Advent 2024
This is a crowd funding appeal for the publication of Meath’s book on Fr Bede.
The post contains some extracts from the book
Hi dear Sangha members and friends! This is Rev Meath Conlan, living quietly in retirement in Armadale, Western Australia. I am now a pensioner, approaching my eighties. I’m sure you will be interested in knowing I’ve written a memoir of my twenty years of friendship with my friend and spiritual guide, Father Bede Griffiths. He was a gracious and constant influence throughout my life from the moment I met him by correspondence in 1977. Against the backdrop of mid-life—a time often marked by deep questioning and transformation—my memoir investigates themes of spiritual awakening, psychological liminality, and the search for wholeness through the combined lens of Jungian psychology and Christian mysticism – always Father Bede’s strong point.
I believe my book offers particular value to readers in the second half of life who are grappling with questions of identity, purpose, and spiritual fulfilment, showing a way through the “dark woods” of the middle years with greater clarity, peace, and a renewed connection to the Divine. Those of you who have passed through this period will find much to help them advise others now going through mid-life.
I have the incredible opportunity to publish my mid-life memoir with Darton Longman and Todd Publishers, an internationally respected publishing house in London. To bring this vision to life, DLT requires I purchase 500 copies of the book. While this investment reflects the impact I hope my work will have, the total cost of nearly AUD 10,000 exceeds my current means. This is where, if you can please, your kind support, would become invaluable.
Your contribution would join my personal investment of $1,000 thus enabling my purchasing these 500 books so as to share my story with a far wider audience, honouring the life-transforming teachings I’ve received from our great friend, Fr Bede Griffiths. In gratitude for your generosity, I would be thrilled to offer you personalised copies of the memoir, along with heartfelt acknowledgments in the book. If you can’t help at this time, perhaps you might have friends whom you know enjoyed the gift of Father Bede during his lifetime and would love to have an opportunity to help fund this important book? If so, have placed the link below for your convenience. I do look forward to celebrating its publication with you. Thank you and with hearty blessings, Meath
Some excerpts from my memoir that you might like:
Ego and the Loss of Identity
Living alone in rural Western Australia—in those solitary posts which I mentioned earlier—I found myself increasingly isolated. There were few people, so I thought, with whom I could engage in meaningful conversation. The rituals that once anchored my spiritual practice began to feel stale, and I developed a growing dissatisfaction with the institutional limitations imposed by the Church—particularly when it came to adapting rituals to the Australian bush culture.
In many ways, I felt like a cultural outsider, disconnected from the heart of the community’s inner life. The absence of younger voices was especially pronounced, leaving noticeable gaps in the fabric of shared experience. Australian author and social researcher Philip Hughes observes: “Every holiday, many Australians head for the sea.” It’s true. To be posted to more remote rural climes, usually meant that after harvest, whole districts would empty out and head for their shacks or caravans close to the beach, spending hours in the surf, or just watching the waves.
There was also a persistent sense that my role had become functional, merely fulfilling duties. It seemed to me that clergy in general had become marginal figures in Australian life. I heard from clergy colleagues in America, Canada, and Britain, at that time, similar feelings of loss of relevance. Secular voices and worldly values appeared to have more influence on people than those of traditional religious leaders. Nevertheless I found many people were deeply spiritual and seeking answers to life’s great questions. Australian surfing champion Nick Carroll captured the spiritual experience of his passion, for example, with remarkable clarity. Putting what he wanted to say into a religious framework, he opined that Eastern religions deal with moments like this better than the usual forms of religion, which seemed not to deal with cathartic moments. He regarded Zen Buddhism as being able to handle such moments very well. “You get moments like that when your whole body, soul, and mind are just concentrated on doing something in the surf…. It’s during seconds like that you just seem to totally disappear—you as a being don’t really exist at that moment.” He found it hard to express, but he described how he would throw himself into the moment so completely that he’s actually inside of everything that’s happening. “You’re inside the wave, you’re inside the surfboard and what it’s doing, you’re inside the [land] around you and the surging ocean. You get totally inside the moment, and it’s so intense that time disappears, everything disappears.”
Priest that I was (allegedly the one with all the answers), this sort of clarity and passion were missing for me. I admired those who could so immerse themselves in the flow of their activity that they became one with that action. I often wondered why my so called religious experience was so beige.
