Identifying Anglican Catholicism

I suppose that much of which I blog about is the question of labels and naming. The question is and always seems to be these days, what is the noun and what are the adjectives? After all, it is the noun and the adjectives that make the business of identification work. The question is, who gets to choose those adjectives? Do they come from us, or do they come from the world around?

Let us take, for example, the Anglican Catholic Church. That’s the name that we chose for ourselves nearly forty years ago and, yet, every term in our name might be disputed somewhere along the line. It comprises of two adjectives (Anglican, Catholic) and a noun (Church) and thus we do have a burden of responsibility as to why someone else should agree that we are what we say we are.

With regard to “Anglican”, we find ourselves up against the Anglican Communion who would say that, to be Anglican, we must be in communion with the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury in particular. That’s the definition that they use.

With regard to “Catholic”, we find ourselves up against the Roman Catholic Church who would say that, to be Catholic, we must be in communion with the Bishop of Rome and submit to his authority over the whole church.

With regard to “Church”, we find ourselves up against some Protestants who say that we cannot be Christians because we claim to be Catholic and are therefore not of the Church. That being said, neither would the Eastern Orthodox nor the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church regard us as being a Church. These days, the RCC would say that we are an ecclesial community whose relationship with the Church is somewhat ambiguous. Since, for them, the Church subsists in the Roman Communion, it would seem that we are not.

Thus, at every stage we find ourselves in conflict with someone else’s thinking on the matter. We are now faced with a problem because each one of these groups defines each term differently from us. The problem goes away if we just, like Humpty Dumpty, make our own definitions of the terms. However, we are still faced with the fact that we use words to communicate and, if we change the definitions, then we lose that communication with so many people.

Of course, many modern folk will say that language is fluid and that words change their meanings all the time. The child born on the Sabbath Day is bonny, blithe, happy and gay, yet there seem to be a lot of heterosexuals born on a Sunday, too! If words do evolve and change their meaning with time, then clearly who and what we are is not something that can be understood by all people everywhere. Yet, the Catholic Faith is that which is indeed supposed to be believed at all times, in all places by all Christians – at least that’s the impression that St Vincent of Lerins says. Is he defining “catholic” for himself?

If I use the words “hard drive” everyone in the computing industry knows what I’m talking about. Those who lived sixty years ago would think that I had trouble getting from A to B. Thus, context matters: “I had a hard drive to get my hard drive fixed.”

It seems that it cannot ever be wrong to use words and adjectives in their original sense because that is what the words were used for. Thus, if we want to use the phrase “Anglican Catholic Church” in a way that people agree with our use of language then we can always specify that we use the words as meant in their original sense before the intervening centuries changed the meaning. This gives at least a peg on which we can base any further discussions.

Thus, for the word “Anglican” we go back to 1246 and say that it means “English” in the sense of “ecclesia Anglicana”.  Clearly, this predates the Reformation and thus predates the Church of England in the sense that we now mean it, namely those in Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. This does pose a problem because, clearly, the present Archbishop, Justin Welby is not be in communion with Archbishop (St?) Boniface of Savoy (incumbent 1241-1270). Archbishop Boniface is clearly a member of the ecclesia Anglicana. Yet, if the Anglican Catholic Church cannot use the word Anglican, neither can the Archbishops of Canterbury from Cranmer onwards! (Cardinal Pole being an exception, perhaps)

Where do we go for “Catholic” in the original sense? The earliest we can go is to St Ignatius of Antioch writing to the Church in Smyrna in AD107 and it appears that the word is older than that. St Ignatius writes (Smyrnaeans viii.2)

οπου αν φανη ο επισκοπος, εκει το πληθος εστω, ωσπερ οπου αν η Χριστος Ιησους, εκει η καθολικη εκκλησια 

Wherever the bishop appears, there let the congregation be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

Nowhere in this definition is any mention of the Pope, just the gathering of the people around the bishop. Yet, neither is the notion of Catholic Church as the body opposed to the later heresies from AD200. Given our firm stance against all the heresies that have arisen over the years, including those of the present age which are a resurgence of the old heresies, we might be oversimplifying our case by going to the original definition. However, we can see that what St Ignatius is getting at is an idea of a church that is unified by the bishops who are worthy of obedience because they possess the ability to dispense grace of the sacraments through God’s grace to them. St Ignatius seeks the unity of the Church in doctrine through that obedience to the Bishops and thus it is reasonable to conclude that, although the notion of Catholic Church versus heretical sects arises from the third century, the word “Catholic” does not change definition sufficiently radically from St Ignatius to St Vincent of Lerins who says that the Catholic Faith is “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.” (That which is believed everywhere, always and by all) Note that the same cannot be said of the Pope’s Universal Jurisdiction.

And what about “Church”? That goes back to the word “kyriakos” meaning belonging to the Lord. By professing our Faith in God we are assured of being members of the Body of Christ. 

So there you have it. We have real and objective reasons for believing that the Anglican Catholic Church is appropriately named. While our name is a registered service mark, we are willing to talk with all those who believe that the phrase might apply to them.

I was made aware of a husband and wife team who started to call themselves the Traditional Anglican Catholic Church. In adding in the word "Traditional" they sought to distance themselves from us. The difference that I noted was that they allowed the highly untraditional and heterodox notion of ordained women. They weren't true to the original definitions of the words.

Why should that matter? Words change their meaning.

Of course it matters. We believe ourselves to be part of the Catholic Church, and that means that we do have a responsibility to all her members to preserve unity. The fact that the majority of those members are dead means nothing: we are still in communion with them and we seek to maintain that solidarity. Thus, in this case, the original senses of the words do matter even if we are using English and not the Greek of St Ignatius, nor the Latin of St Boniface of Savoy.

The "Traditional Anglican Catholic Church" was not true to this idea and is essentially self-contradictory. I believe they have now renamed themselves as the "Trinitarian Anglican Church" which is even more bonkers as you have to be a Trinitarian in order to be in the Church! Quite why they don't join an existing body like the CofE, AMiE, or one of the liberal Old Catholic Churches who ordain women, I don't know. Why exist to preserve disunity among Christians? They even claim to be "continuing Anglican" but have nothing to do with the Congress of St Louis which gave birth to the Continuing Anglican Movement. As of 2017, all Continuing Anglicans are in communion and the Trinitarian Anglican Church is not one of them.

