The One Thing Necessary

When the Church was born on the first Pentecost day it was as poor as Christ when he was born on the first Christmas day. It had nothing but love, love, love was all it had. But that love was more than enough because it was the love of God his Holy Spirit which poured out upon it and into it, from the Risen and recently glorified body of Christ. When this Good News was proclaimed by St Peter and his apostles, who had just received it, the crowds begged them to tell them how they could receive this love too. For they had already seen for themselves what it had done for twelve men whose mystical transformation they had at first mistaken for drunkenness.

An Irresistible Magnetic Force

The terrible and savage cruelty of Christ’s horrific death on the cross had determined that there were no more than 120 followers who dared to come to witness his Ascension into heaven. However, at the end of that day, there were three thousand who like the Apostles themselves had been baptised into the new Church, the new religion that had grown out of the old religion to which they had belonged. All who received this new baptism that drew them up into the new mystical body of Christ-like an irresistible magnetic force was not brought about by water, as before, but by the Holy Spirit.

The Way

When they awoke the following day the new religion to which they had committed themselves was still poor, unlike the old religion into which they had been born for they were all Jews. It had no physical structure or superstructure, nor for that matter did it have any spiritual structure either. It had no Creed, no systematic theology no catechism, no apologetics no liturgy, no worked-out moral theology. It just had a very simple rudimentary mystical theology. They had been reborn into the mystical body of the long-awaited Messiah, who had recently risen from the dead to take them home into the place that God had prepared for them long before the dawn of time. That is why they called their new religion ‘The Way’ after the One whom they now came to know and love as The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

From a Simple Mustard Seed

With no physical or spiritual structure on which to depend, they continued to avail themselves of the old religion as before. They still performed the old religious practices and prayers as before in their own homes, in the synagogues, and in the temple where they tried to nurture the newfound mystical faith within their Messiah. He returned as promised to be with them to the end of time, and he was continually pouring out onto them the mystical love that would gradually bind them to himself and then unite them with their common Father, not just in his mystical body, but in, with and through his mystical loving of their now common father. They might have nothing else but they did have the one thing necessary from which all else would grow as from a simple single mustard seed.

The Sign of Authentic Love

At first, there seemed to be no problem, but the love that they received in return was not just a single gift from God, but it contained in it all other gifts that are always the sign of authentic love. They wanted to know the truth, the whole truth, and then to do the truth. They wanted justice and peace and all that was necessary to maintain it. They wanted freedom for the oppressed, food for the starving, clothes for the naked, equality for the downtrodden and to cast off more than six hundred rules and regulations that their old religion had insisted were necessary to please the God whom they had made in their own image and likeness. Soon, not only were doors closed once these new heretics were seen in their true colours, but they were cruelly persecuted not firstly by their Roman overlords, but their one time co-religionists, like Saul of Tarsus.

The Unacceptable Truths

Modern scripture scholars and biblical theologians have rightly excited their students, like me, by showing how the Old Testament found its fulfilment in the New Testament.  However, it is not in seeing how the old finds its fulfilment in the new, but in seeing how the new infinitely transcends the old that the true mystical dimensions of early Christian spirituality can be re-discovered. These unforeseen mysteries were too much for their erstwhile spiritual brothers and sisters to comprehend.

They still shared the same God and they both believed that he loved them, but Jesus had taught them much more. The God whom they were taught dwelt in light inaccessible, who was so holy and so distant that they could not even write down, never mind utter his name, was not only with them but in them. The God with whom contact would mean instant death had made his home within them. The God who had only been called Father because he created them, was now to be called Dad because he had lovingly breathed into them his own breath of life so that they could be with him and in him to eternity, sharing in the life and love of the Three in One. For the God whom their forebears believed in, did not just love them, but he was or rather is Love. Just as in all love there are two, there must be two so also there were two persons in God. But, as in God all things are perfect, the love that binds the two together must be perfect too, and this perfect love must be a person in its own right. So the old Jews were horrified to be told that God is not just One but three in One, and furthermore, their promised Messiah was the second person of this mystical vortex of life and love which is God, their God Yahweh.

The One Thing Necessary

Furthermore, he had come to take those who, unlike them were open to receive him, into the life and infinite loving of the Three in One, to experience the glory that infinite mutual loving had made of them. Gradually as they were cast off and had to construct their own religion all these differences would inspire every facet of the newfound faith from the Creed that summed up that faith to every detail of their daily prayer that found its natural completion and consummation in the weekly liturgy.  On the first morning, however, they only knew one thing and fortunately, it was the one thing necessary.

That one thing necessary was that Jesus had entered into them through love, and the more they kept turning and opening themselves to receive that love through repentance, then as St Peter had told them, they would be taken up into him and into his loving of his, Father beginning now and ending in eternity. They only had to do one thing and keep doing that one thing, the one thing necessary and that was to practise and practise continually what I have called – the ‘ascetism of the heart’. It is here that the prayer is practised which opens our hearts to the heart of God through the heart, and through the mystical loving, of Christ for his Father.

The Asceticism of the Heart

The first Christians embraced a new form of asceticism that would not dissipate their energies trying to do the impossible, but which would enable them to do what Christ had called ‘the one thing necessary’. This means above all else, gathering what little resources we have to create quality space and time in our daily lives for the prayer that would give us access to the same love that filled Jesus Christ and inspired everything that he said and did. Asceticism for beginners then is quite simple. Do not give up anything you like or enjoy except when it prevents you from giving quality space and time to God in prayer each day. If you think it is too easy, then try it and stick to it, and you will soon find it is not quite as easy as you thought. So do not let first enthusiasm fool you into heroics that you will never sustain. When you have persevered for long enough, you will gradually begin to receive and then experience the love that will enable you to do what is quite impossible without it. It is here that the prayer is practised which opens our hearts to the heart of God through the heart, and through the mystical loving, of Christ for his Father.  There is no time here to develop the sort of prayer that can continually help us to raise our hearts and minds to God as we practise the asceticism of the heart so please visit my website and follow the Podcast on prayer entitled The Hermit – Wisdom from the Western Isles

David Torkington’s blogs, books, lectures and podcasts can be found at  https://www.davidtorkington.com/