Not always, but now and then I felt my connection to the local community becoming tenuous, as though entering a free-floating space beyond time and place; a time of professional, social, and personal dislocation.
I brought all of these feelings to Bede, whose intelligent and focused attention to my inner disquiet eventually led me to undertake a physical journey to his Ashram, where I remained for my Long Service Leave — immersed in contemplation, silence, reading, chanting, fasting, and practicing yoga. This marked the beginning of Bede’s spiritual guidance during my middle years. It focused primarily on everything but any intellectual struggles I might have. Sometimes Bede’s encouragement from afar had to be enough, as when he wrote me in May 1983:
Dear Father Conlan,
Thank you for your letter which arrived after Easter. I am very sorry that you can’t come and stay here at present…. If you could come to spend even a few weeks here, it might be worth while, though there is the problem of expense.… In any case God will surely show you the way to grow in your contemplative vocation. It is a mysterious business, and can grow in quite unexpected ways. I will keep you in my prayers and trust that we may meet again one day.
By November of that year, I was convinced of the need to spend time in India, and specifically in-person with Bede. In response to my decision he wrote in November 1983:
Dear Father Conlan,
We can hope that you will be able to come in due time. You are welcome to come and stay here as long as you like.… It does seem that the Church in Australia is in need of spiritual centres with an Eastern approach. I was in America for two months recently and I found great interest in Eastern thought and practice everywhere. In fact the main subject of my talks was that the Church has developed along Western lines for nearly two thousand years, and only now are we beginning to discover the need of an Eastern dimension so as to become really Catholic. I am aware that this is the reason why Asia remains less than 2% Catholic after so many centuries—but the Western world also needs this dimension. I am glad that you find the Marriage of East-and-West so congenial.
Father Bede’s guidance was pivotal in helping me re-examine my attachments, even those to the religious organization that had defined my life. I’d accepted almost every facet of Church life—its interpretations of scripture, doctrinal developments, canon law, and ecclesiastical customs—into the structures in which I had immersed myself for so many years.
One day, Bede shared a passage from the Bhagavad Gita: “As is the use of a well of water where water everywhere overflows, such is the use of all the Vedas to the seer of the Supreme” (2:46). I came to understand that once one sees the Supreme and attains knowledge of the One, all written words become secondary, even unnecessary. As a Christian sannyasi in India, Bede treated all scriptures with reverence, but recognized the Hindu insight that one who has renounced everything should be beyond books, having internalized their teachings. He taught that when we meditate on the Bible, we seek the Word of God within its words, images, and concepts. I was to discover that Bede was not a man given to frivolous humour and jocular stories. However, he did tell me one story to illustrate his point — of a young back-packer who called on a sage in his hut one day. The young man looked around the hut and observed, “You don’t have many possessions Master.” To which the sage replied, “Neither do you!” The young traveller responded quickly, “Oh! But I’m just passing through.” The sage then replied, “And so am I.” Bede also often referred to the Desert Fathers to tell stories and convey his message:
Abba Evagrius said that a brother named Serapion did not own anything except the Gospel, which he sold to feed the poor. He said: “I have even sold the very Word which commanded me: ‘Sell everything, and give to the poor.’”
For Bede, the key to spiritual growth lies in the deep surrender to God’s love, allowing the Holy Spirit to change every aspect of the self. He said that this change is not achieved through mere concentration or self-discipline but through a complete surrender, where the human mind and will are moved by the power of the Spirit rather than personal effort. The perfection of charity is found not in controlling wandering thoughts but in allowing oneself to be fully immersed in divine love, leading to a life in which, “It is not I that live, but Christ that lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). This deep union with Christ not only brings one closer to God, but unites one more with others in the world.
Thomas Merton’s reflections on the Desert Fathers suited this idea. He noted that the essence of Christian spirituality is charity—unity in Christ, not isolation from others. True sanctity does not lead to separation from the world; instead, it deepens our capacity for love and connection with others. Love becomes the foundation of the spiritual life, transcending all other practices, whether knowledge, contemplation, or asceticism. Merton beautifully articulated that love involves recognizing the sacredness in others, approaching them with humility and reverence. Once this change occurs, the charity of Christ compels us to engage with the world, bridging the gap between the contemplative and active life.
