well today at cms is a gathering of people from traditional religious orders and newer ones. around 65 people are coming along for a conversation - big group for a conversation?! i'm really looking forward to it...
i pulled a book off the library shelf on religious orders in the 1200s and 1300s in england. in it there was a chapter called the apostolic work of the friars (a friar is a monk who lives in the world/community as opposed to in a monastery). this paragraph made me raise an eyebrow.
The emergence of the friars as an official preaching and absolving body brought them into collision with bishops and parish priests which issued often in mutual recrimination, sometimes in lawsuits and occasionally in acts of physical violence.... It rose to its height on two principal issues: the validity of the spiritual ideals of poverty and mendicancy, and the theological justice of the friars claimn to exercise the apostolic functions of preaching and adminstering the sacraments. The conflict was destined to endure for more than a century...
physical violence and confilct for a 100 years over who can preach and administer communion?! maybe red tape has been an issue for a while?... it also made me think that what the likes of cms and others are up to in creating a new mission community that is recognisably church is bound to rattle some cages. let's hope there aren't too many fights!!!
[the quote is from p188 Religious Orders n England by Knowles 1948]
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