This principle of going back to the roots may not always work, but it should help over disputed terms such as, perhaps, "man" and "woman".

How to See a Ghost!

Sermon for Whitsunday

Apparently, the British Isles is one of the most haunted countries in the world. Many of its historical sites are reputed to be visited by spirits, some of whom re-enact the manner of their demise. Others stare despondently through windows. Others are said to play pranks.

Apparently twenty-eight percent of British citizens claim to have seen a ghost. What do we think about that? Christians aren't supposed to believe in ghosts, are we?

[PAUSE]

Of course we are! We are supposed to believe in the Holy Ghost, and we remember that today. But have you ever seen the Holy Ghost?

It's a sad fact that the Holy Ghost is not perceived by many Christians as being very obvious as the Father and the Son. Even in the Bible, the Holy Ghost only seems to become prominent as being foretold by Our Lord and becoming present in the Acts of the Apostles. Yet, He is present throughout the entirety of Holy Scripture, moving on the face of the waters in the first verses of Genesis. We know that Scripture is God-breathed and we remember that the Hebrew word for breath is ruach which is the same as the word used for the Spirit of God.

We do see the Holy Ghost descending on Our Lord like a dove at His baptism. We see His fire upon the heads of the Apostles as they receive their ordination as bishops from God Himself on this day of Pentecost. They have already been baptised with the Holy Ghost when Our Lord breathes on them and tells them, "receive ye the Holy Ghost." This anointing with the Holy Ghost comes after Our Lord's ascension.

We believe that we too, like the apostles, are baptised with the Holy Ghost. Like the apostles, when we were baptised, we probably didn't see anything at that moment. We didn't see the Holy Ghost descend on us like a dove when we were at the font. Our Bishops probably didn't have a fire seen burning above their head when they were consecrated, though there are some reports of unusual and holy things happening for some.

That ought to worry us a bit, for Jesus does say to His disciples that the Holy Ghost "the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him." If we don't see the Holy Ghost at our baptisms, confirmations or ordinations, then perhaps we aren't really receiving Him because we aren't seeing Him. Perhaps all of our sacraments are elaborate charades, just dress-up, smoke and mirrors.

You don't believe that, do you?

[PAUSE]

Of course, some people do believe that and will laugh at us for all our ritual, our strange dress, our focus on little actions which seem so insignificant as to be just silly. Guess what! It's these people who are of the world. They see only through the world's eye; they do not know God because they don't want to know God. Thus, they will be given exactly what they want - an absence of God. They can't receive Him because they won't receive Him.

Our Lord seems to be saying that there are two ways of seeing things, and this really does show up in our church life.

 What we see is wafer and wine, but we are looking with our eyes of the world. If we look again, this time bringing our belief and trust in Our Lord Jesus' promises, then we see His Body and Blood. Nothing changes with our eyes, but something does change in the way that we look at things because we look at them with God showing us His truth.

We see water on the baby's head and, trusting in God, we see a new member of the Church.
We see the hands of the Bishop upon the man's head and, trusting in God, we see a new priest at whose hands we may receive the true grace of God given for us through His love.

We see because we believe. This is the mistake that St Thomas makes and yet he is corrected. It's so sad that he is known as Doubting Thomas for this single instance of doubt when, receiving the Holy Ghost, he goes out and brings Christianity to India which still thrives to this day! We should be calling Him Believing Thomas because we see, trusting in God, a man who brings the faith to people who are hungry for salvation and tired of sin.

We see a church of millions arise from the work of a tiny handful of men and women and, trusting in God, we know it to be the work of the Holy Ghost.

[PAUSE]

Creation is literally nothing without its Creator. Many people try to disengage the world from God and in doing so lose out on what really is. They lose the light of the world and so things become dark. If we want to see God, then we must believe in Him and we will see Him at work. We can't just ask to see Him as if He were a spectacle like a fireworks show because that is not believing. That is putting Him to the test.

To believe means to love and, if we love, then we must obey His commandments. That's how we see the Holy Ghost!

The Postmodern Babel of Self-Definition

So let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen, free of the divisive class pretensions that endeavoured to raise a prideful barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us strive for, conceive and create the new building of the future that will unite every discipline, architecture and sculpture and painting, and which will one day rise heavenwards from the million hands of craftsmen as a clear symbol of a new belief to come. (Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Manifesto 1919)

Now let us compare this with:

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11: 4)

The Bauhaus Manifesto is a crystallization of ideas of various artists which began the whole idea of Postmodernism. While definitions are always a bit tricky to come by, it seems to be a defining characteristic of Postmodernism to seek to rid itself from the shackles of the Modern and to purge itself of former things which impede its becoming.

If Gropius is indeed representative of the postmodern movement in art and if art is the means by which people can engage with the thinking of others on the basis of a physical Impression of a form, then Postmodernism can only ever end in Babel and its consequences.

We see this happening now with the distortion of language whereby people are now defining what words mean on their own terms and thereby rob the conversation of any common language. The claim that we can always self-identify and have the right to be what we say we are is wholly solipsist because it denies the point of view of others. To say that we are what we say we are denies the existence of objectivity and the right of others to speak as they see.

I notice that there are those who refuse to debate their acceptance of the right to self-identify on the grounds that to engage in debate would be tantamount to debating their very existence. Their only recourse is to protest violently and fight to silence their opposition on the grounds that their opposition is an oppressor and they victims of this oppression.

These folk are effectively confusing adjective with definition. If they are not described by the adjectives that they deem to make up their person then they believe themselves to have been diminished in a real way which they interpret as oppression. An Aristotelian might say that there is a confusion of accident with substance, but the materialist would say that there is no distinction to speak of between the two concepts. For the materialist, we are the sum of our adjectives. Yet, those who believe in the right to self-identification - i.e those who believe that they can control how they are to be perceived - not only are they materialist in their thinking, but also, in that they believe that they exercise this control, seek to bend the world to their will in a solipsist manner. They are effectively narcissists.