Father Bede would often describe how, as we enter deeper into our inner life, we paradoxically become more attuned to our brothers and sisters. The deeper we go within ourselves, the more we are drawn outward in love. This spiritual journey culminates in the heart of Christ, where true union with humanity takes place. Bede called for an engaged spirituality that does not withdraw from the world but fully participates in it, bearing witness to Christ through charity and love. This engagement must be rooted in the Holy Spirit. The mission is not merely about human love but about a wonderful renewal in the depths of the Spirit, accessible only through a deep interior life.
When I was having difficulty with my bishop, who did not support my need and desire for a more contemplative life and practice, I turned to Father Bede, who stood beside me. In one of his letters he carried this commiseration which was also a great comfort:
We must talk over this whole problem. It is not only you and your Bishop but the problem of the Church as a whole. So many are closed to the contemplative dimension of life, and so many [people] leave the Church because they can’t find it there. (September 12, 1988)
The Mantra Bede Gave Me
Father Bede, ever wise, watched for every opportunity to strengthen his disciple in the Way. As masks began to collapse into my hollowness, and the sense of floating—of being disconnected from professional and even social moorings—took hold in my life, he introduced the use of a mantra, or “tool of the mind”. Bede, in turn, had been influenced by Lama Anagarika Govinda’s teachings, particularly those in Creative Meditation, a book he often referred to and had underlined in key passages for our discussions. Govinda notes, “The mantra is a seal of initiation in which the long process of spiritual training culminates.” Bede selected the mantra he had been using for some years, Jesu Abba, passing it on to me, with instructions that it be synchronized with both my inward and outward breath.
In using any mantra or breath counting/awareness, we subject ourselves, as Lama Govinda suggests, to the deeper aspects of our inner life by opening ourselves and identifying with them. These expressions are akin to poetry and music—direct reflections of experience and the condensed wisdom accumulated over the course of spiritual training. Bede explained, “The function of a mantra is to recollect the soul, to bring it back to the center and unite the whole person—body, soul, and spirit—with the Spirit of God…. Meditation is a process of unifying all the faculties of the soul at the point of the Spirit where they are penetrated by the light of truth.”
Conjoining East and West
In his daily elocutions in the Ashram temple, Bede often focused on non-dualistic thinking. In Hinduism, he saw this expressed in the unity of all that is. He pointed to the phenomenon of countless younger Western people making pilgrimage to Asia to find this—a new way of speaking about the Holy, about God which they weren’t finding at home. He was comfortable with paradox, and willing to hold apparent opposites in a truthful tension—as he often asserted “truth lies in the meeting of opposites.” Bede’s non-dualistic thinking permits no separation of the interior world from the exterior. What is within us must find expression in our actions, especially how we behave towards others. In the matter of those rituals that had become normal practice in Shantivanam, he said they expressed interior realities in song, symbol, and sacrament—often by way of Sanskrit and other languages—and in symbolic actions borrowed from Hinduism. The inner life may not be everything to everyone, but how it is expressed must be constantly considered and, if you like, up-dated to reflect changing times and circumstances.
When, in 1985 I brought Father Bede and Swami Amaldas to Australia, I sought permission from the Council of Australian Bishops to celebrate an “ashram-style” Eucharist in the studios of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Perth. They declined, saying it was a matter for the Indian Bishops’ Conference. They also declined, sending me back to the Australian Bishops.
So I approached local clergy whom I regarded as being at least a little open and qualified, only to have my invitation to participate in such a celebration declined again. I put this all to Bede, who simply said, “Offering the Eucharist in such a setting, with even the Hindu choir and musicians performing the chants and songs as you have arranged, is too important a chance to let pass by. Let us proceed as you have arranged.” We went ahead with it.
The Eucharist with its ashram-liturgy was received with much enthusiasm among audiences throughout Australia. One local scholar of liturgy, Father Russell Hardiman, called me after the event with personal regrets. He said, “I’m sorry I did not accept your invitation to concelebrate, as it would have been a great witness. I think fear of the unknown got to me.” I was also astounded and touched when I received an official letter from Russell as Secretary of the Bishops’ Council of Priests, dated July 29, 1985. In part, it read:
At the July meeting of the Council…mention was made of the outstanding success and impact of the recent visit of Father Bede Griffiths. The Council resolved to acknowledge your special contribution in setting up arrangements for his visit and associated programmes. In particular the impact of the TV Mass will continue to be a challenge to people in Australia to reflect on inculturation in the Australian scene.… With thanks on behalf of the whole Church of Western Australia.
