A Service of Silence & Beholding 2014

A time of unhurried silence in which to dwell at the heart of the Eucharist 8am St. Mary's Church, Sullington, West Sussex, RH20 4AE Dates for 2014: January 26th, February 23rd, March 23rd, April 27th,  May 25th, June 22nd, August 24th,  September 28th, October 26th, November 23rd, December 28th We gather in silence, coming just as we are, to seek the face of God and to wait upon the Divine presence. In the stillness and silence, in our attentiveness and our letting go, the silence deepens, so we also depart quietly, taking whatever has been received into the day.   There are no announcements; the reading and prayers are offered as stepping stones in the quiet, taking us deeper into the mystery of the sacrament.  ‘A Service of Silence & Beholding’ began in January 2013. It arose from an inner longing for a shared collective silence to be the major part of the liturgy of Eucharist. Drawing on the the pattern of the Anglican rite, the Christian contemplative tradition and the work of the solitary Maggie Ross, this simple liturgy is offered to encourage and nurture the ongoing work and prayer of all those in this place who, despite the scorn of the world, seek to be witnesses through the gift of silence to the mystery, glory and beauty of the Beloved.    Peace be with you Epiphany 2014 Silence and beholding are our natural state. As Irenaeus puts it, ‘The glory of God is the human being fully alive, and the glory of the human being is the beholding of God’: the two clauses are interdependent. The story of the garden of Eden tells us of the primordial distraction from beholding, the descent into noise and the bewilderment caused by the projections we call ‘experience’. All our ills come from the loss of silence and beholding, our failure to listen and our insistence on out flawed and limited interpretations. It was in the context of beholding that we were given stewardship of the earth; it is in the context of distraction that we have (mis)managed it. As the pace of contemporary life accelerates and the rising tide of noise degrades the biosphere, the need to recover and, more especially, to practise silence and seek into the beholding becomes ever more critical. This is especially true for institutionalised religion. …  … through beholding, we are transfigured in every sense: nothing is wasted, nothing is left behind; through our wounds we are healed; our perspective – the way we ‘figure things out’ – is changed. In the resurrection, the wounds of Christ do not disappear; they are glorified….in our core silence, through our beholding, we realise our shared nature with God; we participate in the divine outpouring upon the world: incarnation, transfiguration and resurrection become conflated into a single movement of love. Maggie Ross Writing the Icon of the Heart: In silence beholding