This is an annual reflection day offered in appreciation for all parishioners that minister in this space.
This year Come Rest a While will be held at the Mackillop Parish Pastoral Centre with the focus being Isaiah 55:1 – ‘Oh, let all who thirst, let them come to the water’.
The day will provide opportunities to spend time with Jesus’ life-giving water. To be still and to listen to and reflect on God’s Word, the liturgy and our Catholic life; to get to know ministers from other communities and to share experiences. To leave refreshed.
Please find time to Come Rest a While.
Please find time to come to the water.
Water is life-giving. It is one of our basic needs. It quenches our thirst. We are often drawn to places of water for rest and reinvigoration. The sound and feel of rolling waves, the gentle flow of a river, the soft lapping of a lake shore. It can give us a new lease on life. Just like in Baptism where the water gives us a new life in Christ.
Thirsting for more is not a new concept. People of all generations thirst for ‘things’ other than water. Like Adam and Eve in Genesis, their thirst for what they thought they wanted, left them thirsting for more. Their lives became as a drought, separated from God. We all need to be rescued from our own droughts. Fortunately, God had a plan. A plan to bring this water of life to us. This living water comes through Jesus to satisfy our thirst. We read this in John 4:14 when Jesus meets with the Samaritan woman:
“… but those who drink of the water I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” [NRSV].
So, we need to come to Jesus, come to the source of living water. The Paschal Mystery reminds us of this source of ‘eternal life’ when, as Jesus is on the cross, his side was pierced, and water also poured out. A sacramental moment. A reminder of our baptism. It is through our baptism that we are also called to bring life to others. We are to be the work of Christ with the Holy Spirit to guide us.
Christian Initiation is one such important life-giving work that we are all called to do. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) affirms this:
… the people of God, as represented by the local Church, should understand, and show by their concern that the initiation of adults is the responsibility of all the baptised. Therefore, the community must always be fully prepared in the pursuit of its apostolic vocation to give help to those who are searching for Christ. In the various circumstances of daily life, even as in the apostolate, all the followers of Christ have the obligation of spreading the faith according to their abilities. Hence, the entire community must help the candidates and the catechumens throughout the process of initiation: during the period of the precatechumenate, the period of the catechumenate, the period of purification and enlightenment, and the period of postbaptismal catechesis or mystagogy[1]. [RCIA a 9]
[1] Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. Study Edition. Australia: St Pauls Publication, 1985, ICEL.
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