creation , and visual images such as “ vision ” help us illumine the way . At other times , images of hearing are more helpful : we are being “ called ” to blend “ voices ” or create a “ symphony ” of gifts .
No one has given a definition of just what the New Creation is , other than appealing to 2 Cor 5:17 : “ If anyone is in Christ , there is a new creation .” We know that the experience of reconciliation brings us to a new place , not a return to some previous one . A few thoughts about the New Creation might be helpful here .
This New Creation is not something we construct ourselves . Rather , it is the experience of what God is doing within us and among us . Romans 8:18-27 captures best this experience of a New Creation emerging within us — creation longing for the revelation of the freedom of the children of God , groaning as if in childbirth , helping us in our weakness , “ for we do not know how to pray as we ought .”
Creation in the Bible is not just something that happened . It is God ’ s deliberate work . The first creation story , in Genesis 1-2 , was composed after the Israelites returned from the trauma of exile . It presents God ’ s work not as haphazard , but a deliberate set of acts , each performed carefully and each affirmed as being good . Such a sense of a new order was received gladly by those who had returned from the chaos of displacement and loss . ( We might think of the situation of immigrants today .) Paul has this experience of being a New Creation , brought about by the reconciling mercy of God in his own life , and becomes the “ Gospel of Reconciliation ” that he proclaims to the Gentiles .
spirituality — is what attunes us to what God is leading us to in the New Creation .
Assembling Our Resources / Checking Our Provisions
We do not embark on this journey empty-handed or without resources . We have a host of provisions for the journey . In his early attempts to convince Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to depart , he requested that they might bring their cattle and provisions with them . Esau brought his entire family and livestock with him to meet Jacob .
We need to reflect on what we bring to the New Creation process . We do not arrive with nothing , but rather have a fifty-year story , and what we have learned along the way in that journey . Some of it parallels what the Cincinnati Province is bringing , but much of it is distinctive . This will not be set aside in the New Creation , but will enhance a common future . Three sets of resources will provide provisions for the journey and gifts for the arrival :
First , the experience of living out the three pillars of the c . pp . s . as a Society of Apostolic Life : mission , community , and spirituality . The Kansas City Province has made distinctive contributions to all three . Just to mention a few of these : mission to the margins ( Hispanic ministries , lgbt ministry ); the Member- Companion relationships as an embodiment of community ; the ministry of reconciliation as Precious Blood spirituality .
Second , the Kansas City Province ’ s living out of a Precious Blood spirituality both as a Cry of the Blood and the Call of the Blood , under the four symbols of covenant , cross , cup and reconciliation . ( The April 2018 issue of The Cup of the New Covenant on continued on page 14
Our experience of reconciliation in the ministry of reconciliation — so central to Precious Blood
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