Archdeacon David writes...

All soul and no body!

It is the season of Archdeacons’ Visitations and admission of churchwardens. Churchwardens are the backbone of the Church of England. In the practical everyday running of our churches they give spiritual leadership.

In “the Company of Voices” George Guiver talks about Myers-Briggs and its method of identifying our personality traits. He says the church on the whole is run by people who are on quite a different wavelength from the majority of the population. Clergy talk about interior prayer, ideas and future possibilities, whereas the rest of the population best respond to physical, practical and present realities.

Of course, we need this, but there is a danger of contrasting maintenance with mission, practicalities with prayer. We need both. Problems arise when we exalt one above the other. The two belong together, as does the humanity and divinity of Jesus.

The Catechism teaches that a “sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual reality”. Have we concentrated too much on the inward and spiritual reality? All soul and no body!

Onigen said that it was “not just the death Jesus died, but the life that He lived which was pleasing to God”. The sheer physical presence and impact of Jesus. The sacrament of God Himself.

Let’s not be shy about physicality. Let’s accept it and delight in it.

“Man cannot live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”.

I say let us get the bread right too.

David Garnett