One Saturday in June, I was in Arundel. The Parish Church there had organised a "Quiet Day", which comprised a series of addresses by a visiting speaker, periods of reflection, and concluded with a mass and final address. The speaker, Brother Angelo, is a priest-brother of the (Anglican) Society of St Francis, and has served not only as a parish priest, but also as chaplain to the Royal Ballet Company at Covent Garden. He proved to be a brilliant communicator, with a mix of humour and seriousness that was both engaging and challenging. During the periods of quiet, I was able to sit outside in the sunshine. To the East of the churchyard were the walls of Arundel Castle, and the Cathedral is a little way to the west. My thoughts kept coming back not only to our visit last summer, but also to the story of the raising of Lazarus in St John, Chapter 11. Half way through this passage, there is a dialogue between Jesus and Martha, the sister of Lazarus. Jesus says to Martha: "Thy brother shall rise again". Martha replies: "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day". Jesus then says: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:23-26). My dictionary defines the verb believe as: "to regard as true: to accept as true what is said by", which in this context seems to be asking a lot. Martha answers yes. How would you have replied?

It is less than a year since I sat in that pew in Arundel Cathedral, wondering why I was there, and why I was feeling so desperate. I was both spiritually and emotionally dead. I was so preoccupied with myself that I had not realised that you, my friend and guest, deeply worried at my condition, had gone to light a candle for me. As you are aware, I now feel not just healthy and joyful, but spiritually whole. In the intervening months, a great deal has happened for both of us. Despite all the odds, our friendship has deepened to a point that would have been unimaginable last August. You have been through your own, similar crisis, and the resulting correspondence between us has been read in a church service: a message of hope and encouragement for others. I doubt that either of us could have predicted this course of events. Yet the change that has occurred in me has less to do with "pulling myself together", than with my increasing acceptance of Jesus being exactly what he says he is: the "resurrection and the life". We should not underestimate the real power of this capacity to believe. An army's confidence in the ability of its commander will have a decisive effect on whether it presents a cohesive and effective force in the face of battle, and it is much the same for us. It is not only a question of "mind over matter", but of also being open to the workings of the Holy Spirit, whose power has the capacity to renew and transform our lives. The psalmist's cry "take not thy Holy Spirit from me (Ps 51:11) is not just rhetoric, it reflects an acute awareness of what the loss of God's presence might mean. In the first book of Samuel, the living, loving friendship of David and Jonathan is contrasted with the lost figure of King Saul, who is overwhelmed by depression, jealousy, and murderous intent (1 Samuel 18:1-11).

On the face of it, Arundel is a place of religious division. The east end of the Parish Church, which includes the Lady Chapel as well as the tombs of the Fitzalan-Howards, is separated from the rest by an iron screen, which has only been opened on seven occasions in the last four centuries, the most recent being in 1995. You and I visited it from the castle and not the church. It is as though the Reformation has cut right though the place. Yet things are not what they seem. After lunch, I went over the road to visit the Cathedral, to light a candle for you, in commemoration of the one you lit for me last August. I entered just at the point where the mass was ending. There was little to distinguish the words and ceremony from what happens in my own Parish Church. It was a reminder that more unites Christians than divides them. The "Lima Declaration", published by the World Council of Churches in 1982, is a fascinating document, which shows a remarkable measure of agreement between Christians of many denominations. The story of our own experiences in the course of the last ten months, during which God's gracious spirit gained ascendancy in both our lives, would be understood by nearly all Christian people. We are so often conscious of the divisions between the churches that we need reminding how, even in our own lives, we are capable of transcending the barriers that we continue to erect. We should not be surprised at this, for the Lord tells us clearly: "I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron". (Isaiah 45:2).

Institutions will remain a necessity in a fallen world, but they should only ever be seen as the means to an end. Christianity is not a religion for those who inhabit ivory towers: it is a shared experience in love to which - provided we are open to the promptings of the Spirit - we shall be engaged ever more deeply with the passing of time. It is also a lifelong journey, in the course of which we may rediscover the substance that lies beneath the denominational veneer. There is, after all, only one Holy Spirit. My uncle, Ronald, who was brought up in the Presbyterian tradition, and subsequently became an Anglican, wrote these words towards the end of his life in a letter to my father: "I would like you to know that the worship that means the most to me now I find in the simple Eucharist (i.e. Holy Communion) ... From start to finish not more than half-an-hour. Here we have the central act of worship stripped of all pretence, as ordained by Christ himself immediately before his own death. However inadequate we know ourselves to be, if we come in that mood, the more effective is our worship. Significantly for me, the service begins with perhaps the very first verse that I ever learnt at Mother's knee in those far off Shanghai days! 'God so loved the world that he gave his only son Jesus Christ to save us from our sins that whosoever should believe on him should not perish but have everlasting life' ".

All real healing is also about bringing peace and reconciliation, and it is nearly always going to cost us something. It means nothing less than achieving the re-alignment of a divided humanity with its creator and sustainer; and that includes a divided Church. In the raising of Lazarus, Jesus groans (John 11:33), his agony prefiguring that in Gethsemane and on the cross. Yet his call, with all that it demands of us, can also bring great joy. Christian healing is not some abstract, clinical ritual, but is grounded in the love that derives from the deepest kind of relationship. St John relates how the sisters of Lazarus fully understand this, as they send for Jesus "saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick" (v 3). When Jesus arrives and finds "Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her. (v 33). Then he wept, and the Jews said, "Behold how he loved him!" (v 36). Jesus’s emotions after Lazarus is raised are not recorded by the Evangelist, but they can be guessed at from the account of another, who "ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him, And said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found". (Lk 15:20-24).

Neil Macdonald



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