Learning from Nazareth

We’ve only just started the year, and already I’m having to think about Lent! I always welcome this time of year as one when I can set my rhythm anew, establish a fresh discipline and make the time to listen to what God is saying to me.

On another page I’ve made some suggestions as to the elements of a Lenten discipline that might be helpful to people. It’s often just a matter of tackling those things we know we ought to do – and the period of just over six weeks which Lent takes up gives us that time-frame to do it. Like the 40 days which Jesus spends in the wilderness – you can make a start with a target date already prescribed.

A “Lent Course” can be helpful in this respect. Something where someone has already done the groundwork in helping us think / learn / pray – and where we can join in with other people, so that we know we’re not on our own. But our usual provider of such courses, USPG, doesn’t seem to have come up with one yet – and other offerings as yet seem thin.

So I’m proposing a course which we can’t complete in the five weeks available during Lent – something you might want to carry on for the two further weeks of the course – and beyond. It’s a course based on the book, The City is my Monastery by Richard Carter. It came out of his consideration of what he should be doing at a particular point in his life. Should he leave his work as a parish priest in a busy city parish? Should he join a monastery or move into some other form of the “religious life.” His conclusion was that he needed to continue in the city – but with a fresh rhythm. And it was a way of life he would pursue with others – not alone. From this there has grown the Nazareth Community and a wider dispersed group known as the Companions of Nazareth. They follow a Rule of Life based on 7 S’s – to live with Silence; with Service; with Scripture; with Sacrament; with Sharing; with Sabbath; and “Staying with…” (steadfastness, truth, suffering, love). The book is available for anyone who would like to buy it. But there’s also a course which I can share. I hope you’ll join me in exploring how it might speak to us.  

Martin Jackson

This is the "View from the Vicarage," taken from the February issue of our Parish Magazine - follow the link to read more!

And here's a link to the book on which the course is based.