Goodgoat hasn’t posted for a while – I decided to only post when it felt like I had something interesting or useful to say. Well…there may have been one or two times when something has occurred to me and then slipped my mind, but today, today was different.

Goodgoat is in training to be a member of the Third Order of the Society of St Francis. Franciscans try to make Holy Communion a central part of their lives and to reflect on it. I was doing that this morning at a morning service and something clicked – you know when you’ve been thinking about one thing and then that one thing somehow combines with something else?

Well, in the week I had been thinking a lot about the Kingdom (the Kingdom of God rather than the Kingdom of the world) metaphor of yeast (leaven) – see the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 13 verse 33: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.” What effect does yeast have on flour? It permeates it and makes it rise. It transforms the other ingredients into a lovely loaf of bread.

Well, nothing new there, this is something that people have heard and thought about for some time. BUT what about in the context of Communion??? The bread there is UNleavened – WITHOUT yeast…hmm, why is that, if the Kingdom of God is yeast/leaven? This got me thinking more. What is wine other than grape juice that has been transformed by the action of yeast? And in the Bible, wine is seen as something that gladdens people’s hearts but also something which is representing blood. Bare with me here – because its important to understand this further. I heard the Bishop of Durham, Rt Revd NT (Tom) Wright on the radio this week – and he was saying that Jesus’s resurrected body was no longer driven by the flesh – but of the Spirit – a Spirit-driven body. What a great idea – and the essence of Jesus, his life, his Blood is what was spilled for us. Hmm, so, the wine in Communion is that which the Spirit has already transformed.

Now…the bread is still to be transformed, and WE are called to be the crucible of transformation for God – what a wonderful idea – that we take Jesus’ body, indeed we are Jesus’ body (in the service of Holy Communion at the sharing of the Peace of Jesus the Priest says “We are the body of Christ…”) We receive the unleavened bread, to remind us that we are unleavened and then to allow the Kingdom, the already tranformed wine, the Spirit of God/Jesus to work in us, to transform us, so we can then go on to transform the world. 

I was lucky enough to pass through Assisi driving back to the airport from my holiday on the Tuscany/Umbria border.

I decided to go to the Basilica to see where St Francis is buried. I had been to the Basilica before – both as a tourist and also to sing but this was my first visit since I started down the path to be a Franciscan Tertiary.

It was good to see the story of Francis outlined on the frescos in the Basilica – and the audio guide gave a good description of what each one contained. I then ventured down into the lower levels, eventually ending up near his tomb (at least I think that’s where I was!)

Very little of this made an impression on me at any depth – it was only when I took a turn into a side room that something struck me – and that was seeing Francis’s brown tunic – a piece of clothing that had clearly been worn a great deal, it gave the impression of a pair of well worn in comfortable shoes and different sections of it had been replace as they had worn out – so it was a bit of a patchwork – but the thing that struck me was that Francis was a real person, that he was human, and the humility shone through – quite difficult when you’re surrounded by oppulance to Francis’s memory…and some of the monks who were around reminded me more of Friar Tuck than someone who was living entirely by God’s grace (or am I being unfair and it’s just that God has been very gracious to the First Order monks?)

Well, sorry, being a bit judgemental here.

I also met a couple two weeks ago who are looking at how religious communities are established – and they said that often by a charismatic leader but that the words and principles then became the centre of the community rather than Christ…

So, how can we ensure that our lives are centred on Jesus Christ and not allow our busy-ness and the ideas that Jesus inspired in charismatic people in the past to stop us from listening to what He has to say to us today?

Your comments please!

I went to a meeting of Tertiary Franiscans today. The Bishop Protector (quite a title, huh?) gave a talk on ”What Does the Church Expect of Tertiaries?” and this is my summary of what he said (note it’s my words, so I may have got some of it wrong):

1. Be an order in community – movement under discipline

2. Prayer and Sacramental life (at this point he bewailed the disappearance of daily Holy Communion in many churches) value of daily prayer and let others know about why it’s important to us so as to encourage them

3. Live out ideals of Francis and Clare in contemporary society, poverty, childlike delight and outbreaks of foolishness, bear pain joyfully

4. To hear again the command to rebuild Christ’s church. Love the church as a wonderful and sacred mystery with mission to change church including the bits we don’t want to change 5. To hold Franciscan way before the church when 1st and 2nd order are struggling