He also shared a telling anecdote about a conversation between a Christian priest and a Hindu. The Hindu, when asked about his view of Christians, remarked, “I think you are all very good people and I admire your good works, but I cannot see that you have any religion.” By religion, the Hindu was referring to the interior life—the quiet, contemplative practices of meditation and solitude that he associated with spiritual depth. This critique brought into relief a fundamental imbalance in Western spirituality: the neglect of interiority in favor of external achievements.
This tension was not merely theoretical; it was palpably evident in the lived reality of many religious communities in India. Lanza del Vasto (1971), who travelled with Gandhi, observed this imbalance in his reflections on the Catholic Church in Madurai. He expressed disappointment upon discovering that the once spiritually vibrant community founded by Roberto de Nobili in the early seventeenth century—a Jesuit missionary who had taken on the lifestyle of a Hindu ascetic—had degenerated into a petty, materialistic institution. The priests of Madurai were no longer ascetics in loincloths, walking barefoot and leading lives of simple austerity. Instead, they had become middle-class functionaries more concerned with maintaining government protection and securing European grants than embodying the spiritual truths they once preached. Bede once told the story of the Indian villagers who take their financial concerns and estate grievances, their need for letters of referral and recommendation for themselves or a daughter or a son … to the local Catholic priest. But when it comes to really spiritual matters, the sort of matters upon which your life might hang, they go off to the poorly clad, ragged sannyasi sitting alone, without the care of possessions, lost in meditation under a banyan tree on the outskirts of the village.
This critique struck a deep, perhaps even bitter chord in me as I searched for a new center in my life. The journey toward a more integrated and spiritually authentic self demanded relinquishing the superficial comforts and external validations that had sustained me for so long. It required facing the shadow and embracing those neglected aspects of myself. Within this confrontation lay the potential to rediscover a more genuine spirituality — and actually a more genuine view of myself — one rooted not merely in outward observance, being seen to do the right thing — that is if I’m being watched, but done without real heart or conviction. What I knew I needed is to be in an engagement with the divine, rather than with my goods and chattels.
Bede’s guidance was invaluable in this process. He recognized the need to balance the extroverted impulse to serve others, and rush hither-and-thither, with an equally necessary call to cultivate the interior life. “What we have to learn from the Buddhists and Hindus,” he would often say, “is their interiority—the ability to withdraw from the world, to seek God within, and to rest in the silence of the heart.” Thus, the journey to the center became not only a psychological task but also a deeply spiritual one—a path requiring surrender, simplicity, and a willingness to dwell in the mystery of God’s indwelling presence.
I remember one afternoon, an hour before afternoon tea. Somehow this time had become the hour allocated to me by Father Bede. I had been in something of a turmoil and I could not still my fevered mind. Father Bede listened as I poured out my heart about feeling overwhelmed with having left unfinished tasks and my racing thoughts. I owned up to my paltry contribution to the practice of meditation and prayer. Sensing my struggle, he shared a beautiful story from the Mundaka Upanishad about two birds, inseparable companions, in the tree of life.
He explained that one bird represents the individual soul, busy indulging in the fruits of divergent tastes in life—representing all my worries, responsibilities, and distractions. The other bird, however, is a symbol of God—detached, peaceful, and ever-present in my heart. This bird, with glorious plumage, observes life without getting caught up in it, reminding me that there’s a deeper, more serene aspect to my existence that goes beyond the chaos.
Bede gently guided me to understand that, just like the detached bird, I too have an inner peace available to me, even amidst the often self-chosen whirlwind of tasks and thoughts. He encouraged me to take a moment to step back from my busy mind-clutter and connect with that deeper consciousness—the stillness that reminds me everything will be okay. I felt reassured that it’s normal to feel overloaded at times, but it’s essential to remember that, at my core, I possess a peaceful essence that is untouched by the external demands of life. By acknowledging this presence within, I can find solace and clarity, allowing me to approach my tasks with a calmer heart and clearer mind.
