philorthodox

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2012

2011-12-28T19:24:00.002-05:00

Please join us on our Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 11th to 20th October 2012!

Updated information is now available for you.

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-24T15:18:00.001-05:00

A blessed, joyful and Happy Christ-Mass to all of you. May our True God, the Incarnate Lord born of Mary, bless and keep you in this holy season!

The Sanctus

2011-12-21T16:40:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of my brother, Father Brandon Jones, comes this seventh instalment in a video series on the new English translation of the Novus Ordo Missae. In another wonderful Anglicisation, the original text, 'Lord God of Hosts,' is returned to the Sanctus in the Eucharistic liturgy. The new translation sounds more and more like the traditional Book of Common Prayer, which incomparable treasure embodies the ancient Western Rite.

Fifteen Years of Priesthood...

2011-12-21T16:15:00.002-05:00

The Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle, Saturday 21st December 1996, on bright clear glistening snow-covered morning in Lexington, Virginia, I was ordained to the Sacred Order of Priests in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church at Saint Paul’s Church by the Most Reverend John Thayer Cahoon, Junior of the Anglican Catholic Church. What a glorious day it was!

You go with me to the Altar of God today as the Holy Sacrifice is offered in thanksgiving for fifteen years of participation in Christ’s Holy Priesthood. Please pray for me on this day. Thank you very much and God bless you.

SSC 2011

2011-12-19T16:19:00.000-05:00

From the September 2011 Provincial Synod of the Society of the Holy Cross, sermon at Saint Mark's Church and Solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at the Cathedral of Saint Luke and Saint Paul, Charleston, South Carolina.

Episcopal Consecration in the Polish National Catholic Church

2011-12-16T22:07:00.000-05:00

The Episcopal Consecration of Bishop Paul Sobiechowski on 18th October 2011 at Saint Stanislaus Cathedral, Scranton, Pennsylvania. The PNCC is historically the sister Church to orthodox Anglicanism.

An Ethos Peculiar

2011-12-16T21:45:00.002-05:00

In the end the Elizabethan settlement endured by reason of its own spiritual integrity. By 1593 the Church of England possessed an ethos peculiar to itself, characterized less by mere negations on the side of Rome or Geneva than by a coherent and distinctive embodiment of the Christian tradition that claimed continuity with all that was best in the Middle Ages and in the ancient Catholic Church. Bred within the comprehensive limits of the Elizabethan formularies, nurtured upon the spirituality of the Book of Common Prayer, the generation that came to manhood in the ‘nineties brought Anglicanism to its maturity. A scornful condemnation of the late Elizabethan Church as a position born of compromise timorously defended, and maintained only because the political exigencies admitted no deeper commitment, cannot stand in the face of the piety, learning and loyalty that flowed in the first generation of men whose religious experience was wholly within the life of Elizabethan Anglicanism. Bilson, Field, Mason, Hall, Morton, Montague, Overall, Andrewes, Laud – here is a numbering of the stars in the firmament of the early Stuart Church.

Powel Mills Dawley, John Whitgift and the English Reformation (1954), p. 193

The Illogic of Anglican Papalism

2011-11-21T16:30:00.014-05:00

The most recent pastoral letter issued by the Bishop of London is well worth reading, and brings to mind a statement I first published in 2006, which I amend here:

Anglo-Papalists, who comprised much of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the United Kingdom, were essentially Roman Catholics separated from the Pope of Rome by what they saw as an historical accident, that is, the English Reformation. Anglo-Papalists belonged to the Church of England or her daughter Churches, but believed unreservedly in the Papal Claims and Roman Dogmas. They accepted as dogmatic, de fide, the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, the Corporeal Assumption of Our Lady, expiation fire-purgatory, indulgences, the treasury of merits of the saints, and other distinctively Latin doctrines. Oddly enough, they also accepted the dogmas issued by the First Vatican Council of 1870, to wit, the immediate, universal, and absolute jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, and Papal Infallibility. We Traditional Anglicans, Catholics who believe in the consensus of the First Millennium Church, reject these dogmas as unsubstantiated by Holy Scripture and Apostolic Tradition. Anglo-Papalists were 'Roman Anglicans,' who used the modern Novus Ordo Roman Rite and included the commemoration of the Pope in the Canon of the Mass. They worshipped, prayed, taught and thought as Roman Catholics. The only Romanist theological position with which Anglo-Papalists disagreed was the Papal Bull of Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae, in which Anglican Orders were declared absolutely null and utterly void. In other words, Anglo-Papalists believed Rome is infallible except in the matter of the validity of Anglican Orders and Sacraments. For this reason, and seemingly this alone, many had not, until recently, 'poped.' As Father Colin Stephenson, sometime Administrator of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, succinctly put it in one of his classic works, the Anglo-Papal position is, to most Anglicans, wildly illogical. And indeed, I contend it remains wildly illogical to Traditional Anglicans such as ourselves. There is a clear dividing line between Catholics who look to Anglicanism as being a true Catholic Church in her own integrity and tradition, most especially the Anglican Catholics of the Continuing Churches, and those Papalists who see Rome as the true source and centre of the Church and who thus see Anglicanism as an historical interruption of communion with Rome, or worse yet, an historical mistake.

The erection of the Anglican Use Ordinariates in communion with Rome has now changed the situation for a significant number of Anglican Papalists, who have been willing under the new circumstances to accept the papal judgement on Anglican Orders and accede to re-confirmation and re-ordination in the Roman Communion: thus far, 900 laity and 55 clergy have joined the Ordinariate in the UK, with more to follow there and in the United States. For those Anglo-Catholics who choose to remain Anglican, it would seem to be very meet, right and their bounden duty that they should continue, or where needed, restore, the celebration of the liturgy in the Anglican Rite in the various forms in which it has been transmitted to us by our forebears, forms which have been hallowed by generations of faithful use. The choice to remain Anglican should certainly include an acknowledgement of the full catholicity and orthodoxy of the Book of Common Prayer tradition and of those supplemental liturgies approved by ecclesiastical authority which conform to it. May it be humbly submitted that Anglicans should use a recognisably Anglican liturgy.

The Incarnatus

2011-11-19T18:52:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of my brother, Father Brandon Jones, comes this sixth instalment in a video series on the new English translation of the Novus Ordo Missae. Another rich Anglicisation, the bodily gesture which expresses reverence for the truth of the Incarnation during the recitation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, is discussed. The practice of bowing or genuflecting during the Incarnatus in the Creed is a widespread and long-held Anglican custom, one which the Anglican Rite has in practice preserved and used since long before the Novus Ordo was introduced. Another happy return to Anglican (and ancient Western) praxis!

...And the Word was made Flesh

2011-11-15T17:57:00.002-05:00

A happy Advent and Christmas to you all! Christ-Mass is not only a wonderful holiday, a time for family and friends, and a joyful occasion for gift-giving – certainly it is all of these things. More imperatively, it is a theological event, a revelation of God, a life-altering reality we again and again re-live through the Church’s liturgy. The greatest challenge to the twenty-first century Church is not the Reformation polemics of the sixteenth century or the rationalism of the eighteenth century, but the theological controversies of the fourth century. Christology will be the focus of the Church in the next generation. The ancient heresies that deny the Divinity of Our Lord are again in vogue and are finding a fresh expression in the purportedly novel methods of what Father Richard John Neuhaus wittily called ‘the sideline churches.’

Whether we consciously recognise it or not, the struggle for Christians in our contemporary age is to recover and promote the old paths, the Old Time Religion. ‘Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls’ (Jeremiah 6.16). Orthodox Christians are today challenged firmly to uphold and boldly to proclaim in ancient and yet ever revitalised ways the truth that Jesus Christ, the Babe in Bethlehem’s manger, is not merely a good person, a prophet, or a noble teacher, but the true God made Man. The Feast of Our Lord’s Nativity recapitulates for us each year the central doctrinal truth and mystery of the Christian Faith, the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh. Who is born in Bethlehem on Christ-Mass Day? The Baby in the manger is God. ‘God of God, Light of Light, Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s womb: Very God, Begotten, not created; O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord’ (Hymnal 1940, Hymn 12).

The Son of God, the pre-existent Logos, Who became incarnate in the flesh as Jesus Christ, is not a creature, not a being created by God the Father before all other created things or beings. The term homoousios, 'of one substance' with the Father, is used by the Church to affirm that Our Lord is truly God. If Jesus Christ is not God, is not of one essence or substance with the Father, and is not a true divine Person sharing the divine life and communion of the Father by nature, then God Himself did not assume human nature in the Incarnation, and thus man has not been redeemed or saved. The Holy Fathers of the Church teach that 'only that which is assumed can be redeemed.' Our Saviour brought about atonement and the salvation of mankind, for He is God, Who assumes all that pertains to human nature, body, mind and soul. Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Godhead and 'One of the Holy Trinity.' Christmas is the Feast of the revealed dogma of the Trinitarian nature and communion of God, Three Persons in One Essence, one and undivided. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father alone, and the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds from the Father, and is sent through the Son and rests in the Son. On Christmas, we contemplate the Lord Jesus in His identity and mission: the Word of God, the Logos, Who became Man in the Incarnation is the Most High God.

The New Testament describes Our Lord as monogenes in Greek, 'only-begotten.' This term designates the mysterious and eternal relationship of the Son to the Father within the communion of the Trinity. The Son has for all eternity come out from the Father and derives His eternal existence, His generation, from the Father, the sole Origin, Source and Fountain of the Trinitarian life. The words of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed purposely utilise the language of the New Testament regarding the Person of Our Lord and declare that the Lord Jesus Christ is 'one Lord, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made...' From all eternity, the Son derives His eternal being, glory and majesty from the Father’s essence. He is eternally born of the Father, co-equal, co-eternal. Begotten means 'from God forever,' eternal generation from the Father, not a created status.

‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him’ (Saint John 1.14,18).

‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God’ (Saint John 3.16,18).

And what for us is the result of this begetting, the Son eternally begotten of the Father and now begotten in time and in human flesh by the Holy Ghost of the Blessed Virgin? Our own new birth, our begetting by God, our adoption as the children of God by grace. We become by grace what the only-begotten Son is by nature. From Christ’s timeless birth from His Father and His earthly birth of Mary, we are born again in Holy Baptism by Water and the Holy Ghost (Saint John 3.5) unto eternal life. ‘In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him’ (I Saint John 4.9) ‘Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him’ (I Saint John 5.1).

‘Mild he lays his glory by, Born that man no more may die, Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth’ (Hymnal 1940, Hymn 27).

God bless you!

The World Consultation on Continuing Anglican Churches - The Addresses

2011-11-08T19:11:00.003-05:00

I was honoured and privileged to attend the Consultation in Brockton, Massachusetts from 3rd to 5th November 2011. Let us continually pray for the complete visible and sacramental unity of the orthodox Anglican Church in our land and round the world...

Archbishop Mark Haverland, Ordinary of the Diocese of the South and Metropolitan of the Anglican Catholic Church.

Bishop Michael Gill, Ordinary of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa Traditional Rite.

Bishop Paul Hewett, SSC, Ordinary of the Diocese of the Holy Cross.

Bishop Walter Grundorf, Ordinary of the Diocese of the Eastern United States and Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Province of America.

Archbishop Mark Haverland - III

2011-11-07T18:47:00.001-05:00

Archbishop Mark Haverland - II

2011-11-07T18:47:00.000-05:00

Archbishop Mark Haverland - World Consultation on Continuing Anglican Churches I

2011-11-07T18:46:00.000-05:00

Bishop Michael Gill - Keynote Address

2011-11-06T18:53:00.003-05:00

Please follow this link to the keynote address given by Bishop Michael Gill, Diocesan Bishop of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa Traditional Rite, given at the World Consultation on Continuing Anglican Churches in Brockton, Massachusetts on Thursday 3rd November 2011.

The Day We Know Our Future

2011-10-28T11:17:00.003-04:00

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a day, a single day, on which we would know the future? A day on which everything about our destiny would be revealed to us with crystal clarity? A day when all the uncertainties, perplexities and fears of life were cast away, as the gloom of darkness vanishes in the light of the bright sun, when all of our doubts and anxieties were answered and recede to the background? Could we be given a day when everything that is confusing and troublesome to us is dispelled and replaced with certitude and joy? For the orthodox Christian, there is precisely such a day, and it is coming very soon.

That Day is 1^st November, All Saints’ Day! On that day, as we gather as the Mystical Body of Christ at the Altar of the Lord to experience once more and recapture our family mystery, the Communion of Saints, God unveils for us our past, our present and our future: the barrier of time evaporates and we are joined with angels and archangels and the whole holy company of heaven as we sing ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ and ‘Hosanna in the Highest.’ Our great great-grandparents and our great great-grandchildren kneel with us at the Altar rail, and we receive the Lord of time and eternity in the Sacrament of His love, linked in Him, through Him and for Him to believers of every age, generation, clime and epoch in the indestructible bond of love which is the Church. The Communion of Saints is not mythology, but mystery, not man’s dreams and fantasies, but reality, the true reality, higher and greater than any we have ever known on this mortal coil.

As we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, we commemorate and acknowledge our own future destiny in Jesus Christ – what we are, the Saints in glory once were; what they are, we shall become. In the Saints, we see what it is to be fully human, fully alive to God and to each other, fully united to God and to one another in the communion of the Holy Trinity. There is only one Body of Christ, Head and living members together, totus Christus, the complete Christ, and that Body includes us and them, inseparable, indivisible. The Saints pray for and with us, and we pray for and with them – all under One Head. The Lord Jesus has destroyed death by His own Passion, Resurrection and Glorification, and thus death can never sever our union with those who have gone before us sealed with the sign of faith. All members of Christ are alive in the Son of God and Son of Man, Who is the Resurrection and the Life.

On All Saints’ Day, the veil of time and place is pulled back: we see them, and ourselves, as we are meant to be, made holy by the Holy Spirit, cleansed and purged of sin, purified and made whole, restored and conformed to the Image and Likeness of Christ, perfectly united to God our Father, through His Son, in the Holy Ghost. The love of the Trinity, which is the communion that enfolds the Saints, makes us sharers of God’s very life. God invites us to live within the embrace of His eternal love, and we are made Trinitarian by grace. That is our future… and our present. Heaven, the Communion of Saints, the divine fellowship of the Trinity’s all-encompassing love is ‘realised eschatology’: it not only far off in the future for us – it is now, to be lived and enjoyed at this very moment. ‘Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure’ (I Saint John 3.1-3).

‘The Holy Trinity, pervading all men from first to last, from head to foot, binds them all together. The Saints in each generation, joined to those who have gone before, and filled like them with light, become a golden chain, in which each saint is a separate link, united to the next by faith, works, and love. So in the One God they form a single chain which cannot be broken’ (Saint Symeon the New Theologian, Apophthegmata).

This mystery of divine love expressed to us in and through the Saints impels our mission to other people, especially to those in need and necessity: ‘For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’ (II Corinthians 5.14-17).

The measure by which we extend the love of Christ to others proves the measure to which we have absorbed and embodied the love of Christ in the communion of His Saints. The communio sanctorum is not static, but dynamic, love in action – Christ reaches out through us to those around us. ‘And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’ (Saint Matthew 25.40). We are the prolongation of Christ in the world, and our service to Christ in our neighbour is the mark of our profession.

Please join us as we celebrate the Family Feast of the Body of Christ on Tuesday 1^st November at Noon and 7pm.

Ecce, quam bonum!

2011-10-24T20:27:00.005-04:00

Let us continue to pray for the full, visible and sacramental unity of the

continuing Anglican expression of Christ's Holy Catholic Church.

Together at the recent Provincial Synod of the Anglican Catholic Church are (right to left):

Presiding Bishop Walter Grundorf (Anglican Province of America), Presiding Bishop Brian Marsh (Anglican Church in America), Archbishop Mark Haverland (Anglican Catholic Church), and Archbishop Peter Robinson (United Episcopal Church in North America).

The Union of Scranton

2011-10-20T14:28:00.004-04:00

A traditional, orthodox and canonical Old Catholic movement with which Continuing Anglicans should become involved, based as it is on 'the Catholic faith, worship, and essential structure of the Undivided Church of the first millennium...' From 1931 in England and from 1946 in the United States, orthodox Anglican Churches have historically enjoyed full communicatio in sacris with the orthodox Old Catholic movement. May that union of faith, hope and charity soon be renewed, and may the Traditional Anglican and orthodox Old Catholic Churches once again be 'sister Churches' in the fullest sense of the phrase.

Please see here, here, here, here and here.

The Bible in Worship

2011-10-17T15:15:00.004-04:00

The presence of Our Lord in the written Word, the Holy Scriptures, is real, but different, not only in degree but kind, from His Presence in the Holy Communion, for the presence of the Lord under the form of bread and wine is an objective and mystical Real Presence of His True Body and Blood, a Presence which is unique in salvation history and unlike any other presences of Christ in His Church. There is an analogy between Christ in the Scriptures and Christ in the Holy Sacrament. To be sure, Our Lord is alive and active in the reading of His Word written, and He communicates, conveys His Word to us in Scripture as the one true Word, the Logos, Himself the living Word of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. One could even say that His operation in the proclamation of the Scriptures has a sacramental quality, which sanctifies us as we hear the Word proclaimed. But Christ's operation in the reading of the Word is on a different level from that found in the Holy Communion, for under the Eucharistic elements Our Lord is present to us, not merely by grace and virtue, but in His very Body and Blood, His human nature and His divine nature, in a way we cannot explain and yet which is Real. We use a corollary to explain why the Church treats the Scriptures with intentional reverence and respect. The Church is herself the great Sacrament of Christ, and she applies the sacramental principle in every aspect of her worship, including the use and reading of the Bible: our outward and visible signs demonstrate the inward and spiritual realities experienced and received in our worship.

The use of physical gestures in honouring the Holy Scriptures goes back before us to the Old Covenant, when the Bible was enthroned in the synagogue in a special place, was handled only with the greatest care, and its reading accompanied by prayer and acts of reverence, a sign of the community's love for and devotion to the Scriptures. We Christians of the Apostolic Tradition have 'baptised' and inherited those ancient Jewish signs and gestures, like so many others, and use them in our liturgical worship. The prime example for orthodox Christians would be the Gospel procession, wherein the Service Book containing the Holy Gospels is processed on special occasions into the midst of the congregation and is surrounded by the Cross and candles, which are used in the procession and the reading of the Gospel to honour the Word and presence of Jesus in His Scriptures. In some churches, incense is used for precisely the same reason, offered to God in honour of His Word. On rare solemnity, the Scriptures are sung, not only to add a level of intensity or clarity to the reading, but to express the sanctity and heavenly origin of the Word of God proclaimed. These are customs which we traditional Anglicans have inherited from the earliest Church and share with other Churches, East and West, which also derive from the Apostolic age.

