+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
For the last few Sundays here in Australia we have been watching an excellent documentary on SBS television about a group of British teenagers, who spend some time living with the Amish in America.
As you will understand the lives of the Amish and the lives of young people in Britain vastly differ and it was so interesting to see the British young people fitting into their lifestyle, which is very conservative. Transport with the Amish is horse and cart , candle light is still being used at home and the place of the woman is in the home. Chastity is very important indeed.
The young people from Britain came to the conclusion that the Amish lifestyle had some very good points. The importance of the family unit , the friendship between the families, the willingness of all working together and the commitment of young people not to engage into sexual activities until a person was married. I am inclined to agree.
This evening I want to share this story with us and comment on some aspects of my own long life.
This sharing and caring that we talked about is very often not really part of our own community, it is not even part of the Church we belong to. As a fully commited Catholic Christian I served nine years at the altar of Christ Church Anglican Church, Brunswick, Melbourne. I served God , not the Church. During that time No-one from the Parish every visited us in our home. No-one ever phoned us during the week and I only had aquaintances , but not really one close friend. It took me nine years to organize a dinner outing for all the altar servers. How could this change? Only through our willingness to serve God's commandment of loving one another. If we do , then we open up to one another and share things with one another.
Apart from the contact I have with Parishioners and the visits I make to the sick and suffering, we live in a street where no-one speaks to one another, where no-one comes to visit you at your door. My former Anglican Bishop Andrew Curnow knows I live here, but he would never contact me.One lives on an island and it is not ideal. I often dream of an Anglican Catholic Community where we live together with other like minded Catholic Christians and were we share and care.
Father Ed Bakker
Anglican Catholic Church / Original Province
Mission of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne
Bendigo
Australia