Thus with the destruction of the objective, these folk destroy any and all honest scientific enquiry but rather subject all science to personal politics and personal philosophy.

Thus, a world in which the right to self-identification is inherent is a world of noise as people try and live as a society of atoms, never truly interacting, never truly sharing anything of humanity and labouring all the while to define themselves against the oppression of others' language. Truly, this becomes a case of l'Enfers c'est les autres. Never can there be any rest or relaxation because the fight to exist is constant. I wonder if this may be the cause of an increased rate of suicide and the call for euthanasia. 

To be truly social is to be self-giving. Love requires this at the deepest level and to love means to allow others to make a claim on you. To desire to be part of a better society means giving up any pretence to a right of our own self-definition and allow ourselves to be identified by others. We cannot join a group by defining ourselves to be a member. We have to wait for the invitation and the consent of others so that we know we can be accepted as we are and as others see us. If there is no invitation or consent, then to take membership of the group by force is a form of rape. It is an affront to Love and to Society. The result is confusion, scattering, isolation and an existential nightmare.

Already, Western Governments are paving the way for self-identification to become a legal right. The societies they govern are becoming sick, jaded, faithless, hopeless and loveless. The only hope is to recognise that we have an objective existence over which we have no control, to accept that, and further to allow it to bring us closer to other human beings and to God Who in being the Creator has the right to define us as we really are so that we can be truly loved.

An End to the End of All Things

Sermon for the Sunday after the Ascension

It looks as if St Peter has donned his sandwich boards and is strolling through the streets saying, “The end of all things is at hand!” How do you feel about that? How do these people who keep banging on about the end of the world being nigh make you feel?

There have been quite a few dates for the end of the world given recently, none of which have obviously come to pass. In fact, the behaviour of some Christians in predicting the End of the World so accurately is rather embarrassing for the rest of us because it never happens! And we who do not make such sweeping statements about the End get tarred with the same brush of lunacy. It’s not fair, is it?

Is St Peter really one of those who wants us to believe that the world will end next Thursday tea-time?

[PAUSE]

The End of the World – it’s a phrase that carries images of death, destruction, war, famine, pestilence, Heaven and Hell. And yet, this is perhaps not what St Peter means because he says in his second letter, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Our Lord Himself reminds us that, concerning the End of the World, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” This is clear:  human beings are not to know when the End will come.

Yet St Peter is now two millennia distant from us. How can the End of All things be near if they are in fact so far in the past?

Perhaps there is a different way of understanding the word “End”.

[PAUSE]

We often say, “the ends does not justify the means.” What does this mean? It means that the task we intend to complete does not allow us to use any method (especially an immoral one) to complete it. The word “end” here is related to the “completed task”. The “End” here is the finished article. When Our Lord cries out, “It is finished” on the Cross, He is crying out in triumph because He has completed our salvation in Him. He has done what He set out to do at the cost of His life. This is Our Lord’s End, but it is not the end of Him as the Resurrection shows.

Our Salvation is completed only by being completed in Jesus Christ Our God. This is our End and it is the End of All things.

St Peter is telling us that we are not talking about an eternal destruction. He is telling us to be aware that we could die at any minute and we need to be sure that we are right with God so that we fulfil His desires for the world. In saying that the End of All Things is near, St Peter is making us pray the Lord’s prayer more sincerely, especially “Thy Will be done.” It is only through God’s will that All Things will be perfected in Him. If we reject that and choose the desires of our own will and thus a life of sin instead then we cannot be part of that Wonderful, Glorious and Happy End.

[PAUSE]

As we watch Our Saviour ascend to Heaven, then we can live assured that in ascending, He is actually closer at hand to each human being than He was two thousand years ago in Galilee, Nazareth and Jerusalem.

This End of the World is such good news! But we do have to prepare ourselves for it!

Ascension to the Outside

If you are the only person to have access to four dimensions, then you only need to move a millimetre to disappear from view. If this is not something you understand, think of your favourite comic strip character - Garfield, for example. Imagine if Garfield were able to move one millimetre above the page of his cartoon - wouldn't Jon and Odie be rather astonished? Garfield would have just disappeared from their page-bound view.

For God all the dimensions of existence lie open before him like some hazelnut in the palm of His hand. No wonder He can appear in locked rooms and ascend from view. This is what Our Blessed Lord can do with ease. His earthly ministry finished, He ascends, stepping out of the small piece of reality to which we are confined, to stand "outside" it all to be with the Father. Quite what this "outside" is we can't know or understand: the only possibility that our human minds can reasonably deduce is that this "outside" is God Himself.

This seems as absurd to the human mind for which time and position, size and weight, concrete and abstract are the framework of our understanding what reality is. If St Thomas Aquinas is correct and the simplicity of God renders Him identical with His Divine attributes, then this must go against anything that we can understand of our own reality and our own being. And yet, it is God Himself who gives us the framework of understanding in the poverty of our fallen existence. It is God who gives us objectivity whereby we must ascend out of very ourselves in prayer and in consideration for others. 

While we must rejoice in the colour of life that our subjective experience gives us, the existence of God is an objective reality upon which we cannot impose any of our subjectivity, but must rely on how He reveals Himself to us. If we want to know God, then we must learn to ascend to Him in the practice of prayer and doing good things according to His Will. This will necessarily take us outside our own perceptions of what is.

As God prepares us for life with Him, that process being Salvation through redemption, justification, sanctification and glorification, so do we become more fully us by letting go of that which we believe defines us and does not. All our labels and self-descriptions are nothing: in the beginning, all God creates us to be is man and woman to live with Him in the Garden of Eden. 

Our Lord ascends, and in so doing we forget about His face though we glimpse it through the ikon. We forget about what He eats or wears; we forget about his size and shape; we forget about all those psychological, sociological, and political labels with which we may have confined our thinking about Him. What remains of Him for us is the Word, now two-thousand years distant. Yet, the Word stands outside, and thus always is what it is. What we are to receive is the Holy Ghost binding us to the outside by bringing that outside within us so that our earthly knowledge of our self becomes just a shell - a shell that will be discarded when we too ascend.