Holy Communion in Both Kinds

2011-10-11T18:41:00.007-04:00

We should note with concern an ongoing change in the Eucharistic praxis of the Roman Communion which is reverting it to a practice which has long been held by Anglicans, Old Catholics, Orthodox and other Apostolic Christians to be a liturgical abuse: please see here and here.

As orthodox catholics holding to the perspicuous teaching of Holy Scripture and primitive Tradition, we Anglicans reject the medieval Roman ecclesiastical precedent of withholding the Chalice from the laity: that action is not an alternative for us. Anglicans, following the very institution and very words of Our Lord, always administer Communio sub utraque specie, under the form of the Chalice. Here we agree with the ancient Eastern Churches which invariably administer the Holy Mysteries in both forms. Article XXX strictly prohibits us from following the lead of the Latin Rite in this matter.

XXX. OF BOTH KINDS
THE Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people: for both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike.

Concelebration of the ACA and APA Bishops

2011-09-24T18:52:00.000-04:00

ACA and APA Communion

2011-09-24T16:51:00.005-04:00

Communion Accomplished

The Anglican Church in America (ACA), meeting in its Eighth General Synod at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, unanimously endorsed a resolution for inter-communion agreement with the Anglican Province of America (APA). The APA also unanimously endorsed this agreement at its Provincial Synod on July 15, 2011.

Bishop Walter Grundorf, Presiding Bishop of the APA, stated, "This is a result of the recognition that both churches have so much in common theologically and historically and was fueled by the friendships developed by the bishops of both churches. The intent of bringing both churches together in this way is to eventually knit back together that which had been divided." The Presiding Bishop of the ACA, the Rt. Rev. Brian Marsh, said, "We are absolutely delighted to be in communion with our brothers and sisters of the Anglican Province of America. It is God's will that this has been done." Both bishops indicated that work will commence to move forward the hoped for union of the two churches.

The key points of the agreement are:

1. Each jurisdiction recognizes the catholicity and independence of the other;

2. Each jurisdiction agrees to welcome members of the other jurisdiction to participate in the Sacraments, recognizing as well the validity and interchangeability of each others' Holy Orders;

3. Each jurisdiction recognizes that the other holds all essentials of the Christian Faith and seeks to teach and proclaim the same;

4. We commit ourselves to work toward an ever closer bond between our two churches, seeking always to discern God's will for us and for those we serve.

Holy Land Pilgrimage 2012

2011-09-16T20:56:00.002-04:00

Please join us as we make pilgrimage to the Holy Land next year: our 2010 experience was truly life-transforming, and our next in 2012 will be even more profound! A Traditional Anglican pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine is the trip of a lifetime...

You may register on this website.

Following the Faith

with Bishop Chandler Jones

October 11-20, 2012

SPECIAL TEACHING MOMENTS

MOUNT OF BEATITUDES.
MT. CARMEL, the 'Place of Sacrifice' where Elijah had an encounter with the Priests of Baal (1 Kings 1:17-40)
Celebrate Mass at the CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE in Jerusalem, BASILICA OF THE ANNUNCIATION in Nazareth and the CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY in Bethlehem.
See and touch the WESTERN (WAILING) WALL.
Walk the steps of JESUS through the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem along the VIA DOLOROSA.
Visit St. George's Cathedral, established in 1899, it is the seat of the Bishop of Jerusalem of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.
Ride a boat across the SEA OF GALILEE and visit the ruins of CAPERNAUM, known as Jesus's 'own city' because of the frequency that He visited and the mighty work He did there.
Experience a historic drive to BETHLEHEM, the royal city of David, to kneel at the traditional place of the birth of Christ at the GROTTO OF THE NATIVITY.

'Consubstantial'

2011-09-06T18:56:00.001-04:00

Courtesy once again of my brother, Father Brandon Jones, comes this fifth video on the new English translation of the Novus Ordo Missae, in which the traditional Anglican translation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed is restored, replete with the theological term used in reference to Our Lord Jesus Christ, 'substance,' for the Greek word homoousion - for Our Divine Lord is 'consubstantial' or 'of one substance' with the Father. Another splendid Anglicisation!

More Ordination Photographs

2011-08-20T19:16:00.001-04:00

Ordination of the Reverend Doctor Richard Hitchcock

2011-08-20T18:51:00.006-04:00

Today, 20th August 2011, was the Ordination Day of the Reverend Doctor Richard Benner Hitchcock, Ed.D. to the Sacred Order of Deacons. Doctor Hitchcock will serve as Deacon of Saint Barnabas Anglican Church in Dunwoody, Georgia. It was a particular honour and delight to ordain Dick, as he shall serve our parish, and the occasion was my first Ordination as a Bishop. In the group photographs, from left to right are: the Reverend Canon William R. Weston, our previous Rector, the Reverend Father Paul A. Rivard, our Curate, the ordaining Bishop, the Ordinand, and the Very Reverend Doctor Charles 'Gene' Mallard, Rector of Saint Thomas the Apostle Church, Alto, Georgia. Congratulations and God bless you, Doctor Hitchcock, on this glorious day!

Thoughts on Article of Religion XXV

2011-08-19T11:35:00.007-04:00

...The so-called 'corrupt following of the Apostles' refers to the abuse of the minor or lesser five sacraments in the medieval Western Church: these sacraments were elevated and sacralised by Our Lord and the Apostles to be specific means of grace, but the Church in the West in later ages altered their original use and administration.

For example, the Sacrament of the Unction of the Sick is clearly intended by Our Lord and the New Testament authors to be administered to anyone who is ill and in need of spiritual and physical healing. But the Church of the later Middle Ages restricted Unction of the Sick to the dying alone, in extremis, so that it was transmogrified into 'Extreme Unction,' or a sacrament available only to those at the point of death, contrary to the biblical and patristic tradition.

The Sacrament of Penance was originally given to be a healing balm and a remedy for sin, the 'second plank after shipwreck,' a restoration to baptismal grace and a therapeutic cure and healing ministry of Absolution offered to those suffering from the consequences of grievous sin. But the medieval Church changed Penance into a series of actions performed according to Church law in a legalistic and penal sense, based on a code of justice, judgement and penalty, satisfactions for sins. The performance of penitential actions gradually obscured the heart of the sacrament: the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation with God and the Church. What was originally sacramental, ministerial and pastoral became juridical, judicial, legal.

Another example is the Sacrament of Holy Orders, which from the time of the Scriptures and the Primitive Church has been open to married men and in which state men also could marry after ordination, but which was later restricted to celibate men only in the Western Church.

Again, Confirmation had all but disappeared in several countries and regions within the ambit of the Western Church and had certainly fallen into desuetude in many Dioceses. Often, it was administered only rarely and sporadically, and without due preparation or catechesis.

The point of Article XXV is that the renewed catholic Church of England recovered the biblical, ancient, orthodox and patristic use of these sacraments in their proper place according to the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostolic Tradition. The practice and usage of these sacraments demanded reformation and restoration to their original ministrations, and so they received such due treatment when the Church of England was herself reformed. Once again, the Anglican Church historically claims no faith, doctrine or order of her own, only those of the Primitive and Undivided Catholic Church of the first ages. In Anglicanism, the ecclesiastical sacraments were reinstated, refurbished and revitalised according to the practice of the Church in the first millennium.

The phrase 'states of life' refers to those sacraments which are ordained by God for a particular vocation in the Christian journey, Holy Orders or Matrimony, or both, or for particular needs at specific stages of Christian formation and growth, such as Confirmation or Penance. The minor sacraments are means of grace, but again, are not necessary for the salvation for all or for everyone universally. Baptism and Eucharist are necessary for the salvation of all men where they may be had: Holy Orders or Unction of the Sick, for instance, are not. Some sacraments are only necessary for those especially called to them. God calls men and women to particular states of life and provides sacramental grace to equip and empower those called to a particular vocation...

The Holy Angels

2011-08-18T17:02:00.002-04:00

Every September, the Church jubilantly celebrates the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. 29^th September directs us to the truth that we are not alone in the universe, and we do not exist in a solitary fashion in God’s created order; rather, we are members of a great divine family created by God Himself, in which we share eternal life with brethren spirits, who, like ourselves, have free-will, intelligence, reason, and mind, but are bodiless - the Holy Angels.

The Creed proclaims God the Father as the ‘maker of all things visible and invisible.’ Our heavenly Father, in His wisdom and goodness, has created the world of the supernatural, not now accessible to men with their human eyes, and yet nevertheless just as real, more real, than the physical, tangible world which we now inhabit.

Angels, with men, were created by God to love and serve Him in a wonderfully beautiful and ever-mysterious order not fully comprehendible to the speculation of men’s minds. Together, men and angels comprise God’s created family, His Church, the mystical Body of Jesus Christ. Angels and men belong to One Family in Heaven and Earth (Ephesians 3.15)

Angels absolutely exist, and we should not question that they exist for one second: God has revealed to us that they exist, and not only exist, but love God and mankind. We know Angels exist and love us because we experience the truth of it in our lives. God has made it so.

Before proceeding to attempt an explanation of exactly who the Angels are, let us state for posterity what they are not!

Angels are neither anthropomorphised beings subject to whims of feeling, such as depicted in popular media, nor are they the cute, fat, irresistibly-squeezable babies portrayed in baroque art. Angels are probably not a little amused by man’s efforts to develop such simplistic representations of their glorious nature. If Angels were to appear before us right now, they would strike terror into our hearts by their overwhelming glory and power. Man cannot easily bear their lustre.

Angels are not divine beings deriving their existence from themselves. They are not to be worshipped; they are not half-god, half-mortal mediators that link us to God. They do not mediate in the sense that somehow they must by necessity connect the human race to God because of the infinite separation between Creator and creature. Such doctrine was invented by gnosticism, a pseudo-Christian heresy found in the early centuries of the Church, which deified angels and made them the object of worship. Gnosticism, meaning ‘secret knowledge,’ purports to give men a secret way of being saved, reserved to the initiate, in which angels serve as demi-gods leading man to union with God.

If one were tempted to worship angels as divine, the stern reminder of the Angel who addresses Saint John the beloved disciple in the Book of Revelation would surely apply: ‘See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God’ (22.9) Angels are undoubtedly offended when men contort their true purpose and make them an object of divine worship. The Holy Angels will have none of that.

Modern American culture seems to increase its angel-mania with every passing year, with a proliferation of ‘angel stuff’ sold in stores and pandered on television: some contemporary people, starving for an encounter with the supernatural and seeking to fulfil man’s innate need for an experience of the divine, embrace angel-worship and substitute it for a true intimacy with the Eternal. However, they are worshipping the creature, not the Creator, whose glory is radiated from the faces of Angels He has so lovingly made. Everything from angel pins and books to the adoration of angelic spirit guides is now in vogue. Much of this angel religion, devoid of the living and true God, is an explicit return to paganism and polytheism. ‘Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen…’ (Colossians 2.18).

Incorporeal powers, the Angels are created beings, pure, holy, good spirits created to adore the living God and to radiate His divine glory, love and power. Angels are bodiless and not composed of matter - they are total mind, pure spirit, utter will. The Angels are the servants of God. They resemble their Maker in their power, genius and perfection, but they are created beings, called in the Old Testament Scriptures the ‘sons of God.’ The Holy Angels, beings of great grace, beauty, intelligence, fiery brilliance reflecting the glory of God, were made by God the crown jewel of His heavenly court, the joy of that realm we call Heaven.

The Angels of God have a twofold vocation for which they were created:

1. The worship of God. For all eternity, the Angels lead the heavenly liturgy of worship and praise of God the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, singing the Thrice-Holy Hymn, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ (Isaiah 6.3 and Revelation 4.8). As servants of God, created to rejoice in His inexhaustible Presence, the Angels adore, serve and glorify the Most High God, their Master. Angels exist primarily to magnify their God and ours, the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of all. ‘And let all the Angels of God worship Him’ (Hebrews 1.6).

2. Service to men as intercessors, protectors and messengers of God’s will. The word Angel, anngelos in Greek, comes from the same word that forms ‘Gospel’ (or Good News), and means ‘messenger.’ Angels were created to serve mankind as messengers of God’s Gospel, His Good News of salvation. ‘Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?’ (Hebrews 1.14). Angels have been appointed by God to be the guardians of our souls, the ministers of our bodies, and our sponsors and supporters from above. As ministers of God, and fellow-servants with men, Angels form with us an inseparable bond comprising what we call in the Creed the Communion of Saints.

According to Apostolic Tradition, there are nine choirs or grouping of Angels in a divinely-created hierarchy: ‘seraphs, cherubim, thrones, dominions, princedoms, powers, virtues, archangels, angels’ choirs’ (Hymnal 1940, Hymn 599). The leader of their heavenly band is Saint Michael, whose name means, ‘Who is like God?,’ the chief and captain of the heavenly army of hosts, the great Prince of the Angels who mightily defends and protects us. Holy Michael is unveiled first in the Old Testament, in the Book of the prophet Daniel. There we see him, the great lord and prince, God’s appointed guardian of His chosen race. ‘And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people’ (Daniel 12.1). In the New Testament, Saint Michael, our heavenly champion, vanquishes the power of Satan: ‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon’ (Revelation 12.7). He is the special protector and defender of Christians, the holy standard-bearer who leads souls to love and serve God. Saint Michael battles for us against the world, the flesh and the devil; he is the personification of the mystery of the angelic world.

We rejoice in the communion and fellowship of the Holy Angels, who, with eyes that look upon God face to face, who always behold their Father in heaven, also behold us on earth. With the same eyes of mind and will that behold the Holy Trinity forever in His Beatific Vision, the Angels behold us, and love us intensely with an all-consuming, perfect love, a love not tainted with sin. How wonderful it is to know that we possess such heavenly friends, such dear ones who look upon us in love as they look upon God in love.

The Holy Angels of God love us, protect us, watch over us, guide us, and pray for us. We should honour them, invoke their presence, aid and defence, and ask for the effect of their prayers, knowing that their love for men surpasses imagination.

APA and Operation Mobilisation

2011-07-16T14:50:00.002-04:00

APA Synod 2011 Photographs

2011-07-16T14:47:00.000-04:00

APA Approves ACA Intercommunion Offer

2011-07-15T22:14:00.003-04:00

The Provincial Synod of the Anglican Province of America (APA) has unanimously passed a resolution embracing an inter-communion agreement with the Anglican Church in America (ACA). The General Synod of the Anglican Church in America will vote on this resolution at its meeting in September. The agreement has already been approved by each of the four domestic ACA dioceses.

In part, the resolution stated “That this preliminary document will serve as a catalyst for the eventual reconciliation of our two jurisdictions, that it will encourage other continuing jurisdictions to seek greater unity and that it will bring to fruition the unity of purpose that God clearly intends for his people.” Each church body will recognize the catholicity and independence of each other, will welcome members of each other’s bodies to receive the Sacraments, and will recognize the validity of each others’ holy orders. The resolution also states that both church bodies will work toward a closer bond between the two jurisdictions. The resolution clearly stated that “possessing a common heritage and in recognition of our spiritual kinship, we acknowledge that we are members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

The Anglican Church in America along with the Anglican Province of America are two of the largest traditional Anglican Church bodies in the United States. Both seek to uphold the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the Anglican tradition within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. The Communion holds Holy Scripture and the ancient Creeds of the Undivided Church as authentic and authoritative, and worships according to the traditional formularies of the Church. The Eastern and Western Churches split in 1054 and the Anglican Church, which existed in the British Isles since the first century, joined with Rome in 664 and later separated from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th Century.

In a statement issued by the President of the House of Bishops, the Rt. Rev. Brian Marsh said "The APA action reaffirmed what we have known in both bodies for a number of years, that in Christ and in each other, we are one Church, one body. I applaud Bishop Grundorf and the Synod of the APA for their actions to to which I am sure we will respond in kind in September."

Anglican Province of America Synod 2011

2011-07-15T20:36:00.018-04:00

Today, 15th July 2011, witnessed the conclusion of the Seventh Provincial Synod of the Anglican Province of America, held in Dunwoody, Georgia and sponsored by Saint Barnabas Church. A magnificent affair, the Synod welcomed what may be a record number of delegates, observers and friends from throughout the United States and across the globe. We were particularly honoured to welcome the three Diocesan Bishops of the Anglican Church in America (ACA), the Right Reverends Brian Marsh, Stephen Strawn and Daren Williams, the Vicar General of the ACA Eastern Diocese, Father John Vaughan, and the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in the Philippines, the Most Reverend Frederick Belmonte.

At this morning's session, the Province endorsed a formal intercommunion agreement with the Anglican Church in America, which agreement will be considered for final approval by the General Synod of the ACA in September 2011. Previously, all three Dioceses of the Anglican Province of America, the Diocese of the Eastern United States, the Diocese of Mid-America and the Diocese of the West each endorsed the same intercommunion agreement separately. The four ACA Dioceses have also already individually endorsed the agreement. From this humble beginning, this first crucial step, this gesture of charity and reconciliation, we pray that the reunion of the entire Continuing Church will begin in earnest.

The APA again made history today by presenting a cheque in the amount of $100,000 to Operation Mobilisation for the building of a Dalit educational centre in India, a vital Christian English-language school that will have the potential socially, intellectually and spiritually to liberate hundreds if not thousands of children who otherwise would possess no hope or opportunity for the future. Through intense commitment and sacrifice, our parishes and missions raised the money for the school. Our global outreach and missions have entered a new and exciting phase. Over $5,000 was raised for the Philippine Church's theological training centre at the Synod.

Many fantastic volunteers, over fifty-five in number, made the glorious occasion of Synod possible: our heartfelt thanks go to all those who so graciously and selflessly served to make this year's Provincial Synod a truly wonderful and momentous event.

Let us continue to pray for the unity of the Anglican expression of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ and for the advancement of the Gospel of Our Blessed Lord!

Conrad Lewis Kimbrough, Priest - RIP

2011-07-07T13:22:00.003-04:00

The Reverend Father Conrad Lewis Kimbrough was born 10th May 1924 and entered eternal life on Tuesday 5th July 2011.

A dearly beloved friend, priest, pastor, mentor and embodiment of all that is good, gracious, beautiful and true in orthodox Anglicanism, a son of Nashotah House and a faithful servant of the Lord in the Anglican Communion for thirty-two years.

