What a Holy Life Looks Like

By Helen Gonsalves -
Today the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury will visit with Pope Benedict in Rome. Let us pray for them and for a fruitful meeting that helps the cause of Christian unity. The following is part of a speech that Archbishop Rowan Williams gave when Pope Benedict visited him in London in 2010:

Our task as bishops is to preach the Gospel and shepherd the flock of Christ; and this includes the responsibility not only to feed but also to protect it from harm. Today, this involves a readiness to respond to the various trends in our cultural environment that seek to present Christian faith as both an obstacle to human freedom and a scandal to human intellect. We need to be clear that the Gospel of the new creation in Jesus Christ is the door through which we enter into true liberty and true understanding: we are made free to be human as God intends us to be human; we are given the illumination that helps us see one another and all created things in the light of divine love and intelligence. As you said in your Inaugural Mass in 2005, recalling your predecessor’s first words as pope, Christ takes away nothing "that pertains to human freedom or dignity or to the building of a just society… If we let Christ into our lives we lose absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. Only in his friendship is the great potential of human existence revealed." [Inaugural Homily, Rome, 24 April 2005] ...


In other words, we shall be effective defenders or proclaimers of our faith when we can show what a holy life looks like, a life in which the joy of God is transparently present. And this means that our ministry together as bishops across the still-surviving boundaries of our confessions is not only a search for how we best act together in the public arena; it is a quest together for holiness and transparency to God, a search for ways in which we may help each other to grow in the life of the Holy Spirit. As you have said, Your Holiness, "a joint fundamental testimony of faith ought to be given before a world which is torn by doubts and shaken by fears." ...

Comments

  1. Anonymous8:29 am, March 10, 2012

    Thankyou Helen for this!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:45 am, March 10, 2012

    My sister lives in a small west wales town were Archbishop Rowan has family, he regularly takes holidays there and both preaches and takes services, my sister has received communion from him a number of times.
    He is humble and kind to all and very friendly.Sounds like he practises what he preaches!

    ReplyDelete

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