Archbishop Welby preaches at Anglican Centre in Rome 50th anniversary service

…without any element of hyperbole, or attempt to flatter, there is nevertheless a need at 50 to consider what has been and to envisage what should be.

Pope Paul VI, on 23 March 1966, took as his text, “forgetting what is behind, I press on towards the upward call of Jesus Christ.”

Of course the apostle did not do anything so simplistically crass as to forget. His epistles are full of what is behind: of sin and deliverance, of past failures set right, and of how God had called and equipped him.

We have to see the statement in its context of the athlete whose only goal is the finishing line, whose only desire is to have used every resource of wit and courage and strength at the moment of crossing that line.”¯

Because to look back is always to begin to lose.

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Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, * Religion News & Commentary, --Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ecumenical Relations, Liturgy, Music, Worship, Ministry of the Ordained, Parish Ministry, Preaching / Homiletics