TAU SWEET The Province of the Pacific,Third Order Society of St Francis. M.P. Reflection page 1 Climate change General Synod Prayer Stand in the Gravel Page 4/5 Interfaith Report Presence by Sandy Neal page 2 Easter ReflectionENTBy Dorothy Brooker Area News page 10-12 L Page 8/9 Page 6/7 Message of Hope Book Review Page 7 Formation Director The Archbishops Page 3 Report page 9 Minister Provincial Reflection “ Here and in all your churches throughout the world, we adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world”. How often we repeat this prayer of praise, yet I wonder what we mean when we say: ”by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.” How do we understand that? What does it mean for us? How might it impact on our lives as members of the Order? I can write only personally and offer these thoughts as a pilgrim with you. I’ve struggled for years with the language of substitution – the apparently neat equation that makes me merely an “onlooker” to the drama of Golgotha. Convocation last year and subsequent reading and reflection have given me much more satisfying answers – full of grace…full of challenge…. The cross is redemptive for the world as the supreme icon of non-retaliation, of the way of non- violence. Jesus, absolutely true to God and God’s kingdom dream, asked forgiveness for his executioners, responded with silence to the cruel taunts of his enemies, promised paradise to a thief who pleaded just to be remembered, blessed his mother and beloved friend with the healing task of caring for one another…...and, in words of incredible faith, entrusted his spirit into the hands of the One, who a short time before, seemed to have abandoned him. What could be a more redemptive pattern for the world to follow? When we wear our profession cross, we are choosing a symbol of redemptive forgiveness and peace-making – demanding, costly, grace- filled. We are putting on a sign that we follow Francis who followed Christ. Ghandi said: “Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. It’s seat is in the heart and it must be an inseparable part of our way of being.” So, too, our profession cross! Maggie Smith TAU.1 TAU.1 STAND IN THE GRAVEL “Stand in the gravel,” instructed the police officer. (Reflections from Martin Wallace, “Daily Light To be honest, it was scary enough standing on from the Celtic Saints” Ray Simpson; Anamchara the footpath watching the Auckland urban traffic Books, 2013) come to a standstill and begin to congest in God led Francis to live amongst the poor, multiple directions now the traffic lights had gone the outcasts and the lepers, gladly casting off off. Stand in the gravel? Where does one find anything (even his clothes!) that might keep him gravel on a busy urban intersection where the from receiving the love God desired to share with stream of traffic never seems to end? him in, and through, the world around him. This shouldn’t surprise us since the Judeao-Christian A group of us were about to learn how to step into scriptures tell us God is always on the side of the the fray, control heavy traffic flows and ensure the oppressed. We know where to go if we want to life and well-being of our community whenever encounter the God of steadfast love; the place the lights went out. Being told to find gravel where the need is greatest. Francis’ experience seemed strange and bizarre to me! However, all of meeting God in these places on the edge soon became clear. transformed his life, making him a beacon of light for others in a world full of darkness. Is our world The best place to be seen, and the safest place any different? to stand, is right in the centre of the intersection, the place where the gravel tends to collect. The When the traffic lights go out it takes someone gravel tells you the cars, trucks and buses usually willing to stand in the gravel and be a ‘light’ to pass by or around this patch. The gravel tells you meet the needs of those around them. Francis this is the very edge, the place where all the said, ““All the darkness in the world cannot roads converge. The gravel tells you this is your extinguish the light of a single candle.” (The Little place to stand, be seen and take action. It seems Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi) I am only too to me, our world is calling out for people to stand aware of how far short I fall of following in the in the gravel patches; the places on the edge. footsteps of Francis. But I’m coming to realise something. No matter how poorly we may feel we Many sacred sites are ‘on the edge’, places we reflect the love of God, the passion of Christ, and experience both the material and the spiritual the beauty of Francis, this one thing we can realm in ways which transform how we see and choose to do; to offer the light within us, however live in this world. “At the edge we see horizons minute we feel it may be, to those who walk in denied to those who stay in the middle. Walking darkness. To do that, we may be required to step along a cliff-top our bodies and souls face each out of the centre and stand on the edge. other and that is how we grow. The edge is in fact always the centre of spiritual renewal. We are I wonder where the gravel is, where we are called to mould the kingdoms of the earth so that meant to stand, be seen and take action; and I they reflect the Kingdom of Heaven. Any wonder what that might look like. With Francis’ Christian movement that becomes respectable as our role-model, I have a feeling it may look risks being brought from the edge to the centre – less than ‘respectable.’ And I wonder if we are and so risks being given the kiss of death.” willing to go there. Sandy Neal TSSF TAU.2 TAU.2 ARCHBISHOPS MESSAGE OF HOPE 22 DEC 2015 shows us the simple but We instinctively know the truth of What images from 2015 remain improbable way God, who is this way, and we long for it. fixed in your mind? We’ll hazard love, reaches out to us. It is the We know that the world is, a guess: for most of us, it’ll be way that begins by placing despite these awful images, the images of refugees fleeing yourself in the shoes of another. overwhelmingly a place of from tyranny and war. Images of And by trying to see the world goodness and beauty. the innocent, suffering. Images, through that other person's eyes. We do not have to agree with too, of brutal extremists hiding We know that love wins because behind the miserable pretense of that other person. We might not even like what they stand for. of the promise and the hope of religious justification. the Christ child. History, including Church history, In fact, we may profoundly is littered with testimony to disagree. But we need to see in every other person, even our And never has the message of human evil, selfishness and this child, and His way, been greed. enemy, someone beloved of God. This is the way of costly, more needed. So often this has been done in sacrificial love. God’s Sunrise will break in upon the name of what is “right”, the us, Shining on those in the way of absolutes and certainty. darkness, those sitting in the “I am right. You are wrong. You This way has the ability to redeem and transform even the shadow of death, Then showing must conform to my way of us the way, one foot at a time, thinking – or suffer the most hardened of extremists, and the very worst of situations. down the path of peace. consequences .” Luke 1:78-79 (The Message) We have heard the rhetoric of the It is the way of compassion, in the true sense of that word; May the God who takes the risk extremist and been confronted, of reaching out and being again and again, by the images sharing in the suffering of the other. vulnerable, who really loves us, of this tyranny of the “right”. deeply bless you and your But violence just begets violence, It is the way of dialogue. It is the families this Christmas. { and this and hatred begets more hatred. way of reconciliation. Only love Lent] It does not provide solutions; it can transform an enemy into a just creates more problems. friend. This way is demanding. It Archbishop Brown Turei , The Christ child, the one whose Bishop of Aotearoa; birth we celebrate, born to an requires faith, courage, perseverance, fortitude, and Archbishop Philip Richardson unwed mother who had no place commitment. It defies convention , senior bishop of the New to shelter – the family then and opens you up to ridicule; it is Zealand dioceses; forced to flee to a foreign land for Archbishop Winston Halapua , fear of a tyrant. the way of the infant born in Bethlehem. Bishop of Polynesia. This child, Christians believe, TAU.3 TAU.3 BISHOPS ON CLIMATE CHANGE Love for our Neighbour: depends, and we are beginning to reap what we God’s people and God’s planet have sown.