Sacramental Validity: a response to the Rev Mr Clatworthy

I ought to stop reading the Thinking Anglicans blog as it raises my blood pressure too high. I just don't see how if they claim to be "Thinking" Anglicans they can't seem to think rationally from both sides of an argument. They will of course accuse us conservatives of doing the same but, hey, we're not the ones who are claiming to be able to "think". If by "thinking" they mean posting venomous and unChristian comments in comment boxes, then I think they'll find a happy home among the more crotchety Anglo-Catholic blogs.

That which has particularly caught my attention is this article by the Reverend Jonathan Clatworthy, lecturer in Ethics, and General Secretary to Modern Church.

It's a very carefully reasoned article claiming that Anglo-Catholic concerns about Sacramental Validity are unfounded and that the Anglo-Catholic worldview needs to be challenged and shown to be untenable.

Actually, I found it rather interesting to read, Fr Clatworthy writes rather well. But he's so very wrong. I had hoped that a theological brain vastly more superior than mine would have made a response to him, but I've not yet seen it. I thought then that I'd better have a go in the hope that if I make a pig's ear of it, one of my more capable readers would be inspired to address these arguments more coherently.

Fr Clatworthy’s argument runs as follows:

1. The concept of Sacramental Validity is a construct of a 19th Century answer to the atheistic Rationalism of the Enlightenment.


2. The 19th Century answer establishes the reality of the spiritual realm without physical evidence.


3. Since Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, there is no need to separate physical from spiritual.

Conclusion 1: Therefore the 19th century idea of sacramental validity in the context of a separate self-contained spiritual world is pointless.

1. God does not need our rituals and gives His grace freely.


2. There is no traditional theology which leads us to expect that God would withhold His grace if the minister was a woman.

Conclusion 2: Any notion of Sacramental Validity does not depend on the sex of the minister.

1. Natural phenomena are open to scientific investigation.


2. If God created everything so that the effects of a Sacrament were the natural results of the Sacrament were being performed correctly then Science would be required to justify this.


3. There are no observed effects of valid or invalid sacraments.

Conclusion 3. The Validity of Sacraments cannot be understood in a naturalistic framework.

Main conclusion: We cannot understand the Validity of Sacraments either naturally (which would require scientific justification) or spiritually (which is a pointless 19th century invention), thus it doesn’t matter if the minister of a sacrament be male or female.

I hope I’ve got that right.

So here goes…

As I say, I find the argument rather lovely. The problem lies in Fr. Clatworthy’s premises.

Although Fr Clatworthy does actually demonstrate that there should be some reasonable conditions that a sacrament to be ministered faithfully: “a room with a visual focus and minimum of distractions…”, “suitable music at the right moments”, something for the children…, his arguments against validity, however, seem to make it possible for a trained parrot to produce a valid sacrament. This is decidedly worrying to say the least. What if, in 500 year’s time, a convincing android ministers the sacraments? Would people be untroubled by this? No? Is it then the personal faith of the one who receives? So then the one who does not receive because it’s an android is a heretic and not to be associated with? Rather un-Anglican, methinks. Nonetheless, it’s produced a question of validity, hasn’t it?

To reject the natural view of sacraments and the spiritual world of the 19th Century on the grounds of lack of evidence seems rather to follow the line of Dawkins. Indeed doesn’t Dawkins’ argument for the non-existence of God follow Fr. Clatworthy’s worldview?

Fr. Clatworthy does say that “our host society has a worldview in which Christianity can sit comfortably.” Of course, Scripture says that it can’t in several places (St Mark viii.36, St John viii.23, St John xiv.20, xv.19, xvii.16, xviii.38, I Cor i.17-end, …) Christians are called to be in the world not of it. If Christianity is sitting comfortably with the world and not challenging its science, then it has lost its saltiness. The Bible is filled with references to an unobservable part of reality, why else with the Bible end with an Apocaylpse – an unveiling of the spiritual realms. That’s not 19th century, that’s always been.

Fr Clatworthy does not believe in a “picky” God who chooses one person over another. He clearly does not believe in the God who appears in the Bible, a God who demonstrates His personality (or personalities?) and even His humanity by selecting people for tasks, not to belittle the unselected, but rather for the edification of all. Does one need a worldview to see that in Scripture? I notice that there is no reference to scripture in his arguments.

He does, however, believe that modern worldviews of science and reality trump those of the folk who have gone before. What happens when the aforementioned android priest shows him to be wrong and thus denounces all his understanding as “old-fashioned” and “out-of-date”? If there is a figment of Eternal Truth, where is it in Fr. Clatworthy’s argument that will stop it from becoming out of date? If it is an Eternal Truth, where is the argument for women priests before the 20th century?

So where does Sacramental Validity come from? Fr Clatworthy seems to think it an invention of the 19th Century. However, the question must naturally appear in the History of Christianity in regard to any schism. Of course the Schism that he will be most interested with is the 16th Century Schism whence sprang the XXXIX articles. Before any schism, there was no need to question the validity of the sacraments because everyone could be sure that they were being correctly ministered.

As soon as there is a substantial change in praxis, people are going to wonder about why the change was necessary. (Fr. Clatworthy, like most liberals has not demonstrated why the change is necessary outside their own worldview). Some will accept the change, others won’t. The peculiar aspect of the Anglican Church was that it tried to hold together two opposing view points, and the XXXIX articles came about to try and bind Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Puritan together. All the more reason then why Anglo-Catholics want to stay in the Church of England in honour of that aspect of Anglicanism. Of course, other Anglicans opposing Fr Clatworthy are leaving the CofE for the Continuum or for Rome. Will Fr Clatworthy not bless any of them? Those Anglo-Catholics who wish to remain in the CofE recognise that their opponents are at least sharing some common heritage with them. We are trying to continue in fellowship, even if that doesn’t make logical sense.

In order to ascertain the conditions for Validity, it is necessary to look into Church History and see what was established before the Schism. Folk on either side of the Schism will justify their arguments therefrom. The probability is more likely that only one is right, though in God the possibilities remains that both are wrong or (less likely but possible) both are right. Thus, there needs to be a Christian generosity and accommodation from both sides.

Further in discussing the notion of “contract”, Fr. Clatworthy seems to fall into the same trap as those who say “God does not need our worship”. God needs not our rituals, nor our prayers, nor our worship, but we do. The rituals, prayers and worship affect us and help us to be ready to receive the grace of God fully. Fr. Clatworthy will want me to demonstrate the evidence for this because it is essentially a naturalistic view of sacrament. All I can offer is from what I believe from Scripture that in performing the ritual I am being “transformed by the renewing of [my] mind, that [I] may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans xii.2). That is, after all, what Communion is supposed (in part) to achieve.

I hope that I, as a confused and largely uneducated Anglican Papalist, have done justice to this argument. I would welcome your thoughts.

Ecclesiastical Evolution IV: Reformation

I am used to describing myself as an Anglican Papalist. I wonder how accurate a term that is in me. I've said before that being an Anglican Papalist necessarily involves living in a confused ecclesiology: holding the Supremacy of the Pope yet remaining out of communion in order to hold on to an Anglican Integrity which is despised by the Roman Canon Law. We know that Anglican Identity is hard to define and it is our faith that it is right that makes Communion with the Pope something of a existential anomaly. I've already said that some believe to be Anglicanism to be that which is expressed within the pages of the Prayer-Book, others believe Anglicanism to be that which has grown from an English Heritage stemming back way before the Synod of Whitby. There are others still...

However, I am not an Anglican Papalist, because I am a human being and "Anglican Papalist" is just some description of how I express myself in terms of relationships with the Church of England, the Anglican Continuum and the Holy See. If I define myself by being "Anglican Papalist" then I am not being a human being.

I am happy to admit to having a confused ecclesiology. I don't understand how I can hold to Catholic Doctrine as expressed by the Roman Magisterium and yet remain out of Communion with the very person whom I regard to be the man appointed by God to guide the Church. I try to see that as the state I'm in now and trust in the Grace of God to bring me in line with the Truth. This is part of my own personal Evolution: I have the core idea, i.e. that God exists and loves me as evidenced by the Lord Jesus Christ, and my life evolves according to how the love of God grows within me. Perhaps one day I shall be entirely consistent.

