An Upper Room Experience 

The Chapter in Munnar, India, was an experience that will stay deep within my consciousness throughout my days.  Over 70 brothers and the wider ERN gathered in Kolkata, New Delhi and Mumbai to enter respectfully the mosques, temples and churches of some of the world’s great Religious Faiths.  In every case we found fellow pilgrims who were astonished that a group of Christian brothers and sisters from across the globe would desire and dare to come humbly to learn of an alternate way to seek the Mystery we name God.  They shared with us their sacred scriptures, their prayer styles, mantras, sacred songs and spiritual practices while listening attentively to the ways we as Christians pray our Scriptures and celebrate our experience of God.  Our hearts were quietly opened to receive more readily the Spirit of our God who blows where she wills and dares us to be trusting disciples.
During the first 2 weeks of the Chapter brothers’ submissions from around the world were read, the Congregation policy on HIV/AIDs was revisited, province’s presented their reports in wonderfully creative ways and the essential elements of a new vision were explored.  At the same time relationships were renewed and new ones formed among those gathered.  There was a an ever growing sense of community within the group that led to a high level of trust with a willingness to speak the deepest truths of the heart. 
Late on the morning of Friday 14 March the ‘Essential Elements’ of the emerging direction for the Congregation over the next 6 years were distilled.  At the beginning of the mid morning plenary session some delegates were disturbed by the absence of some of the traditional key words such as Word of God, Kingdom of God, Reconciliation etc.  This disturbance triggered a movement among the participants that resulted in an hour and a half of heart-centred-sharing.  The energy in the room was tangible as brother after brother approached the microphone and spoke his truth in total freedom and love.  There were no judgments, no comparisons and no cynicism.  The Spirit seemed to be soaring freely finding voice in all who spoke, each speaking from his particular life experience, culture and spirituality.  It was truly an Upper Room experience of new fire and untrammelled Spirit-breathing over the waiting waters ready to give forth life.
There is no question that we were grappling for a new language with which to express the urgings of a new development in our charism. We sought to understand the interconnectedness of the web of life that is currently so fragile in the hands of us humans. We experienced the tensions and chaos of our present moment as we tried to speak into the wider consciousness of ourselves as members of the earth community in the contemporary world. We also realized the challenge of being in fidelity to the radical positions and courageous actions of Edmund, who, like us, sought fresh ways to express and live the Good News of Jesus and its consequent challenges to the status quo.  He too sought to give witness to the reign of the Divine in our midst and to be acutely present to the movements of the Spirit of the times.
Here are the words that sought to capture the wild movements of that time when the Spirit broke free and spoke in many tongues:

The time is now! The place is here! You are the people!
This is my invitation to you.
 
Come, follow me to the edge, into the deeper and wider dimensions of LIVING that you may discover the God who awaits you.
 
It is at the very heart of Existence that you will find Life in its fullness.
 
I came to bring LIFE and I wish you to live it to the full, and to carry it to the very edge of the Universe.
Enter into the core of your being, into your stories.
You know me in your stories, in your living traditions and in your deepest moments of joy and pain.
 
Have courage!
Let go the chains by which you would bind me.
 

I am waiting for you beyond your boundaries, your concepts, your understandings.
I walk with you in places of the heart beyond your wildest imaginings.
I am your source, your energy, your passion.
 
Fly free as Edmund did before you to new horizons, to the unknown, the not-yet-imagined. 
 
Throw open your windows and let the fresh air in … open wide your shutters and allow me to enflame you.
 
Dare to enter my Mystery and become hope for the world.
Risk to be different!
Risk leaping and falling!
 
Remember, falling is the privilege of the living and even as you encounter loss, fear, despair and death, know I have been there before you and will be with you always.
 
Trust me.
 
Dare be my disciples. In you I am doing something new!

 
 
Peter Harney (April 2008)