“Spirituality for the Millennium: A Christian Perspective” was the theme taken by Fr. Diarmid O’Murchu in a conference held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Feb. 1-3, 2002. The conference, sponsored jointly by the Mercy and Presentation Congregations, was attended by over three hundred men and women as we explored the emerging spiritual questions of today.
O’Murchu set the context of our reflection and discussion by outlining the throes of change that mark our time, noting that there is a paradigm shift of global impact. In searching for a faith to sustain us today, home-coming is the key – coming home to our cosmic and planetary identity, to our spiritual story, to our people of soul, to our relational individuation, to our need for ritual, to the wisdom of the feminine ( the feminine is not exclusive to women). Most importantly, he says, it is necessary to reclaim a sense of the cosmic Christ as well as the historical Jesus, the central role of the Kingdom of God, the radical inclusiveness of Jesus, the concept of Jesus as suffering servant, the relational understanding of personhood.
Throughout the weekend, O’Murchu challenged us to be alert and stay awake to the big picture, stretching us beyond all restricted boundaries, to the whole which is greater than the sum of its parts, to the creation which is the fulness of revelation, for life rather than for death and judgement, to the metanoia that outgrows every paranoia, to the unpredictable God of surprises.