So far this is terribly personal - not very Catholic - and I suppose one may take me to task over a pick-and-mix attitude to the way I approach religion. Romans tend to regard that as being Protestant - whatever that word means.

The key to understanding (if it's possible) Anglican Papalism is to look at the Reformations of Christian life in Great Britain. Below, I have tried to argue that the litmus test of any development within the Church has to be Love.

Well, it doesn't take very much digging to see the level of hatred within the 16th century between Reformers and Romans, but is it fair to judge the sentiments of those times with the 21st Century morality of "live and let live"? A lot of people from both sides lost their lives horribly, standing up for what they believed in. Why then did they lose their lives? For the reason that the other side saw them as dangerous corrupters of the True Faith. What of the Reformers wishing death on the Pope in their hymns?

Martin Luther writes:

Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort
Und steur des Papsts und Türken Mord,
Die Jesum Christum, deinen Sohn,
Wollen stürzen von deinem Thron!

However this gets translated today as:

Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy Word;
Curb those who fain by craft and sword
Would wrest the Kingdom from Thy Son
And set at naught all He hath done.

The second line isn't correctly translated, is it?

What of the Bull of Pope Pius V who, in excommunicating Elizabeth I also said:

Praecipimusque et interdicimus universis et singulis proceribus, subditis, populis, et aliis praedictis, ne illi eiusve monitis, mandatis et legibus audeant obedire. Qui secus egerint, eos simili anathematis sententia innodamus.

We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws. Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication.

So the erstwhile Pope is inciting at best civil disobedience and at worst regicide.

Of course, we can easily try playing the blame-game. Just whose fault was the first Reformation? Leo X? Luther? Henry VIII? pre-Reformation "heretics"? Anne Bullen? Cranmer?

Utterly irrelevant - we can't change a thing!

The only relevant thing is the Elephant in the Room, not the keeper who brought it in.

Were the Reformations born out of love? That is the question that we are tempted to demand be asked and answered honestly. I disagree on the grounds that this brings us back to the who-did-what-to-whom rather than focus on the true issue: groups of Christians do not regard each other as being truly Christian.

I suppose the real question is: How do I hold on to the expression of the Christian Faith which I believe to be fundamentally true and yet express Christian Love as fully as I can to someone else who claims to be Christian but who holds a radically different set of Doctrines?

The Reformers were concerned with the purity of the Faith and seeking the ease of others' souls by demonstrating to them their errors to the point of saving their souls by destroying their bodies through fire. That may be the way they understood the Love of God in their time, but it doesn't sit right ith our consciences in this day and age and one can reasonably doubt that it would ever sit right on a Christian man's conscience.

As an Anglican Papalist, I see myself engaged in a similar struggle. The Church of England is riven with diverse doctrines which are slowly tearing Christians apart. There is spiritual and therefore moral confusion coming about from a ghastly inconsistent set of beliefs. They cannot all be right. Adult baptism has always been sufficient in the Christian Church, but some groups in the CofE say that it is necessary. Others say that it is not necessary. They cannot both be right. And there are other issues too.

Where do we turn to find the pure Faith? Lots of people will go the Bible and then realise that the same passages that are being used to support the issue are being used against the issue. There is no consistency in just reading the Bible for ourselves. So then one must choose whom to believe, which authority, which pastor, priest, professor, prelate or Pope? This only works if pastor, priest, professor, prelate or Pope are acting in the True Faith themselves. If they are acting for their own devices as Pope Leo X was when trying to collect money for his building projects (but was his motivation the love of God?), then there are problems.

We can see this coming out in the Child Abuse Scandals rocking the Church with the clergy closing ranks, effectively creating the barrier between them and their flocks. Now that's not Love, that's trying to protect appearances. Obviously it is only the tiny majority of priests who are actually guilty of abuse, but the clericalism has exacerpated the situation (as has, admittedly a sensationalist press). Yet, what of pastors inventing their own religions in order to denounce Roman Catholicism as the expression of the Antichrist, or to finance their own over-indulgences (pardon the pun).

Nonetheless, one should seek refuge in the Church that has always sought to preserve the Truth, humbly accepting that it is by God's good grace that it holds that Truth. In reflecting on the Lord's parable of Pharisee and Tax-collector, St John Chrysostom says that it is better to be a sinner and yet humble than virtuous and yet proud. Love breeds humility and it is a mark of the Church to be humble because it is made up from sinful men. Humility seeks obedience to the Faith as laid down from the first and faithfully transmitted through the Fathers.

Were the Reformations born out of love? If I have to answer an irrelevant question, I would say "no" in that it has separated Christians contrary to the uniting principle of Love. I maintain that the Reformations were born out of a fear of loss of control, but I do not care if this is the wrong answer. This is not the issue, especially since the Christian Faith has still grown in the various post-Reformation bodies which have sought to preserve the organic growth evidenced by Tradition. However, any parish that calls itself Christian has to provide evidence of Love in order to do justice to the name. How does it do that? Well, if it's Christian, it should know!

The English Catholic

I'd like, if I may, to draw your attention to a new blog - The English Catholic run by Fr Anthony Chadwick. If you have read his Reflections from Normandy, then you'll know that Fr Chadwick is interested in exploring the nature of English Patrimony and the ethos evoked by the Sarum rite.

Elmore 2010: Last orders please

My last visit to Elmore Abbey! Things have run their course and the four monks have now sold the Abbey (to whom I know not) and are preparing the move to Salisbury. This is certainly a stressful time for them, so please pray for Prior Simon and Dom Kenneth, Dom Francis and Dom Bruce as they have to gather things together and downsize to pastures new.

Of course, they'll still be constituting a monastic community and that's the important thing. Size does not matter in the Church, though the CofE at times seems to be more inclined to put bottoms on pews than the Love of God into the hearts of folk. Four monks, no matter how old still constitute a community and their prayerful diligence in observing the Opus Dei means that the concerns of the world are still being presented before Almighty God at the hands of this little Anglican Community. There is also a sizable community of Oblates all under the Rule and spiritually based with the Elmore Quartet. Apparently, having made my life Oblation last Thursday, I was told I was to be the last. I'm sure that they could squeeze in one or two more before they go. I don't like the though of being the last, though the CofE does make me feel a relic.

We still need more monks and nuns, and we must examine our vocations in life very carefully. I do recommend reading Touched by God edited by Laurentia Johns OSB (Burns and Oates) in which ten Religious folk (all Roman Catholics) tell their stories of the call to live a life of prayer in a community. I still ask myself why I'm not one of them, but my calling to education has not yet ended.

However, one should not enter an Abbey just to "get away from it all" - that's the last thing that happens! One thing of which I'm acutely aware during my retreat is that the real world is very much part of the lives of the four monks, and they do have a tender and deep concern for all that happens. Intercessory prayers are offered daily, intensively and comprehensively as part of the personal work in the community. I know from bitter experience just how difficult prayer can be, and yet to make a life of it is a great undertaking, a noble and effective endeavour, and desperately needed by a World that is teetering over an abyss.

The challenge that these monks offer us is that we should "not despise the day of small things." While wishing otherwise, it is unlikely that these gentlemen will ever be formally canonised as saints, and yet they are trying to live the life of God not by big, obvious acts and miracles, but rather by doing little things for the Love of God.

And this is something that we perhaps all should be looking for. We should not seek to be the next Moses, Augustine, Aquinas, Andrewes or Pusey, but rather to order our lives in baptising all our little, apparently insignificant actions into the Love of God. Now that is what St Peter meant by our Royal Priesthood. If we're honestly not called to the monastic life, then this is still a discipline that we adapt for our own commitment to God.

If you're worried about doing that, don't worry - there are at least four gentlemen praying for you.

Ecclesiastical Evolution III: Truth and Love

I still need to make some headway into clarifying the Object and Rule of Christian Doctrine which I have not yet done. Perhaps, what needs to be done is to see what does not constitute an acceptable Evolution, and also to identify what remains constant under Evolution. The danger, as Canon Jerome Lloyd puts it, is that everything in the Christian faith comes up for review if we assume the wrong rule of Evolution.

