World Communion
World Communion
This month we celebrate World Communion with brothers and sisters around the world. We gather around the table at the feast prepared for us by God with our siblings in Christ, wherever they may be. I just love imaging in my mind’s eye a woman my age, with blond hair and green eyes, eating the bread of life and drinking the cup of salvation. We don’t know each other and never will but we are connected by this ancient and awesome sacrament. We are both beloved children of God no matter the distance… physical, cultural, sociological… between us.
A PRESBYTERIAN GIFT
I also love World Communion because it is a Presbyterian gift to the larger ecumenical church. The first celebration occurred in 1933 when Dr. Hugh Thompson Kerr, pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA “attempted to bring churches together in a service of Christian unity… to know how important the Church of Jesus Christ is, and how each congregation is interconnected with one another,” said Dr. Kerr’s son, who was 16 at the time.
It’s lovely to imagine God’s children gathered around the table but how does that inform our prayer life? How do we pray for people we don’t know and will never know who may be quite different from us? And how do we pray for people when the messages we hear tell us that our differences are not good or safe or beneficial for us?
FROM HEAD TO HEART
Let me offer a prayer practice from Richard Rohr that brings our thinking down into our heart.
Next time a resentment, negativity, or irritation comes into your mind, and you want to play it out or attach to it, move that thought or person literally into your heart space because such commentaries are almost entirely lodged in your head. There, surround it with silence (which is much easier to do in the heart). There, it is surrounded with blood, which will often feel warm like coals. In this place, it is almost impossible to comment, judge, create story lines, or remain antagonistic. You are in a place that does not create or feed on contraries but is within the natural organ of life, embodiment, and love. Love lives and thrives in the heart space. It has kept me from wanting to hurt people who have hurt me. It keeps me every day from obsessive, repetitive, or compulsive head games. It can make the difference between being happy and being miserable and negative.
Could this be what we are really doing when we say we are praying for someone? Yes, we are holding them in our heart space. Do it in an almost physical sense, and you will see how calmly and quickly it works.
In an election year we pick sides and often define ourselves in opposition to another. I hope this prayer practice will be helpful as seek to live out the truth, unity and beauty of World Communion Sunday.
PRAYING FOR YOU,
Pastor Leanne
Community Presbyterian Church
32202 Del Obispo
San Juan Capistrano. CA 92675
949-493-1502