Thus, the Church can never be "the Modern Church" because "modern" is part of the shell to be discarded. If our Faith is not of Eternity, then it is nothing and to be thrown off. If our Faith roots itself in the here and now, then it will be left there and come no further. If we want a Faith that changes with time, then we have no faith at all because Time itself will be discarded on the Outside. "The Modern Church" is a selfish institution, introspective and self-satisfied, accepting the limp and frail aspects of ourselves as the only things that must be included. There is nothing of Eternity therein, just empty words, empty logic, and empty comfort.

Yes, the Church must be radically inclusive, because it must include what really is, and separate it from the Hell of being insubstantial. It must accept people as they are, casting away their labels, and allow them to change by casting away their labels for themselves. It is the radically inclusive Church that helps human beings become the men and women they were created to be in God by helping them ascend to the Outside, an Outside that lies within. That ascension has been gifted to us in the Ascension of Our Lord.

God's phone number

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Easter

What do you do if you’re leaving a place that you’ve called home for such a long time? Clearly, there’s packing to be done, the place to be tidied for the next person in your lodgings, and then there are your friends.

These aren’t just acquaintances we’re talking about here. Not the people you talk with about the weather in the street whom you never get to know. These are your friends and you want to stay in touch with them. What do you do? Surely you give them the contact details of your new address.

[PAUSE]

This is why, as He approaches His crucifixion, we see the disciples clamouring around Jesus wanting to know where He is going and wanting to come too. We see hear them ask for things that will give them assurance that all will be well.

As yet, they don’t really know that the events of the next few days aren’t the end but the beginning.

They are not yet ready for the Resurrection.

And yet, Our Lord hands them His contact details anyway.

“ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”

Strange contact details!

[PAUSE]

This is the point. These will not be the contact details that we’re used to in our age of email and tweet. The contact that Our Lord gives us is Himself in the coming of the Holy Ghost. Our contact is prayer and the phone number is the Name of Christ Himself. We ask in His name to receive what God is willing to give us.

All we have to do to be in contact with Our Lord Jesus, our Friend, Our Lover, Our Master, Our King, Our Judge, is to pray in His Name and we are in direct contact with Him.
We can, of course, get the wrong number, though.

[PAUSE]

Just by sticking the phrase “in Jesus’ Name” onto a prayer is not a guarantee that we’ve prayed in the Name of Our Lord. What if we’ve got the phone number wrong and prayed in the Name of a different Jesus- it’s a common name! Perhaps we pray in the Name of a Jesus who is a figment of our imagination. After all, there are so many people who pray only to a Baby Jesus lying in the manger and forget the entirety of His Incarnation, not just a well-rehearsed Nativity Play. There are so many who pray to a Jesus who will accept them for who they are no matter what they do, a Jesus who will accept their own idea of what’s right and wrong and who will sanction their behaviour because it is done in His Name.

They do not have Our Lord’s contact details. The do not pray in His Name.

[PAUSE]

Prayer takes a great deal of effort to do well. It is something we must struggle at and fail at and get frustrated at, because we are engaged upon our search for the real Lord Jesus. We are to pray in His Name, which means that we have to be ruled by His law, find good what He calls good, reject what He calls bad, and repent of all that we do wrong in His eyes. His morality is not the same as those of our society around us. Indeed, If Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, then all His followers must abide by the same morality if they are to know Him, and through Him, the Father.
The Church has a whole compendium of prayers for us to use because they are shaped by the relationship which Our Lord has with the saints. It’s why we have Liturgy so that we don’t follow too much the devices and desires of our own hearts that we might otherwise do through always only using our own prayers. Our Lord is clear:

At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.

God will hear each and everyone who truly believes in Him and this God is the One in Whom we shout out our Faith in the words of the Creeds. If we believe, then we must show that we believe not just by saying the words but by living out what they mean, following them to their conclusions and suffering the scorn of the world for following the True Jesus and not the straw man that it tries to palm us off with.

[PAUSE]

We know how to contact God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. If we’ve forgotten His number, then we just need to find His address book. It’s called the Church and His number is written in the lives of the saints.

Inventions, Myth and Consciousness

Today, in my Benedictine Breviary, is the Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross. Obviously this is not the same as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross which occurs on the 14th September when we celebrate the dedication of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. Today, we celebrate the finding - the literal translation of inventio - of the Holy Cross.

Of course, the cross is a symbol that goes beyond the Christian usage. It's pretty much universal, though ascribed different meanings. It can be found as a symbol for burial in the Bronze Age in which it is circumscribed by the disc of the sun. It can be tally marks, two Greek letters, ten in Chinese rod numerals or seven in Shang oracle bone numerals. It is the shape of a man standing with his arms outstretched, or with arms and legs stretched out. Even the Egyptian Ankh is a version of the cross.

If we want to find the true cross, then we have to find the right meaning and that requires a framework - essentially a cultural narrative. The Truth is explored through the narrative of collective human experience. As a Christian, I believe I have good grounds that the Christian narrative epitomised in Holy Scripture and given voice by the Church throughout Time in the teaching of the Fathers gives the most accurate framework for knowing what Reality is through contact with God Himself, the Creator and thus Arbiter of what truly is. That which does not conform to this narrative is deficient and ultimately leads the soul away from God and into Hell.

 I note with a degree of cynicism the thoughts of those who think they know what Hell is. I note that there are those who reject God in favour of finding a deeper meaning in the path to Hell or the path to oblivion. Pop Music has brought out bands like Black Sabbath and, more lately, Ghost which glorify that which is Satanic ostensibly in the guise of entertainment. There is something in our culture which sees skeletons dressed as popes titillating and entertaining because it rebels against the narrative - it tries to tell a different side of the story.

This is something that we might note frequently happens in our society today. How many films are remakes of older versions? I seem to remember a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho and I wondered why. What's the point of that? If we want to tell the original story, then we put on the original film. I fail to see why remakes are necessary. Many will say that this is to do with updating the special effects or bringing out the "true meaning" of the story imbuing it with extra nuances and details that weren't there originally.