Rest eternal, grant unto him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him: may his priestly soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Credo

2011-07-01T16:13:00.001-04:00

Courtesy once again of my brother, Father Brandon Jones, comes this fourth video on the new English translation of the Novus Ordo Missae. The notable re-Anglicisation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed to the liturgical first-person singular form, 'I believe,' marks yet another area in which the new translation conforms to the age-old Anglican Rite.

Address of Bishop Marsh to Continuing Anglicans

2011-06-26T18:22:00.002-04:00

The Right Reverend Brian Marsh, Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church in America and Ordinary of the Diocese of the Northeast, made an address at the Congress of Continuing Anglicans in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 1st June. The text of this address is available at this link.

Super Synod - from the Dunwoody Reporter

2011-06-19T16:48:00.000-04:00

Anglican church leaders to gather in Dunwoody in July

Anglican clergy and leaders from across the country are scheduled gather in Dunwoody in July.

About 150 delegates will take part in the gathering, called a synod, scheduled for July 11 through 15, said Bishop Chandler Jones of St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Dunwoody. During the synod, clergy and church leaders conduct church business.

“A synod is basically the ecclesiastical legislative body of the church,” Jones said, “but it’s also a family reunion. This is really an opportunity for people to come together.”

Most of those attending will come from the eastern United States. But Anglican clergy and lay delegates from as far as Arizona and California are expected to take part because the gathering will include representatives from the Diocese of the Eastern United States, the Diocese of Mid-America and the Diocese of the West, the three dioceses that cover the U.S., Jones said. A delegation from the Philippines also may attend, he said.

“Our meetings are really devoid of any controversy,” the bishop said. “We’re looking at strengthening our ties with Anglicans worldwide.”

The group will meet at the Holiday Inn, Perimeter and at St. Barnabas, Jones said.

The meeting will be held in Dunwoody, Jones said, because St. Barnabas is one of the larger Anglican congregations in the country. Also, Jones was installed as a bishop, the Anglican church’s youngest, last year.

St. Barnabas hosted a similar synod in 2001. One reason for the return this summer, Jones said, is that the church sanctuary and nave have been renovated since that 2001 meeting.

The Dunwoody congregation, founded in 1979, calls itself “a traditional Anglican Church” that bases its services on the1928 Book of Common Prayer. Anglicans split from the larger Episcopal Church in the 1970s because they believed the American version of the denomination had become too liberal and strayed too far from its original teachings, members say.

Consecration of the new Bishops of Richborough and Ebbsfleet

2011-06-17T21:58:00.004-04:00

The Catholic Tradition of the Church of England lives on...

Congratulations and blessings to Bishop Norman Banks (left) and Bishop Jonathan Baker (right).

The Rt Revd Jonathan Baker and The Rt Revd Norman Banks were Ordained and Consecrated Bishop of Ebbsfleet and Bishop of Richborough respectively
by The Most Revd Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and other Bishops
at Southwark Cathedral on 16th June 2011

Synod 2011

2011-06-10T17:39:00.003-04:00

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who by thy Holy Spirit didst preside in the Council of the blessed Apostles, and hast promised, through thy Son Jesus Christ, to be with thy Church to the end of the world; We beseech thee to be with the Council of thy Church here assembled in thy Name and Presence. Save us from all error, ignorance, pride, and prejudice; and of thy great mercy vouchsafe, we beseech thee, so to direct, sanctify, and govern us in our work, by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, that the comfortable Gospel of Christ may be truly preached, truly received, and truly followed, in all places, to the breaking down the kingdom of sin, Satan, and death; till at length the whole of thy dispersed sheep, being gathered into one fold, shall become partakers of everlasting life; through the merits and death of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Saint Barnabas Church is wonderfully privileged and blessed to welcome the triennial Provincial Synod of the Anglican Province of America from Monday 11^th July until Friday 15^th July 2011. Additionally, the Diocesan Synods of the Eastern United States and Mid-America will also gather here concurrently in Dunwoody for their annual deliberations. It has been almost exactly ten years ago since Saint Barnabas last hosted our Diocesan Synod, and we are certainly honoured to be able to welcome the wider Church back to our parish and the metropolitan Atlanta area. Of your Christian charity, please pray earnestly for the impending Synods and for their ministry and work, as they seek to conduct the administrative business of the Church according to the mind of Christ and His Gospel and to advance the mission, governing, formation, preaching, teaching and evangelistic outreach of our unique branch of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church. We especially wish to thank our many volunteers who have made our sponsorship of the Synods possible; in particular, we thank the members of the Synod Planning Team: Rette Ledbetter, Al Duncan, Lynn Ledbetter, Barbara Shoaf, Elizabeth Raffa, Gordon Bigg, Cathey Eves, Oz Baptist, Ben Badejo, Bill Storey, DJ Fulton, Jack Wilson, Angie Patterson and Father Paul Rivard.

The word Synod, which term may be new or unfamiliar to many, is taken from the Greek word σύνοδος (sunodos) meaning ‘assembly’ or ‘meeting,’ and it is synonymous with the Latin word concilium, meaning ‘council.’ Synod literally means ‘to journey with’ or ‘the way together.’ No better description of the annual meeting of the Church’s authorised representatives, lay and clergy, could possibly be offered! Synod is not merely a business meeting, an ecclesiastical legislative body or a social event, although it is all of these things; it is the Church herself gathered, the Church at worship, in communion, in service and ministry, the Church in movement together. Synod powerfully and tangibly demonstrates the unity of the Body of Christ, the catholicity and universality of the Church, what is called in the Russian language sobornost, from the root word meaning ‘to gather,’ wholeness and inner completeness, wherein the many are brought together into free and organic unity by the power of love, a perceptible manifestation of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in Whom there is both unity and diversity in communion of love.

In short, Synod is the Church, one in heart, mind, and soul, on pilgrimage.

All of the Christian life is described in Apostolic Tradition as being a pilgrimage: we are on a pilgrimage through this mortal world to our true heavenly homeland. We are the Pilgrim People of God, the Church, making our way as God’s ecclesia, His ‘called-out ones’, through this world to the next. Everything we do, pray, say and think as Christians should orientate us towards the ultimate, final goal, the final reward and promise, which is eternal life in Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the heavenly Jerusalem.

If the vocation of the Christian in this life is pilgrimage, the wayfaring journey through this vale of tears to heaven, then the gathering of the Church in Synod, journeying together, should be seen as a microcosm of what the whole of the Christian life genuinely entails.

Pilgrimage is an essential part of life and living. Christians, filtering their existence through the data of the Holy Scriptures, see life itself in terms of a journey, coming from God and returning to God. In her earthly state, the Church needs places where her sacred society can gather together. Our visible churches, holy places, are images of the holy city, the heavenlyJerusalem, toward which we are making our way on pilgrimage. Ours is a daily pilgrimage in Word and Sacrament in the Church. Holy Mother Church is for us the Sign of the Kingdom and the Sacrament of our pilgrimage to Jesus Christ. He is the Mystery lived out at our Altars, Eucharistically, day by day. Synod is thus an intensification, a focus, of that Sign and Mystery which is Our Blessed Lord in His Church.

Let us therefore recognise in the Synod of the Church a kind of sanctuary, a holy place and time, in which is revealed anew the Family of God, the Household of Faith, and the journey of the Christian life from earth to heaven, a foretaste and precursor of our future arrival in unity in the heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God, where we shall live and reign in Christ for ever and ever. Those of us who participate in Synod should sense in it the anticipation of the rest of our Christian lives and of our glorious fulfilment in the King of Glory! But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the Mother of us all (Galatians 4.26).

We encourage everyone at Saint Barnabas to take a decided interest in the meetings and events of Synod and to volunteer where possible to assist in the organisation of this intensely gratifying and important occasion in the life of our Church. Most critically, we invite everyone to enter into the spirit, significance and purpose of Synod by prayer. Thank you all so very much for your loving support and encouragement during this special time in our corporate life together.

God bless you!

Twin Brothers and Friars

2011-06-04T16:44:00.002-04:00

A very moving story indeed, all the more personal since my brother, a priest of the Roman Rite, and I are identical twins...

From the moment of their birth in Buffalo 92 years ago, twin brothers Julian and Adrian Riester rarely left each other's side.

They played together, went to school together, as young men traveled cross-country together -- and, in their 20s, joined the Franciscan order together.

And on Wednesday, after 65 years as identical twins wearing the identical brown robes of the Franciscans -- mostly at St. Bonaventure University -- Brother Julian Riester and Brother Adrian Riester died together at St. Anthony Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla. Julian died Wednesday morning, followed by Adrian in the evening.

Those who knew the Riesters best say they are not surprised at all.

"If ever there is a confirmation that God favored them, this is it," said their cousin and close friend Michael Riester of Buffalo. "They weren't even separated for 12 hours."

The biological brothers were also religious brothers, committed to the monastic life of Franciscan friars, not as priests but in roles as physical laborers.

During two stints at St. Bonaventure, from 1951 to 1956 and from 1973 to 2009, "the twins" were a common sight strolling in lockstep across campus -- or, in later years after a few "incidents" resulted in loss of their driver's licenses, on identical bicycles wearing identical helmets.

They became known as accomplished artisans who expressed their talents as gardeners and woodworkers, turning out tables and cabinets from their workshop in the garage of St. Bonaventure's Franciscan Friary.

Yvonne Peace, former secretary to the university's Franciscan community, remembers them as handymen and "fixers" who repaired all sorts of items brought to them by many on campus.

"They were always busy," she said.

Brother Julian, whose given name was Jerome, and Brother Adrian, whose given name was Irving, were part of a family of seven children born to Dr. Julian Riester and his wife, Clara. Their father was a prominent obstetrician who as a medical student observed surgery on President William McKinley after he was fatally shot in Buffalo in 1901, according to Michael Riester, who is the historian of St. Louis Catholic Church.

The attended St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute in Buffalo (where they had a reputation for fooling teachers by their identical looks) and then a radio technology school in Los Angeles before applying to the Franciscans' Holy Name Province.

Toward the end of World War II, after mutually pledging to reply to whichever came first -- an acceptance from the Franciscans or an expected induction notice from the Army -- the morning mail brought an invitation to join the friars, and the afternoon mail "greetings" from the draft board.

God's call, they told interviewers in later years, took priority.

They were separated only twice, once from 1946 to 1951 when Brother Adrian was a sacristan at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan and Brother Julian was general manager of St. Anthony Shrine in Boston. Later they were not far apart in the 1950s when Brother Julian was assigned to St. Patrick's Parish in Buffalo and Brother Adrian to Bishop Timon High School in South Buffalo. But from 1956 on, the Riester brothers were together.

Michael Riester remembers them as family men who used the money given them by friends to travel to Buffalo on their day off to take their mother -- who lived to 103 -- to dinner at fine restaurants such as Salvatore's Italian Gardens or Romanello's. "They liked a good time," he said.

Indeed, in 2003 Brother Julian told the Bona Venture, the university's student newspaper, that they confounded the friars' seniority system by often claiming they "walked in the door together" and by never divulging which twin was born first.

"We don't tell," Brother Adrian told the newspaper. "We like to keep them guessing."

Michael Riester said his cousins will be remembered as "exemplary men and holy men," who lived their lives in a truly Franciscan spirit. When word came earlier this week that both were seriously ill in the Franciscans' retirement home in St. Petersburg, where they had lived for the last two years, Michael Riester and many in the St. Bonaventure community said they almost expected that the pair would leave together.

Now they will be buried together Monday in Olean.

"They had this intimate bond, in which neither was selfish at all," Michael Riester said. "And because they were so in tune to God and to each other, it's not surprising at all."

rmccarthy@buffnews.com

World Consultation on the Continuing Anglican Churches

2011-05-31T16:44:00.008-04:00

Brockton/Boston, Massachusetts

All Saintstide, 3rd to 5th November 2011

Let us plan on attending!...

From the Daily Report

2011-05-22T20:33:00.002-04:00

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

CHURCH BATTLES OVER PROPERTY

A split Savannah congregation has high court weighing which side should own historic site

By Alyson M. Palmer, Staff Reporter

Thorny theological differences that have divided a historic Savannah church gave way to secular legal arguments before the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday as the justices weighed which side of the split should control property that has been in the church's name since 1733.

The dispute, which has drawn competing amicus briefs from a spectrum of Christian denominations, stems from a decision by the majority of Savannah's Christ Church to leave the national Episcopal Church in 2007.

The departure followed similar moves in other Episcopal congregations since 2003, when the national church made a gay man a bishop.

In Savannah, Christ Church's reverend, also known as the rector, informed the bishop in charge of Episcopal churches in Georgia that the breakaway church had placed itself under the authority of the more conservative Anglican Province of Uganda. Rector Marc Robertson has said in press releases the dispute is about the "freedom to choose to follow the Jesus of Holy Scripture and not a culturally-manufactured Jesus."

The national Episcopal Church released the rector from his duties and appointed a new priest to minister to the remaining congregants who had elected to remain loyal Episcopalians. And the national church would not let go of the considerable earthly possessions amassed by the parish over the past 278 years.

Along with the Georgia diocese and the Christ Church members who stayed, the national church filed suit. They asserted ownership over the land on which Christ Church parishioners have worshipped for centuries, as well as the congregation's endowment and other real estate. The national church argues that the local congregation has held title to the property in trust for the mission of the greater church.

The breakaway church members, who have been allowed to remain in the historic church building during the course of the litigation while the minority members of Christ Church have been meeting in borrowed church space elsewhere in Savannah, argue that they could not have been holding the property in trust for the larger church because Christ Church predates the existence of a national Episcopal church.

Christ Church, whose early leaders included colonial religious figures John Wesley and George Whitefield, was granted the land on which the church building now sits by the English king and didn't become affiliated with the national Episcopal Church until 1823.

But the breakaway congregation has lost its legal fight, both before Judge Michael L. Karpf of the Chatham County Superior Court and a panel of the state Court of Appeals. The state Supreme Court in January agreed to take a look at the case, over the dissents of Justices Robert Benham and Hugh P. Thompson.

Besides garnering national media attention, the case has drawn numerous amicus briefs, signaling that the importance of the case goes beyond resolving a local congregation's squabble. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Presbyterian Lay Committee and the American Anglican Council have filed briefs backing the breakaway church. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the United Methodist Church and the Church of God have filed briefs supportive of the national Episcopal Church.

Courts have been cleared to handle church property disputes since a landmark 1979 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. In that case, which was from Georgia, the nation's highest court said the First Amendment does not bar secular courts from resolving church property disputes, as long as the courts apply "neutral principles of law."

The Georgia Supreme Court has signed off on disciplinary rules of the Holiness Baptist Association and the United Methodist Church that imposed trusts on local church property for the benefit of the greater denomination.

The bench was fairly quiet at Monday's argument. Most of the court's remarks and questions came from Justice David E. Nahmias, who seemed more receptive to the arguments of the national church, and Bibb County Superior Court Judge S. Phillip Brown, who sounded inclined to vote in favor of the breakaway congregation. Brown was sitting in for Presiding Justice George H. Carley, who recused from the case for reasons not announced by the court. (Carley's official court biography says he is a member of St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Dunwoody.)

Appearing for the breakaway church, Savannah lawyer Paul W. Painter Jr. argued that the state Court of Appeals had applied too broadly a state statute, O.C.G.A. § 14-5-46. The law says that "[a]ll deeds of conveyance" for "any lots of land" for the purposes of building a church or meeting house shall be valid for the purposes contained in the deeds.

Painter said the statute was merely a "deed validation statute," one that "does not cover what the Court of Appeals was recognizing."

"It does not cover any and all property a church may hold," he added.

Brown, the visiting judge from Macon, said the meaning of the statute was clear: Church property must be used for the purposes set forth in a deed, not a church canon promulgated in New York (an apparent reference to the site of the Episcopal Church's headquarters).

"I'm just wondering why you're fighting this statute," he told Painter.

"Your honor's points are excellent points," Painter responded, explaining the statute was simply the only way the national church could win the case.

The national church also has relied on a 1979 church canon, known as the Dennis Canon, that purports to place parish property in trust for the national church and local diocese. Painter argued Monday that, if such a stipulation is not in a deed, it must be in the denomination's constitution or the next closest thing.

But Nahmias questioned that argument, noting that at various points in Christ Church's history it had formally acceded to not only the larger church's constitution, but also its canons. "Why do we say constitutions matter and canons don't, when you accede to both?" asked Nahmias, whose campaign biography says he's a member of Holy Innocents' Episcopal Church in Atlanta.

Episcopal Church rules require giving congregations three years to consider a constitutional change, Painter replied, while the record is clear that neither individual churches or dioceses were given advance notice that the Dennis Canon would be on the 1979 meeting's agenda.

Nahmias questioned how a secular court could require certain church procedures without violating the rule that it must apply neutral legal principles.

Brown helped Painter out on that one. "Bylaws come and go with board meetings," said Brown. "Constitutions have more stability to them."

Appearing for the national church, Valdosta attorney James L. Elliott argued that O.C.G.A. § 14-5-46 was meant to apply to any written document conveying property and did not apply to worship space alone. Elliott insisted that the court could look at church documents to back up the national church's stance, if the statute doesn't apply.

Nahmias asked Elliott why his side was trying to "squeeze" this case into the statute.

When Elliott responded that the interpretation of the statute was the question posed by the court in agreeing to hear the case, Nahmias turned to his colleagues on the bench, grinned and shrugged, garnering laughter from the galley.

Elliott presented the national church's argument along with Mary E. Kostel, a Washington-based in-house lawyer for the Episcopal Church. She noted that the dispute was not simply a local-versus-national-church dispute, arguing that the Christ Church members who have elected to stay as Episcopalians deserve access to their property.

Kostel argued that, when Christ Church joined the Georgia diocese in 1823, Christ Church relinquished its separate congregational identity.

When Brown noted that the Dennis Canon didn't exist then, Kostel said that the tradition of the local church holding property in trust for the larger church, while codified by the church over time, dates back to the Church of England.

"The building stays within the larger church," she said.

The case is Rector, Wardens and Vestrymen of Christ Church in Savannah v. Bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia, No. S10G1909.

The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments

2011-05-17T13:42:00.006-04:00

Why does the Anglican Rite include the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, at the beginning of the Eucharistic Liturgy?

