Preparing for Big Services

We look forward to welcoming the Reverend Ryan Hawk as our new curate in about a week’s time.

Next Sunday, 15th June, Ryan will be ordained priest alongside some of his colleagues who will serve in different churches in this Diocese.

If you are not familiar with church, these are very special occasions. They are a combination of deep reverence and awe, coupled with joy, as people are ordained, or set apart, to serve God’s church and His people. The Bishop will lay hands upon him, and other priests also will lay their hands upon the candidates, in what appears to be something of a scrum, as we invite God to anoint Ryan and his colleagues for their sacred task with the power of His Holy Spirit.

Before that special service next Sunday afternoon in Down Cathedral, the candidates will spend some time on retreat. It will be a time of prayer and reflection, probably lead by the preacher at the service. Usually there would be a rehearsal before the candidates go on their retreat for a couple of days.

In the service itself, the Bishop will remind the candidates of some of the tasks they will be called to do. They will be expected to preach the Gospel of Salvation, to minister the sacraments of Holy Communion and Holy Baptism, to watch over and care for God’s people, to pronounce absolution, or forgiveness, and bless the people in God’s name.

The Bishop will pray for them and the congregation will join in this prayer. The candidates will be vested with a preaching scarf, or a stole, around their necks and will be presented with a Bible, and all of this will take place within a celebration of Holy Communion.

The service, in many ways, is the culmination of a long journey of discernment and prayer. The candidates may have been exploring this path for many years. They will have been through a rigorous selection process prior to beginning their training. They will have been interviewed by psychologists and psychiatrists, by Bishops and clergy and lay people, who collectively seek to discern if God has called them to this way of life.

If we believe God placed a call on each of our lives at Holy Baptism, and equipped us with particular gifts to serve Him in different ways, it’s a special thing to discover what that looks like on our individual journey.

It doesn’t make anyone less to serve God in a different role, perhaps in education or medicine or one of the many professions people enter. Sometimes, other people will have recognised their leadership potential or some spiritual gifts, and encouraged them down this path of ordination.

I have a photo in my study of me standing beside my great aunt on my ordination day as a deacon in Dromore Cathedral in 1996. My great aunt was married to a clergyman, and she very kindly gave me his home communion set after he died. It was my privilege to share Holy Communion in hospital with her before she died, using that very set.

In those days before ordination there are lots of nerves as you become aware of the sacredness and enormity of that call. My memory is of feeling ill equipped and pretty inadequate, and of spending some time with my Rector watching how he did various thing before being released to try to go and do likewise.

It’s such a privilege to be invited into people’s homes and to go to hospitals and nursing homes and to share in the joys and sorrows of people’s lives with them. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to read the scriptures and to pray and ask for God’s help and blessing in all of the varied circumstances people find themselves.

I think that’s the thing that Ryan and all his colleagues will value most in this significant week in all of their lives. They will appreciate the simple prayers and good wishes of their families and friends and congregations, old and new, as they seek to be God’s person in the world, and serve His people in the places He has called them to be.

We will be thinking about God’s call on our lives on this Sunday morning as we think about the topic of vocation.

On Sunday 29th June, the Bishop has asked all churches to hold a special collection for the relief of those caught up in the tragic situation in the Middle East, which will be channelled through the Bishops’ Appeal, to assist those working on the ground, to bring help to those in such desperate need. Our prayers continue for that difficult situation.

We also ask for prayer for the family of John McGookin, whose funeral will take place in Roselawn this Thursday at 10.00 am.

Look forward to speaking again soon.

Much love to everyone,

Jono.

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