There are those, of course, who would say the same about the Christian Narrative, particularly those such as Bart Ehrmann who seeks the truth by "demythologising" Holy Scripture. As we've seen already,  Myth is something that we cannot really dismiss as not being God's word. Calling something a myth is not saying that it has nothing of the Truth in it.

 Yet, when it comes to the Gospels, there is a fundamental desire to preserve the truth and here History becomes Myth and Myth History. This poses a problem for historians like Bart Ehrmann for whom miracles cannot happen, and so any miraculous doings must be re-interpreted in a "truth" that fits a framework without miracles. He would reject any narrative in which the miraculous plays a part. So would many materialists in the Scientific community. They reject myth in favour of the "truth".

What they cannot see is that the whole of the Scientific approach is written in its own narrative in which parts are played by Aristotle, Hypatia, al-Khwarizmi, Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Mendel, Einstein, Bohr, Lemaitre, Dawkins and Hawkins all play their inextricable and valuable part. Their discoveries are part of the Grand Narrative of "How?" and the story is worth telling because it pertains to something of the truth. The materialist scientific myth is worth knowing both for its explanation and for its failure to be the only means to the "truth". For one thing, it may try to explain consciousness as an emergent phenomenon or as an epiphenomenon in the brain as part of neural processes. While we may often reject views that are subjective, the fact that the subjective exists in the first place is a problem when it comes to believe that human beings are biological machines and therefore theoretically and completely objective. How can the firing of neurotransmitters in the brain translate to the sensation of pain that we all feel, and know how it feels, and yet cannot adequately translate that feeling to others without the use of a narrative, metaphor or analogy - a mini-myth?

As we look at a world that is struggling with itself, we see great examples of pain and suffering emblazoned on our screen in their own narratives. We see the recent atrocity from ISIS turning a captured Syrian into an explosive missile and from that we see a glimpse of the mythology of Hell lying so close to the human soul. We see the stories of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans and we see the myth of the struggle between state and soul, the individual and the Social Machine.

For Christians, the Cross becomes the bridge between our understanding of reality and what reality is. Indeed, we find the true cross by confronting reality. First, there is the reality of pain and suffering in our own lives and in the lives of others. We see it, and we suffer too, not as a bundle of neural transmitters but as human beings who have some degree of empathy, sympathy and love for one another. Indeed, we see our togetherness in suffering and in sin.

Second, we note that the Narrative of the Cross  crosses the Narrative of History. The Cross is an historical fact and this allows for the Christian Myth to be a potent and essential vehicle for the study of Reality because it presents us with God Incarnate. No longer is God a resident of etiological myth but He becomes Historical. We see Christ and we see the Father. Thus, the etiological myth present in the Old Testament bears witness to truth beyond mere History.

Third, we see Hope for all of us trying to find meaning. We no longer have to be the authors of our own myth as the Existentialists would have us do to prevent suicide. We no longer have to be slaves to finding an authentic self from scraps is sensation and the whims of passing fashion. We do not have to be both Frankenstein AND the Creature. The Christian Narrative is a freedom from total self-construction into a co-operative enterprise in which we create ourselves under the guiding hand of a Loving and Eternal Father.

To be authentic is to root our consciousness in God through Christ and unite it with our fellows so that our Narratives weave together and become, perfected by the Christian Narrative, a testament of what is truly real.

We should never be afraid of the old, old story, just the new, new ones that sell their authenticity for the fleeting relevance of Modernity.

Departing love

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Easter

How do you prepare yourself when a loved one leaves?

The pain of separation is one of the most acute stress factors that human beings can suffer. According to some sources, the most stressful things that a human being can undergo are the death of a loved one, childhood trauma, and divorce. Each is centred around and breeds from a loss of love. Yet, each one of us will suffer these sorts of stresses in our lifetime. It’s unavoidable.

Sometimes, it seems that Our Lord glosses over this sort of pain. We hear Him say to the Eleven Disciples, and us, “Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.”

Is it really that easy to rejoice, knowing that a loved one is going away to a better place? Is this not a bit of emotional blackmail on the part of the Lord Jesus? “If you really loved me, then you would rejoice…” Is that what He is saying?

[PAUSE]

The pain of separation is caused by nothing less than our love. It’s a pain that many people can’t truly face and so try to avoid it where possible. Some will try never to love but remain protected in a shell that keeps everyone at a distance. Others will fill their lives with distractions, turning from this fashion to that fashion so that they are not still enough for love to catch up with them. Others will numb themselves to the pain, even through things like drink and drugs. This is happening so much in the world around us.

The fact is that Love requires the greatest investment we can give, and yet it is only something that we can give as a gift. It’s never a bargaining tool. If we give love, then we can only give it freely in the knowledge that, in so doing, our hearts will be broken.

If this is the case then why does Our Lord tell us that if we love Him then we would rejoice because He goes back to the Father? Is that not like saying, “if you really loved me, you wouldn’t get that tattoo”?

[PAUSE]

The fact is that Our Lord does recognise that His departure will lead to our sorrow. “Now I go my way to him that sent me, and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But, because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.” Yet He must go so that He can bestow more love upon us, namely the gift of the presence of the Holy Ghost. It is through the Holy Ghost that God can be present to each and everyone who desires His presence. But that presence is unseen and His ways are unseen. If we love Him then we must trust Him because trusting someone is what we do as part of our love for them. We can rejoice in Our Lord’s impending departure because we know where He is going and, in Him, we have the hope that we will go there, too!

In Christ, there is pure Hope! - a certainty of our resurrection and the end of our pain. It can only come through Him and through no other means. No self-help book, no philosophy, no other religion can give us that certainty because it comes through realising Who Jesus is and entering into a relationship of love with Him.

Of course Love is hard – really hard. The pain it will cause each one of us is immense because it requires giving of ourselves at a level that we simply don’t believe we can afford. This is why many of us try to protect ourselves from it, or numb ourselves to its pain. In so doing, we lose the benefits of Hope and Faith that come with Love and are subject to it.