First of all, can a legitimate teaching of the Church be withdrawn? If we look carefully at mathematics which makes a study of logical truths and is well aware that it has limitations as to deciding the truth, we cannot undo a result. If 1+1=2, 1+2=3 and 1+3=4, and addition is associative (i.e. (a+b)+c=a+(b+c) where the brackets tell you what to do first) then 2+2=4 and there is no way of changing that result when it has been discovered. In this sense, Mathematics is entirely self-consistent because logic is infallible. Of course, Mathematics is not complete and therefore not infallible in matters beyond its capacity - it just cannot reach all Truth, indeed it is very limited in what truth it can say and the Truth of our reality is a matter of faith.

However, if we believe in an Eternal God, i.e. a God beyond Time who is not affected by Time, then He doesn't change or evolve in any way. Our encounter with Him evolves because we are changing, being temporal beings. If then we are in any way to say that we worship the same God as the chap next-door, as the lady on the other side of the world from us, as the child in the slum, as the Queen in her castle, as St Peter, as Our Blessed Lady, as St Maximilian Kolbe, as a peasant sitting in Carthage in 432AD or the man operating an interstellar craft in 6310AD, there has to be some constancy. God is faithful, that is our belief as Christians, and if He is the only God, and He tells us so, then there must be consistency in our encounter with Him.

The consistency embraces both Truth and Love. Indeed if we follow St Paul, then we have, of course Faith Hope and Love as the three Eternal things, and you know what the greatest of them is. Truth does fit in here because our knowledge of the Truth is based on Faith and carried into the future on Hope. If there are statements which are grown, or Evolve from Truth, then they cannot be withdrawn or change in Time. The Rule for Evolution is therefore continuous and accumulative, like the trunk of a tree.

Most important of all is this thing called Love. Now think of this, the very, very basic tenets of the Christian Faith are these:

1) Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

2) Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Everything hangs on these. Everything!

The matter and the process of Evolution. The Doctrine of Christ is fundamentally built on Love and anything that goes against this Love is not from God - it is not Christian.

And we're not talking about some mawkish, weak or impotent stirring of the emotions here. This is a love that can say "NO!" as well as "Yes". It is a force that will break down as well as build up, that can slam doors as well as open them. This is not some namby-pamby feeling but the driving force of the entire Universe. All Christian Doctrine must pass the test of Love as we have seen expressed initially in the faith of the Jews, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the writers of the Holy Scriptures, in the aedifice of the Holy Church.

We cannot define Love, we just know it because it is part of our make-up, deeper than genetic, at a smaller scale than the sub-atomic, yet encompassing the largest supercluster of galaxies. Its attributes are set forth quite plainly in the Scriptures and the growth occurs in Holy Tradition. It is organic and therefore continuous and accumulative. Furthermore, it is paramount and trumps all things. For example, our first priority is not our own salvation, our first priority is the Love of God and obedience to Him as He requires and not on our terms. Our salvation becomes then just as much a by-product as the first genuine smile on the face of our baby. The issue of Salvation then is an example of something that evolves naturally from Love.

I did mention in my first musing on this topic on Friday that this "one step at a time" which I described as being akin to the differential equation in mathematics poses problems for the mathematician in that some evolution equations are solved (integrated) by use of a numerical method such as the predictor-corrector method. This involves some approximations on the parameters. This is often okay as long as one sticks to within the levels of tolerance of the system; take too big a leap and you find yourself whizzing away from where you should be.

While it seems that both defining the Object and Rule of Ecclesiastical Evolution is an impossible task, we do find ourselves back to something where we can relate: Love.

More to think about here, methinks.

Ecclesiastical Evolution II: What is the rule?

Yesterday, I tried to consider the principle of Evolution and how it applies to the Church. I stated that we require an initial object to do the evolving and a rule by which it evolves.

I would like to examine this in a little more detail as this seems to be rather an important point. For Christian Unity to occur, we need to be clear as to what the Object of Evolution is, and what the Rule of Evolution is. I am sure that this has been thrashed out by many an eminent theologian and by each ecclesial body, but I think it bears the scrutiny.

What is the Object that should evolve? I think I was a bit glib about this yesterday. We have the added danger that we are arguing from within the system which presents us with very strong limits to what we can and cannot decide. Clearly from a universal perspective, the Word of God does not evolve. It has to be the same for all people be they living in prehistory or the End of Days. Salvation has to be the same for everyone, because there is only one God doing the saving, and He is outside the system therefore not subject to Evolution.

So what does Evolve? Cardinal Newman says Christian Doctrine, the teaching of the Church. Is this reasonable?

Well, human beings evolve, their technologies evolve, their philosophies evolve and their understandings evolve. This means that different questions must present themselves at particular times, and it is the job of Christian Doctrine to provide some answer to those questions even if the answer to those questions is not only unknown, but unknowable. Such things exist, and Kurt Gödel has shown us how but only within the past century! Thus Christian Doctrine has to evolve.

Christian praxis depends very much on Christian doctrine: it should therefore be subordinate to Christian doctrine in that we do as we are taught in concordance with Christian Verity. I suspect though that there are occasions where the practice of Christians has wormed its way into Christian Doctrine - could this be something like, for example, the end of the obligation to fast on Friday in the Roman Catholic Church?

If we agree that the Object of Evolution is Christian Doctrine, then how must it evolve? What is the rule?

To understand this, we must understand what drives Evolution. If this is to be in any way compatible with Christianity, then the ultimate driving force for any evolution must be the procession of the Holy Ghost in History acting in response to human activity. This is clear because the whole issue of Christian Doctrine is the interaction of Humanity with Divinity. This principle underlies the rule, but still doesn't tell us how Doctrine should develop.

Yesterday, I described three methods of evolution. Seeing as we are within the system, we do not have an overall understanding of the rule, therefore we have to rely on a rule that changes step-by-step. It makes sense that the Rule ought to be "keep travelling in this direction until God says stop." This however needs further articulation and better precision. Holy Scripture itself helps us to see when God tells us to stop and change direction, but did Holy Scripture evolve according to the rule? Does it hold the key as to how the rule should be applied? Most Christians should say "yes" but it is then finding this out, a question of interpretation as it were.

It's clear that the Rule is the generator of Holy Tradition. Once we have some awareness of that we have some clarity as how to proceed further.

More on this when I have more time, and have unaddled my brain.

Developing Doctrine and Ecclesiastical Evolution

There must surely be peace among Christians, so why doesn’t that harmony exist? Our biggest problem is dissent and heresy, namely what constitutes lawful dissent and what constitutes heresy. In 2000 years of development, why isn’t there a single Church? Well actually there is, if we subscribe to the Creeds – One Holy Catholic and Apostolic et c.Well then which is it? Rome? Constantinople? The inhabitants of one little building in Texas?

How can we tell? Well, time has passed and this means there needs to have been some evolution of the Church to bring us here. If I may move back to my mathematical heritage here, Evolution requires and Object to Evolve and rules by which it evolves. Change the rule and you change the way the Object evolves in time. Mathematically this would take place using a set of initial conditions for the Object and a function of time, recurrence relation, differential equation, as the Rule.

To illustrate these methods, we’re going to Evolve some numbers. Think of them as a population of some animal if you wish.

We could simply define the size of the population at time t as a function of time, for example f(t)= t+1, which means that whatever t is, f(t) is what you get just add one to t. The number f(t) is the size of the population at time t (seconds, years, millennia whatever you like) when we start measure. So initially, when we start measuring, t=0 and the size of the population is f(0)=0+1=1. So the initial population is 1. If we’re measuring time in years, then after 100 years, the population is f(100)=100+1=101, i.e. the size of the population after 100 years is 101. Still with me? The point is that in this situation when the rule (in this case the rule f) is given for all time, right from the start and all sizes of population are obviously determined, in this case very easily.

We could use a recurrence relation. Start with the numbers 0 and 1 and then use the rule “add the two previous numbers to get the new number” In this case we get the sequence

0, 1, 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8

generating 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,... – the famous Fibonacci sequence.

It’s more difficult for us to work out what the 100th number will be but we can still see how the thing is eveolving.

Mathematically, the evolution of physical systems is described by differential equations. This is a bit difficult to describe to non-mathematical readers, and if you’ve borne with me so far, thank you and well done. A differential equation only tells you how fast to travel and in which direction. For example, if I tell someone keep turning left at 3 feet a second, then he’s going to spend his time walking in circles. Yet this is how many physical systems act: we will know their velocity at any position and time, and have to work out where they will go. This makes for very complicated mathematics and leads to chaos theory. For examples of this we can look at the Lorentz equations which produce some remarkably complex behaviour.

The differential equation style evolution requires only knowledge of the speed and direction in which we are moving at any point. If we’re actually in the system that’s evolving, then this is the best that we can do. If we’re in the system, then we do not have knowledge of the whole system, but rather only local information. Slight changes to a differential equation make big changes in the long term, so constant readjustment needs to be made in order for the system to compare well with reality. If the differential equations are particularly complicated, mathematicians have to resort to numerical methods to analyse the solutions which aren’t always well behaved.

All this mathematical jargon brings me to the main question. In 2000 years since the Lord walked with us before His Ascension, what rule of Evolution did He leave us? St Paul gives us a rule in that what we receive from one generation we pass on to the next. Of course, how we pass it on becomes important especially with the change in time. How the rule adapts to the change in time needs careful thought. It’s clear that what must not change is the Word of God, the message of Salvation and Love of God, of the promise of Eternal Life and a Relationship with the Divine Author.

What we now have after 2000 years is a fragmented Christianity where people refuse to recognise the results of others’ evolution. Cardinal Newman in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine says that the Development of Doctrine should not be a mathematical process, or at least does not have a mathematical sense of continuity. A properly mathematical sense of continuity really means that small changes have small effects in the short term. If I change the function f(t)= t+1 to f(t)= t+1.5, then the change is small in the long term. However, if I change the function, f(t)= 10 x t to f(t)= 11 x t, then in the short term we have a tiny difference 10 versus 11, 20 versus 22. By the time we’ve got to 2,000, we have 20,000 versus 22,000 – a big difference.

Of course, the best thing to do is to check out that point in time where the change was made in Christian doctrine. Again, if we’re in the system, we’ve got a problem in that we cannot travel backwards in time and see precisely what that change is, we have to rely on the interpretation of historical documents which is no easy thing when there are so many factors here.

Now this is the mess that Christianity faces: fragmented by all kinds of different rules of evolution. Do all people who claim to be Christian share a common teaching? Is there truly a prescribed method of Doctrinal Evolution? Cardinal Newman’s has been both a method for conservative and liberal Roman Catholics – how can that be? So what do we do to unite Christianity?

Of course, it is an expression of Faith that we hold to the system that we do, and we should hold to that Faith strongly. However, how should we be treating those whose system need only be slightly different in order to produce very different effects? Dare we leave them or try to live with them?

The trouble with knocking at the door.

And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die , it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this
hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die. The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man? Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest
darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.

There's a knock at the door. Standing there are two Greeks, quite smartly dressed asking to see Jesus. Philip wonders whether these two gentlemen are in fact Jehovah's witnesses - there's still a lot of suspicion about these Greeks who "believe" in God. Nonetheless, Philip has seen Jesus talk with Samaritan women, prostitutes, tax-collectors so he knows that Jesus might actually want to let them in. He goes to Andrew who always seems to act as the bouncer in the Gospels - no-one sees Jesus without getting past Andrew - and together they approach Jesus, half-expecting "yes, let them in and we'll talk" followed by more profound teaching about the relationship between Jews and the "unclean" or "not-quite" Jews.

Instead the reaction seems quite extraordinary - IT'S NOW! Now is the hour. Now is the time! What a contrast to the wedding in Cana - "Madam, my hour is not yet come"! And then we hear nothing more about these Greeks or what was said to them. Who they are or what was said to them is not recorded in the Fourth Gospel. Whatever it is, their presence in St John's Gospel acts as some sign to Jesus about His ministry, and it causes Him great upheaval - He knows that He is going to die soon. And so He runs away!

Well, not really running away, preparations need to be made. This Friday, we have the Feast of the Transfiguration where Jesus is given news of His fate by Elijah and Moses. This episode in John's Gospel is another of great emotional strain on a Messiah who is introverted and seeking solitude, yet is devoted to an outward ministry to bring the good news of what He is going to achieve through His Life and Death and Resurrection.

In St John's Gospel, the clues to this ministry have been set in place very soundly. If you think about it, the main cause of Jesus' arrest and trial are because he raised Lazarus from the dead. This is the event that drove the crowds out to see Jesus on "Palm Sunday" and thus caused the consternation among the Jewish authorities that Jesus had corrupted the people away from the "True Faith".

Jesus knows all this. He knows that His ministry has set Him in direct opposition with the Spiritual leaders of the day. It has upset Him deeply. St John paints a picture of Jesus being deeply affected by humanity. We see him weep, angry, "sore troubled" - this is not an indifferent God who will go to the Cross in some stoic and pious silence. The silence He offers to His accusers will be brimming with wordless power unable to make them understand because their minds are closed, ears unlistening, eyes turned from the Truth. This is God Omnipotent impotent - the greatest of paradoxes - and Jesus is aware of this.

And aware of this paradox Jesus presents another. Death to those who love their life, life to those who hate their life. However, the paradox is lifted by the theme that has run throughout this Gospel - the only life that is worth having is the life of Christ. Lazarus is the sign that Jesus offers life. It is deeply offensive to those of the world; it goes against the received Science; it goes against the Epicurean idea of "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die"; it goes against the idea of being in complete control of our own existence and wills.

Our hope in life is to surrender complete control to God, to recognise that the way we live our lives is unsatisfactory. This means that we do have to search our own selves to see just how poor we really are. We can be satisfied with who we are - that means we don't get upset with ourselves, there's no emotional strain, and we can live our lives unaffected by any idea of shortcoming. Trouble is, then we cannot see the life of Christ. It is He who gives life, and self-satisfaction is a ghastly parody of that life. So if we opt for that life, we render God impotent to help us. Scandalous!

If however we opt for the hard route, the route of emotional upheaval, of distaste of what we have made ourselves, walk into the confusion in our souls and wrangle with our wills, then we see how much better the life of Christ is, and we submit to it joyfully. If we come to Christ, we have true life. It doesn't come cheaply, but Jesus is there with us and that is all that we need.

Sometimes it is we who have to come to the door and knock, just like those Greeks seeking Jesus. The results are not always what we think they will be. They will, of course, turn out to be more splendid than that.

Desertion, desolation and deprivation

I'm a terrible Benedictine - I'm always complaining. Usually, as you've probably noticed, it's to do with my apparent homelessness in the Church. I don't think for one minute that I'm alone. Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican Communion have to consider their position very carefully. As Bishop Jarrett has said, there's no point in being precipitous in our actions. Things have been moving very fast in the last thirty years - that does not mean that we should rush our actions until we hear the still, small voice speaking to the Heart of the Church.

There are a lot of confusing factors here.

1. What is the Anglican Continuum? Are these groups of schismatics with a tendency to schism among themselves, or are the Continuing Churches better exponents of Anglicanism than has been demonstrated by the infighting of Liberal, Conservative and Anglo-Catholic over the various issues? Is it inevitable that Anglicans schism?
   
2. Are the Ordinariates safe for Anglicans? Again, there are lots of arguments both ways here. See my earlier post.
   
3. Is the Doctrine of Taint viable? By this I mean, the following reasoning:
   
   (1) Women cannot be ordained.
   
   (2) When a bishop attempts to ordain women, he claims that he "ordains" a woman into the same order as he ordains a man.
   
   (3) If (1) and (2) are true then the orders established by that bishop must be as invalid for the male as for the female.
   
   (4) From (3), doubt arises about the validity of any sacrament in a jurisdiction which supports W"O".
   
   (5) From (4), to remain fully Catholic and Apostolic, one cannot be communio in sacris with any jurisdiction which admits W"O".
   
   If this is the correct reasoning by some Anglo-Catholic bodies, then I query statement (2) and the weight of its implication into (3). If a bishop "ordains" a women and claims that the orders he bestows are the same as for a man, can he not be mistaken in his belief? A priest can claim to baptise a bell, but, if our understanding is correct that bells do not have immortal souls, the baptism is useless, ineffectual and quite null. Would that therefore mean that any baptism that the priest performs on a baby is therefore invalid?
   
   If the Ordination of Women does introduce doubt into Anglican Orders, then is it not reasonable to seek certainty by conditional re-ordination by Rome, or the Orthodox Church?
   
4. What about the Heretics? Shouldn't one be concerned with hate the Heresy, love the Heretic? Scripture bids us walk apart from Heretics, but how far should we walk apart? If we are ministers to the world, then we are ministers to the Heretic as well as anyone else. If we have lived in the C of E for a long time, can we just honestly turn to our long-serving and gently disposed priests and utterly reject every good they have done in our lives just because they have been beguiled by the Zeitgeist into accepting W"O"?
   What of Religious orders that have accepted W"O" when their Oblates have not?
   
   It is God alone who judges the integrity of an individual's Christianity, and nonetheless do we have the challenge of how we can minister with those who profoundly disagree with us. However, supporters of W"O" must show that they understand Anglo-Catholic difficulties if they are maximise the level of communion between us. At present many don't and are unwilling to make the conceptual leap, judging from the self-righteous and arrogant comments made on the Thinking Anglicans blog.
   
   If we do separate, then what are the conditions that need to be met for coming back together again?

These are the questions that worry me at the moment as I suspect they worry many of us. What is the worst case scenario?

I suppose that it depends on your definition of "worst". For me its the prolonged homelessness that comes from not finding any spiritual stability in any of the above options. We're back to my desert analogies here. The worst thing may well be for good Anglo-Catholics to be forced to fulfill their Obligations by attending Mass in a Parish with a woman in a chasuble. Anglo-Catholics have that sense of obligation, but we could be faced with a choice between two apostasies (go to such a Mass or stay at home) or the loss of our Anglican identity (by becoming Roman Catholic). The latter may be a necessary sacrifice in order to meet our obligations, but then what do we make of "to thine own self be true"?

The desert, however, is not an entirely fruitless place to be. One can consider the Desert Fathers who managed to eke out lives of great solitude and asceticism. I would recommend reading the sayings of the Desert Fathers as they provide some extraordinary attitudes to living in the most inhospitable places in order to free the spirit from the shackles of this world. Consider:

Abba Mark said to Abba Arsenius, 'Why do you avoid us?' The old man said to him, 'God knows that I love you, but I cannot live with God and with men. The thousands and ten thousands of the heavenly hosts have but one will, while men have many. So I cannot leave God to be with men.'

Perhaps this sort of existence is necessary for the Anglo-Catholics in order for them to manifest their saltiness to the World. The worst thing is that we become isolated individuals without priest or bishop living to some personal commitment to our Faith via Breviary or Common Prayer Book and Works of Mercy but hearing Mass in a Roman Catholic Church but never physically receiving the Sacrament again, staying away from the worldliness of a Communion that has become Apostate but desiring still to walk with other Christians.

That's the worst case, and I suspect (though I pray not) it may become a reality for some unfortunate souls. They still have the examples of the Desert Fathers to help them through.

In God we trust.

Of course we do, an thus we know that our future with Him may not be easy, but our striving for fidelity will lead us under His guidance to find a place in the Church where we can exist well, though relying on Him alone for contentment, nourishment and stability. I doubt that we will be comfortable for the next thirty years, but let us carry God with us into our future and let Him have the control over it. We cannot control our future, but God is faithful.

Anglican Patrimony

This is my three hundredth post! I'm dedicating it to what I see as vitally important, the search for Anglican identity with a view to its re-union with Rome. Deacon Andy Bartus put me onto this blog and I am very grateful.

Since Synod has effectively shown that Anglo-Catholics are not welcome within its Communion and has cast grave doubts now upon three of the four marks of the Church, it does make the quest for unity more urgent, especially since the Holy Father has re-opened some substantial dialogue with Anglo-Catholic dissenters.

Now, I'm not saying that all the problems are solved. There are still many questions to be asked, and many details to be sorted out. There are still questions of what the Ordinariates will really mean, who will be allowed to be Ordinaries and what relationship Ordinariate Anglicans will have with other Anglicans. If we really mean for this to be a godly enterprise, then we have no alternative but to bring God with us at every meeting, discussion and argument as well as just our prayer meetings, and fall back on Him, trusting in His guidance and Holy Spirit to inform our consciences and feeble intellectual powers.

Trust is the first expression of Love that needs to be fostered here, and while there are groups of Anglicans seeking to destroy any trust between any bodies which disagree with their opinions, we cannot allow ourselves to lose sight of being part of One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

On the Ordination (or otherwise) of Women

I'm getting lots of friends asking me why I object to the ordination of women and why I am so passionate on the issue. I do admit that I get hot under the collar about this, the reason for that is quite simple. Despite the fact that there are simply millions of people who follow this teaching of the Church, I appear to be the only one in the area who subscribes to it. Little wonder that in defending the faith, I am defending myself as well - is it any wonder that I get agitated? I have blogged on this before though a little obliquely; see here and here for just a couple of examples.

Let me see.

I'll start with the obvious.

Men and women are different.

You've got to accept that whether or not you regard one as being the head of the other or not. They are different. They share the same humanity, but that same humanity is expressed in different ways. Crucially though, both are needed in order for children to be born and raised and loved and nurtured into good, loving and happy human beings. I cannot deny that there are those who are brought up happily in a single parent family, but nonetheless, someone important is missing from that family for whatever reason.

If men and women are different, then they have different roles to play in Creation. It is clear that men and women think differently, prize different qualities in each other, excel at tasks in different ways. They lead projects differently, they teach differently, they live their lives in different ways as determined by their physical, mental and spiritual make-up. Surely this is a difference that God takes pride in (Man and Woman made He them), and in which we too should rejoice. Why not rejoice in one's manliness or womanliness? They are good things meant to be together by a Creator God who loves both without preference.

Now let's move into Christian Theology of the Church (what little I understand).

Scripture is abundantly clear that salvation is meant for everybody, without any exception. For example: I Corinthians xii.13 states

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made
to drink into one Spirit.

by which we can see that the fullness of the Christian Faith is open for all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, hold to His teachings and submit to his Kingship. Our salvation does not depend on WHO we are but rather HOW we relate to Christ Jesus.

In that sense the Church is inclusive.

However, again, one can look at Holy Scripture and see that God plays pick and choose. Yes, it's true, the same God who says He has no favourites engages in discrimination. He chooses one man, Abraham, to be the Father of Jews and Moslems and the spiritual Father of Christians. What about the others? Was there no-one else who believed in God? He chooses one tribe - the Levites - to be the priests and only the males. Why? Weren't the women good enough? And so it goes on, there is a choice made by God. He chooses Moses, a stammerer and stutterer, to be his mouthpiece, Jonah to be a reluctant prophet, Job, His devoted follower, to be the one who suffers one of the worst misfortunes known to humanity. All these choices have a point and reveal more and more the unfathomable nature of God.

Speeding on to the ministry of the Lord, here we have a Rabbi who tolerates women more than any other man of His day. He teaches them at his feet numbers them among his disciples and allows them the marvellous privilege of being the first witnesses to His Resurrection. Why is it then that He chooses only men to be His Apostles, headed by St Peter? Why is it that St Paul writing Biblically decrees that it is only men chosen to serve as Episkopes and Diakonoi whilst separating out the ministry of women in I Timothy iii?

Yes indeed, women can say the words of Eucharistic prayers, and wave their hands in precisely the same manner as men, but this is not an issue of "I can do it, therefore God wants me do it". As St Paul says, everything might be permissible but it is not always that which builds up the Church. Ordination is God's choice, and God has revealed how He makes His Choice, in the only two places where He makes Revelation - In the Church through Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition.

Despite supporters of women priests looking very hard, there are no women priests and no women bishops. They will try to cite the Mitred Abbess St Hilda, but although a mighty and powerful lady chosen by God to lead communities, she wasn't a priest, she didn't administer sacraments. They will also try to cite Paul's lesson to the Romans xvi.7:

ἀσπάσασθε Ἀνδρόνικον καὶ Ἰουνιᾶν τοὺς συγγενεῖς μου καὶ συναιχμαλώτους μου, οἵτινές εἰσιν ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, οἳ καὶ πρὸ ἐμοῦ γέγοναν ἐν Χριστῷ.

Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.

as being evidence for a female apostle, until one realises that the phrase "among the apostles" is taken in the same way as "Pope Benedict is of note among the Protestants," the Protestants know Pope Benedict (and many hold him in high regard) but he is not a Protestant - at least in the conventional meaning of the word. It is not even clear whether this Junia, Junian, or Junias is even female.

I have also noticed supporters of women's "ordination" use again and again texts which refer to issues of salvation, not issues of Church policy, organisation and sacramental theology. I make reference to that here as I already mentioned above.

And now this is where I really get confused by the supporters of women ordination. They say that there was a full, church-wide acceptance for women "priests" but that it was suppressed by a male dominated society. Well, which is it? There is no hard evidence for the former, why not? Because it was destroyed by the latter. But if it was church-wide acceptance, and remember that the Church has managed to pass through being a minority before, how was the female priesthood suppressed?

What about the Gamaliel principal in Acts V:33-39?

Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men. For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves : who was slain ; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered , and brought to nought. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished ; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed . And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone : for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought : But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

If the female priesthood had existed, it was certainly non-existent very quickly in the Church.

It is therefore a reasonable belief, according to the two organs of God's revelation, Scripture and Tradition, that there is no female ordination, and indeed any attempt to ordain a woman is an active denial of her femininity because of the masculinity of the priesthood.

Then I hear various arguments
"The Holy Spirit can do what He likes and He is ordaining women." I agree. God the Holy Ghost does whatever He wills, but He is God and Faithful God at that. Why would He thus send mixed messages to His disciples? God does not contradict Himself.

"Well, the view in the Bible is old-fashioned and out-of-date, a product of a male dominated society! God will put all wrongs to right and hates discrimination." Yes, God hates any discrimination that makes anyone a second-class citizen, a lesser being, a slave, a wretch or a sub-human. But we see that God Himself does discriminate, but not to set one person above another. Look at how Christ the King washes His disciples' feet, the King is equivalent in the eyes of God to a servant and the servant to a King, though both have different roles. If we are going to reinterpret the Bible according to our own philosophies (and this idea of female ordination is a result of a modern philosophy) the we risk running foul of St Peter who said that we are forbidden to make our own interpretation of Scripture especially when it deviates from the worship of the Church. The moment that we start using our own way of thinking to judge God's choices, we set ourselves up to be His judge, and thus our own. I would prefer to be faithful to what I have received through the teaching of the Church, than to rely on my own philosophies which have lead me astray in the past.

The current climate of chauvinism versus feminism gives a false dichotomy which does far more harm than good. I am labelled a sexist just because I say that men and women are different and that women are never priests. To say that there is no difference between male and female denies the reality which is present, not only in the obvious sexual differences, but in the heart of every cell of the body. The species depends on the interdependece of the two sexes and their different roles, and this is true down to the physical level. To say that there is no difference between the sexes is to produce a Frankenstein monster, a man-made man, and the philosophy that seeks to create this awful hybrid is steeped in this philosophical hubris.

There is still the question of why God choose male priests. So far, I think I've presented a mainly Evangelical argument with a few Catholic twists. Here I delve into more Catholic Theology. The maleness of the priesthood is because of Christ. God the Father is so called because that is what Jesus told us to call Him. Even so, we cannot attribute a sex to God the Father. Now if we look at the Mystery of the Incarnation, we see that Our Lady Mary had to be female because God had ordained women to be the bearers of children. God the Father, who has no physical sex, conceives Our Lord through the Holy Ghost (again, no identifiable sex). If then, the Lord were not male, there would have been no male involved in the Salvation of Mankind and Salvation is for everybody, male and female.

Now then, it was the act of the priesthood to intercede between man and God for the sins of man and procure the forgiveness of sins and thus the salvation of mankind from the Eternal effects of those sins. God prefigured Christ in the Jewish sacrifices by choosing the Levite men, thus setting them apart for this job. When Christ came, He offered Himself (i.e. as a priest) as a Sacrifice (i.e. as a victim on the Cross) in order that we might be saved from our sins for all Eternity. In order to pass on that common salvation, He instituted the Holy Eucharist where He presented Himself in the sacramental form of Bread and Wine, to establish a substantial Communion with all people in all time. He thus, in One Sacrifice became for all people a One Perfect Offering which requires re-presenting (not re-sacrificing because that is unnecessary) for all of us even 2000 years later. This Eucharist is instituted to bind people together and bind them together in God in full and perfect Communion in Eternity.

For this to happen, someone has to stand in (a vicar!) for Christ as priest so that Christ the victim can be re-presented for us now. This is our priest, who, in keeping with the maleness of the Levites and the maleness of Christ is male.

Now that I have written this, I hope people can see where I'm coming from even if they cannot agree. I'm not trying to force people to agree, merely to give a statement of why I stand in a minority within the Church of England. I'm not being sexist, I don't look down on women, but I will not accept their ordination. I refuse to regard a woman "priest" as not-Christian unless she shows unChristian behaviour, but I regard her as gravely mistaken about her status in the Church and cannot worship with her if it means accepting this status. However the Church of England is forcing me and my ilk to accept Women as bishops and thus that the people they ordain as being validly ordained. We simply cannot do this: either they make provision for us in the C of E, or they help us to walk away in an amicable fashion.

Any clearer?

I must write this post NOW, that's why it's got a rotten title! Still I'd better put up with it.

If you look along a railway platform of a small town in the early rush hour before the arrival of a train, you'll see quite a wonderful expression of human behaviour. Travellers do not line up in a single line along the platform, they bunch up at surprisingly regular intervals. When the train comes along and stops, these bunches are lined up exactly with the doors of the train. It seems obvious how this happens: the most experienced travellers know where to stand in order to be first to enter the train and grab the seats, the reimaining travellers who arrive later know where to stand then.

Experienced travellers also know where to stand in order to get on the right coach of the train so that they don't have to walk so far to the exit of the station. It's all rather clever in its way. We've answered the question "how does the phenomenon happen?" and we have an understanding of the first level of why this happens (answer: because it's convenient) but there is the question of why we need the convenience. Why is it imperative to shave off a couple of seconds from our journey, to make the walk to the office shorter, to find short cuts, cut corners, make things more convenient?

Is it as simple as just saying that it's laziness? I suppose that would depend on what one would define "lazy". However (and correct me if I'm wrong), I tend to say this as impatience rather than laziness. There is nothing lazy about the latent anger one sees seething in a commuter who has been displaced from his place at the head of the bunch. The tension is quite palpable.

Impatience to me seems a rather funny thing, possibly because Impatience and I are old "friends", I do not think that I am alone. Of course, you are aware that impatience means the inability or unwillingness to suffer or to bear. We all have our limits to what we can truly tolerate, so in that sense we all suffer from impatience, and yet suffering is a fundamental part of living. The funniest thing about impatience is that it isn't one of the Seven Deadly Sins (or Eight if you're John Cassian). Why should this be? Aren't Christians affected by impatience as they are the other deadly sins?

Impatience is complex in both senses of the word. It produces complicated behaviour (such as commuters getting on a train); it also has many factors which contribute to it.

For the commuting example we can see these factors at work. There is an element of laziness, certainly, because there is a desire to minimise the work that needs to be done. There is an element of pride in that one's own will needs to be served first, and one-up-manship in seeking the optimum place to be. There is an element of envy in the stress that one receives when someone else gets the optimum place, and the subsequent irritability, resentment and anger. These are quite extraordinary feelings, and yet they can be harboured by people who are decent, hardworking, gentle and kind. These feelings are the symptoms of a society that is making heavier and heavier demands on the time and resources of little human beings. Yet these demands are coming from ourselves. Impatience has selfishness at its heart.

It's a vicious cycle, consider a Fast-food outlet. A stressed worker has only a little time, so demands fast-food. The demand for fast-food puts a stress on the teenagers behind the counter to get things right. The need to keep up with the demands alerts the attention of managers in the fast-food industry who then devise more "efficient ways" of using the time. This takes time away from the workers who become more stressed and demand faster food...

We become more impatient because we are stressed. We become more stressed because of greater demands made on us. We have greater demands placed upon us because society is becoming more impatient. Society is becoming more impatient because we are becoming more impatient.

And it's having terrible effects.

The Anglican Communion is on the brink of collapse because of impatience. Desperate to show how "inclusive" they are, ECUSA has been trying to force the issue by consecrating two openly gay bishops. (I'd like to leave aside the theological issues of homosexuality in this post) So convinced are the ECUSAns of their rectitude that they have ignored pleas from other members of the Communion in order to demonstrate what they believe to be right.

In the CofE, so convinced are the Liberals that it is right to have women "bishops" that they want full recognition of this "fact" from everybody and therefore seek to remove anything that would prevent this. Their impatience with those who dissent is quite obvious in the way that they seek the abolition of those policies which would protect dissenters from ministries that they cannot entertain.

Both of these cases are those of impatience. It's tearing our church into pieces and affecting the lives of good clerics. Whatever issues one may have with Dr Jeffrey John's lifestyle, one must admit that he has become a victim of the political wranglings between liberal and traditional. This rashness to deviate from the status quo which has yet to have been demonstrated to be wrong, is hurting gays and lesbians as well as evangelicals and catholics. This cannot be from God to multiply such misery.

No one seems interested in using the Gamaliel principle any more. If, as the liberals believe, that the conservative element of the Anglican Communion is dying out, then surely it would be better to wait for that to happen. If the conservatives do not die out, then perhaps there must be provision made for them to be protected from ministries they cannot accept.

However, suffering is a fundamental part of being human. The need to suffer is a direct result of having to live with other people. In that sense alone, Sartre was right with l'enfers c'est les autres. Of course, other people aren't Hell, Eternity with oneself alone for company is. If God creates other people, then they need to be seen as a gift to us, no matter what they do. Humanity of course produces truly great suffering, and God has shed many a tear over this suffering. The Cross stands at the centre of this suffering for all Eternity in order to demonstrate that our suffering is not ignored, our struggles are not worth nothing to God and that, if we are patient, we shall see what He does with this suffering to make it our joy, and His joy too.

If we change the focus of impatience from the self to the other, then we have this thing called zeal. I think that zeal is the antidote to impatience in that the concerns of others being met first builds a framework into society which softens deadlines, and the need to have things now. If we accept other's failings as expressions of their vulnerable and quite beautiful humanity, then we lose that stress which demands nothing but absolute commitment to the clock and Chronolatry.

So, where will you stand next time you catch a train?

Struggle and Perfection

Ἔσεσθε οὖν ὑμεῖς τέλειοι ὡς ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ οὐράνιος τέλειός ἐστιν.

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

So ends the fifth chapter of St Matthew's Gospel. It, of course, is part of the discourse that Our Lord gave on the mountain setting not only the standards of social behaviour but, further, standards of intention, sincerity and modus vivendi. Following that sermon through from the Beatitudes right at the beginning to this statement, which is about a third of the way in, we are presented with standards which become progressively harder to the terrible "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you..." I don't see how one can read that statement and not shudder at its implications. To cap it all, we are to be Perfect as our Heavenly Father is Perfect. Well that puts the icing on the cake really, doesn't it?

We have had quite the interesting discussion about this on the Anglican Diaspora in particular with regard to the nature of repentance. I wish I could remember the precise wording, but I believe that one Desert Father was asked "what does it mean to repent?" and he replied "never to commit that sin again." Compare that with the Lord's edict, "go and sin no more."

Do we lose heart at these? The Lord teaches us that no less are the standards for Godly living and we can see these as legal, imperial edicts designed to impose the Will of an Imperial God and fear the consequences. One looks at the history of Christianity and Judaism and one can see attempts by moral authorities to control others by brow-beating them with absolutes and punishing with sword, rope, knife, axe and fire.

And then one can read the glorious Psalm cxviii (cxix) - all 176 verses of it - and realise that the Psalmist loves the decrees and commands devotedly, and yet he still manages to stray from them in the very last verse.

Perhaps then, we should understand these commandments of God as Absolutes only in the context of the Being of Our Absolute God whose being encompasses Eternity. Below, I make mention of the problem of tense whereby seeing a fixed progression of events one after another results in confusion. As temporal beings, we find ourselves bound in a fascinating matrix of cause and effect. Our tendency to sin is caused by the tendency of our fathers to sin, and the sins of our fathers do really affect the children to the third and fourth generation and far beyond. I would go as far to say that every sin that has been committed has affected every one of us, and that every sin that we ourselves commit affects everyone in our future (I could talk about the propagation of light-cones here, but I won't).

Clearly we struggle to keep the Lord's commands but we must understand that these commands have a freedom for us. I believe I see this freedom in the words that the Lord Himself uses.

Look at the word the Lord uses for "perfect" - τέλειοι - and compare this with one of the Seven Last Words from the Cross -Τετέλεσται- which defies a simple translation (and yet I, in my arrogance, tried here). This perfection is a fulfilment of intent, a becoming of what was intended, the end of growth, of a process. And this, for me, is key to the ideas of understanding the hard words of the Sermon on the Mount.

As temporal beings, we are in a process and we will continue in that process until we are perfected. I believe very strongly that this process for may of us will continue in a Purification after death which is called Purgatory. That is wherein our perfection lies. We have to go along with this process and by intending to go along with this process and allowing that growth to happen, nay, working for that growth to happen, then we find ourselves growing according to the edicts of the Sermon on the Mount. By seeking God, we become able to love our enemies, turn away from sin and do good. We don't become sinless at one point of time unless we are given grace so to be. We are to struggle and, even if we are sinless, we must struggle to be perfect.

Christ's ministry to us, while He walked with us, had to grow. It was not completed at the first utterance, or at the first miracle. No-one was saved at the moment of His birth, but He was expected to complete the same by His death.

His ministry was only truly perfected when He dangled, bled and died for us upon the cross, hence that glorious last word "Τετέλεσται". Christ as fully Human struggled to become perfect because He had given Himself up to the ravages of Time and although, being fully Divine, He was perfect, still He did not cling to that perfection, just as He did not cling to equality with God.

And He struggled. Dear God, how He struggled!

But He succeeded.

And saved us.

And He set the pattern for us. We have to wrestle with His words in the Sermon on the Mount. They are hard, and we cannot and should not just gloss over them in their being hard. We need to struggle with His words and put them into practice, continually repenting of our sins and being assured that in His love for us we WILL be forgiven. If there is no struggle in this life then we have settled for second best which is nothing at all. Our days should be filled with trying to bring the needle of our spiritual compass into line with Christ.

Further, if we try to eliminate all struggles from our worship of God and anaesthetise ourselves to this fact of hardship, then we are not giving all of ourselves to God - we will not be worshipping with all our hearts and minds and strength. How many Parishes have now given up on trying to teach the hard truth and deny their members struggles, and support them in their struggles through life? How many parishes dumb down so to "reach more people" by presenting them with an anodyne rather than give their struggles worth and meaning, removing the truth of the sheer foetidity of even the smallest sin and the spritual dangers to the soul?

We have to struggle and the Church exists to support that struggle, not relieve it because that relief comes through the perfection instigated and completed by God, first through his open arms upon the Cross and last through the painful, yet joyful, act of purification in Purgatory through which I fully believe the Divine Smile permeates to propel the inhabitants to their truly happy end. Look at the Beatitudes again: the blessed are those who struggle in life - the poor in spirit, the bereaved, the meek, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those persecuted for righteousness' sake. Each one has a particular and hard struggle in life.

I do pray for people as they struggle that they may be given enough rest to revive them before they continue to fight their way to perfection. But I also pray that their struggles produce the most magnificent effects that fling them joyfully into the arms of their Creator.

It is truly worth any struggle.

Flesh and Faith, Appetite and Silence

Edward Bairstow's setting of "Let all mortal flesh keep silence." This is a hymn I rarely hear now. It's well known that this is part of the Liturgy of St James, one of the oldest liturgies that we have and still use in the Christian Church. I would have posted the Greek but for some reason my computer wants to transliterate it into English and it looks odd.

Actually, it's not surprising that this hymn is not flavour of the month for reasons that will become clear. If you like Moultrie's translation here it is:

1. Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded,
for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

2. King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
in the body and the blood;
he will give to all the faithful
his own self for heavenly food.

3. Rank on rank the host of heaven
spreads its vanguard on the way,
as the Light of light descendeth
from the realms of endless day,
that the powers of hell may vanish
as the darkness clears away.

4. At his feet the six-winged seraph,
cherubim, with sleepless eye,
veil their faces to the presence,
as with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

It's a good verse form for the original test, which is better translated as

Let all mortal flesh keep silent, and with fear and trembling stand. Ponder nothing earthly-minded, for the King of kings and Lord of lords advances to be slain and given as food to the faithful. Before him go the choirs of Angels, with every rule and authority, the many-eyed Cherubim and the six-winged Seraphim, veiling their sight and crying out the hymn: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Bairstow follows this rather well.

This is sung at the Offertory before the gifts are placed upon the altar following an exhortation from the Deacon to stand upright!

And what a command: Be silent! Let everything be silent!

The trouble is, these days there isn't much in the way of silence. It's viewed very negatively by most folk. Silence is awkward. When Silence comes into a room full of people, there is a mad scramble in every person's mind to find something to say just to send Silence back out of the door. Why is there this antipathy to Silence? I suppose that the trouble with Silence is that frequently in silence we hear precisely the things we don't want to hear about ourselves and our lives. There is the danger that in the Silence we will learn just how little we are, how empty our lives are and how inconsequential some of our struggles might be. We may even be afraid that we will hear the voice of God and end up standing in fear and trembling.

Thinking biblically, off the top of my head, there seem to be four silences - the Silence at Creation, the Silence of Job before his Creator, the Silence of Christ before his accusers and the Silence in Heaven for about half an hour. Yet in each Silence we know a little more about God. What we learn isn't something that we actually can grasp, it's not really an intellectual knowledge, but we come close to God as He really is. There is Silence at the Creation because the only thing that makes a noise is God who breaks the Silence with his Fiat Lux!

Of course, the adept in prayer will be the first to tell you that hearing God speak is not like having a conversation with another human being. We can converse with Christ on the human level, but to converse with God, an entirely unique being, a being that is not as we are but bigger and fuller, well that's entirely different. We cannot expect to hear God in words (though we certainly cannot rule out the possibility - tolle, lege!) when we pray to Him. Indeed, it is in the Silence of prayer that He converses with us at a level our conscious mind cannot fathom. We are simply created deeper than we can ever really be aware. That depth is part of the image of God with which we are being created.

This is the same Silence that Job meets with - it's not the silence of one who is ashamed at the distress of another, but the silence of one who knows that words and argument mean nothing when facing the tragedies of human suffering. God has the compassion not to fob us off with platitudes, but to sit down in Silence and just be with us, thus preserving our integrity and God's respect for us.

Flesh hates this silence because it does not satisfy the fleshly appetite; it cannot be controlled or consumed or commanded in the same way that words can. Flesh will rail against the silence of God because it is not satisfied with anything that is not material. Flesh consumes only flesh, but cannot digest spiritual things. Our desire is for the pain to go away because we don't know how to be patient. The Lord Jesus Christ knew this even in the face of death by torture. He could have saved Himself, but was Silent in order to let the will of God happen. In turn, He was met with God's Silence on the Cross as He cried out the words of Psalm 22 - a cry of dereliction certainly, but following that psalm to its conclusion, ends in praise for God.

Again, the Lord is tempted by the pull of His flesh to resist the Silence, and yet He gives us of His flesh to eat in order that both our flesh and our spirit may be nourished. It is here that we return to the setting of this hymn "Let All Mortal Flesh". It occurs at the Offertory where they Mystery of the Sacrament unfolds - "Christ, Our God, to Earth descendeth, our full homage to demand."

I've often argued on this blog for Transubstantiation, and I know that many of my closest friends disagree with me about this. However, what I hope we all agree on is that we meet with God for real in some actual, more-than-physical, reality, whether we interpret that as substantial or not. I suspect most of our differences occur because we're coming in to the same thing from very different angles. Good! Let that be so! For the fact of the matter is the closer we come to God, the deeper the Silence. The Apocalypse is a mirror for the Mass and there is Silence in Heaven for about half an hour - a beautifully mystical statement at the opening of the Seventh Seal. As God reveals Himself more fully, the less we can actually sense. We are forced to walk by faith into the soundless expanse of God where the chatter of our minds and fears of our hearts have no place, no reality. Eat and drink of the Body and Blood of God unworthily and we actually lose reality!

We need Silence at Mass. We need Silence in the Church because that is where we meet with God. God's silence can be deeply infuriating but we can only travel with what we know by faith. God's silence infuriates because we expect something deeply definitive from God, an answer to our problems immediately. We have to accept God's decisions for our lives and to sit and listen. The minute we start filling the Silence with our own decisions, just to break that Silence, the more that we go wrong and stray from His way. God is not like us. His decisions and His Silence will baffle us, but that does not mean that we should suddenly start voting to amend the problematic situation and claim that this is the movement of the Holy Spirit.

If you want them, have your woman "priests" and "out and proud" bishops, your happy-clappy bands, meaningless hymns and liturgies, but they will only fill you full of noise and drive you further from the God who loves you because they all stem from a purely human understanding of appetite. These resolutions have been made because some members of the Church have been embarrassed by the Silence of God to "real world issues". They make us less real because they break God's Silence for Him! They are our impatience with God Who is infinitely patient with us.

We need to stand Silently.

We need to stand with fear and trembling because the effects of doing so raise us far beyond what we could ever imagine. See the Liturgy of St James for details or, better still, a Mass done well in your area.

Passive Professors and Holy Conviviality

O sacrum convivium!
in quo Christus sumitur:
recolitur memoria passionis ejus:
mens impletur gratia:
et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.

O Sacred Banquet
in which Christ is held:
the memory of His Passion is recollected:
the mind is filled with grace:
and the pledge of the glory to come is given to us.

St Thomas Aquinas
(my translation)

Even with the little Latin I have, what strikes me grammatically about St Thomas' words is that all the verbs are passive. Perhaps this is necessary for the focus to be on the opening three words, the object of devotion, the Sacred Banquet. It does however suggest something else to me.

I have recently lost an old acquaintance, Professor Paul Malliavin at a grand age of 84. I only met him once, but over breakfast we shared mathematical ideas and the elder gave the novice much encouragement, for which I am grateful even now after leaving the citadel of academia for the gymnasium of the classroom. Just one meal, a breaking of the fast, and I was changed.

Was the professor changed? Well, yes, in that he'd never met me before and afterwards he had some small knowledge of a frantic little English mathematician - that's definitely a change. Beyond that I know no more and I pray that the venerable gentleman is being/has been/will be transported to eternal rest in the Lord.

I don't know which tense to use. Is the tense important? In that my temporal life is ordered, this is how I make sense of the world around me, so tense is incredibly important if I am to make decisions or reflect on my encounters in life. There is however a point in which tense is irrelevant.

I am changed because of breakfast with Professor Malliavin and that change is clearly still affecting me because I am writing this now. One meal, and the change continues throughout my life. At that one moment in time,that one little continental breakfast in a hotel in Bielefeld, Professor Malliavin and I were living together, we were convivial, sharing that state of being called Life.

As Christians, this should not surprise us. We are partakers in a meal that changes us and, if we receive it correctly, it changes us for the better. It is an activity in which, despite our activity, we are entirely passive and carried along on the current of liturgy. We have to be aware of our own passiveness (yuk), to become aware of our internal Mary and focus away (just for a time) from our external Martha.

St Thomas focuses on the Sacrum Convivium as the subject of this beautifully poetic reflection on the Sacrament of the Mass on Corpus Christi. It becomes for him an Holy Conviviality, a sharing of Life set apart from living. In our action we cease to become active. In receiving the Sacrament, we are received; in grasping for God, we are grasped; in consuming the Lord, we are ourselves drawn into Who He Is even as He is drawn into who we are.

Notice also that, not only are we entirely passive here, but so is Christ through His own volition. He once allowed Himself to be broken by the actions of our wickedness, He allows Himself to be broken for us in the fraction, but nonetheless He is still wholly one Christ when we receive Him - our action has had only the effect of distributing Him to these who hunger and thirst for Him.

So we come to this meal - God with men - and all of us are passive, despite the illusion of any actions which are necessarily temporal and bound by tense. St Thomas reminds us that the grace of the Sacrament is beyond tense. but rather becomes a Sacrament of pure being/substance/essence - whatever you wish to call it - a Sacrament of pure Life despite activity, an Holy Conviviality.

O Sacrum Convivium