My dear friends,
This Sunday is known as Good Shepherd Sunday, and we reflect on the role of Jesus as the Shepherd whose voice is known by the sheep and who is prepared to lay down his life for each and every one of them.
The Bishop, in consultation with Bishops in neighboring dioceses, has announced that the earliest date for resuming public worship will be July 1. This will be distressing for some of you and a frustration to your clergy and musicians, who long to worship with you again in person. However, we know that as restrictions are lifted in our great city, there is the likelihood of further waves of infection, until such time as a treatment and a vaccine are available. As I write this, I am aware of human clinical trials pioneered by Oxford University and in other research centers around the globe; I think we are all hopeful for a vaccine, if not a cure, by early 2021. Until then, we will continue to have all kinds of restrictions. As I said in my sermon last week, “For things to remain the same, everything must change.”
In the meantime, I am conscious that not every one of our parishioners has access to the internet, has a computer, or a mobile device. I have asked the hospitality committee to think about how we can be more in touch with those parishioners, especially our frail elderly, who have been unable to participate in our worship. Now that we know that we have two more months being apart, perhaps we should consider mailing CD’s to those who have no access to a computer. You may remember in years past when books for the blind were recorded and mailed out on cassette tapes. If anyone would like to join me in providing simple CD players for the homes of seniors, please contact me or Fr. Moretz. If you know of someone who might like to receive our worship on CD, please let us know.
That takes us back to the voice of the Good Shepherd. One of the consequences of the PAUSE order is that some of us have more silence than we have had in the past. In the ‘city that never sleeps’ that is a curious thing! When I walk the dog through Central Park, I see many people on their own walking slowly. Perhaps we can use these next two months to be more attuned to the voice of the Good Shepherd, calling us, even when we are feeling stress or anxiety.
What if we were to use these next weeks as a time to embrace silence in order to discover stillness? Silence has been used in the spiritual life since the earliest of days but not as an end in itself, rather as a means to an end. Entering into the silence allows us to become still, and once we have discovered how to be truly still, then we discover that we have learned a method of quieting ourselves even when it is noisy around us! One day, New York will be like its old noisy self; how wonderful if many of its residents have discovered the beauty of stillness in the noise of the city.
Let me end with a little example. Many years ago, when I worked in London, I was interviewed for a job at the Royal Foundation of St. Katherine – a retreat center in Limehouse, East London, founded in 1147. When founded, it was in beautiful countryside; when I went to visit, I discovered that it was now extraordinarily urban. Several railway lines, the London Underground, and several large and busy roads surrounded it. And of all things, opposite the center was a cement factory with large trucks coming and going all day! I was quite amazed.
I was talking to a Franciscan sister about this and complaining that I couldn’t possibly run a retreat center with all that noise. “So where do you go on retreat then, Carl?” she said. “A Cistercian Abbey in the middle of nowhere,” I replied. She looked me up and down and said slowly, “Well, at least you can afford to travel there. But if you can’t find stillness in the city then how do you expect others to find it?”
She was right, of course. I went for my interview and found myself in the chapel of the center. The noise from the road nearby was deafening; I could hear the screech of the underground trains which travelled above ground nearby and the beeping of the cement trucks reversing out of the concrete factory. I was agitated and wondered how on earth anyone could find stillness and peace in this place. I shut my eyes and tried an exercise an old spiritual director had advised many years before; instead of allowing the sound to annoy me and agitate me I would actually listen to them, accept them and even incorporate them into my prayer. Instead of fighting them I found myself becoming calmer. And then it happened; it was sudden and brilliant as a flash of sunlight on a dreary day – in the retreat house garden, a blackbird lifted up her voice and sang the most beautiful and thrilling song.
It was breath-taking. It was melodic and very, very pure. After listening for a few moments, I realized that I had stopped listening to the traffic and the trains and the cement trucks; the Blackbird had drowned them all out with her song and I was grateful – so very grateful to have been taught a lesson: Stillness is not an absence of noise but the centering of the soul on God.
We, too, have the chance to discover stillness and solitude even here in New York – actually, especially here in New York.
Stillness is not an absence of noise but the centering of the soul on God.
Affectionately,
Carl,
Your priest and pastor
