Archbishop - 'Proof of the resurrection has to be lived, not argued'

In his Easter sermon delivered at Canterbury Cathedral, Dr Williams identifies St Paul as an early example of someone living the brave reality of faith, putting his life at risk for the sake of his belief and witness to the resurrection:

"It's worth remembering that Paul of Tarsus joined the Christian community not as a well-meaning religious enquirer but as someone who had been the equivalent of a terrorist gunman, someone who had supervised the activities of a private militia devoted to abducting and imprisoning members of the Christian sect.  He is a perfectly intelligible figure in the back streets of modern Beirut or Baghdad.  And he has to find his 'heaven' by going, undefended and unvouched for, to the people he has been trying to silence and kill.  Can anyone live like this? If the Colossians or Corinthians or Philippians had asked this, at least Paul would have been able to say yes: I have lived it, or, It has lived itself out in me and in those who were my victims."   

The Archbishop suggests that our present day fascination with monastic life is a sign that people may be looking to live a more faithful life of "shared silence and prayer", recognizing that it is a form of  witness to live this life of peace and discipline:

"those who freely decide to live lives of continence and poverty in the first monastic communities, the men and women who tried to live out the life of heaven in the daily discipline of life together, giving themselves time to discover their most deeply hidden failings and fears, their most deep-seated difficulties with themselves and other people and not running away but letting the action of God through the life of the community heal them bit by bit.  We're still fascinated by this life – we joke about it, yet have an uneasy respect for it, as a whole series of television presentations will confirm."

The Archbishop goes on to urge the Church to encourage and pray for those seeking to explore the monastic life, and give greater recognition to those who have chosen "the path of contemplation". He argues that this is especially timely in the current financial situation - which has shown that human fulfillment cannot be measured by material effects:

"The present financial crisis has dealt a heavy blow to the idea that human fulfilment can be thought about just in terms of material growth and possession.  Accepting voluntary limitation to your acquisitiveness, your sexual appetite, your freedom of choice doesn't look so absurd after all as a path to some sort of stability and mutual care.  We should be challenging ourselves and our Church to a new willingness to help this witness to flourish and develop."

The challenge, he says, remains for us all:

When all's said and done, the call is to every one of us.  We need to hear what is so often the question that's really being asked when people say, 'How do you know?'  And perhaps the only response that is fully adequate, fully in tune with the biblical witness to the resurrection is to say simply, 'Are you hungry?  Here is food.'

Notes to editors:

For further details about the service at Canterbury Cathedral please contact Christopher Robinson 07759 215537