The worship of the Iona Community
Every morning in the Abbey of Iona, or whenever members gather on the mainland, the Iona Community gathers together in Christ’s name and tells its story in the opening responses of its Daily Office.
The world belongs to God
The earth and all its people.
How good and how lovely it is
To live together in unity.
Love and faith come together
Justice and peace join hands
If the Lord’s disciples keep silent
These stones will shout aloud
If you knew nothing about the Iona Community, you might be able to guess from its gathering responses that it is an ecumenical body with a commitment to interfaith, justice and peace and mission. In order to recollect itself for that common task, it draws on the resources not just of the whole church, but of its own 70-year history.
To be a community of hope is to be characterised by these three things:
- a common story: we are people who in diverse ways have heard our name called by God, and have answered 'yes'
- a common life: we are people whose life together is constantly broken open to be shared and enlarged
- a common task: we are people who bear witness to the triumph of life over death.
These are the marks of Jesus. ‘Look at the marks, Thomas-put your hands in my side.’ Worship makes these marks visible. We offer up our own lives in all their brokenness and fragility to the grace of God, in the conviction that in that grace healing is possible. We make visible in prayer and sign the suffering and injustice of the world and know that we ourselves are part of both its hurt and its healing. And at the heart of our worship is gratitude, the amazed wonder that it is indeed so, the ‘being-in-love’.
If you join the Iona Community in worship on Iona, you will find a pattern of prayer that reflects our life together. Every morning, we follow our Office, with songs, readings and prayer for the world and for the members of the Community and its concerns. We go directly from the service to our daily work. In the evenings, services reflect the journey of the week, and include liturgies of welcome, of silence and stillness, for justice and peace, for healing and wholeness, for the earth, and the ceremonies of bread and companionship in communions and agapes. Each afternoon throughout the summer, there are also short prayers for justice and peace. You will find an emphasis on songs from the world church, from the folk traditions of Scotland and from contemporary writers. You will find considerable use of symbols and symbolic actions. You will find a deep engagement with the things of ordinary life, and with justice and peace. You will be welcome to join in as and how you feel comfortable.
Many people first encounter the Iona Community through its worship, not just on Iona, but in the resources of liturgy and song which we have sought to share with the wider church. It is important to stress that these resources do not arise primarily because people have decided to sit down and write something for publication. They have been shaped out of engagement. They have been written for use on demonstrations and blockades, in anti-poverty campaigns, in industrial disputes and in prisons, for pastoral crises and situations of deep tragedy, such as the killing of children at Dunblane. These places are our holy ground. The songs and prayers thread through our lives, not just our services.
God asks, ‘who will go for me?
Who will extend my reach?
And who, when few will listen,
will prophesy and preach?
And who, when few bid welcome,
will offer all they know?
And who, when few dare follow,
will walk the road I show?’ (WGRG)