In the end, Father Bede, in his wisdom, reminded me that life may sometimes feel overwhelming. However if I take a moment to connect with that inner stillness and detach from seeking the fruits of my labor, I’ll find the peace I seek. Everything will be alright. Over the years since, I have sought this center and entered the silence and solitude there. In the midst of storms that arise from time-to-time, I find reassurance and encouragement here.
Travelling to India, during sabbatical leave in 1984-5 was one of the most positive and influential decisions I ever made. Among the statements Griffiths made, in letters to me, and in elocutions at Shantivanam, and which I found timely in relation to the experience of maintaining balance in daily life was that I “must leave the fruit of my work to God,” and that means that if I succeed, then I’m happy but not exalted by it, while if I fail, I’m sorry but not depressed. So in 1989, Father Bede explained, “If you work with your ego, you’re likely to become over excited with success and depressed with failure … But if in working with the college community you leave it to God, then you’ll not be disturbed, but will keep evenness of mind.” Bede had ‘his finger on the pulse’ of modern life. He reminded me that I would be ministering to many people of all ages who will rely on me, “To present the Christian message in such a way that it will aid in their search for meaning and purpose.” Consistent with his life-long message, he reminded me that these days, “It won’t be through the externals of religion, whether in doctrine or in discipline, that your students will find God, but in their experience of the indwelling Spirit, the presence of God in their hearts.”
When considering my professional role as pastor, those memorable words of Ignatius of Loyola to his Jesuits brothers, before being sent into pulpits across Europe and beyond, again echoed in my mind:
[There is one thing to remember:] Your pastoral work must always keep this goal before your eyes. If you [speak to your young people] in a way that … only produces a flood of words, if you train [your students] only for churchliness as enthusiastic servants of the [church] establishment … [and] do not help [them] to get beyond all that, help them finally to let go .. . . in a trust-filled fall into that [pathless] abyss of [not knowing] then you will have forgotten … [what I taught you about spirituality].
I wanted the work to matter. I sought to reinvent my pastoral approach, and yes, spiritually transform myself, extending the spirit within me into my daily life. Confronted with the multiple needs of the people I was asked to serve, as well as the vast age-spread, I initially felt ill-fitted for the task, unsure of how to connect especially with younger individuals on common ground. By way of encouragement, Father Bede urged me to continue visiting Shantivanam, and in the meantime, to the extent I could, build small groups of students and others locally who are motivated to undertake meditation. Yes, he would remind me, this may place you on the outer fringes of the broader Church community, and later too, if you return to the Diocese, but the work must go on, and why shouldn’t it be youth who receive and do the work? “See it overall as way of breaking free [of the parish system], and then you will have to see what to do after that. We must talk over this wide-spread problem of the Church as a whole. So many priests are closed to the contemplative dimension of life, and so many people leave the Church becae they can’t find it there.”
Wisdom is not something we achieve or accumulate in a linear fashion in Zen—nor was it with Father Bede. Wisdom is the slow, organic unfolding of awareness. My experiences reflecting on kōans also spoke to this. Zen wisdom does not come from intellectual mastery or acquiring a mass of knowledge; it emerges in moments of deep silence, surrender, and receptivity. I was taught to wait for wisdom, to allow it to emerge naturally rather than seeking it out aggressively. The wu wei—or action in inaction—that I often reflect on, plays a key role in this process. And through the practice of Zazen, I’ve learned that wisdom is found in the quiet moments when the mind lets go of its habitual striving. Each moment on the cushion, each encounter with silence, has been a seed planted in the soil of my consciousness, slowly maturing into insight over time.
One afternoon, during my daily personal session, Father Bede and I sat comfortably together, and the gentle lines of his face seemed to soften. He turned to me, his eyes, as usual, sparkling with a warmth—as though he carried the stillness of the universe within him, and said, “You see,” pointing to the little garden in front of his hut, his voice calm and assured:
Wisdom is like a garden that thrives in the quiet of the night. It does not rush to bloom; instead, it nurtures itself in the stillness, soaking in the moonlight and the rain. When you strive to grasp at understanding, you create a clamor in your mind, so to speak. But wisdom invariably whispers softly, waiting for you to slow down, to truly listen. In those moments of quietude, when the mental chatter settles and the heart opens, you begin to see—really see—the interconnectedness of all things.