[PAUSE]

Love is the perfect gift that comes down to us from Heaven from the Father of lights. As Christians, we dare to receive that gift and the cross that comes with it. Do we receive the Hope that also comes? It is part of the package deal after all.

Missing Myth

Some people believe in the literal history of Genesis.

I think that's fine and not wholly unreasonable. They believe that God tells us the truth and that the Bible is His Word and therefore the events of Genesis are history.

This does mean that those who hold this viewpoint must reject the findings of our science and its conclusions. If this stance deepens their relationship with God and helps them love Him in spirit and in truth and in obedience to His command to love  then this can't be a bad thing. The point of fact is that no human can have complete knowledge of our origins. All we have to go on is evidence and reason from that evidence.

However, I must say that I believe the events of Genesis to be a Myth.

I might perceive a gasp of horror from some of my readers, especially those from a more Evangelical persuasion. I beg you to bear with me so that I might be allowed to explain myself.

 The modern way of thinking is that a myth is necessarily untrue, or just a story - something that doesn't need to be believed. This is because we tend now to use the word wrongly. We talk about the myth that dock leaves cure the wounds caused by stinging nettles, or the myth that women have smaller brains than men. These are untrue statements but they are definitely not myths.

Modern thinkers like to reject myth as not being an authority on what is true and therefore believe that we may have free reign to interpret it how we want. 

This is false.

"Myth" should not be a dirty word for a Christian who believes in the inerrancy of Holy Scripture. Our Lord's parables are stories and get to the point about what myths are for the Christian. 

We tend to have a narrow view of what counts as knowledge, these days. We view scientific truth as the only truth and thus discount the existence of God because He is unobservable. If there is truth of God's existence (and there is scientific evidence) then it must be by revelation from Him and therefore beyond the limited way we think.

Myth frees us from our obsession with understanding things without God's help. 

This is why I personally think that a purely literal interpretation of Genesis is far too narrow to be the truth. There is a lot that is revealed to us in Genesis without needing to ask when it happened or who wrote the text and with what intention. If we trust God then the Holy Scriptures that He has called His Church to compile for all Christians must be theologically true regardless of the modern tendency to subject the texts to various criticisms in order to find the truth.

Indeed, I am becoming more convinced that the modern way of Biblical Criticism tries to set modern thinking up above all thought that predates it. Modernity looks down its nose at the interpretations of fishermen, tent makers, carpenters, and first-century women with the same disdain as the Pharisees. Everything must be criticised according to the correct up-to-date critical theory before it can be judged to be true.

If the myth of Genesis tells me that God created men and women then I believe that, and from that I can believe that men and women are not interchangeable else the text would not make mention of the differentiation. From Genesis, I know that God created all that is. It doesn't say how, but I know that there are six different aspects of that creation. However, I cannot understand how a "day" can happen without the Sun nor a planet on which there is to be a day. I know from science that a day on Venus is longer than its year. How am I to understand this "day" if there is no reference to astronomy yet created. I can only understand it as an aspect of God Himself, of His engagement with Time from Eternity which boggles my tiny understanding.

There is always an accusation that the liberals make of Traditional Christians cherry-picking our myths or the interpretation of our common myths that the Bible contains and it is their attitude that denigrates the mythic nature of our Faith. We do not have to be ashamed of what we have received from the hands and mouths of our forebears. We should be proud of it. The liberal accusation not only stops there but also denigrates the Sacred Tradition of the Church Fathers as being morally inferior to the present age. They are judged as sexist but permitted to be because they were products of their time. Our time is clearly superior.

The question is in what system of values they make this judgement of superiority. Why is Now with its demythologising influence better than "Then" with the Myths and stories which God has given His Church for all time in order for it to explore the transcendent nature of Reality inaccessible to Science and Rationalism? Who gets to make that decision?

My Evangelical friends may still criticise me for believing in God and the Big Bang and Darwinism. However, I hope that they appreciate that I, too, hold to the inerrancy if Holy Scripture as a means of knowing God and His relationship with Humanity, of knowing His pleasure and thus the necessity for us to live lives which resonate with this pleasure, of knowing our own sin and our salvation in Christ, and of knowing that there is hope for the future through Christ alone.

Metanoia and Thatcher

Sermon for the third Sunday after Easter

Sometimes, everything seems to get at you, even inanimate objects. Jets of water from the tap always seem to end up on you in an embarrassing way. Milk cartons refuse to open without the intervention of heavy-duty cutlery. And let us not get started on trying to open bin bags.

Sometimes the world seems to just get at you.

Of course, some people have it much worse than others. Some of us seem to suffer misfortune after misfortune. Respectable men and women suddenly find themselves with nothing. Clever and enterprising young folk end up on the street. Little children grow up scared and scarred because of the actions of grow-ups.

The Church has a lot of work to do.

If only the world would let us do it.

[PAUSE]

As Christians, we can definitely subscribe to the feeling that we are being "got at". This is because we are being got at. The question is trying to work out who is getting at us. The answer is not always very obvious.

You might say, "actually, it is the world that's getting at us." Our Lord Himself says, "Verily, verily I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice!" What is this "World"?

It's easy to think that it's a them and us situation. It's us versus the world - Athanasius contra mundi - and we put on our suits of armour and seek to challenge the World to a dual.

The trouble is, the World is not something outside of us. Think of this: you're never stuck in traffic, you are traffic. By being in a car, you are part of the traffic congestion on the M25. Margaret Thatcher is right: Society doesn't exist as something outside ourselves that we can always blame for our troubles. While we participate in Society, we cannot pass the buck.

"What's wrong with the World?" We say as we see the latest atrocity. G. K. Chesterton would reply, "I am." While we are in the World, we cannot separate ourselves from what's wrong with it. While we live in worldly ways, we contribute to the very thing that we struggle with.

How can we hope to separate ourselves from the World?

[PAUSE]

It's clear that we can't any more than we can package up the darkness before we switch the light on. We turn to Christ and use His light to help us transform our ways. We cannot hope to seek the will of God in worldly desires. A new car will not bring us closer with God: it will just make us more worldly. Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.

