BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey - ECPv6.16.2//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20240310T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20241103T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20250309T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20251102T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20260308T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20261101T060000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250526
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250527
DTSTAMP:20260525T160241
CREATED:20250525T010359Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250525T010359Z
UID:13454-1748217600-1748303999@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:A COMMUNITY OF THE SPIRIT \nBy Fr Bede Griffiths \n◊◊◊ \nThe Church is the communion of those who are united by the love of the \nSpirit in the knowledge of the Word of God\, the Eternal Truth\, and through him \nreturn to the Father\, the Source\, the Origin and the Ground of all creation. But \nthe Church has also a beginning in time as a historical institution. When the \nHoly Spirit descended on the disciples at Pentecost\, the power of the Spirit \nwhich had transformed the body and soul of Christ at the Resurrection was \ncommunicated to his disciples. A new consciousness dawned\, a consciousness \nbeyond the ordinary rational consciousness\, which set the disciples free from \nthe limitations of our present mode of existence and consciousness and opened \nto them the new world of the Resurrection. \nThe Church is the community of those who experienced this new birth ‘in \nthe Spirit’ and whose lives were transformed by the experience. The effect of this \nwas seen in the fact that they were ‘all of one heart and mind‘\, and that they sold \nall that they possessed and ‘had everything in common’. The new life in the \nSpirit thus penetrated the economic and social order and brought a power to \ntransform human society\, but it remained essentially beyond our present \nhuman limitations. The Church was from the beginning a ‘charismatic‘ \ncommunity\, a community of the Spirit. \nYet it had also an elementary organization. Jesus left behind him twelve \n‘apostles‘\, whom he clearly intended to be the nucleus of the new Israel\, a new \n‘People of God’. There was also a ceremony of initiation into the new life and a \nmeal in common\, in which the new life with Christ was shared. This was \napparently all that he left by way of organization. In the course of time other \nceremonies were added and ‘elders‘ and ‘overseers‘ were appointed in the \ndifferent Churches\, but these seem to have been appointed as the need arose. \nThere was a reason for this. Jesus left his disciples with the expectation that he \nwould return again in their own lifetime and bring about the final ‘restoration \nof all things‘. This is the perspective of the New Testament. \nJesus was not concerned with the ‘history‘ of the Church as an institution\, \nbut with its transcendent Reality. Jesus himself enjoyed the new life of the \nResurrection\, and his disciples were called to share this new life with him. The \nhistorical development of the Church is secondary to this great reality of the \nexperience of the Spirit in the new life of the Resurrection. In this perspective \nthe time of the second coming is of little importance. As the second letter of \nPeter was to say\, when the time of his coming was questioned: ‘A thousand \nyears in his sight are but a day.’ \nIt would seem that the Christian Churches have to recover this \nperspective\, which is that of the New Testament\, if they are to recover their \nmeaning in the world today. The Church has its place in human history\, but for \nthe Church\, as for Christ himself\, history is subordinate to the transcendent \nreality of life in the Spirit.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-316/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR