It's now 17 years since this blog started and, of late, it seems to be much more a forum for videos and sermons than for anything else. I think I lamented about that change last year. However, I do think that the purpose of this blog has changed so much in the 17 years that it has existed. From being a vehicle of my own thoughts and attempts to understand what was going on in the Church of England to which I then belonged, this blog has evolved into an opportunity for me to reach out as a minister of Christ's Church and thereby connect with people in a wider audience than a simple parish might allow. I am grateful for that opportunity.
Of course, things do change and evolve but what needs to happen is that things grow in an organic manner so that there is some principle of integrity, internal coherence and continuity with the past is preserved. That is the Catholic principle, that we cannot forget the past but rather adhere our lives to it. But there is a danger, because in looking at what happened in the past we are in danger of assuming that we must live in the past. Nostalgia is a wonderful emotion to take comfort in. It is of great comfort to remember Christmases past and to think how wonderful they were, how wonderfully the choir sang, how beautiful sermon was, and how glorious the snow lay round about in the churchyard. But this is not always a healthy way of thinking. Nostalgia can poisonous: it is like sugar to the soul – very sweet – but it fattens the soul and encumbers our way of thinking, our way of living and our way of seeing things.
I belong to a church in which continuity with the past is vitally important, and that we observe the various rituals and ceremonies and ornaments that have been handed down to us from old. We expect our priests to say mass in a chasuble, and with their stole under the chasuble: that is the convention. But we also know that needs must when the Devil drives. Our manner of worship is dictated to by our circumstances.
We are not free to choose the locality in which God has placed us nor even when He has placed us, we are however to be there as a witness to the Eternity of God in the place and time in which He puts us. I often think to myself, wouldn't it have been better had I been born in the 19th century or early 20th century or late 1400s or early 11th century etc? Oh! How foolish! As much as these eras appeal to me, they are seen through rose-tinted spectacles. While I would have loved to have been part of the entourage of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, this ignores all the fine and terrible details of that time. I am when God put me and so are you: you are when God put you. So we have to make the best of it, holding fast to the beautiful things of our Faith, our treasures, our aesthetics, and bring them into a world which does not know them.
What we have to learn to do is to look forward to our future and to the time of our now, but rely very much on the past that we already have. If we are sincere about holding the Catholic Faith, then we have 20 centuries worth of truth behind this. We can rely upon that body of truth, especially when we haven't tried to change that truth to suit our time. If we look backwards all the time, then we will stumble and fall over the unseen rock that lies in the way – a rock that may well have been placed there by Christ himself in order to build the church more soundly. Or we can forget about the past and look forward on our own terms deliberately disconnected from what has gone before, and then we are merely building our house upon the sand. The winds of time and change will blow upon that house and it will fall and what a great calamity it shall be!
This blog is built upon my own experiences of church, and I am grateful for those experiences because I know that I have grown. Some of those experiences have been very painful, especially 10 years ago when I finally pulled myself out of the Church of England and the wreckage of my life that it had caused me. I am now stronger and, while life is not always easy and the present always has its own challenges, I trust in the truth that lies behind me in my own time and in my experience of eternity that comes through the Catholic faith. And I trust that, with my Faith set upon this rock, that I have hope for the future in God’s unwavering fidelity to all mankind. These past few years for all of us, have been very difficult, and we face uncertainty in the economic, political and social turbulence that surrounds us. But we have a rock to cling to and we trust that rock, and I have learned that my little protuberance from the rock, known as the Anglican Catholic Church, is reliable and that I am working to ensure its reliability for better or for worse.
As ever, I wish all my readership a most wonderful and happy 2023, and pray that it may have more blessings then trials.
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