We turn to Christ. The only thing of any real value to us is the Cross of Christ, His suffering, His humiliation, His death. Death is the only thing that the World can ever give us because it is corrupted by our sin. Christ breaks through that barrier for us and offers us the way through.

We turn to Christ. We learn to value what He values and seek only love and unity with Him. A true search for unity with God cannot exclude other people because if we are united with God, then we will be united with all others who find Him. Our lives are to be spent, not focussing on the world's problems for the world's sake, but focussing on loving God and accepting His values so that we can solve the world's problem in true and honourable service to Him. We can gain the world, but we lose our souls in the process.

[PAUSE]

We cannot do any good in this world without God's involvement. The solution is simple: we involve God in our lives in prayer and the study of His word. We look at how we can shrug off worldly values and the pursuit of worldly esteem, we take our cross and suffer with Christ.

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Just wait in God, and see.

Good shepherds?

Sermon for the second Sunday after Easter

Don't you feel that being referred to as a sheep is a bit demeaning?

What about your priest being referred to as your pastor, or your bishop as the shepherd of your souls? Do you like being part of someone's flock?

Does that mean while you're merely a sheep, an ordained priest is actually a real human being?

[PAUSE]

Clearly, some have held this view in the past which seems to set priests up above the laity. It's little surprising that, because they cannot become priests, women see the Catholic priesthood as being another example of male oppression over them. If they are the sheep and the priest is the shepherd, then it seems that women will always be lesser. Likewise, men who are not called to the priesthood would have some objection to being referred to as a sheep.

There is clearly a point to answer here and, as always, to know the truth we listen to Jesus Himself, and it only takes a few words.

"I am THE good shepherd."

He doesn't say, "I am a good shepherd." It is very much, "I am THE good shepherd." There are no other good shepherds than Our Lord.

And now we begin to see something. With God as Our Creator, any comparison that we make between Him and us is always going to make us look insignificant. Before God, we are nothing more than dust. Our lives begin and end in the twinkle of His eye. We are nothing in comparison with Him.

To describe Himself as a shepherd and us as sheep is actually a great kindness to us. He could simply not bother with us at all, because we are so insignificant before His Eternal Majesty. The fact that He calls Himself our shepherd shows that He does care - really care. This is a care that is far beyond any care that a human being could have for anyone.

Listen to Him:

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.

He is not in it for any money, or kudos, or for the glory of being worshipped. He has no need of any of those things. His care is completely focussed on the sheep. He will defend us to the hilt from all Evil that would beset us - even to death.

And how He proves that to us on the Cross.

What does it prove? 

It proves that, no matter who we are, God wants to create us. He loves us so much that He brings us into being in the first place and then gives up His own life for us so that we might not be lost to Him through our own sin.

[PAUSE]

It's also worth listening to St John Baptist when he says of Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God!"

Lamb?

So Jesus Himself is being referred to as a sheep?

If we're sheep, then so is He!

And now we really do see that when God calls us His sheep, He is referring not to us being animals before Him, but rather demonstrating His care - a care so great that He becomes one of us in order to be with us. He shows that our human state - while being infinitely inferior to His glorious majesty - possesses worth for Him, possesses dignity, possesses in its very heart Heavenly Gold. We are not nothing to God.
Why then do we call priests, "pastors," and bishops, "shepherds"?

[PAUSE]

This point cannot be emphasised enough. It is not because priests and bishops are humans and the laity merely flocks. Look carefully: how can Mother St Teresa of Calcutta be lesser than one of those awful paedophile priests who have brought shame upon the whole Catholic priesthood? How can St Mary Magdalene be lesser than the treacherous Judas?

No. In failing to see priests and bishops as being somehow above normal human beings, we miss the point of Christ's sacrifice as the Lamb of God. The ordination of a priest is the means by which Christ operates through a sinful, fallible human being in order to feed us with His grace in the sacraments. The priest is a sheep through whom the Shepherd gives His care. What credit does that give to the priedt?

The priest is only a pastor by virtue that each Christian should look to him to see Christ the Shepherd. In fact, in not allowing the grace of God to act in him, in not showing care for his parish, the priest commits a terrible sin.

It is important to note that every faithful member of the laity is made holy through living their faith. Men and women together have an equal opportunity to become saints and to stand before God's throne for Eternity. The faithless priest, the priest that is in it for the prestige, the fancy robes, the adulation and respect, is an hireling and will receive his reward which can only end in Eternal Death.

Go out: be holy and faithful under the oversight of our Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, and don't forget to pray for priests and bishops that the whole world may be filled with Christ's grace.

Mathematical Sehnsucht

I find, to my amazement, that I have had something to contribute to Fr Anthony's Blue Flower project. While I won't reproduce it here, I will perhaps mention that Mathematics does begin to give expression to the Transcendent and I may expand on that in a future article for the Blue Flower if there is sufficient interest.

Do please look out for this publication as there will be articles written by those of greater academy than me. I'm told it is aiming to be out in June.

A late announcement

To many not used to the liturgical interplay between the solar and lunar calendars, the concept of a date not being a saint's day seems difficult to understand. A few years ago, I upset revellers celebrating St George's day, when I pointed out that - it being the Octave of the Resurrection - St George's day did not happen on April 23rd. (What an obnoxious know-it-all I am! 😜) This year, in the Roman Rite, St Valentine got bumped to a commemoration by the privileged feria of Ash Wednesday.

Especially this year, March 25th was not the Feast of the Annunciation according to the Roman Rite Since it clashed with Palm Sunday, the Rubrics ordered that it be transferred to the nearest available date outside the Easter Octave. Of course, this is not a universal practice. The Sarum Rite, for example makes provision for the Annunciation to be celebrated on the next day, being the Monday of Holy Week.

So we have had to wait a while for the announcement that Our Lady is to bear a child.

How typical!

Announcing the birth of a baby is not as straightforward as one might think. Parents filled with the joy that they are going to have a baby find themselves frustrated that it's really best to wait for the twelve-week scan before making a formal announcement so that they can say that the baby is happy and healthy. Were the Angel Gabriel to follow the same practice, we would be celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation on 25th June instead - the day after the Nativity of John the Baptist.

