May 8 and 9

May 9

The Internet service has been a bit iffy, so these may not appear exactly at set intervals!

The celebrant this morning was the Ven. Dr. Sarah Macneil from Australia. She explained some of the words in the Eucharistic Prayer before starting as they are particular to their culture.

Canon Mrs. Elizabeth Paver was elected Vie Chair of the ACC. Monday we elect the members of the Standing Committee which now becomes much more important in the life of the Communion due to the changes to the Constitution.

Bible Study was Mark 10:32-52. At the end of the study there was a dramatic reading called “He was going on a journey…” by John Bell of the Iona Community. It was excellent even though the readers had only one rehearsal. I was told that this one is part of group of readings called Peter and Jesus and that these are available from the Iona Community.

We had a lengthy discussion about a resolution on Israel and Palestine. It is a struggle to critique unacceptable Israeli government policy without being accused of being Anti-Semitic and without endangering carefully built up relationships in our Inter Faith Dialogue. I think we came up with a reasonable statement.

After coffee, we heard about two exciting new projects of the Communion. The first was a presentation by the interfaith folks on their book called “Generous Love”. I reported something on it at Lambeth. There is now a study guide being developed for online use. We had the opportunity to work with it in our groups. Some of us brought laptops to the session (There are banned otherwise!) so we could try it out. It has the potential to be very useful for those who might want to study on their own, or for a group to engage the material from their homes using one of the chat technologies. The address we used this morning was http://www.aco.org/_books, but this may have been just for the demonstration.

The second new project is called “The Bible in the Life of the Church”. This is a proposal currently being pilot tested in New Zealand to help Anglicans understand the many ways that Anglicans approach Scripture. The members from New Zealand certainly gave it great advance publicity. Apparently these study sessions are worked out with local Theological Colleges. Would Atlantic School of Theology be interested?

The last session today focused us on Mission Encounter. We are all going to be in parishes for tomorrow to worship and to hear about the Mission of God as we are trying to live it out in our own settings. Some folks left this after noon because they have a three to four hour drive to the ends of the island. I am here in Kingston at All Saints, West St. I will be able to tell you more about it tomorrow. I will be celebrating with the Jamaican liturgy and preaching. Pray for me. We will be praying for the Diocese of NS & PEI here tomorrow.

Easter Blessings.

+Sue

May 8

The Eucharist was celebrated by Bishop Kumara of Sri Lanka. There was quite a contrast between his quiet presence, the Eucharistic Prayer from his province and the Jamaican setting. Our Anglican diversity was evident!

Bible Study focused on Mark 8:31 to 9:8. We had a quote from Michael Ramsey’s book, “The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of God.”

The transfiguration “stands as a gateway to the saving events of the gospel, and is a mirror in which the Christian mystery is seen in its unity. Here we perceive that the living and the dead are one in Christ, that the old covenant and the new are inseparable, that the Cross and the glory are one, that the age to come is already here, that our human nature has a destiny of glory, that in Christ the final word is uttered and in him alone the Father is well pleased. Here the diverse elements in the theology of the New Testament meet.”

We had quite a discussion about the transfiguration as a mirror, of our lives as mirrors of the Christian mystery, about transfiguration as a living process not only a momentary event.

From there we went into a Plenary Decision making Session about the reports of the Windsor Continuation Group and the Anglican Covenant Group. It was a careful process taking parts of the big resolutions separately. Parliamentary process in English is not easy for those whose first language is not English, and whose style of working is not by resolution. At our table we have 3 of the Francophones (from the provinces of Congo and Indian Ocean). The translator was working hard to turn the words and meaning of the resolutions into French for them! The resolutions as finally passed are on the Anglican Communion web site under Anglican Consultative Council. This means there is no change in our situation in the Anglican Church of Canada or in our Diocese. The Covenant’s first three sections had approval from everyone, by Section 4 had not been seen by most people before arrival here, so it is being sent out to the provinces for feedback before a final text of the Covenant will be sent to provinces for consideration.

The Rt. Rev. James Tengatenga from Malawi was elected Chair of the ACC.

Our final session of the day looked at our many ecumenical relationships and affirmed ongoing work. There is a proposal for “Four Principles of Ecumenical Dialogue” that we could use to assess our ecumenical work, much as the Five Marks of Mission are used to guide and evaluate our Mission work. The proposed Four Principles are getting some more work before coming back for a decision.

We had a beautiful evening at the home of the Bishop of Jamaica and his wife.

+Sue