I hope you've had a good summer break, and had a chance to get away from things — to have a holiday, spend time with loved ones, and to relax. Its important to keep things in balance in life – a healthy life includes work, rest and play – all three are needed.
Traditionally Christians have worked out a rule of life to help to keep things in balance physically and spiritually. People like St. Benedict, St. Francis and St. Columba built religious communities around a 'rule of life' to help people to have a balanced life of prayer, worship, reading the bible, and hard work.
For me, personally, the Christian Cursillo movement taught me a simple rule of life that I found helps me to keep a balance. It’s based on Piety, Study and Action.
These terms may sound boring, or even archaic.
Piety, for example, sounds really old fashioned and off-putting. But piety is simply about our spiritual life – how we encounter the living God and show our love and devotion to God. It is about our prayer life and our worship, and this affects our whole life.
Study sounds dull and boring, and only for the clever among us – but it needn't be so. We can study God through reading books, especially the Bible, but also through music, films and in discussion with others. Of course, God also reveals himself in the natural world, and we can study God in all these ways. Study is an important part of our rule of life, and it’s good to see the All Saints Bible Study, and the St. Peter's Bible Reading Fellowship getting started in September – I hope you'll find them useful.
Action is the final part of our spiritual life rule. The Christian life cannot just be about a personal, secret, faith that we keep to ourselves. Our faith should motivate us to action – in our workplace, at home helping those around us, sharing our faith with others, or inviting them in on
'Back to Church Sunday'.
As you read through the pages of this magazine you'll see there are many exciting things happening – that can help us to have a balance of piety, study and action in our lives. I hope you will get involved in many ways – because we all have a part to play.
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