation have finally found some beginnings of stability.

Then when I commenced the ordained ministry formation program I felt jolted right back to the roller coaster again. I felt I was being asked to go back to the beginning of that whole process of being torn apart and being ‘formed’ again, but this time only to essentially return to do the things I was doing already. I also felt that while there was an abstact level of acknowledgement of my previous roller coaster ride of formation there was no sesne of a concrete acceptance of it.

On the weekend as I talked about how I was feeling about this, how I felt in some sense being pulled between two worlds I began to realise where part of the tension comes for me and how that tension gets expressed often in not so productive ways.

As I was driving down the freeway tonight, or should I say sitting in the Coronation Drv parking lot, I was thinking a little more about this. I was trying to get to College to join some other ordinands for evening prayer.

As I was waiting for a parking officer to come along and book me for being in a no standing zone, commonly called the express way, I realised another aspect of the tension. In some respects many ordinands have been told to give up their former lives of positions they had in the secular world to enter a new mode of vocation, hence the need for a period of transition and time of adjusting and learning, commonly called formation.

Yet here I was leaving behind my community who I would normally be with for evening prayer to be with another community for evening prayer, thinking that this is where it all feels a bit odd, and out of sync. That is while it is true of many, but certainly not all ordinands, formation is a period of leaving one mode of life and entering another; specifically, leaving a world of predominantly secular to predominantly religious, for myslelf and a few others, this is not such a clean distinction.

For those who have held secular professions and now moving toward a religious vocation that cut seem clean and necessary. But what of people who are in the process, for whom there is no leaving, no clean cut. That is, I am not being called out of religious life as a Franciscan to start a new religious vocation. I will continue to live the vows I have taken in the community I made my profession in; and God willing soon make this a life decision and make my life profession in vows. I am not being called to seperate from vocation but rather to continue to express that vocation, perhaps with an added dimension of ordained ministry.

When attend a Tuesday Mass or Friday evening prayer I think about how I leave my community that I am called to, to be a part of a group that I feel out of step with.

I hope reading this you don’t get the impression that I think I know it all and that the formation program I am presently a part of has no value. It does. I think that what I am saying is that I need to look at how being part of two expression of vocation, one of which I feel formed and in continual formation with, and the other which feels like it is sending me back to the beginnings of the life long journey of formation that I began over 5 years ago, feels to me like I’m out of sync and constantly having to adjust each time I move between the two.

I think this was the most significant part of my last weekend, and has given me some interesting things to think about.

I tell you what. I’ll leave it up to you. If a few minutes before you have to get up, and you don’t feel like you can, just go like this (nodding his head in a very particular and revernt way in my direction) and I’ll get up and do it for you.

Recently Br Joseph asked me to preach at his profession in vows. I light heartedly said to those at his service when I was offering a reflection for his profession that Joseph asked me to get back at me for the number of times I’ve stirred him up because he knows preaching is the last thing I’d offer to do.

When I first began having to preach as part of life in community I was not so keen on the idea. I found it a major chore. I remember one occassion being so worked up about it that I became almost paralysed by the thought of having to deliver a sermon. Who am I to be preaching to people whose faith journey has been more solid than mine, what do they want to hear from me, I don’t know enough about the Bible, let along theology. All these thoughts and more would go through my head; building up until I could feel nothing but stress; and a headache not too far away.

On one occasion, not long after entering the novitiate, I went on a parish ‘mission’ with Br Leo and he asked me to preach on the Sunday. I was less than keen on the idea but agreed to do it. As time got closer I got more and more concerned about having to deliver a sermon to a group of stangers who were older than me and no doubt been part of church much longer than me, and in the presence of a brother who has been in profession much longer than me.

Leo became aware of how I was feeling and his response was most comforting and quietly encouraging. First he relieved the pressure I was feeling. He said to me that if I didn’t feel like preaching I didn’t have to. He said you can pull out at any time, even a few minutes before the sermon is to be delivered.

In a way that only Leo could do he both made me laugh, relieving the pressure I felt, and he offered me some advice. He made me laugh because in a quite reverent but comical way he said to me that all it would take would be a little silent nod of the head and he’d take over for me without anyone knowing. He also offered me some advice which has always stuck with me. Start with a story, talk with people not at them, let them be drawn into your passion. If you do that you’ll never have a problem preaching.

At the right time. I got up into this pulpit which seemed to have its own post code and need for supplimentary oxygen and I began. A dramatic story about a seed is afraid that it it falls to the ground it is going to die and from then on, I never had to preach, I simply told the people a story and talked with them, not at them. Afterward people said it was one of the best sermons they’d ever heard.

As I joked about with Joseph I am still reluctant to offer to preach and see it as a big challenge to get over. But brother Leo’s assuring nature and wonderful advice has remained with me.

What I have learned about preaching is yes, one has to have some knowledge of the texts they are preaching on and that we must spend time in prayerful contemplation before preparing a sermon, however, the real key is stepping out of the way of ourselves and allowing the spirit in us to preach God’s word. To allow the spirit to converse with the people listening and be focused on what God has for them to hear and not what we have to say. If in our reading and contemplative preparation we can learn to step aside and realise that preaching is a coversation and it is God who speaks then can be set free of our insecurities and enjoy the blessings God offers us in the hearing of God’s words.

As I said, preaching is still something I don’t feel particularly skilled at, however, I think it is not a sense of skill but rather a sense confidence, or more correctly a sense of letting go and letting God.

This semester as part of my field placement formation I have asked my field supervising committee to give me feedback on my sermons. I’ve asked them if they could tell me ways in which they find my preaching helps them connect with God and what ways I could perhaps make that connection more real and present.

Thus far I’ve only preached on semon. The feedback from the committee was very positive. It seems their comments reflected a lot of what I had taken away from my experience with Br Leo. That is, that through the paricular style of preaching I’ve developed, offering a sense of story and conversation, that people indeed connect with God through what they see as my passion, but I really see as letting go and letting God.

I have had quite positive feedback from both my last parish sermon and the one I offered for Joseph’s profession. What I have realised is kind of what I said earlier, preparation is one thing, but being able to get out of God’s way so that God can speak through the spirit in us is not only what makes preaching for me less traumatic but also offers opportunity for people to hear what God is saying to them and not what we want to say. I think the best sermons I’ve offered are the ones where I haven’t, but God has.

I entered formation at the beginning of this year, along with commencing my B Theol degree. I am enjoying spending more time with people I have got to know through study and formation. Though I have to say the actual formation program and degree has been somewhat less …. enjoyable. I’m undertaking a full time program as well as the demands of formation and field placement.

The long and the short of it is that I seem to have ran into a snag as far as managing the load. It has meant looking into some of the reasons behind what seems to be the underpinning issue … more on that at another time. Suffice to say for now there have been some interesting revelations that have caused me to really look at how I proceed with the next step … again more on that later.

Right now I wanted to simply see if wordpress had kept my blog and whether or not I would be able to still post here, it might be come a useful outlet at the moment.

That all aside. I have been placed in a parish not too far from me and it is excellent. I’m having a really good time there so far and am looking forward to continued involvement there.