28.07.2022
Lambeth 2022 Day 2: Retreat – Living Stones
The Lambeth Conference is currently taking place with Anglican bishops from throughout the Anglican Communion gathering in Canterbury. The once in a decade conference brings together bishops from across the globe for prayer and reflection, fellowship, and dialogue on church and world affairs. Archbishop Michael Jackson is attending and will report back to Dublin & Glendalough. Below is his report from Day 2 of Lambeth 2022.
It may indeed seem a strange way to spend time for quiet and reflection sitting on stones and leaning against stones. Today was the first day of the Retreat for Bishops in Canterbury Cathedral. My wife Inez was participating in the Spouses Retreat, along with the other spouses. It was held in the university.
The Retreat was centred around the First Letter of Peter where living stones are pivotal to the argument. Hence my spending time sitting on and leaning against stones in the cathedral and its precincts. Pivotal also is the honour due to Christ Jesus the chief cornerstone which once was rejected by the builders. (1 Peter 2.1–10)
A number of words were offered to us during the Retreat as ways forward for Christian people in a world that we were encouraged to see as very similar to our world today with its power struggles and its neo–empires.
One cluster of words was: trust and hope, memory and promise. Another cluster was: salvation, stones and self–knowledge. And a third cluster was: recognize, repent, redeem, restore.
During my time of worship in Christ Church Cathedral Dublin, where there is a rough stone at the heart of the labyrinth, and just before I left, I encouraged the members of our United Dioceses to read 1 Peter along with all of the bishops of the Anglican Communion. I continue to encourage you to do this as I pray for all of you in this place and in these days.