The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, were added to the Anglican liturgy of the Mass in the Second Prayer Book of the Church of England of King Edward VI, 1552, and has remained ever since. The response of the Kyrie eleison was adapted to be used with the Commandments, naturally following each Commandment as a prayer for the grace to obey the Law of God and in repentance for one's failure to obey: they also comprise a prayer for the fulfilment of the prophetic promise concerning the Law - in which the Law of God will be written in our hearts and lived by the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Ghost (Jeremiah 31.33). God the Holy Spirit enables those united to Christ and filled with His power to obey the Law and to manifest its true and proper meaning: 'love is the fulfilment of the Law' (Romans 13.10). The Scottish Prayer Book tradition says of the Commandments at the beginning of the Mass: 'we ask God mercy for the transgression of every duty therein, either according to the letter, or to the mystical meaning of the said Commandment.' The 1928 American Prayer Book requires the Decalogue to be proclaimed at Mass only Sunday in the month and mandates the use of the Summary of the Law otherwise; the 1662 English BCP requires its recitation at every celebration of the Eucharist.

A brief history: In 1552, the Ten Commandments were introduced in a litany form with the expanded Kyrie response, which text replaced the ancient ninefold Kyrie eleison of the Latin Rite. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer sought by doing so, practically, to settle objections from some reformers that the 1549 First English Prayer Book Mass too closely resembled the old Roman Rite Mass. He rearranged the Eucharistic liturgy and introduced a corporate preparatory penitential act of examination of conscience at the very beginning of the liturgy (not unlike the 1970 Roman Novus Ordo Missae). He retained the Kyrie as being penitential in character, as he also desired to include in the Mass those three things which Christians 'ought to know and believe to their souls' health': the Ten Commandments, the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. The use of the Decalogue at the beginning of the Eucharistic liturgy began with some of the early Lutheran liturgies on the continent. Archbishop Cranmer, in this, as in so many other instances, simply borrowed this practice from the Lutherans. The tropes found in our liturgy, 'incline our hearts to keep this law' and 'write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee' were based on medieval custom and tradition, in which additional petitions were frequently added to the Kyrie eleison for different feasts and occasions: the ancient Sarum Use in England was filled with such liturgical embellishments. And so the precedent was set for the Anglican liturgy from henceforth.

Theological purpose: The Commandments are included to confront us immediately with the fundamental truth that God demands our entire obedience to His holy and righteous will, in love, adoration, and service of Him for His own sake as Lord of all, and in love of our neighbour for the love of God. Submission to the Law of God, in Christ by the Holy Ghost, is the necessary condition for the fulfilment of our true selves as children of God made in His Image and Likeness. Our continual breaking of the Law severs that communion with God and our neighbour for which we were created, redeemed and sanctified. We beg God to enter us, therefore, into that one and only obedience and sacrifice by which we alone are enabled truly and rightly to keep the Commandments, the perfect filial love and obedience of Jesus Christ, whose perfect love of the Father is the fulfilment and completion of the Law. We plead the merits and sacrifice of Our Lord, through whom we now can and must obey God's holy will. No communion with God or our neighbour is possible until we are prepared and ready to accept God's demand placed upon us and to acknowledge and confess our sin, to ask for God's mercy and to beg His grace to incline our hearts to keep His Commandments.

The rite of the Holy Eucharist is a rehearsal for judgement day, and a vivid presentation of the entire history of salvation: the Mass recaptures for us and liturgically expresses the drama and economy of redemption. In the beginning, Original Sin occurred when man disobeyed God by transgressing His will; so too now, we are personally and corporately guilty of disobeying God and transgressing His Commandments - and therefore we acknowledge at the beginning of the Liturgy that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, pleading for God's mercy and forgiveness, and for His grace to live holier and better lives. We have been given the Law of God, and we have not kept it - our confession of this fact at the beginning of the Mass places us in the right spiritual disposition to worship the Blessed Trinity and to receive the gift of the Blessed Sacrament, the true Body and Blood of Christ, for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. At the outset, we admit our sins and failings, recognising with Saint Paul that the Law of God is a 'schoolmaster that brings us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith' (Galatians 3.24). The Law shows us that we are all sinners in need of a Saviour and Redeemer. The Law cannot of itself save - its purpose is to reveal to us our sinful nature and demonstrate that we must receive remission of sins from Jesus Christ as grace and gift. Only through Christ's Atonement and only by our incorporation into Christ's Body can we love and obey God in Christ by the power of His Spirit. The Ten Commandments instantly point us to Christ - and thus we say 'Lord, have mercy upon us.' The whole Liturgy of the Eucharist sacramentally applies the Person and Work of Jesus Christ to us.

The human race fell into sin, was judged worthy of death, was sent the Law and the Prophets to call us back to God (Collect for Purity, Ten Commandments, Summary of the Law, Kyrie eleison) , was readied and prepared for the coming of the Messiah (Collect, Epistle), and in the fullness of time was redeemed by Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Lord, true God and true Man, who freely offered Himself for our salvation through His atoning death on the Cross and His Resurrection and Glorification (Gospel, Creed, Prayer of Consecration, Agnus Dei, Thanksgiving), and who now freely gives Himself for salvation in the Blessed Sacrament (Holy Communion) to those who truly repent and believe the Gospel (Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words). By reliving and re-experiencing this Mystery day in and day out under a veil, in a Sacrament, we prepare for our death and the judgement, wherein we shall plead the mercy of Jesus Christ at the Last Day and inherit the promise of the heavenly Kingdom. And all of this is contained in the traditional Anglican Holy Communion service!

Missal Moment III

2011-05-17T13:22:00.001-04:00

Courtesy once again of my sacerdotal and biological brother, Father Brandon Jones, and the RC Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina: this video discusses the Ecce Agnus Dei, the traditional form of which is also found in the Anglican Rite. Another restoration back to the Anglican translation!

The 21st May 'Rapture' from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

2011-05-14T19:18:00.005-04:00

You may want to recheck your to-do list for May 21.

That’s when, according to some predictions, Jesus will return.

Last year, WeCanKnow .com, a Christian-based website in North Carolina, selected metro Atlanta as the site for dozens of billboards proclaiming Christ’s imminent return and the Rapture of Christian believers. In Nashville, similar billboards were paid for by Harold Camping, a Christian author and radio broadcaster in California, who is pushing the idea that May 21 is the date. He mistakenly predicted the same series of events in 1994. He bases that date on an analysis of Scripture.

With so many people skeptical about the date for various reasons, what’s behind the choice of May 21?

Tom Evans, media representative for Family Stations Inc., of which Camping is president and general manager, said, “All the signs that Jesus warned of in the Bible that would precede his return have taken place, and are evident in our world. For example, the re-establishment of the nation of Israel; the complete decay of the church; the dismal state of our world; and the moral breakdown of all of society.”

The belief holds that not only will the Rapture occur next Saturday, but the end of the world will occur on  Oct. 21.

Bishop Chandler Jones, however, won’t be holding his breath. Instead, the rector at St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Dunwoody will be performing a wedding May 21 “that will go on exactly as planned.”

“I think it’s very presumptuous to try to predict the time and hour of Jesus’ return because our Lord says in the Gospel that even the Son does not know the hour of his return,” he said.

Jones said he thinks some people may buy into that theory, though, because of the recent number of natural disasters around the world, including earthquakes, tsunamis and floods, and the “anxiety of our times,” including the economy, politics and society....

Our Wedding Anniversary - 13th May 2000

2011-05-13T15:09:00.005-04:00

Today, eleven years ago, Megan and I were married on the

Feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. The Lord has blessed us wonderfully!

+++

The Prayer Book's service for Holy Matrimony preaches the most effective sermon possible on the subject. God and Jesus and St. Paul all agree, for various reasons, that Christian marriage is a good thing. As a result, following the Prayer Book, each member of the couple makes promises to God and to each other which concern his moral will.

They are promises he cannot possibly keep on his own. So by blessing the marriage God says, "As long as you have the will to keep these promises, I will give you the grace and the help you need to do it."

Today's wedding points out a custom which the Church of England and her lineal descendents share which is unlike the custom of any other Catholic church on earth. That is the custom that her clergy may marry. In the Roman Communion priests are not to marry, but married men can in some cases serve as priests. In Eastern Orthodoxy a married man may be ordained priest, but no priest may get married.

Our church's rule is that, since Holy Scripture in no way forbids it, the clergy are permitted to apply to themselves the same standards which St. Paul lays out for all Christians in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. St. Paul says some people are called to be married, and some people are called not to be married. Each state of life is a gift which carries its own advantages and disadvantages.

God doesn't think that either of the states is superior to the other. He leaves it to you and the Holy Ghost to figure out which gift you have and then act accordingly.

Father Chad stood before me when I made him a deacon and ordained him a priest, and he promised that his home and his family would be wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ. Today he and Megan are taking a momentous new step in that direction.

Article of Religion XXXII, titled "Of the Marriage of Priests," says that it is lawful for the clergy as it is "for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness."

Let us pray that the marriage begun here today will indeed serve Megan and Father Chad better to their own personal godliness, and that it will always stand as a wholesome example and pattern to us.

-The Most Reverend John Thayer Cahoon, Junior

Confusion in Canada: An Ordinariate Crisis?

2011-05-12T15:07:00.000-04:00

From VirtueOnline.

From the Catholic Herald.

From the Continuum.

Let us all pray for the Anglican Catholics of the great nation of Canada.

The Comforter

2011-05-09T14:16:00.003-04:00

Who is the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth?

On the eve of His passion and death, on the first Maundy Thursday, Our Lord Jesus Christ instructs His Apostles about the Holy Ghost, and He does this to comfort them in their sorrow. Our Lord has announced that He is to leave them; to reassure them and give them hope, He tells them that it is good for Him to be departing, for only by His death and resurrection, only by His glorification, can the Holy Spirit come to the Church. The Holy Ghost’s coming, the gift of the Spirit, is the completion of Our Lord’s mission: Jesus Christ comes in order to communicate the Holy Ghost to His Body, risen, glorified, mystical, corporate.

We await the coming of the Holy Ghost liturgically as we approach the mysteries of Christ’s Ascension into Heaven and the outpouring of the same Spirit at Pentecost, or Whitsunday. The Holy Ghost, according to Christ, is not a replacement for Jesus, not an ‘extra frill’ for the Christian. Our Lord’s entire Incarnation and Sacrifice is provided so that we may receive the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost makes Christ within us. He reproduces the life of Jesus the Head in the members of His Body. He makes us one with God.

The Comforter, or the Paraclete in Greek, means ‘Strengthener,’ ‘Helper,’ ‘Advocate,’ ‘Guide,’ ‘Witness,’ ‘Counsellor,’ ‘Defender,’ ‘Pleader.’

The Holy Ghost has often been called the ‘neglected Person of the Trinity.’ He seems sometimes ignored, because He does not appear as concrete to us as the Jesus of the Gospels. ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit’ (Saint John 3.8). And yet, He is just as real and just as divine and alive. He is the Conglorified One, the One who proceeds from the Father through the Son, and is worshipped with the Father and the Son. The Holy Ghost is God. ‘We know the Holy Ghost is God, because only God can make man partake of the divine nature, and that is what the Holy Ghost does for man,’ says Saint Basil the Great. In other words, the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Godhead, makes man godlike, thus proving His own divinity. Jesus teaches His disciples that the mission of the Holy Ghost is to reveal the Father and to glorify the Son. And the Holy Ghost has a mission towards us: to make us the Likeness of God, the children of God, God’s Saints!

We believe in the Indefectibility of the Church. Our Lord’s promise of the Holy Ghost to His Body, the Church, is given so as to preserve her from error and keep her always in the truth. The Church is the Home of the Holy Ghost, the permanent abode of the Spirit of God. The Church is the unique sphere in which the Holy Ghost now lives, works and sanctifies. ‘Where there is the Church there is the Spirit, and where the Spirit is, there is the Church and all grace,’ proclaims Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 150), Bishop of Lyons, France, one of the most eminent of the earliest apologists for orthodox Christianity. Jesus Christ promised the Holy Ghost to the Church, to be hers forever, the Source of union with the Father and the Son.

The Holy Spirit comes with a two-fold purpose. First, He will judge the world, convicting the world of its sin. He shows us the truth about sin - that sin consists of the rejection of Jesus Christ as God and Saviour – and about righteousness - which is demonstrated by Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension into glory - and judgement - for Christ the King has destroyed the power of the devil. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth.

Second, the Holy Spirit is the Teacher of the Church. He does not teach a new revelation of a new truth, but deepens and extends the Church’s understanding of the Faith once delivered unto the Saints (Saint Jude 3). The Holy Comforter, our Teacher, shows us the import of the ‘things to come’ of Christ’s death and glorification, and of the end of the world, death and judgement day. Christ shows Himself through His Spirit.

We can be certain, therefore, when the Holy Catholic Church of the Creeds, to which we as Anglicans belong, teaches a doctrine through her unbroken two-thousand year continuous Tradition, tradition with a capital T, that doctrine is absolutely, positively true. The Church’s very existence and teaching authority rest in the existence and teaching authority of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit guarantees that our Faith is that found in all places, in all times, faithful to the Apostles and Fathers, and acknowledged by the consent of the whole Church. The Scriptures and Creeds hold a stamp of divine approval and dependability. We have Our Lord Jesus Christ’s Word, Himself the Word of God, on it - literally.

Our Blessed Lord did not leave us without guidance or direction for the application and practice of the Christian Faith. His most precious gift to us, the Holy Ghost who bears revelation, commends to us the Faith by which we are saved and come to God, which Faith is perpetually ensured and offered to us. We can be assured that Christ lives and saves through His Body, the Church, into which we have been wonderfully incorporated. This Body, the Church, is the Spirit-possessed Body of Christ; in this Body, the Holy Ghost lives, moves and now has His being. The Holy Ghost is the Soul of the Church. The Holy Ghost is Christ’s divine authentication that the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church will be faithful to what Christ is and has taught, not by her own merits and power, but by the promise of Christ and the power of Him Who is the Spirit of Truth. Bishops, who succeed the Apostles and inherit the fullness of the priesthood and the Apostolic Ministry, possess as a collective body, an episcopal college, this Comforter who was first given to the Apostles, the Charism of truth, that they may faithfully teach and defend the Catholic, or universal Faith.

‘Holy Scripture is interpreted, fulfilled and completed by Holy Tradition.’ ‘Holy Tradition is the Life of the Holy Ghost in the Church’ (Saint Basil the Great). The Church trusts utterly in the omnipotent promise of Jesus Christ and in the Person and Work of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit takes all those things which belong to the Eternal Son, which are in turn the Father’s, and makes them known to us, to the Church. Our faith calls this divine teaching and preservation indefectibility, safety from error and false doctrine.

The Holy Ghost comes to each of us personally. Christ redeems our nature. By His Incarnation, the Eternal Word has assumed all that makes us human and has raised it to God. God has put on our flesh and made it divine. Now, the Holy Ghost comes to our persons, individually, through the divinised humanity of Jesus we share, to fill us with God’s very Life and to make us godlike, so that we may participate in the Communion of the Holy Trinity and partake of the divine nature. The Church and Sacraments are the covenanted means of grace by which we are given the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth.

The Holy Ghost is Jesus’ Gift to us, to make us holy. Our Holy Baptism causes us to become one Body by one Spirit and to ‘drink of one Spirit’ (I Corinthians 12.13). By Baptism we receive the Holy Ghost for the remission of sins (Acts 2.38). Our Holy Confirmation serves as our own ‘personal Pentecost.’ Confirmation is the single moment in our lives when the Holy Spirit enters into us in His fullness, in a new and profound way, and seals us with His own Presence. It is the Sacrament by which the strengthening Sevenfold Gift of the Comforter is given to us by the imposition of Apostolic hands (Acts 8.14-25). The Holy Ghost is Christ’s Sacramental Gift to us, by Whom we become the Temple and dwelling-place of God.

The Holy Ghost is our Sanctifier and our Teacher. Let us forever adore Him our God, with the Father and the Son, and with ceaseless gratitude celebrate the coming Pentecost solemnity. ‘Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire...’

On Predestination

2011-05-06T13:15:00.011-04:00

Anglicans, like all biblical Christians, believe in predestination, which doctrine is clearly taught in the Old and New Testaments, and especially by Saint Paul, but we hold the positive doctrine of election to salvation in tension with the rest of the Catholic Faith, in which predestination is considered an aspect of salvation provided by Christ freely to all men in His Word and Sacraments. Like Saint Augustine of Hippo, we must not divorce the Church's doctrine of grace, salvation and election from the Church's doctrine of the objective grace communicated by the Church and her Sacramental System. For orthodox Catholics, the promise of election to salvation is conferred in Holy Baptism: we are elected to salvation and remain in such a state of election insofar as we are baptised and persevere in the grace and state of our Baptism. Our election or predestination to life, affirmed in Article of Religion XVII, is inseparably tied and linked to our union with Jesus Christ our Head in His Mystical Body, the Church, through the regenerative grace of Baptism. We are personally elect to salvation because we are incorporated into Christ by Baptism and made living members of the elect, prophetic, priestly, royal Body of Christ, the People of God, the Temple of the Spirit, the Ark of Salvation, the Church.

Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him (I Saint Peter 3.20-22).

This doctrine is clearly taught in the Baptismal Office of the English Book of Common Prayer:

We beseech thee, for thine infinite mercies, that thou wilt mercifully look upon this Child; wash him and sanctify him with the Holy Ghost; that he, being delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ's Church; and being stedfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life;

Sanctify this Water to the mystical washing away of sin; and grant that this Child, now to be baptized therein, may receive the fulness of thy grace, and ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children;

I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all the world. Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind. Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.

And the American Prayer Book Catechism teaches:

And I heartily thank our heavenly Father, that he hath called me to this state of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. And I pray unto God to give me his grace, that I may continue in the same unto my life's end.

Predestination to life, or election, is based on God's dealing with His chosen people through Covenant, both in the Old Law and in the New Dispensation. In the Epistle to the Romans, Saint Paul describes the election of the Old Covenant people, in which God consecrated to Himself a chosen people, in which body salvation was promised and through which God was glorified and manifested Himself to the world: that reality of communion and corporate life in God, foreshadowed in the Old Law, is fulfilled and completed in the New Testament through the Church, which Body is elect to salvation and through which the proclamation of the Gospel is achieved. Election is covenantal, ecclesial and sacramental. All that God established for and promised to Israel of old is now perfected and fulfilled in the Holy Catholic Church. The Church is Israel complete and accomplished in her fulness; she is the true and spiritual Israel, a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God (Galatians 6.16). We are elect insofar as we are elect members of Christ is His covenantal, baptismal Body:

But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God (I Corinthians 6.11).

