I’ve just spent Holy Week and Easter at Hilfield Friary, a Franciscan House of Prayer in Dorset again. I’ve already written about this on an earlier post- ‘The Little Commonwealth’, arising out of Easter ’24, but this time I’ve noticed some new things which, to me at least, are striking, leading me into a deeper reflection on the theme of community and its healing power. (It might help, if you have time, to read the ‘Little Commonwealth’ first. )
This year, as the world is holding its breath on the Iran/US/Israel conflict, there was a an Iranian woman with her son. This was in addition to an elderly couple from Ukraine, along with volunteers from Sweden and Germany, all in the beautiful surroundings of comfortable East Dorset. She was visiting a friend who, with her husband, has just joined the volunteer community of men and women who stay here for a period of time, helping the few friars to maintain the (quite large) friary and its grounds, with a focus on sustainable ecology, very much in the spirit of St Francis of Assisi. This is the second time she has visited.
I asked her a couple of questions. Is she a Christian? A Muslim? No neither, but likes to be in the community.
So I was quite surprised when I saw her at worship in the chapel, not just for the big gatherings on Maundy Thursday evening or Easter Sunday morning, but for the little services such as Holy Saturday morning. ‘I’ve got nothing against Christianity, in fact I respect it,; she said, ‘I like to experience this.’ It made me wonder if I’d be the same in a Muslim gathering? Maybe I would. I thought of the many community Iftars (Ramadan breakings of the fast) to which non-Muslims are invited. Maybe I’d like to experience one of those, if I had a sympathetic guide.
A big one was held recently in Trafalgar Square, prompting an outraged reaction from Nick Timothy MP, supported by Kemi Badenoch but rejected by many Tories, referring to Muslim cultural imperialism. Personally I can’t see the problem. For years the Square has hosted a Passion Play on Good Friday, and for many years there was the ‘Global March for Jesus’ trying to ‘claim the streets’ for Jesus. According to Danny Kruger MP (Reform) only Christian acts of worship should be offered in the public square. I don’t agree.
However I digress. I just loved it that, with all this Iranian woman’s pain ( I asked her over supper about her family in Iran and she burst into tears), and expressed agnosticism, she felt held by this Christian community.
I wondered if there a theological basis for this openness, Most religious communities (including Christian ones) have hard edges in the sense that they have rites of entry of one form or another. Christians have baptism and confirmation or the evangelical ‘Sinner’s Prayer’; Jews have circumcision, Muslims the recitation of the Shahada (There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger’) and so on. These are important, for such rituals and beliefs act as gate-keepers and helpful demarcation lines providing security and identity for the believer. One of my frustrations with the Quakers for example (for all the qualities of individual Friends) lies in the vagueness of their beliefs.
The problem comes when these ritual demarcation lines leads to exclusive attitudes in the head of the believer: ‘I’m in, you’re out’. At its most extreme this leads to ‘You’re in heaven, he’s in hell’ in relation to the afterlife. This is dangerous, for in its turn it leads to social, national and racial discrimination. The Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church undergirded Apartheid; The Russian Orthodox Church (especially Patriarch Kirill) cheers on Putin’s war on Ukraine; Southern Baptists supported Segregation in the Southern US states in the 1950s and Trump today; Iranian Shias support the Islamic Republic; Ultra-orthodox Jews keep Netanyahu’s Government and his wars in place.
Yet it is, in my view, possible to hold to a rigorous faith with strong demarcation lines while retaining a porous attitude to outsiders, After all, monastic communities add many layers of rigor to Christian commitment in their monks and friars, who go from being aspirants to postulants to novices to first vows then life vows before becoming fully part of the order. In addition, the Holy Week liturgies, from Maundy Thursday feetwashing, Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, through to silent waiting for the Risen Christ in the darkness on Easter morning are demanding full-strength liturgies, with no ‘dumbing down’ for outsiders. Yet far from erecting a higher wall around them, this seems to give a security from which to reach out a healing hand to others.
The Guardian of Hilfield, Br John, told a story in his Easter Sunday sermon about a man who came to live with them in the 2000s. For years, since his stint as a UN soldier in Bosnia in the 1990s when he had had to stand by without intervening whilst unspeakable atrocities were committed, he had lived with a paralysing guilt. During his time at Hilfield he experienced a resurrection-through-forgiveness experience by living as part of the community, experiencing worship and talking to members. During this time his brother had been worried that he was being held against his will by a cult, and one day drove down in his van to rescue him, causing much apprehension to the man and community. Yet after an hour at Hilfield Br John met the man and his brother who thanked the friar. ‘You’ve given me my brother back!’
On Maundy Thursday one of the lay community gave an excellent sermon, contrasting two views of God, which, with the aid of others, he acted out. One was a remote ‘batman’ figure, standing above and apart, intervening on behalf of friends and zapping enemies. The other picture he represented by four chairs, three for the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The second of those Persons is Jesus Christ, who experienced extreme suffering on the cross. The theologian Jurgen Moltmann (about whom I have written in ‘Hope through suffering’) writes, in ‘The Crucified God’ ‘God is not greater than he is in this humiliation, not more powerful than in his helplessness.’ These three Persons form a community of love, who invite all people , especially the suffering, to sit on that fourth circle and join that loving community. Such inclusion brings healing through embrace and communities such as Hilfield – along with the many churches- model the Trinity’s work. They can act as ‘holders of the ring’ for anyone to step in to, which includes the lovely family which has made the Friary their home for the last 16 years and makes such a contribution to the place. Who would think the sound of kids playing would be the first thing you would hear when you arrive at a friary?
This, I believe, is what brings the lady from Iran and many other people with less dramatic stories back to them again and again. These are not Christian communes in lovely places, having ‘a good time in the Lord’ , held together by a charismatic and unaccountable founder- leader, hiding away from and looking down on a benighted world. They are more like what the Northern Celtic saints such as Cuthbert and Aidan and Columba, who lived in times of horrific violence, referred to as ‘colonies of heaven’, open to all people, modelling in their lives the life of God- the ‘love that moves the sun and other stars’ (Dante)- , and inviting others into that circle.
Hugh's Views 