Easter
2006
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
As we travel through
from Easter to Pentecost, we reflect with the whole Church on the meaning
of the resurrection of Jesus which is a fundamental Christian mystery
and puzzle. ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb’ says
Mary of Magdala, ‘and we don’t know where they have put him’.
(John 20:2). The Church liturgy puts before us, during this period, stories
and events from the Acts of the Apostles which indicates that our experience
of the Risen Lord is intimately related to our experience of Christian
community.
The early Christian
community, naïve and uninformed, and without nearly enough structure
to be identified as an ‘organisation’, nevertheless, crackled
with the presence of the Risen Christ and with an awareness of his Spirit
at work amongst them. Luke, never one to linger over the difficulties
and divisions that would have always been part of the Christian scene,
focuses on the power of the Spirit and the concurrent, or maybe resultant,
growth of the Church.
The idealism that is
presented to us in the accounts of the fledgling church is not to lead
us into a listless nostalgia, or a dreamy optimism of a future that is
just around the corner. We are challenged to shake ourselves free from
complacency and to acknowledge that we are all too at home with a church
which in many ways is in decline.
However, the institutional
power of the Catholic Church, as a global organisation, was not a feature
of the primitive church, and never an essential pre-requisite for the
facilitation of the Spirit’s activity. Organisations are the fruit
of human genius and effort, while Christian community is essentially a
fruit of the Spirit creating bonds of love, forgiveness and understanding
among the disciples of Jesus.
In Sion Community we
find that organisational concerns relating to finance, administration,
accommodation, transport and all those things with which a working community
must deal, can at times loom large. In one sense this is a healthy situation
for us, keeping us in touch with the practical concerns that touch all
people’s lives. However, we need to keep our eyes fixed on our fundamental
call to be providing a spiritual zeal and drive which enable us to bring
a lively faith to our places of ministry in parishes and schools.
If I might share with
you a particular concern, about which we have a growing anxiety, it is
our Centre in Brentwood. The building itself belongs to the Sisters of
Mercy, and in their generosity they allow us to use the building without
charge. Over the last sixteen years the Sisters have also spent a great
deal on upgrading the heating system and windows. However, Sion Community
has always tried to maintain the interior of the building in order to
make it presentable to outside groups who come in to use the facilities.
Over the years we have budgeted to make this possible, but after sixteen
years the levels of work needed to be done is becoming more substantial
and moving in some areas towards a need for refurbishment. This situation
requires a major fund-raising effort on our part, and as part of this
we are launching our ‘SENTimental Fund-raising campaign.
As a community within
the Church we deeply appreciate those who ‘partner’ us in
our work by providing us with accommodation and finance, and support us
in many other practical ways. We continue our practice of praying for
all our benefactors and friends on the Fridays of each week. Please do
return your prayers and intercessions in the envelope provided to be placed
at our altar in S.E.N.T.. In this way we may unite with you in prayer:
prayer of thanksgiving for your support, and prayer of intercession for
your needs.
Fr Gerard Kelly,
President of Sion Catholic Community for Evangelism
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