Be like the empty cup. When you let go of the need to fill it with thoughts or desires, it can become a vessel for the wisdom of the universe. It is in embracing silence, in learning to be fully present without grasping for answers, that the seeds of insight can find their way to the surface. Trust this unfolding, for in the organic rhythm of nature, wisdom blossoms at its own pace—and it is often found where you least expect it.
Not long before Bede died, Christudas sent me a telegram advising me that Father Bede was very close to the end of his life, and would I please come immediately. I made arrangements for a locum to hold things together in the parish, and I flew to India straight away.
When I arrived, Bede was sitting back in a sort of deck-chair made of a wooden frame covered with rough, locally-made hessian. He looked frail, and even his eyes, normally so youthfully bright and inquisitive, seemed tired and rheumy. I joined the several companions who had gathered around him, attending to his slightest needs. We greeted each other, though with our usual reserve, our clasped hands seemed to convey a special depth and acknowledgement that this was to be our last farewell. I had with me the recently released hour-long interview Father had in Sydney with Caroline Jones at studios of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Caroline was famous for her gentle enquiries that gave interviewees the confidence to be completely trusting and open. The interview had just been aired on national radio and I thought Father would appreciate how it had been heard by so many Australians.
I bade him hold the tiny machine on his chest, and as we all drew close to listen to Bede’s gentle wisdom, I was aware of a subtle change in him; there was an added valence and nuance to his face; now and then tears would fill his eyes and he tried to control his chest from being overcome by what he heard. I surmised that in some very deep way, what he said in that interview was actually the whole of his life, laid out, and shown for all to see—a powerful reminder of the beauty to be found in presence and connection. At some point where the exchange with Caroline was particularly poignant, with a shaky voice, clearly deeply emotionally affected by what he heard, Father Bede said, “It is all so beautiful. Thank you, Father Conlan. It is so beautiful.”
What was Father Bede’s final word to me? He wrote in the middle of December 1992 to tell me about his latest—and final—exploration, Dzogchen. He was studying and practicing in this school of Tibetan Buddhism that is dedicated to realizing the ultimate ground of all existence. For Bede, this was profound, and what he called “a kind of returning home.” Bede held that Tibetan Dzogchen can teach Christians the necessity of “integrating all levels of reality in the supreme wisdom.” In Buddhism this is called prajna. In Christianity it is called gnosis, or Divine Knowledge. Buddhists understand the Primordial State as total oneness: everything gathered into unity, and then manifesting itself in the multiplicity of the universe — earth, sky, nature, and people, all manifestations of the supreme wisdom reflected as in a mirror, a mirror of the primordial state. The idea of reaching such total oneness is very close, said Father Bede, to the Christian idea of pleroma, fullness. However, the idea that Christ is the one in whom the fullness of Divine Reality is totally present has not the same implication for Buddhists. In his later years, Father Bede realised that he needed to exercise a degree of prudence when tempted to draw too firm a conclusion as to how Buddhist and Christian mysticism were aligned. Ultimately, the fullness of Divine Reality, whether understood according to the insights of Buddhism or Christianity, was beyond thought and beyond words. He wrote a few days before his birthday, on December 14 to say:
Essentially Dzogchen is the recognition of the “primordial state”—the state of being and consciousness in which all the multiplicity of creation is contained in the non-dual reality of the Godhead—in the Void, as the Buddhists would say. To you I say, keep exploring and ‘traveling home.’ And know that you are embraced by Love.
Father Bede passed away on 13 May 1993. I was unable to be there for the final farewell, and while I miss him, I know that I must let go of the temporal Bede, so that the eternal Bede may rise. Without any doubt Father Bede was the single most influential spiritual teacher I had ever encountered. And he was my friend.
And how touched I was just a month after Father Bede passed away, to receive a letter of condolence from my American Buddhist friend, Santikaro Bikkhu who wrote to me on 17 June 1993, from Siriraj Hospital, in Bangkok where he was keeping vigil with his own unconscious and dying teacher, the Venerable Ajahn Buddhadassa. He wrote:
We have something else in common: Ajahn Buddhadassa had a severe stroke on May 25 and has not yet regained consciousness, . . . So, both of our teachers are laid low by strokes, old age and the inevitability of change. At this time we cannot overlook the benefits of their quiet natures and holiness, and a lifetime of meditation . . . We are so fortunate to have had them with us. And further, I believe their work towards humanity’s fullness of new life will carry on.