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified (Romans 8.29-30).

Our common salvation then depends on our continuing in the state of grace conferred upon us by the Church, wherein we are corporately adopted as the sons of God by grace and adoption in the Holy Ghost. In the grace of Baptism and the Sacramental System, we become by grace what God is by nature; we receive divine sonship; we become 'sons in the Son' and 'partakers of the divine nature.' Such is the basis of the catholic, and biblical, doctrine of predestination. We can refuse and lose our election if we reject the grace of our Baptism and lapse into mortal sin. Called to salvation, even the elect members of Christ, members of the Church, can exercise their free will and repudiate the gift. God saves no one by force, and the mystery of free will is preserved in election. We are called to 'make our election sure' (II St Peter 1.10) by 'walking in the good works prepared beforehand by God' (Ephesians 2.10)

Conversely and negatively, the Church has always rejected 'double predestination,' or the idea that men are reprobated to eternal punishment apart from their exercise of free will, by an eternal decree of God that does not take into account man's actual use or rejection of divine grace. The Second Council of Orange and the subsequent theological reflection of the Church through the course of centuries have definitely excluded from the Church's Faith the heretical notion that God would condemn men to Hell without any consideration of their actual moral state. The judgement of the Church in this respect certainly 'reprobates' the excesses of the Calvinist theological method and system. 'God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,' ( I Timothy 2.4) yet 'many are called but few chosen' (Saint Matthew 22.14) because many reject the call and do not accept the free gift of salvation.

As one commentator has described it: 'through God's grace of eternal salvation being offered as a gift through His Son, we can choose to select eternal salvation by exercising our free will or we can choose to reject the gift of grace and select eternal damnation through exercise of our free will.' That is the historic position of all those Communions which comprise the Undivided Church, the Great Church Catholic of the ages. We share this view in all essentials with the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Latin Church. The Lord Christ has a universally salvific will for all men; He desires and wills that all men might be saved, and the objective Atonement was offered by Christ for the remission of sins of all men who have ever lived or ever will live - but only those who subjectively receive the free gift of grace won by Christ's Incarnation and Atonement will inherit eternal life. Tragically, some men will reject God's grace, and His holy will and commandments, and choose not to be saved, although the offer is available to all. For the cause, when Our Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist, he said, 'For this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many.' Many will ultimately receive the gift of eternal life in the New Testament of His Blood, but not all - for some will choose not to receive it. So the ancient Faith is neither universalist nor double predestinarian; it recognises that the Image of God in man is freedom, and that man is free to cooperate and correspond with grace, empowered and aided to do so by grace itself, of course, or is free intentionally and persistently to reject grace, which act leads to spiritual death. God's sovereignty and human free-will co-exist in a paradox, in holy mystery.

Two New Provincial Episcopal Visitors for Catholics in the Church of England

2011-05-06T12:49:00.005-04:00

Wonderful news indeed that two brothers of the Society of the Holy Cross have been appointed to serve as bishops for the traditional constituency of the Church of England... and Father Hope Patten must be rejoicing to see his successor as Rector of the parish of Saint Mary's Walsingham raised to the episcopate. Surely that would have been unthinkable in 1931 when the Shrine of Our Lady was restored. Congratulations to Father Baker and Father Banks - our prayers are with you as you begin your new ministries.

Downing Street has today announced the appointment of the Reverend Jonathan Baker as Bishop of Ebbsfleet and the Reverend Norman Banks as the Bishop of Richborough, both of whom will be consecrated at a service at Southwark Cathedral on 16th June.

In line with the 1993 Act of Synod, the Archbishop of Canterbury has commissioned the Provincial Episcopal Visitors to work with the diocesan bishops to provide extended pastoral care and sacramental ministry, as well as acting as spokesmen and advisors, to ensure that ‘the integrity of differing beliefs and positions concerning the ordination of women to the priesthood should be mutually recognised and respected’.

The Revd Jonathan Baker who is currently Principal of Pusey House succeeds Bishop Andrew Burnham as Bishop of Ebbsfleet.

Commenting on his appointment, Jonathan Baker said:

‘The appointment of two new PEVs for the Southern Province is a real sign of commitment by the Church of England to the growth and renewal of every aspect of its common life, particularly its catholic tradition which I know and love. I look forward immensely to serving as Bishop of Ebbsfleet and to leading the clergy and lay people in my care to have confidence in their faith and in proclaiming the Gospel to all.’

The Revd Norman Banks who is currently Vicar of Walsingham, Houghton and Barsham, succeeds Bishop Keith Newton as Bishop of Richborough.

Commenting on his appointment, Norman Banks said:

‘One of the real pleasures and privileges of being Vicar of S. Mary’s is getting to know so many of the people who visit Walsingham regularly and make the Parish Church part of their pilgrimage.

I am both delighted and honoured that for those in the Richborough area I am about to have the opportunity and privilege of becoming their bishop and visiting them where they regularly worship. From the many recent conversations I have had, I believe that there is real desire across the Church of England to find a way for us to hold together with integrity and generosity. I hope the appointment of two new PEV’s will be seen as both ‘gift’ and ‘sign’ at this crucial time in the life of our Church.’

Welcoming the news, Dr Williams said:

‘I am very happy to welcome two such faithful and gifted priests as colleagues. They are taking up a very demanding pastoral ministry at a time of much upheaval and uncertainty, and will need our prayers and friendship as we work in the Church of England for a future in which there is full mutual respect and constructive work in mission to be undertaken together.

I am deeply grateful to those who have exercised pastoral care for traditionalist priests and parishes in recent months, especially Bishops John Ford, Mark Sowerby and Lindsay Urwin.’

Two Beatifications

2011-05-02T21:25:00.002-04:00

Sunday 1st May marked the beatification of Blessed John Paul II in the Roman Communion, the most beloved Bishop of Rome in modern times. But lesser known is the fact that last Tuesday, 26th April 2011, marked the 350th anniversary of the canonisation of the great Martyr for the Anglican Church, King Charles Stuart I.

On 26th April 1661, the Convocations of Canterbury and York, meeting in joint session, adopted the State Service in honour of the Royal Martyr, which Service was henceforth incorporated into the 1662 Book of Common Prayer: in the Liturgy of 30th January, Charles I is declared 'Saint' and 'Martyr.' The Martyr King died for the proper recognition of the Sacraments and the Apostolic Order of the Church. Saint Charles Stuart is thus the only Saint canonised by the Church of England after the Reformation.

REMEMBER!

The whole world awoke and rejoiced in astonishment to find itself Anglican...

2011-05-02T21:10:00.003-04:00

Friday 29th April, the Royal Wedding of Britain's future King and his bride.

Truly magnificent in every way, spiritually, liturgically, musically, a reverent, dignified, orthodox Christian witness to a secularised nation - the service used was the Alternative Marriage Service of the 1928 Proposed English Book of Common Prayer.

Let us pray for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and for their union, that it may be blessed, happy and holy.

Temporary Married Priesthood for the Ordinariates?

2011-05-02T20:57:00.006-04:00

An interesting development...

In an interview-book entitled 'A Great Heart. Homage to John Paul II,' Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said there is continuity between John Paul II and Benedict XVI in 'welcoming into the Catholic Church former married Anglican pastors [sic], allowing them to live in matrimony.' The Cardinal explained that this 'welcome that still continues today and that the recent Apostolic Constitution extends to entire groups of people and parishes, albeit standing firm on the issue of celibacy for priests, asking that in the future married priests should not become the norm in these Orders.'

40

2011-04-20T14:41:00.004-04:00

Today, 20th April 2011, is my Fortieth Birthday! Thank you all for your prayers for me on this special day...

Our Blessed Lady of Walsingham, pray for us!
Saint Chad of Lichfield, pray for us!
Saint Charles, King and Martyr, pray for us!

Holy Week at Saint Barnabas Church

2011-04-18T17:19:00.002-04:00

Monday in Holy Week, 18th April,
Tuesday in Holy Week, 19th April
and Wednesday in Holy Week, 20th April
Holy Eucharist, 12 Noon

Maundy Thursday, 21st April
Holy Eucharist, 12 Noon
Sung Holy Eucharist, Stripping of the Altars and Watch before the Altar of Repose, 7pm (Incense)

Good Friday, 22nd April
Morning Prayer, Litany and Holy Communion from the Reserved Sacrament 9.30am (Incense)
Three Hours’ Devotion, 12 Noon to 3pm
Stations of the Cross, 3pm
Sacramental Confessions, 4pm-6pm
Evensong and Litany, 7pm

Easter Even, 23rd April
Easter Egg Hunt, 10.30am
Sacramental Confessions, 1pm-2pm
Easter Flower Ministry, 9am-3pm
Sung Holy Eucharist of the Easter Vigil, 8pm (Incense)

Easter Day, 24th April
Sung Holy Eucharist, 9am
Sung Holy Eucharist, 11am

Easter Monday, 25th April,
Easter Tuesday, 26th April
and Easter Wednesday, 27th April
Holy Eucharist, 12 Noon

Easter Thursday, 28th April
Holy Eucharist, 7pm

Easter Friday, 29th April
and Easter Saturday, 30th April
Holy Eucharist, 12 Noon

Missal Moment II

2011-04-17T19:38:00.001-04:00

Courtesy of the Latin Rite Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina and my brother, Father Brandon Jones, Administrator of Saint Joseph's Church, Asheboro. The 'Anglicisation' of the Roman liturgy continues!

His Mighty Resurrection

2011-04-17T19:16:00.003-04:00

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

‘When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.’ As we celebrate the forty days of Our Lord’s risen presence with His disciples before His glorious Ascension, a mystical forty day Easter feast answering the austerities and disciplines of the forty day Lenten fast with inexpressible joy, let us consider the consequences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead: what occurs for us in the wake of that most significant event in all of human history?

The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the grave is the foundation and crowning event of the orthodox Christian Faith, the basis of all that we believe and profess. ‘Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures… if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain… but now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept’ (I Corinthians 15.1-4, 14, 20).

For this reason, Easter Day is the original and unique Christian festival, the celebration from which the rest of the Christian liturgical year springs. Easter is so important and vital that it is not merely one Day, but a Day that expands into eight, and then forty. The initial eight days of the Easter commemoration, the great Octave, becomes the source for all other Octaves in the Church Year. The eight days signify the New Creation: God created the world in six days, rested on the seventh, and recreated the world by Christ’s Resurrection on the eighth, the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, the new day of Christ’s victory over death. Ancient Christian art and architecture reinforce this truth – early baptisteries of the patristic period feature octagonal, eight-sided, buildings and baptismal pools, showing in sign and form that through the regenerative and saving waters of Baptism we are plunged into the death and Resurrection of Christ and made partakers of the New Life, the New Creation inaugurated by the Lord Jesus in His bodily Resurrection (Romans 6.1-11, Hebrews 9.13-15, I Saint Peter 3.21-22, Titus 3.5). The day of our Holy Baptism was our own Easter Day, the day of our new birth in Christ and the pledge of our own Resurrection from the dead. The Church is first and foremost the community of the Resurrection, the band of faithful disciples of Jesus which worships and serves the Risen Lord of Glory, the Mystical Body of Christ indestructibly identified with and supernaturally and sacramentally united to her deathless Head (I Corinthians 12.12-14, Galatians 3.27).

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest and most profound truth of all, the supreme and central Mystery of our faith with which the Apostles began their preaching of the Gospel after the bestowal of the Holy Ghost on Whitsunday. Our Redemption was won by Christ’s death on the Cross of Calvary; by His mighty Resurrection, eternal life is given to us. The Resurrection is the ground of the Church’s continual triumph, the cause of her endless rejoicing, the source and summit of her faith and life. Until the advent of God the Word in human flesh in the Incarnation and His conquest over death, the entire human race suffered in a state of rejection and alienation from God, far from God because of sin, enslaved in spiritual death. This misery continued until the Resurrection of Christ, which was our deliverance and salvation. Through His death on the Cross, His descent into hell and His magnificent Resurrection, Our Lord has raised His people to the hope of heaven – ‘When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things’ (Ephesians 4.8-10).

The Lord Jesus, descending to the dead, took hell captive, He destroyed it, He put death to death; He overthrew and bound our last enemy (I Corinthians 15.26). Our Divine Lord annihilated the power of death over us. Now in Christ, our physical death becomes but a blessed transition from this fallen world to the age of the world to come, to the larger life in which we shall be received more and more into His joyful service and in which we, and His servants everywhere, shall win the eternal victory. Because of the Resurrection of Christ, we shall eternally grow and develop into the life of God in the land of light and joy in the fellowship of the Saints, as we go from strength to strength, and with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the image of Jesus from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord (II Corinthians 3.18). Now in Christ, bodily death is for us only a temporary breach, for by His mighty Resurrection, Christ has opened to us the gates of everlasting life, the general Resurrection of the body. Now we know we shall die in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life through Jesus, at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed, and made like unto his own glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself (Philippians 3.21). ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’ (I Saint John 3.2). The Resurrection of Christ is the assurance of our own resurrection.

To depart this life is to be with Christ, for we know we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, many mansions in our Father’s house, a place prepared for us, in which Our Lord will receive us unto Himself, that where He is, we may be also. The joy and blessedness of the heavenly Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, the Church of the first-born written in heaven, with Apostles, Prophets, Confessors, Virgins and Martyrs, await us in their perfect fullness and fulfillment. In communion with all saints and angels and each other, free from sorrow, suffering, pain and labours, and seeing God face and face as we worship and reign forever before the Throne of the Lamb, we shall literally live to witness the consequences of Easter!

God bless you!

The Easter Canticle

2011-04-14T15:03:00.003-04:00

For us, as we approach the solemnities of Holy Week and Easter...

CHRIST our Passover is sacrificed for us: * therefore let us keep the feast,

Not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; * but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

CHRIST being raised from the dead dieth no more; * death hath no more dominion over him.
For in that he died, he died unto sin once: * but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

CHRIST is risen from the dead, * and become the first-fruits of them that slept.
For since by man came death, * by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, * even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, * and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, * world without end. Amen.

As we prepare to celebrate together the Feast of Feasts and Queen of Feasts, the Christian Passover, the glorious Third-Day Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from the dead on Easter Day, let us turn to contemplate one of the greatest liturgical treasures in Anglicanism, and yet one of the least familiar and utilised, the beautiful Easter Canticle found on page 162 in the Prayer Book.

In the ancient Sarum Use, the liturgical rite used in the Church of England before the sixteenth century, the Easter Canticle was sung before Morning Prayer on Easter morning during a procession of the Cross, after which procession the Cross was placed in a side chapel next to the High Altar and honoured by the faithful. From this service in the Sarum Use and the previous practice of singing the Easter Canticle are derived the text and practice established by our Book of Common Prayer today. In the first English Prayer Book of King Edward VI, issued in 1549, the service of singing the Easter Canticle, introductory to the festivities of Easter morning Matins and Holy Communion, was retained. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury, at the time in which our liturgy was reformed and translated into English, had intended to create a vernacular version of the processional of the Cross on Easter morning comparable to the ancient rite found in the Sarum liturgy, but the project was never completed: our Easter Canticle is the sole surviving remnant of the original devotion. In the second English Prayer Book of Edward VI, promulgated in 1552, the Easter Canticle was appointed to replace the Venite, exultemus Domino at Morning Prayer on Easter Day - but strangely, the Alleluias found in the ancient form were omitted in 1552, never to be reinstated. In the Restoration English Prayer Book of King Charles II, published in 1662, the first section of our contemporary Easter Canticle, I Corinthians 5.7-8, was added to the older text and the Gloria Patri was added at the end of the three sections of the enlarged hymn. Our 1928 American Prayer Book expanded the use of the Easter Canticle, replete with the re-added Gloria Patri which had disappeared in the 1789 American BCP, so that the Canticle may be sung or said in place of the Venite at Morning Prayer every day during the Octave of Easter.

What does the Easter Canticle teach us about the mighty Resurrection of Our Lord? In I Corinthians 5.7-8, Saint Paul illustrates Our Lord’s triumphant conquest of death as the fulfilment of the Jewish feasts of Unleavened Bread and Passover: as every Jewish family cleansed its home of leavened bread before the feast (Exodus 12.14-20), so Christians are urged to remove sin from their midst and to celebrate the Liturgy in purity and holiness of life. Christ is our Passover, our Paschal Sacrifice, the revelation of the true meaning of the day of preparation for the Old Testament Passover. On the day of preparation, unblemished lambs were slaughtered in the Temple for the ensuing feast, as simultaneously all leaven in Israel was discarded. The two feasts of Unleavened Bread and Passover coincided. The old Passover was celebrated by eating the Paschal Lamb of the sacrifice, and the old feast of Unleavened Bread was celebrated by eating only unleavened bread for seven consecutive days. The Lord Jesus is both the new and true Passover, whose passion and resurrection liberate us from slavery to sin, evil and death, and the new and genuine Unleavened Bread, the Bread of Life, whose perfect and all-sufficient Sacrifice is made present and pleaded in the Eucharist and whose precious Body and Blood are received in Holy Communion. The Blessed Sacrament is Christ our Passover, Christ our Feast, Christ the Priest and Victim of the new and eternal covenant.

In Romans 6.9-11, we are reminded that Our Lord’s real human death is unrepeatable and has resulted in His ultimate physical glorification and immortality: because Christ destroyed death by His own death, to which He was freely and voluntarily subject, His risen humanity, body and soul, is forever victorious over death. Now for all eternity Christ lives, Christ conquers, Christ reigns – and we shall live, conquer and reign because of Him, in Him and through Him and for Him. Christ has destroyed the power of sin through death, and, thus united to Him in His death, we shall overcome sin and live forever in Him.

In I Corinthians 15.20-22, Saint Paul uses the ancient Jewish liturgy to explain the mystery of the Resurrection. In ancient Israel, the first portion of a crop was offered to God in the Temple as a consecration of the entire expected harvest to come (Leviticus 23.10-14); so the Lord Jesus is the first of many to be raised in glory, and His resurrection Body is an offering that ensures a whole harvest of believers will be raised to eternal life as He was. The contrast of Adam and Christ demonstrates the power and impact of Our Lord’s Resurrection. Death is the result of sin. Sin began with and in Adam, and because of Adam’s transgression, the totality of the human race since has been destined to enter the world alienated from God and to die. Christ saves us from death, because His victory over sin reverses the disobedience and consequences of Adam’s fall and provides us with the promise that our fallen and mortal bodies, once broken by sin, will be raised to eternal glory and new life. Christ, the New Man, the New Adam, the New Creation, restores us to communion with God by His glorification and healing of our human nature. Adam was the head of a wounded and corrupted humanity; Christ is the Head of the New Creation, the Church.

