Holy Church and Sacred Heart

I notice that the readership of this blog has plummeted dramatically since my departure from Facebook at the beginning of the year. According to the statistics, fewer than twenty people read what I post here. My past popular posts have been ones that have been critical of the Church of England, and I’m not sure that this is a positive comment on this blogling. Whether this readership is due to a shared and visceral concern for the spiritual decline of the CofE or due to some of a more liberal persuasion sharing my posts between friends to say that I am persona non grata, I don’t know.

I am at present reflecting on my life and work in the CofE, seeking to understand why resentments still remain for me and why I just can’t let go of the last few years of my time within her cure.

While I was a more Ultramontane Anglican Papalist (which sums up my churchmanship from about 2001-2011), it was my understanding that Anglican Papalism exists because it shouldn’t. The fact of the matter is that the Church of England was spawned from the Church of Rome from the beginning when the first missionaries hit these shores very probably in the first century. Of course, it’s debatable to say that the Roman Catholic Church existed at that time, primarily because the existence of the Papal Office is debatable. Even today, we question whether, in order to be a Catholic, one needs to be in communion with Rome. I argue not and I make my point from the existence of doubt. Both the One True Churches (as Fr Hart would call them) have a shared history and cite the same Undivided Church. Therefore, the points of doctrine where these two bodies differ are highly unlikely to be truly Catholic Doctrine in the sense of St Vincent of Lerins. I believe that both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches are valid branches of the Church, but they fail to recognise any but themselves as being part of the Church. To be honest, that’s their problem.

As of 12^th June, I will have been in the Anglican Catholic Church for seven years and do not regret my decision in the slightest. As far as I see it, the ACC is another instance of something existing because it shouldn’t. We exist because we hold fast to the Catholic Faith in this country of England and which has been brought into the former colonies along with the British culture. We are not Greek and so cannot be Greek Orthodox. We are not Russian, so we cannot be Russian Orthodox. We are not Armenian, Egyptian, Syrian, et c. and so if we are truly to be Orthodox, where can we find the Orthodox Doctrine of our ethnicity?

And, despite our heritage, we are not Roman Catholic even if we regard the Bishop of Rome as being the legitimate Patriarch of the West. Rome requires of us more than the Orthodox Doctrine of the Undivided Church stipulates.

Thus, we in the ACC stand apart from these two One True Churches because we believe that, holding the Catholic Faith of the Undivided Church, we are already Orthodox and that to be Catholic one does not need to be Roman Catholic – indeed a Roman Catholic might really not be Catholic if the Universal Supremacy of the Papacy is not a truly Catholic Doctrine.

And we are not in the Church of England because, as the last forty years of walking apart has shown, we have a very different theology with a very different understanding of what “Catholic” means in the Creed.

The result is that we are a very tiny Church in this country which tries to do the seemingly impossible. We exist precisely because we should not. In a perfect world, the Church of England would be properly Catholic, the Pope would be a primus inter pares and the Eastern Orthodox Church would not be defined by ethnicity. That cannot be because I am in the world, I am not perfect, therefore this is not a perfect world. Thus, I am duty bound not to join a perfect Church.

What is called for is the Sacred Heart of Our Lord.

I appreciate that Romans, Easterns, Anglicans and Anglican Catholics have to walk apart due to differences of history. We cannot unite if to do so compromises the Truth. But we can be compassionate. We can unite ourselves in the sufferings and sorrows of Our Blessed Lord on our behalf, and those sufferings and sorrows of Our Lady the Theotokos. We need to recognise in each of us the facts of History, the times when we have been horrible to each other through stake, halter and sword, the times of persecution at the hands of pagans, the times when each one of us stood up an preached the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation to the world and the salvation that this Incarnation offers us.

To often, we belittle the others and fail to see that, even if we cannot accept the theology, the Holy Spirit can and is doing work. My most recent experience of that is the deeply unkind, unreasoned and unreasonable blogger whom Fr Anthony often confronts. This one refers to the ACC as a “comic opera” and regards us in no uncertain terms with the greatest contempt without even thinking through his arguments nor addressing any counter-arguments without some kind of ad hominem dismissal. This chap is a Roman Catholic, but I’ve seen the same behaviour in the Eastern Orthodox, CofE, the ACC and even, mea maxima culpa within myself. It’s clearly a reaction which comes from being defensive: we seek to defend what is precious to us.

The trouble is that the Sacred Heart scandalises us fully by demonstrating the opposite. Our Lord does not defend Himself against His enemy: He defends us against His enemy. The heart that we see has not even been protected by the body of Christ. It has been invaded by the lance through Our Lord’s side and pierced through so that we might partake of blood and water even as we partake of His body.

Of course, the Communion is something that we seem to deny each other, though it has to be said that both the CofE and the Anglican Catholic Church do not have any barriers to Communion. Anyone baptised and who loves Our Lord may receive at our tables. I do rejoice in that because it does give the responsibility for holiness back to the communicant. However, what will disconcert the most deliberately exclusive Catholic zealot of any stripe is that there is only One Body of Christ, only One Sacred Heart. If that zealot truly wants to be united to Christ in the most Holy Sacrament and find Divine Compassion pouring out of the pierced Heart, then that one will also be united to all who receive the same. If one person from each of the Roman, Eastern, Anglican and Anglican Catholic Communions truly does receive Him, then all four jurisdictions are sacramentally united in that One Christ regardless of any boundary that has risen between us. We cannot know who is in Heaven until we are there: the Catholic Church cannot possess the Mind of God –  the late Professor Hawking is wrong: it cannot be known by mortals. The Church is the Body of Christ: Christ is the Head of the Church. The Body does not know the Mind unless that is communicated to the Body by the Head.

Unlike Fr Anthony’s unpleasant critic, let us be kind. We don’t need to accept one another’s theology to be kind to each other. Let us call each other’s priests Reverend or Father, even if we don’t believe that we share the same priesthood and let us do so remembering that these titles refer to God and that God can work His will through each one of us regardless of whether we are ordained – in fact regardless of whether we are Christian or not. If we are true to the image of God, then we will see that image in the face of each person even if they scandalise us. And God will scandalise us – indeed I pray that He may cause me to repent as much as I pray that He will cause Fr Anthony’s detractor to repent so that he and I and as many people with whom I come into contact with may know the true joys of Heaven and escape the horrors of the Hell of our own making.

Thus, I beg you to pray with me on behalf of all Christians.

Almighty and eternal God, consider the Heart of Thine well-beloved Son, and the praises and satisfaction He offers Thee in the name of sinners; and appeased by worthy homage, pardon those who implore Thy mercy, in the name of the same Jesus Christ Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.

Then, please say an Our Father on behalf of all those who have said no prayers today.