Contents
- Home
- News
- Prepare for death by giving up greed, says Dr Williams
- Bishops attack embryos Bill
- Teachers criticise union ideas on faith
- Report savages ‘inhumanity’ of asylum system
- Episcopal Church to minister to Iraq war veterans
- Harare Stations of the Cross held outside the city walls
- Images of Easter
- Still looking
- New publisher to head Hymns A & M group
- Give to TAP this Easter
- News in brief
- Ely commemorates first Boat Race
- Bishops defend council prayers
- Canon agrees to resign
- Tearfund sees hope in Darfur
- King Abdullah seeks dialogue
- New work for William Chapman
- Vigil halted by alarm
- Row over bell-ringers’ religion
- Impassioned
- E. London mega-church to appeal
- Be happy — give to charity
- Gorbachev makes Assisi visit
- Foreign news in brief
- Question of the week
- Comment
- Letters
- Real Life
- Features
- Faith
- Humour and crossword
- Pastimes
- Books
- Arts
- Media
- Gazette
 back to News |
next story 
|
Prepare for death by giving up greed, says Dr Williams
by Ed Beavan
 Humble: the Archbishop of Canterbury washes feet at Canterbury Cathedral on Maundy Thursday PA |
|
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised the search for security through the accumulation of wealth, which ignores the reality of death. Preaching in Canterbury Cathedral on Easter Day, he urged Christians to prepare for death by rejecting “selfish, controlling, greedy habits”. “Individuals live in anxious and acquisitive ways, seizing what they can to provide security that is bound to dissolve, because they are going to die,” he said. “Societies or nations do the same. Whether it is the individual grabbing the things of this world in just the repetitive, frustrating sameness that we have seen to be already in fact the mark of an inner deadness, or the greed of societies that assume there will always be enough to meet their desires — enough oil, enough power, enough territory — the same fantasy is at work. “‘We shan’t really die’ — we as individuals can’t contemplate an end to our acquiring, and we as a culture can’t imagine that this civilisation, like all others, will collapse and that what we take for granted about our comforts and luxuries simply can’t be sustained indefinitely. To all this, the Church says, sombrely, ‘Don’t be deceived: night must fall.’” The Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, held an outdoor baptism in York, despite icy weather. He called on Christians to “live the resurrection” when he preached at the baptism of 25 candidates. “Our duty is to infect the world with the goodness of God: Christ’s risen life into the world. Let us create communities that will heal our divisions, overcome our fears in economics, fear of violence — and enable us to tackle conflicts in the world: poverty, injustice and global warming.” A Muslim convert was among five candidates whom the Pope baptised at the Easter vigil in St Peter’s, Rome. The convert, Magdi Allam, deputy editor of the Milanese newspaper Corriere della Sera, has criticised Islam and written in support of Israel. He has been under special police protection for five years after receiving death threats. The conversion and the high profile given to it were both criticised by Muslim journalists. The Pope also called for an end to violence in Tibet, Iraq, and Darfur. During his Easter homily in Westminster Cathedral, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor spoke of the power of God’s love to lift humanity out of darkness, fear, and uncertainty. He spoke of the example of love shown by two “remarkable women” he had met, Sister Margaret McAllen, director of an AIDS programme in Zimbabwe, and the late Chiara Lubich, who founded the Focolare Movement. Cardinal Sean Brady, the RC Archbishop of Armagh, proposed a multi-denominational trip to the Holy Land by Irish church leaders to show their support for people there who live in “terrible tension and terrible trouble”. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, took part in a eucharist in St George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem, on Easter Day, during a week-long visit to the Holy Land. The Lutheran Bishop in Jordan & the Holy Land, Dr Munib Younan, who is based in Jerusalem, urged Christians to promote justice and peace. “We are to tell our leaders that the old ways of violence, revenge and retaliation are bringing nothing but more of the same.” |