And finally, as we ready our hearts and souls for the Resurrection of Our Lord, let us compare the biblical theology and profound eloquence of the Easter Canticle in the Prayer Book tradition with another truly exquisite liturgical hymn for Easter Day, that composed by Saint John of Damascus, the Seal of the Fathers and the last great synthesiser of Christian theology who died in AD 750, the Canon of Easter as found in the Eastern Rite:

It is the Day of Resurrection! Let us be radiant, O people! Easter! The Lord's Easter! For Christ our God has brought us from death to life, and from earth unto heaven, as we sing triumphant hymns! Let us purify our senses and we shall behold Christ, radiant with inaccessible light of the Resurrection, and shall hear Him saying clearly, ‘Rejoice!’ As we sing the triumphant hymns, let heavens rejoice in a worthy manner, the earth be glad, and the whole world, visible and the invisible, keep the Feast. For Christ our eternal joy has risen! Come let us drink a new beverage, not miraculously drawn from a barren rock, but the fountain of Incorruption springing from the tomb of Christ in whom we are established. Now all things are filled with light: heaven and earth, and the nethermost regions. So let all creation celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, whereby it is established. Yesterday, O Christ, I was buried with Thee, and today I arise with thy arising. Yesterday I was crucified with Thee. Glorify me, O Saviour, with Thee in thy Kingdom. When at dawn, the women with Mary came and found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre, they heard from the angel: Why seek among the dead, as if He were a mortal man, Him who lives in everlasting light? Behold the grave-clothes. Run and tell the world that the Lord is risen, and has slain death. For He is the Son of God who saves mankind…

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! May the Lord Jesus Christ, our True God, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and risen from the dead, bless you and all you love in the coming Eastertide!

Mid-Lent: The Eucharist as Refreshment

2011-03-20T18:03:00.021-04:00

For us as we approach the Fourth Sunday in Lent...

Our Lord Jesus Christ calls us, beckons us, to refreshment this day as we take a hopefully well-deserved pause from our Lenten discipline, and lighten the mood with the festal vestments and colour of rose. It is time to allow Christ to refresh us, and to take away our burdens, and to renew us, as we yet offer ourselves in self-denial and penance. The Lord desires us to turn to Him, and Him alone, to Him who is the true refreshment of the human person. Christ is our rest, our renewal, our new Life.

He speaks of Himself in comforting terms, as One who nourishes, who refreshes, who revitalises, and ever makes new.

‘Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.’ ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ ‘But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into eternal life.’ ‘He who followeth me shall have the light of life.’

The classic definition of refreshment is simply - to make stronger, more energetic, to replenish, to renew, to revive, to re-enliven.

Jesus Christ, Who is Life and Light, revivifies the body and soul, restoring to man’s nature and being the very Life of God, divine grace, making us partakers of the communion of God’s life - the Life God gives, receives and shares eternally as the Tri-Hypostatic Communion of Love, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Christ communicates to man the life of the Trinity, unending life, everlasting life, eternal life.

Christ offers Himself to us as our ‘re-fresh-ment,’ the One who restores, who makes whole, who makes us new and alive.

Jesus says: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.' Life.

Jesus Christ is the New Life. Jesus has come, he says, so that we may ‘have life, and have it more abundantly.’

On Refreshment Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Holy Church proffers once again an opportunity to meditate on the greatest and most sublime of all God’s gifts to us on earth, the most unfathomable of mysteries, the Holy Eucharist, the true living Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the verity of which is summarised in Saint John’s Gospel, chapter 6. The New Moses gives the New People of God the New Manna, the Bread from heaven, to refresh those who are weary, to feed them supernaturally.

The unforgettable feeding of the five thousand, the feeding miracle of Our Lord so familiar to us, actually reveals to us a dimension of our lives as Christians which we perhaps infrequently examine: Jesus Christ refreshes, renews, energises, revitalises us as members of His mystical Body the Church, through the Holy Eucharist, which is nothing less but the entire Person of Our Lord, God and Man, under the form of bread and wine. The Eucharist makes each one of us personally one with God and with one another. The Eucharist feeds us with Divine Life.

The Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, creates and sustains the Church, which is Christ’s own Body. The Eucharist is the Lord’s Own Service, the supreme act of Christian worship to be faithfully attended every Lord’s Day. It is not just a symbol or a sign - it is Jesus Christ Himself. It is our Sacramental God, present to us under the veil of a mystery. It is our refreshment, our life, our source of being. The Eucharist is the closest any of us will ever come to God this side of heaven. The Holy Eucharist is truly ‘heaven on earth.’

The historical event of the Last Supper, the New Passover, which fulfils the prefigure, the coming attraction of the feeding of the five thousand, is daily reproduced on the Altars of the Holy Catholic Church: Jesus comes to us in that Holy Sacrament which the feeding miracle is intended to image and prophesy for us. However St John 6 carries us back to the Old Testament, Exodus chapter 16, the institution of God’s Passover meal and covenant.

Manna - what is it? - the heavenly bread with which God miraculously fed the children of Israel in the wilderness. Jesus Christ is the Bread from Heaven, the Bread of God of which if anyone eats of It, he shall live forever. Receiving Holy Communion is renewal, re-creation, the gift of eternal life. The Eucharist should be the nourishment and stay of our daily lives, the meat and drink of our supernatural existence in Christ.

We must eat Christ’s Flesh and drink His Blood in Holy Communion in order to be saved and have eternal life. This is the teaching of Jesus Christ, not just of the Church Fathers or the medieval theologians. The Supper of the Lord is generally necessary to salvation (BCP, 581).

Saint John 6 sums it all up:

‘Verily, verily, I say unto you: Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day; for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.’

Echoed in the writing of that genius of Anglicanism, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the truth is reiterated in the Eucharistic liturgy of the Anglican Church; ‘Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.’

The Eucharist is refreshment, nourishment for the body and the soul, an often-neglected teaching of our sacred Faith.

The Anglican Prayer Book Catechism, an authoritative document, teaches:

Q: What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby in the Holy Communion?

A: The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine.

What precisely are Anglicans to believe about the Holy Eucharist, our Refreshment, our true Manna which feeds us unto eternal life? The Prayer Book calls the Eucharist ‘these holy mysteries.’ It cannot be defined - we cannot define the indefinable. We can only maintain a reverential awe in the face of such mystery.

From Queen Elizabeth I, a reasonably Anglican voice, we hear:

Christ was the Word that spake it. He took the bread and brake it. And what His word doth make it, I do believe and take it.

Ours is not a religion based on a system of ethics or morality, ours is not a sophisticated philosophical school or lyceum of ideas, ours is not a mutual appreciation society -- our religion is a Person, ours is a religion of the God-Man Jesus Christ. Ours is a religion with a Body broken and Blood shed, a Blood-bought religion, a Body religion. And that Body broken and Blood shed are given to us every day through the hands of Christ’s chosen men, His apostolic ministers, in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Jesus Christ is the Refreshment of all men.

Anglicanism - Western Orthodoxy

2011-03-12T19:46:00.002-05:00

From Bishop Geoffrey Rowell:

When, in the sixteenth century, ecclesia Anglicana – ‘the English Church’ – was reformed, those, like Bishop John Jewel, who defended that reformation, did so not by saying it was adapted to contemporary culture, but by a return to the faith and order of the early church. Very deliberately, unlike the Protestant reformers of continental Europe, the Church of England maintained the historic, apostolic, three-fold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons. The Church of England did not abandon the historic apostolic ministry but sought to reform it. Ever since Anglicans have held that those ordained as bishops, priests and deacons, are ordained as bishops, priests and deacons of the Church of God. Change in that ordering of ministry is therefore a matter not just for the Church of England or the Anglican Communion but for all those churches who claim to share that ministry. Developments in faith and order need this wider reference....

The Anglican patrimony is not just a matter of hymn-books and liturgy, of Evensong and the English choral tradition, important as those things are. It is a sacramental way of living out a catholic identity, expressed in relation to the community and in a wise application of moral ideals to personal and pastoral realities. It is what the churches of the East have sometimes recognized as a Western Orthodoxy. Above all it is about a faithfulness in a way of Christian living that expresses the beauty of holiness, which is about transfiguration into the likeness of Christ, living out the maxim often attributed to St Augustine but originating in the theological conflicts of Reformation Europe – ‘in essentials unity, in doubtful things liberty, and in all things charity.’

Ash Wednesday

2011-03-09T16:35:00.006-05:00

The Ash Wednesday Altar at Saint Barnabas Anglican Church, Dunwoody, Georgia, with a little sample photograph from last night's Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper.

A blessed and holy Lent to you all!

Moravian-Episcopal Communion

2011-03-04T15:57:00.005-05:00

On 10th February 2011, the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in the United States formally entered into a full communion agreement with The Episcopal Church.

During the ceremony of inauguration, the participating bishops of The Episcopal Church laid their hands on the Moravian bishops present, with prayer; immediately beforehand, the Moravian bishops imposed hands on the Episcopal bishops present, with prayer, in the same manner. The act appears to be a mutual recognition of ministries rather than a quasi-ordination rite.

Confusing and perplexing nevertheless.

The Moravian Church does not possess the Sacrament of Holy Orders, but rather a presbyteral succession of ministers:

From the Moravian Church itself:

So they decided to ask Priest Michael to travel to the oldest of the elders of the Waldensiens and to receive from him anew the ordination as priest. They didn't know whether this Waldensien priest would be willing to do so, but if he did, they would consider it a confirmation from God. When Michael returned he would ordain Matthias as their bishop. And that is the way it happened. According to ecclesiastical law Michael admittedly had no power to do so. Only a bishop could exercise the right to ordain, the ius ordinis. But the brothers were of the opinion that according to biblical apostolic order there was no difference between the ordination of a priest and a bishop. The bishop was only differentiated by his duties. Thus Matthias was ordained as bishop among brothers. He then ordained Brother Elias and Brother Thomas as priests. Michael relieved himself of the office of priest and reverted to the status of brother.

And from Doctor William Tighe:

What the historical essays demonstrate is that the Moravian Church originated in 1467 at the so-called Synod of Lhotka when some sixty individuals from the Utraquist Church of Bohemia—that more conservative, and by that date the dominant, section of the Hussite movement that accepted most traditional Catholic doctrine, but insisted on communion in two kinds, and that considered itself in communion with Rome, although Rome did not consider itself in communion with them—who wished to distance themselves further from Rome organized themselves into a 'church.' They drew lots to select three men to be their priests. Among the larger group was a Catholic priest; this Catholic priest was then (supposedly) consecrated a bishop by a visiting Waldensian elder, and went on to consecrate as bishop one of the three men selected by lots, who then ordained as priests the other two men so selected. Then the Catholic priest renounced his Catholic orders and was (re)ordained by the man whom he had himself consecrated a bishop—and then the whole lot were rebaptized by their new clergy (for some sixty years they received all converts by baptism, although they practiced infant baptism of their members’ offspring). As the author of the essay, the Anglican Dr. Colin Podmore, writes: 'The Waldensians did not possess the "apostolic succession" as traditionally understood, and, in any case, the Brethren rejected this and wanted nothing to do with it. In obtaining ordination from the Waldensian elder they neither intended to acquire the sign of the historic episcopate nor believed that they had done so.'
They did, however, retain the offices of bishop and priest, and soon revived that of deacon. However, in both 1500 and 1553 their episcopate died out, and new bishops had to be elected and consecrated by their priests, so that the 'episcopal succession' of the Moravian Church goes back only to 1553.

Saint Chad of Lichfield

2011-03-02T15:23:00.003-05:00

Almighty and everlasting God, who on this day dost gladden us with the feast of blessed Chad thy Confessor and Bishop: we humbly beseech thy mercy; that we which here do honour him with our devout observance, may by his intercession obatin thy healing unto life eternal: through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

Saint Chad, pray for us!

Saint David of Wales

2011-03-01T19:30:00.002-05:00

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God: that the devout prayers of blessed David, thy Confessor and Bishop, may in such wise succour and defend us, that we which on this day observe his festival, may follow his constancy in the defence of thy true religion; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

Saint David, Enlightener of Wales, pray for us!

Healey Willan at Evensong and Benediction

2011-02-28T23:36:00.001-05:00

A glimpse of Healey Willan (1880-1968) accompanying the Anglo-Catholic liturgy of the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Toronto. Recorded live at Vespers and Benediction in 1966.

The Magnificat with Antiphon - (plainsong with Willan fauxbourdons)
Psalm 117 with Antiphon (5:52)
Improvised postlude. (7:16)

Our Lady of Kursk

2011-02-27T23:16:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday 15th February 2011, the Feast of the Purification of Our Lady in the Old Calendar, I was delighted and honoured to be invited to venerate the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God at Saint Mary of Egypt Russian Orthodox Church in Roswell, Georgia. This holy icon is considered the most sacred relic in the possession of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and the devotion to Our Lady of Kursk is one of the most beloved in Russian Orthodoxy: Our Lady of Kursk is to the Russian Church what Our Lady of Walsingham is to Anglicanism. You may read about the devotion here. Let us continue to pray for the restoration of full communion between the Eastern Orthodox and orthodox Anglican Churches.

Video courtesy of the Eastern American Diocese of ROCOR.

Accipe Spiritum Sanctum

2011-02-25T15:00:00.008-05:00

Father John Hunwicke provides us this week with a splendid meditation on rites of Episcopal Consecration old and new, and cites the writing of the eminent theologian, canonist and Church historian Cardinal Pietro Gasparri.

Father Hunwicke states: [Gasparri] was writing at a time when the universal opinion was that the Form of Episcopal Consecration was the formula Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, said by the consecrator as he imposed hands... and then quotes the Cardinal.

'Among all these rites which the Roman Pontifical prescribes in Episcopal Consecration, the common opinion is that the Matter is the imposition of the hands of the consecrating bishop (rather, of the consecrating bishops) and the Form is the related words Receive the Holy Spirit.

We think ... that, in the hypothesis of the imposition of the bishop's hands with the Preface alone, without those words Receive the Holy Spirit, the Consecration is valid, just as it was valid in the ancient liturgy; for how could you prove that the Church had taken its consecratory power away from this Prayer?

Equally, in the hypothesis of the imposition of the bishop's hands with those words alone Receive the Holy Spirit, without the Preface, we admit, with the common opinion, that the ordination is valid, since, although those words alone, considered in themselves, are indeterminate and do not sufficiently express the conferring of the episcopal order, nevertheless they are made sufficiently determinate not only by the Preface but by the caeremonia itself without the Preface.'

Cardinal Gasparri's sensible and historically-grounded theological explanation of the form of Episcopal Consecration, had it been applied generously in the deliberations of the Papal Commission of 1896 concerning Anglican Orders, would have likely produced a different result from the said Commission. Good liturgical theology has always recognised the reality of the moral unity of a rite, in which all the varying parts, acts and ceremonies together as an organic whole determine the meaning of the sacramental action. The convoluted and confusing theological method of Apostolicae Curae, shifting as it does from ground to ground in an effort scholastically to pinpoint a defect in the rites of Anglican ordination, could have been cleanly swept away or corrected by the use of Gasparri's historical-liturgical examination of the facts.

In other words, Anglican Orders are valid.

That in this and subsequent ordinations there are found in their fullness those orthodox and indispensable, visible and sensible elements of valid episcopal ordination - viz. the laying on of hands, the Epiclesis of the All-Holy Spirit and also the purpose to transmit the charisma of the Episcopal ministry.

Meletius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 1922

Septuagesima and Pre-Lent

2011-02-21T17:46:00.002-05:00

Septuagesima: A funny sounding word that signals the ensuing approach of our Lenten discipline as we embark on the journey known as Pre-Lent, a mini-Lent before Lent, which is designed to ready us and gear us in the direction of the Lenten fast. As children, we might have thought ‘Septuagesima’ probably referred to a laboratory experiment or a very challenging mathematical formula found in algebra books; it actually means ‘Seventy Days before Easter.’ Beginning even now in Pre-Lent, we are mindful of the distant dawn of the Feast of Feasts, the Paschal Mystery of Our Blessed Lord’s Resurrection. By the route of these seventy days, through the Cross of Lent, we emerge victorious from the Tomb in Easter joy with Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

Holy Mother Church in her good pastoral sense recognises that we need preparatory time to adjust to the sometimes jarring painful reality of Lent, its hopeful yet real sombreness, its renewed intensity and concentration on self-denial, its self-sacrificial discipline. Pre-Lent, a liturgical season now almost entirely unique to orthodox Prayer Book Anglicanism, offers a stage-by-stage, incremental way of getting ready for Lent. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, such a glorious trinity of celebration and feasting -- the message of Pre-Lent heralded to us is this; it is now time to lay aside our seasons of festivity and equip ourselves for sacrifice, for union with Our Lord in His mysterious offering of Himself for our sake, His voluntary passion and suffering.

Pre-Lent is a time for taking stock of our spiritual lives, of beginning the process of our spiritual inventory. We must begin again to examine our souls, consciences and lives -- to root out sin, to reject evil, to purge ourselves of that which does not belong to God, in short, to repent.

Only by the grace of God our Father, through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Ghost, are we saved from our sins, and only by the exercise of our free-will, our correspondence and co-operation with grace, can we enable the free gift of God’s Life within us to take hold and bear fruit. God created our freedom, and He loves and respects it as being in us an indispensable aspect of His Image. He does not want automatons or robots in His Family, His Kingdom, but sons of God in freedom, in His Likeness. He wants synergy; He wants us to love Him and worship Him in freedom and delight. Salvation is free gift; and it can be lost without perseverance, faith and obedience. Happy Pre-Lent!

Saint Paul announces that we enter into communion with God through the ‘obedience of Faith’ (Romans 1.5, 16.26). And our Book of Common Prayer asserts the theological virtue of Hope in relation to salvation: ‘I heartily thank our heavenly Father, that he hath called me to this state of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. And I pray unto God to give me his grace, that I may continue in the same unto my life’s end’ (page 284).

Pre-Lent’s liturgical theme reminds us that we are saved by grace through faith, and that in the wondrous love of God, we cannot save ourselves, although God never forces us to be saved. The gift must be received, it must be used, it must be prayed, lived, experienced, actualised. On one hand, salvation, freedom from sin and union with God, is entirely the action of the divine initiative: ‘But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans 5.8) ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk in them’ (Ephesians 2.8-10).

On the other hand, the Word of God written tells us in no uncertain terms: ‘work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’ (Philippians 2.12) ‘Faith without works is dead’ (Saint James 2.20, 26). God’s free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, unmerited and undeserved on our part, requires and demands a life - once liberated from the power of sin and death and supernaturally regenerated in Christ - lovingly conformed and subjected to the will of God, seeking to imitate Christ, to be Christ-like.

Father Ronald Knox, the famous English priest and theologian writes,

‘Septuagesima has an epistle that warns us that it is never too late to be damned and a gospel that reminds us that it is never too late to be saved’ -- fitting food for thought as we now engage in the process of preparing ourselves for the great revelation of the Risen Christ, who is always prepared to receive our repentance. The Christian life requires the acceptance of the divine gift, and good works proceeding from a living faith, if we are to be saved and go to heaven. Pre-Lent is about our response, our side of the divine-human equation; it is about the ‘D’ word: discipline.

1 Corinthians 9: Saint Paul gives us the whole Lenten theme in one fell swoop, and admonishes us to maintain discipline in our lives, without which we may slip and fall from grace. He cleverly uses the image of the arena of his day, track and boxing, to describe the process of subjecting the body to the spirit, and most importantly, to the Spirit of God. Prayer, almsgiving and fasting are exercises in self-control, and are critical to the conforming of our lives to the will of God. We can break the standards that we require of others, and thus lose our salvation. We must ever be vigilant for our own souls, ever on-guard through prayer and good works.

Real Christianity demands a real struggle, a real effort, real sacrifice. ‘Armchair Christianity’ is a deceptive impostor of the genuine article. The essence of the Christian life is ascesis, training, practice, effort, exercise. Orthodox Christianity is not only aesthetic, beautiful, it is ascetic, active.

Saint Matthew 20: Jesus Christ shows us in His parable of the labourers that God is limitless in love and mercy, forgives all sins, and, transcending all concepts of human justice, shows mercy on whom he shows mercy. The Kingdom of God is a free gift of God’s love, a pouring-out of the abundance of God’s generosity, which demands of us a proper response and a thankful return in the offering of our lives to Him. The Kingdom cannot be merited or deserved; it is given to us by Him who alone knows our own good actions and failures.

From the earliest Septuagesima sermon we possess, that of Saint Gregory the Great, the imminent reformer of the sixth century, we discover these words, more applicable today than when they were first uttered: ‘Many arrive at faith, but few are led into the heavenly kingdom. Behold many there are in the Church - they fill Churches throughout creation, yet who knows how few they are who shall be numbered in that chosen company of the elect? Behold the voices of all that proclaim Christ, but the lives of all do not proclaim Him. And many keep company with God in word, but shun Him in deed. At the call of the Lord are multiplied those without number; however, the unfaithful are mingled with the faithful, but because of their way of life they shall not merit to be partakers of the lot of the faithful. No one shall receive a Kingdom, who though formed in heavenly faith, with all their hearts seek the things of earth. Two things there are upon which we should carefully reflect. Because many are called but few chosen, the first is: let no one presume his own salvation; for though he be called to faith, whether he is worthy of the eternal kingdom he knows not. The second is: let no one presume to despair of his neighbour, who he perhaps sees lying in sin; for he knows not the riches of the divine grace.’

The days with the odd names beckon us to practice what we preach, to ‘walk the walk’ as well as to ‘talk the talk.’ Does our life, in its fruits, labours, works and prayers, match our profession? Saint Paul commands us to ‘walk worthy of our calling.’ Are we? If we are, we have the hope of being saved, of rejoicing on that heavenly shore, in that greater light, with Blessed Mary and all the Saints on that heavenly Easter Day which lasts for all eternity.

May the Lord Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant Who fasted, prayed and gave for us men and our salvation, grant you a productive and transformative Pre-Lent.

Anglican Communion Heresy Alerts

2011-02-21T17:20:00.001-05:00

First this, from Sydney...

I would like to argue that Sydney ought not go ahead with lay administration in the foreseeable future. I don’t think that there are any theological objections insofar as I would (and have) happily receive the Lord’s Supper in a Baptist church from a lay person and consider that the sacrament was in no way deficient – in fact, I would find it offensive were any Anglican to suggest it was in some way incomplete celebration. However, I do think it is not wise or necessary to proceed with this innovation at this time...
First, despite what some of its proponents claim, it is not in fact a ‘gospel issue’. Calling it a gospel issue posits an either-or that is simply not accurate. It confuses gospel issues with church order issues. The reason for calling it a gospel issue is that reserving the act of administration at the Supper for the ordained priest/presbyter allegedly communicates a view of the sacrament which sets it apart from the Word and makes it a special means of grace in addition to the gospel in some way – along the lines of a Roman Catholic theology of the sacraments. However, there is no sense in which a Communion service run in the evangelical parishes of the diocese of Sydney could ever be confused in that way. The usual practice communicates anything but a sacerdotal view of the Supper - and there is no evidence that anyone thinks that it does. The ministers do not normally robe or even wear collars these days. The locally authorised liturgies specifically rule out a sacerdotal interpretation of the Communion. Who administers at the Supper becomes then a matter of church order rather than of the gospel itself...
...It is simply the case that no practical necessity drives lay administration in Sydney. There are plenty of candidates for ministry, and plenty of serving presbyters – certainly compared to other dioceses. The current practice is for a monthly communion or perhaps less. Almost every practical concern could be overcome. The current policy of only ordaining as presbyters those who are rectors is perhaps an obstacle, in that congregational leaders may frequently not be presbyters. I would be in favour of returning to the old system. Nevertheless, diaconal administration - which is currently in place – has made this need less urgent.

And then this...

THE ANGLICAN Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf will now be able to ordain women as priests, appointing them to serve in churches in the region, and one of the first could be in Cyprus.

The announcement was made at the annual Synod of the diocese in Larnaca last week, and was warmly welcomed by members. Rt Rev Michael Lewis, bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, reported that his request to have permission to ordain and appoint women had been granted by the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. The other dioceses of the Province: Egypt, Iran and Jerusalem will not be affected by the change....

Evangelical Mary

2011-02-14T16:33:00.003-05:00

By Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali

There is a difference in culture in the two Churches in how we approach the Blessed Virgin Mary. And this difference in culture may also be a difference in theological culture. From the earliest days of the Christian Church there had been two 'tempers', one associated with Alexandria which is speculative and dogmatic, and one associated with Antioch which is historical and biblical, and inductive rather than deductive. If you wanted a crude guess about where I think the Roman Catholic Church's approach is, I would say that it is much more Alexandrian, particularly in its relation to Mary, and the dogmas and beliefs about Mary which have been developed over the years. Whereas the Anglican approach, even that of the Caroline divines and the Non-Jurors, has been more inductive; biblical, historical and patristic. We are discovering more and more that each approach can enrich the other. But it is worth recognizing the difference.

Since the second Vatican Council the Roman Catholic Church has shown a welcome tendency in all of its pronouncements to examine first the biblical background to any particular doctrine. And so we found it easy in ARCIC to consider, first of all, 'Mary and the Bible'. Pretty straightforward? Actually it raises all sorts of questions about how we read the Bible. Many of the reformers were critical of ways of reading it that had developed in the middle ages: the allegory and even the typography had got so florid you could make any part of the Bible mean anything at all. The Reformers were calling the Church back to a historical and literary seriousness, and the Anglican side were well aware of this. So we were delighted that the Roman Catholics also wanted to begin with the Bible and with some discussion about how typology, for example, could validly be used.

Of course, with the Older Testament, we must use typology with regard to Mary, as with Jesus. Anglicans sometimes sing Bishop Thomas Ken's hymn 'Her virgin eyes saw God incarnate born', which compares Mary to Eve. What was said about Eve in Genesis 3.15, about her offspring crushing the serpent's head, must apply in any kind of typological approach to the Blessed Virgin Mary. So not all allegory and typology is wrong and having got rid of the excesses we can now see where, from the Older Testament, we can validly talk of Mary.

When we came to the New Testament we were faced immediately with the question of how to treat the birth narratives. In both communions there is a spectrum of opinion in this matter. We felt that behind the two very different birth narratives there stands a common tradition that there was something highly unusual about the birth of Jesus. Beyond the narratives themselves, in Mark for instance, Jesus is described as the 'son of Mary'; in John when there is a discussion between Jesus and some of the Jewish people, they tell him, 'we were not born of fornication' and then, St Paul in Galatians speaks of the Saviour being 'born of a woman.

Staying with the birth narratives for the time being, I think the integrity of the tradition is shown by their differences. Although we conflate them at Christmas (and confuse everybody) they are different stories with different settings and different personae. So Joseph plays a major role in the Matthean narrative but not in the Lucan one. You have the magi in Matthew and the shepherds in Luke and so on. Positively in Matthew, we have this constant repetition of the 'Mother and the Child', never the one without the other, and this has been picked up in Christian iconography.

In Luke, we have first of all the Annunciation: Ave Maria gratia plena. The reformers did not like this, it seemed to be claiming too much of Mary and so the early English translations, including the King James version, tended to translate this as 'Hail Mary thou who art highly favoured' or some such phrase, Actually the word used, kecharitomene, means the one who has been fully endowed with grace. So Ave Maria gratia plena is correct, or more correct than somebody highly favoured, whatever that might mean, as long as it is understood that God endowed her with grace.

All sorts of questions arise about this. If Mary is so fully endowed with grace, how far back does that endowment go? Was it at the time when the angel came to see her? A little bit earlier? How much earlier? Right back to the beginning? And what was the beginning anyway? There has been fierce debate in the Church for centuries about this. There are, of course, other persons in the Bible about whom it is said that 'God had been preparing them for his calling from the very beginning of their lives.' Jeremiah. Samson, if you mean in the way that Samson was born. John the Baptist. St Paul himself says this about his own preparation for his calling.

There is no reason for us to want to deny such preparation of Mary from the beginning, especially because of what is said at the time of the Annunciation. And, indeed, that is the line that we have taken in Mary, Grace and Hope in the Church, that we cannot set limits to when God began to prepare Mary. It must have been from the beginning and even before the beginning in divine providence and wisdom.

We decided to say that the Virgin Birth, conception and birth, are important because they are about the new thing that God was about to do in the Incarnation of Our Lord. Here was something quite new which God was about to do and, in fact, if you read the narratives both Lucan and Matthean, you find that there is both continuity and newness.

The evangelists keep a balance, so the genealogies in both point to the continuity of David's line, of being part of the story of Israel, but the newness is concentrated in God being the chief agent in the work of the Incarnation. But Luke has so much else about him. Of course, there is the Visitation to Elizabeth and Elizabeth's cry when she sees Mary and recognizes her blessing. Mary, herself, speaks of this in the Magnificat, and at Evensong every day we recognize that ever blessedness of Mary first seen by Elizabeth. Luke is also conscious that Mary was reflecting on what was happening and it may be that a lot of what we know about the birth narratives somehow comes from Mary's reflection. In this sense Mary is also the first theologian, if you like, not just the first Christian but the first theologian who was thinking about the things that God was doing with her and for her and in her.

Then there is John's gospel and in the report we consider the two events in which Mary is present, Cana and Calvary. At Cana she seems to be there in her own right, Jesus arriving afterwards with the disciples. She says to Jesus 'there is no wine' and then there is that dialogue you know where he says 'my time has not yet come' but then Mary says to the stewards 'do as he tells you' and they do and you know what happens. But then there is something very telling at the end of it all where it says that Mary, now goes down with Jesus and the disciples back to Capernaum. She is seen for the first time as part of the company of disciples.

And, then, there is Mary at the Cross and the tremendous amount of reflection there has been on the Mother being handed over to the care of the beloved disciple and the beloved disciple to the mother. What are the theological implications of this relationship? Language about Mary being Mother of the Church can be based also on the perception that the Church is the Body of Christ, but the story about the disciple and Mary is a nice way of thinking of Mary's motherhood for those who are disciples of Christ.

Just as in John she is with Jesus and the disciples, so also in Acts at the time of the Pentecost, Mary is there with the disciples. We also considered the figure of the woman in the apocalypse in Revelation ch. 12 and its relevance for Mary. Generally speaking this imagery has been thought to be of God's people primarily rather than of Mary, but there have been some Fathers, like Epiphanius, who have thought that it could refer to Mary as well as the Church, so this might be another way of thinking of Mary as a type for the Church. It is difficult if one reads ch. 12, not to think of this if one were fair minded, for clearly the child is the Messiah.

Having examined the Bible we then looked at the early Church and we discovered two main concerns that involve Mary. The first typified by Ignatius of Antioch is that Mary is necessary for the Incarnation. To believe that Jesus was truly man you must take seriously the figure of Mary. Jesus was not just someone who appeared to be a man and so Ignatius in his letter to the Ephesians (interestingly enough they must have known quite a lot about it if Mary had lived among them) tells us that Jesus is both God and man both eternally begotten of the Father and born of Mary. Mary's virginity, along with the birth of Jesus and the Cross, are seen by him as the three great mysteries of the Christian Faith.

The other concern in the Early Church was of the unity of the two natures of Christ, that he was both human and divine. This is shown in the ascription of the title Theotokos or God-bearer, or Deipara to use the old Latin word, of Mary. Mary is God-bearer because the human and the divine are united in the one Christ and this is why what we say of the human is also true of the divine, and vice versa. This description of Mary as Theotokos became really quite central, not so much about Mary, but about Jesus and who he is.

As you know, through the Middle Ages there were all sorts of developments about belief regarding Mary. Some of them were faithful to the Bible and to the Fathers and some were not. Devotion to Mary got detached from thinking about Christ. Mary could become someone who dispensed grace in her own right, to whom people could pray in her own right, and so forth. At the Reformation the protests that took place were about these excesses – to give an example, Bonaventura, where he substituted Our Lady for every reference to God in the Psalms. Tyndale was particularly vicious about this kind of thing, whatever the intention might have been. But it was not just the Reformers. Erasmus and St Thomas More who both remained in communion with Rome were also critical of the cults that had arisen about the Blessed Virgin Mary. If you read More about Walsingham and Ipswich, it is difficult to tell whether it is Thomas More or William Tyndale! His point is that people have made the cults and the places and the shrines and the statues and the 'stocks' as he calls them, a substitute for Christ and for his Mother. Erasmus, after he visited Walsingham, was equally critical. So the Reformers were not alone. I mean that there was awareness that the cults had become excessive on both sides.

However, what we are perhaps not so familiar with is the extent to which there was continuity among even the most radical reformers. So, for example, Hugh Latimer, one of the most outspoken of the Reformers, said when asked about Mary, 'I go not about to make Mary a sinner but Christ her saviour.' And funnily enough many centuries later that is exactly what the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception does; it pleads the merits of Christ saving work for the preservation of Mary from sin.

Thomas Cranmer, and many other Reformers, take their stand on the sinlessness of Mary on the basis of what Augustine had said. But there is more than that and this is shown in the liturgy, in the Christmas Collect and the Christmas Preface, Mary is referred to as 'a pure Virgin.' What does that mean? It is not the technical language of the Immaculate Conception but there is this sense that she is somehow free from sin.

There was widespread recognition of her sinlessness among the Anglican Reformers and in the early catechisms, for example in Nowell's Catechism and Thomas Becon and so on. They are almost unanimous about perpetual virginity. The reason that they give very often is the verse in Ezekiel ch. 44, which says 'the gates from which the Lord has come no man should enter.' This is their reasoning for the perpetual virginity of Mary but also, of course, the nearly unanimous testimony of the Church. Even Jewel who knows that there was some dissent about this in the patristic period is happy to affirm the perpetual virginity of Mary. This is the case in the sixteenth century when so much was being overthrown and rejected. Nor should we neglect the liturgical and other aspects that were retained. For example, although in 1552 only two feasts having to do with Mary were retained, the Purification and the Annunciation, in 1561 three further feasts were recognized, the Conception, the Nativity and the Visitation.

When we come to our own day, the most significant thing for us as a Commission was that the Second Vatican Council decided not to issue a separate document on Mary but to subsume what they had to teach about Mary in their document on the Church, Lumen Gentium. This showed that they wanted to go back to the earliest insight of Mary being with the disciples rather than Mary being enthroned, as it were above the Church. They wished to see Mary in the midst of the Church. And this has signalled a new interest in the Roman Catholic Church in the historical, in the patristic situation, which, as Anglicans of course, we welcome very much and so there was a sort of meeting of minds in these areas.

What then can we say together so far? We can say that Mary is the recipient of divine grace not the originator of it; that whatever role Mary has it should not distract from the centrality of Christ's person and work in the Church and in the world; that Mary was prepared by the divine grace from the beginning for the work to which she had been called; in the light of Revelations 12, for example, that Mary can be spoken of as in glory with her son.

These things we can say together, but what about the dogmas? Where are we on that? The story of the dogmas is enormously complex and there are not only many Fathers but also many medieval scholars and saints who did not believe, for example, in the Immaculate Conception. Irenaeus, Augustine himself, Chrysostom and Aquinas. But I think that the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was an attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to foreclose discussion on what it might mean; in that sense it was an unfortunate step because the language used is that of nineteenth century Rome, and hardly understandable today and sometimes embarrassing even to Roman Catholics. However, what we can say about Mary is that she was a pure virgin; that she was prepared by God from the very beginning in what she had to do. If, for some, that means 'Immaculate Conception then that is their language. Similarly with the Assumption, notwithstanding the particular language of the dogma, we can say surely that Mary reigns with Christ in glory. With Bishop Ken we can say, 'Heaven with transcendent joys her entrance graced, Next to his throne her Son his Mother placed.'

'First Millennium Church' Ecclesiology

2011-02-11T16:09:00.003-05:00

From a Russian Orthodox Archbishop, the classical Catholic and Anglican ecclesiological position, Eucharistic ecclesiology, Church as Eucharistic Communion of Eucharistic communions, the faith and doctrinal tradition of the undivided Church of the first thousand years of Christian history, primus inter pares primacy, collegial episcopate and conciliar church government - in short, the Church of the First Millennium.

'...Full Christian unity is the Eucharistic communion. We do not need to reshape our Church administration, our local traditions. We can live with our differences within one Church, participating from one bread and one cup. We need, however, to rediscover what united us and what brought us to disunity, particularly in the 11th century.

So the basis for the restoration of the full communion would be, I believe, the faith of the Church east and west in the first millennium...'

'...In any case, we do not believe that there could be a bishop above all other bishops whose decisions would be binding for the entire Church. We believe that the bishop of Rome in the first millennium was obviously first in honour but he was first among equals. He did not have direct jurisdiction, for example, over the East. Therefore, when we come to the discussion of the primacy we would argue that the universal jurisdiction of the Pope is something that didn’t exist in the first millennium and that if we restore, for example, Eucharistic communion, we would accept his role as first among equals but not as the universal bishop...'

'...We still discuss the role of the bishop of Rome in the first millennium, and even on this issue we see clear differences between the Orthodox and the Catholics. If we come to the discussion of the second millennium, the differences will become much more obvious. Therefore we should not pretend that we are close to solving this problem.

I think, however, that we should discuss it honestly; we should describe the differences in our positions, and we should see what would be the way out. For us, as I said, the way out would be the return to what we had in the first millennium...'

'And with your spirit'

2011-02-08T20:52:00.006-05:00

Courtesy of my brother, Father Brandon Jones, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, comes this first video installment in a series of presentations on the new English translation of the Novus Ordo Roman Missal. The liturgical changes about to be introduced into the Roman Rite as of 27th November 2011 will bring the English version of the Novus Ordo Missae Roman liturgy back to its own tradition in many respects and bring the modern English Roman Mass much closer to the venerable antiquity and beauty of our Anglican Rite. The theology demonstrated in this first video accords entirely with the orthodox Anglican liturgical heritage and, hence, the ancient Western Rite of the Church.

The Anglican Church in America

2011-02-07T11:20:00.006-05:00

UPDATE: From the ACA website...

February 7, 2011

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We bid you greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Recently, because of questionable and possibly irregular episcopal actions that have taken place in both Florida and California, we asked the chancellors of the Anglican Church in America to render an opinion regarding temporal and corporate issues related to the ACA, particularly as concerns the Patrimony of the Primate. The chancellors' decision, released in a letter dated February 5, 2011, has been widely disseminated. It appears on the ACA web pages. The chancellors' letter contains pointed language; it represents a solid, legal opinion and should inform further discussions as we move forward. Opinions expressed in that document, whether temporal, corporate or ecclesiastical, are advisory in nature and should be regarded as such.

The chancellors' letter emphasizes the state of broken communion in which we presently find ourselves. The Patrimony of the Primate was initially established as a temporary entity to allow for the smooth transition to the Roman Catholic Ordinariate for those so inclined. It was the expectation that the Patrimony would exercise no diocesan functions, but would respect the established diocesan structures within the ACA. Indeed, the Patrimony of the Primate was envisioned as an entity for those who wished to leave their existing diocese while waiting for the Ordinariate to be formed. Although it was our hope that we all might remain together under the umbrella of the ACA, that now seems impossible. Those who wish to enter the Ordinariate have engaged in activities that suggest they have begun to operate as a separate jurisdiction. We understand that our brothers wish to move forward on the path they believe is right. We understand their sense of urgency and their commitment to the cause they believe is correct. We pray for them, just as we seek their prayers for us. But we must also recognize and respond to the situation as it presently exists.

An amicable and immediate separation between the Patrimony and the ACA is indeed necessary. It is necessary in order to reduce the tensions and reestablish collegial bonds. This separation will formalize what already exists in practice. Though we may find ourselves in different jurisdictions, it is vital that we part in a spirit of generosity and Christian love. Above all, we must recognize that we are children of God struggling to understand God's call to each of us.

We ask your continuing prayers as we serve as your Bishops, praying that the Holy Ghost may guide us as we make decisions that enable us to serve God's people in the particular places where we have been called.

+Brian

+Daren

+Stephen

Also from the website of the Anglican Church in America...

'...I would like to inform you that the Anglican Church in America shall remain as a continuing Anglican church. Notwithstanding what you may have heard, this church is not going to collapse or disappear. It will, by the Grace of God, continue its important and essential witness as part of God's holy church.

Second, we would like to advise you as to the situation in the Diocese of the Eastern United States which has been the one diocese most gravely affected by what has happened.

As all of you may know, the Bishop of this DEUS has elected to abandon his diocese when the diocese refused to go to the Roman Catholic Ordinariate. Of the twenty-five parishes and missions in the diocese, approximately ten parishes and missions have elected to remain with this church. These ten parishes and missions, effectively abandoned by Bishop Campese, will form the nucleus of a new diocese. While the majority of the parishes and missions chose to go with Bishop Campese, the majority of the laity has elected to remain with the diocese. Bishop Campese brought a number of missions into the diocese in the eighteen (18) months prior to leaving the diocese. We have chosen to stay together, to remain with the ACA, and should shortly be conducting a search for a new bishop...'

The Eucharistic Presence

2011-01-31T21:55:00.007-05:00

Our Lord's proclamation of the truth of the Real Objective Presence in Saint John chapter 6 is certainly not symbolical or metaphorical, and He is not speaking in figurative terms, as the context of the Scripture makes clear. In our day, when a significant percentage of American Roman Catholics do not believe in the Real Objective Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and probably an even greater percentage of Anglicans (at least of the evangelical variety) doubt and struggle with this divine truth, I think it is better to emphasise the corporeal and incarnational dimension of the Eucharistic Presence rather than place emphasis on the more symbolic or representative aspects of the Eucharistic Mystery: one can never affirm or assert too strongly the fact that the Blessed Sacrament is Jesus Christ, a Divine Thing, the glorified Body and Blood of Christ under the consecrated elements of bread and wine, so that the fullness of Our Lord's human nature, as well as His Divinity, is present in the form of the sacred species, in an abiding and permanent way after Consecration. We should reject as contrary to Holy Tradition the doctrine of memorialism, which makes the Eucharist a mere mental psychological act of remembrance devoid of presence and grace, and the doctrine of virtualism, which holds that only the believing faithful receive the subjective grace or power of the Body and Blood through the elements, but not the Thing Itself objectively present in the elements. Historically, Anglicanism has, at sundry times, been confused by these two insufficient doctrines on the Eucharistic Presence, and it is up to us to clarify the biblical and patristic truth for our own tradition.

Since the Reformation, Anglicans have insisted, with the consensus of the early Fathers, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Saint Theodore of Mopsuestia and Saint Theophylact especially amongst them, that the materiality of the Bread and Wine remains in its original physical state after Eucharistic Consecration, but that to it is joined by Consecration the supernatural totality of the Incarnate God-Man, by a 'hypostatic union,' a Personal Union extending the Incarnation, a sacramental unity of the outward and visible sign with the Divine Thing, Our Lord, Who is signified and contained in the sign. The Holy Ghost, through the Consecration of the Mass, effects a sacramental change, an ontological change, in the forms of bread and wine on a supernatural metaphysical level, so that the outward forms become the Spirit-filled Body and Blood of Christ in an 'immaterial' but essential manner. The Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist are the Body and Blood of His mighty Resurrection and glorious Ascension, a spiritual Body vivified by the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 15.44). The afore-described doctrine is plainly laid out in the Prayer Book Catechism, the Prayer Book Offices of Instruction and in the Prayer Book Eucharistic Liturgy, as well as Articles of Religion XXVIII and XXIX. All communicants receive the outward and visible Sign and the Thing Signified; only the faithful receive the Benefit or virtue of the Sacrament, as the wicked receive not benefit but condemnation (I Corinthians 11.27-29). We do indeed need to be careful about Eucharistic language, so as to avoid on one hand a monophysiticism wherein the elements are believed to be destroyed and absorbed into Christ, and a Nestorianism often found in Calvinism and 'reformed' protestantism on the other, wherein the sign is divorced and entirely separated from the Divine Reality.

Saint Irenaeus says, 'in the Eucharist there is an earthly thing and an heavenly thing,' hence, the outward signs of Bread and Wine and the Thing Signified, the Body and Blood of Our Lord. Other Fathers describe the Eucharist as the prolongation of the Incarnation, a Mystery like an iron thrust into the fire - the iron does not lose its own properties or reality, but it takes on the reality and properties of the fire. Both remain complete in themselves and yet are perfectly united, and each takes on the property of the other: True God and True Man in the Incarnation, earthly elements and the Person of Christ in the Eucharist. The consecrated Elements are not destroyed, but elevated, not replaced, but perfected into a new Thing. Grace builds upon nature, and does not destroy, but perfects, nature. Our Lord is incarnated in the sacramental species, mystically present. I say all of this to concur with what many authors basically teach about the Real Presence, while carefully governing how we would assert that same truth in language consistent with the Scriptures and Fathers. Eucharistic miracles are just that, miracles, like the Real Presence itself, beyond our intellectual explanation and understanding.

That there is 1. a supernatural, glorified, metaphysical yet corporeal (of a Body) Presence of Our Lord's Incarnate Person in the Eucharist, the Risen and Exalted Lord, and 2. a Change in the Eucharistic Elements upon Consecration, is beyond doubt for all Catholic Christians; but as Anglicans we believe we cannot attempt dogmatically to define the exact manner of the Presence or the process of how the Presence comes about at Mass without adding to the Catholic Faith. We cannot rationally explain the inexplicable or define the indefinable. The Real Presence is Mystical - the ultimate Holy Mystery. The Presence is more real than that found in our own material physical plane, but it is not material and physical as understood in the limited field of our empirical experience.

Saint Charles, King and Martyr

2011-01-30T20:37:00.011-05:00

On 30th January 1649, Saint Charles Stuart I of England was martyred - he died to save the English Church, the English Liturgy and the English Succession of Apostolic Faith and Order. Let us gratefully REMEMBER before Almighty God the witness, life and sacrifice of England's Martyr King.

BLESSED Lord, in whose sight the death of thy Saints is precious; We magnify thy name for the abundant grace bestowed upon our martyred Sovereign Charles; by which he was enabled so cheerfully to follow the steps of his blessed Master and Saviour, in a constant meek suffering of all barbarous indignities, and at last resisting unto blood; and even then, according to the same pattern, praying for his murderers. Let his memory, O Lord, be ever blessed among us, that we may follow the example of his courage and constancy, his meekness and patience, and great charity. And grant, that this our land may be freed from the vengeance of his righteous blood, and thy mercy glorified in the forgiveness of our sins, and all for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

Saint Charles, King and Martyr, pray for us!

To Life!

2011-01-24T18:20:00.007-05:00

In commemoration of today's March for Life and for the restoration of reverence for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death in our country and culture...

O MERCIFUL Father, whose face the angels of thy little ones do always behold in heaven; Grant us stedfastly to believe that these thy children hath been taken into the safe keeping of thine eternal love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

ALMIGHTY and merciful Father, who dost grant to children an abundant entrance into thy kingdom; Grant us grace so to conform our lives to their innocency and perfect faith, that at length, united with them, we may stand in thy presence in fulness of joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O GOD, whose most dear Son did take little children into his arms and bless them; Give us grace, we beseech thee, to entrust the souls of these children to thy neverfailing care and love, and bring us all to thy heavenly kingdom; through the same thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pastoral Letter of the Bishops of the Mission Society of Saint Wilfrid and Saint Hilda

2011-01-24T17:35:00.000-05:00

We write as bishops within the Church of England, who seek both to maintain and promote its Catholic heritage, believing that this demands maintaining the ministry of bishops, priests and deacons in a manner consistent with the tradition of the Church, East and West. We address all those, ordained and lay, who look to us at this time for pastoral guidance.

In July 2010 the General Synod of the Church of England took yet another decisive step in the direction of enacting legislation that would make it possible for women to be admitted to the episcopate. At the same time General Synod declined to make any appropriate provision that would satisfy the consciences of those of us who cannot accept that such ordinations would be a legitimate development in the life of the Church. Some have already decided that they can no longer remain within the Church of England. We genuinely wish them Godspeed as, heeding the call of conscience, they embark on a new episode in their Christian discipleship. We, too, in similar obedience to conscience, seek, if at all possible, to remain faithful members of the Church of England and undertake to support all who seek to do likewise.

Even at this late hour we are seeking a way forward that would enable us with integrity to retain such membership. We are passionate in our commitment to the mission of the Church of England and urgently seek a settlement through which we would be free to play our part to the fullest measure. We believe this could be done by the formation of a society within the Church of England, overseen by bishops committed to our viewpoint. Such bishops would need, of course, the necessary ordinary jurisdiction that would enable them to be the true pastors of their people and to be guarantors of the sacramental assurance on which we all depend for our authentic sharing within the Body of Christ. Given that our parishes are also constituent parts of local dioceses we also understand that some way would have to be identified for sharing jurisdiction with the diocesan bishop. We understand it to be something of this nature that our archbishops were trying to achieve in their ill-fated amendment at the July meeting of the General Synod. That amendment, though narrowly defeated in the House of Clergy, was widely supported elsewhere in the Synod and, indeed, a majority of members supported it. It might well be that a revisiting of the archbishops’ proposals, with some further development of them, could still help our Church to find a way forward that enabled us all to remain faithful members of it.

To this end we have set about forming ‘The Society’. It is under the patronage of Saint Wilfrid and Saint Hilda. Two of our number, the Bishops of Blackburn and of Gibraltar in Europe, have agreed to serve as episcopal protectors of The Society. The Bishop of Beverley will be the co-ordinating bishop. We are still in the process of giving more substance to its constitution. It may well be that the latter cannot be finally resolved until we know whether or not the House of Bishops and then the General Synod will be prepared to build further on our initiative. You can find more details as to our thinking by visiting The Society’s website. Many have already enrolled as prospective members of The Society and we now encourage all who support us to do so. We need to discover whether such a way forward commands the support of those who look to us for guidance. If that were to be so then it would be good to demonstrate to the wider Church just how many of its members need such provision in order to remain faithful members of it.

We do not want to build up false hopes. Every attempt we have made so far to persuade the Church of England to make the kind of provision that would enable us in good conscience to remain within its fellowship has been thwarted. We feel, nevertheless, duty bound, once again to seek a way out of the impasse that otherwise would make it impossible for many of us to remain faithful members of our Church. We recognise the huge change of heart that would need to happen for us to succeed. We ask you to pray fervently that such a change of heart might take place and encourage you to support us by enrolling in The Society.

+ Nicholas Blackburn
+ John Cicestr
+ Geoffrey Gibraltar
+Martyn Beverley
+John Burnley
+Peter Edmonton
+Mark Horsham
+John Plymouth
+Anthony Pontefract
+Martin Whitby
+Lindsay Urwin
+Robert Ladds

The Preface of the Anglican Ordinal

2011-01-15T17:03:00.002-05:00

THE PREFACE.

IT is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church,—Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Which Offices were evermore had in such reverend estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same; and also by public Prayer, with Imposition of Hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful Authority. And therefore, to the intent that these Orders may be continued, and reverently used and esteemed in this Church, no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, in this Church, or suffered to execute any of the said Functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following, or hath had Episcopal Consecration or Ordination.

The Sinlessness of Christ

2011-01-11T14:35:00.002-05:00

Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, is free from all sin, original and actual, because of his Virginal Conception and Birth by the operation of the Holy Ghost in the womb of Blessed Mary. Our Lord is completely free from original sin because original or ancestral sin is transmitted by normal human procreation and reproduction: the mortality and corruption of our wounded nature, alienated and separated from God, is passed from generation to generation by sexual reproduction and by birth into a corrupted and fallen world. By the Holy Ghost, Christ is given a totally new and renovated human nature in the virginal womb of Mary, for there is no sexual reproduction or generation in His human conception and birth. The Fathers of the Church refer to Mary as the New Garden of Eden - in the first garden, man was created free from sin, innocent, and capable of natural communion with God. Only because of the Fall of Man did the human race lose this natural state of union with God and the capacity for growth into the divine likeness, for God-likeness, theosis. Mary is the New Eve, a Virgin, who gives birth to the New Adam, the New Man, Who assumes human nature without the consequences or effect or power of sin.

Jesus Christ is the New Creation, Who was given a newly-created human nature without human seed. Thus, Christ re-creates, re-forms, re-generates, restores and renews human nature through His Virginal Conception, a Conception free from sin because there is no human father. Human nature was given a radically new start in Our Lady's body. Our Lord is truly, fully and completely human, but His humanity is like that of Adam in the original creation, pure, innocent, free from corruption, mortality, death and evil. It is precisely because Our Lord is the New Man, the Second Man, the Second Adam Who is the Lord from Heaven, that we can be saved: he imparts His new humanity, His new Manhood to us in the Sacraments. The Hypostatic Union, the union of the Person of God the Son to His perfect human nature, is Christ's gift of Himself to us in the Church and Sacraments - the Body of Christ in heaven, the Body of Christ in the Church, and the Body of Christ in the Sacraments are one and the same Body. In Baptism, we are plunged into His saving human nature and made one with His immaculate and all-holy Body; we are made members of His new humanity by being joined to Him in His Incarnation, Life, Death and Resurrection. In the Eucharist, the new life of grace, the Life of Christ's Human Nature in us, is nourished and replenished by His own Body and Blood, the substance of His new humanity. What is mystically infused into us at Baptism is empowered and intensified through Eucharistic Communion. And through union with Christ's human nature, we are united to and partake of His divine nature. We become by grace what God is by nature - God becomes Man so that Man may become God. 'Only what God assumed does He redeem' says the Church Fathers: so Our Lord assumed a true human body, mind, will and soul, perfectly human and totally like our own, with the exception of sin. The Blessed Virgin Mary did not transmit any sin, original or actual, to Our Lord because she did not conceive Him and give birth to Him in the natural way, but miraculously, supernaturally, through an act in which her Virginity was preserved before, during and after His miraculous conception and birth. The Virginal Conception and Birth are necessary for our salvation, for without these acts Our Lord would have inherited the original sin common to fallen humanity. But through the Virgin Birth, Christ offers to the whole of mankind that which by nature he cannot have, a human nature free from sin and united to God.

Our Lord's Baptism, as Blessed Lancelot Andrewes says, following the Fathers, is not a Baptism in which Christ is forgiven of sins, for Christ is perfectly sinless, but a Baptism in which Christ Himself hallows the water of our Baptism. He is baptised to identify Himself with sinful humanity as man's sole Redeemer, to show that He is truly human; He is baptised to manifest and reveal Himself as the Eternal Son of God in human flesh, the God Incarnate in true human nature; He is baptised to set the pattern for the Christian Sacrament of Holy Baptism; and He is baptised to reveal the Holy Trinity, the Father speaks, the Spirit descends in the form of a dove, and the Son stands in our human nature, anointed by the Holy Ghost in His human nature as the Messiah. Our Lord sanctifies the water for our own Baptism; it does not sanctify Him. Our Lord was baptised 'to fulfill all righteousness' and to become the model for our own Baptism into Him.