However, the Angel just needs to announce the Immaculate Conception of Our Lord. His birth is guaranteed, unlike many pregnancies even today. It is a matter of great sadness that many pregnancies end naturally within the first twelve weeks. Some babies do die even before their own mother knows that she is pregnant. For some mothers, the miscarriage is the first she knows.

We make later announcements so that we can share the joy of the presence of a baby knowing that it is viable for life. Even then, pregnancy is delicate and though the probability that the baby dies shrinks daily, it is never zero.

Could Our Lady's pregnancy have failed? Yes, it could: Our Lord's gestation was as fraught with danger as our own. However, it did not fail and this is something that those possessing an Eternal point of view always know.

We rejoice in the benefit of hindsight that, from His Conception, Our Lord's birth was assured and the path of our salvation at His hands revealed. While we rejoice, we must pray for all pregnant women and for all those who suffer the tragedy of miscarriage.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

Pressing Faith

Sermon for the first Sunday after Easter

You may have noticed that, around Easter time, the newspapers tend to scrabble around for something to write about. We've had a congregation whose Easter banner said "Chris is Risen," the Archbishop of Wales being reported as saying that we can never know that the Resurrection happened, and the Pope being reported as saying that Hell does not exist which the Vatican denies. It seems that the press want to say something about Easter, but are not sure precisely what to say. What they give us is either something light-hearted or something that challenges the belief of millions of Christians.

Why? Why does the press want to challenge the Christian Faith?

[PAUSE]

At the most obvious level, the press just want people to buy papers and so print challenging headlines to make us think. Some papers rejoice in giving purely reactionary articles just so that people find a reason to shake their heads and tut about the state of the world. In many ways, the press give the people what they want to read and, as the old proverb says, they won't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

If today's press is inaccurate why can we be sure that the Gospels are accurate? Perhaps it is difficult to believe that Our Lord is risen from the dead. Perhaps we will never know.

[PAUSE]

It's okay to be tempted by thoughts like this. Poor St Thomas has trouble believing the reports of Jesus' Resurrection and so He demands evidence. It is only when they see His scars that the disciples are glad when they see the the Lord. After such a horrible few days in which we see Christ humiliated and executed, we are bound to be shaken up by this. The fact of the matter is that, in our experience, people don't tend to rise from the dead.

But Jesus does.

And that cannot be exaggerated. People are either alive or dead. Jesus was dead and now He is seen to be alive by eyewitnesses who then go about preaching of this resurrection. There's nothing to mishear, misinterpret or distort. Jesus was dead and is now alive. It doesn't get clearer than that. In two-thousand years, there has been no reasonable evidence to contradict the eye-witness testimony of the time.

When we doubt, what we have to do is to have faith.

Faith is not something that denies what we see. It doesn't throw out reason and scientific evidence. Faith is the result of trusting that God is Who He says He is and believing Him when things seem dark. Jesus says He will rise again from the dead. When He does die, we have to trust that He is right. When He does rise again, we see that our faith in Him is justified. We see that He is telling us the truth. We see that He does keep His promises even when they seem difficult to believe.

Having faith is a powerful thing. St John tells us clearly that

Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

The Faith that God gives us allows us to treat the misinformation of the world with a grain of salt. It means that we can hold onto Church teaching and not worry when it conflicts with this world's morality because we trust in God and not the world. It means that we are not slaves to culture, nor to big business, nor to what Society expects of us. We just need to have faith and allow that faith to grow in God.

[PAUSE]

Like the plants that begin to bud in spring, so our faith grows because of Our Lord's Resurrection from the Dead. It is the report of the death of our faith that is greatly exaggerated.

The Threshold

Sermon for the Feast of the Resurrection

We stand at the door of the empty tomb, peering into its dark interior as the sunlight begins to flood the cemetery. Towards us is the black open door leading into the place of the dead and to who-knows-what. Behind us the sky is black with the beginnings of a pale blue hue at the horizon just before the Sun begins its ascent into the sky.

And we come to the realisation that this is the beginning of a new day. It's a beginning, not an end. Looking at the empty tomb, we are not seeing an end even though it is supposed to be a last resting-place. The credits don't roll. We aren't going to find out who the production assistant and script editor are. This is not a drama that has just played itself out. This is still happening.

[PAUSE]

We stand on the threshold of the tomb at the threshold of the day trying to understand the events of the last few days. They have been a threshold too, that between order and chaos. This is where it all begins as God Himself stands at the moment of Creation on the threshold between something and nothing, looking into the void and deciding in His impenetrable infinity what to create.

The threshold is where we are and it is here on this threshold that God saves us.

Every day, we teeter on the edge between good and evil, and we're not always aware of it. The world around us is a chaotic pattern of ripples from good deeds and ill entering into our everyday lives, often without us knowing. The order of our lives is being nudged by forces we can neither see nor control. We might as well be playing blind man's bluff on the edge of Beachy Head. The mind of Humanity is dark and cold to the love of God. And dark and cold is the morning as we gaze into the empty tomb. Many of us spend our lives here at this threshold and never seem to cross it.

But He is not here: He is risen and He meets us in the dawning of day and the breaking of bread. In order to meet Him, we have to cross the threshold into the unknown. This is the nature of our Faith.

Faith is not some unreasoned acceptance of an apparent truth. Our Faith is a growing trust in someone we are coming to know. It is as empirical as Science is itself. Our faith grows by what it sees and experiences. Our faith in God grows because we experience Him and seek Him out. Abraham knows God and trusts Him to raise Isaac when God calls him to sacrifice his son. It is only because he knows what God is like that Abraham would even dare to obey. In so doing, Abraham crosses a threshold into a new relationship with God with Isaac alive.

[PAUSE]
Leaving their hiding places from the crucifixion to gather in some secluded spot to decide what to do, the disciples find Christ. And they realise that their experiences of His teaching and miracles are true. The figure they see standing before them, still bearing His scars, still Him, is Christ Jesus Our Lord, and none other. No ghost. No hallucination through grief or intoxication. Through faith in Our Lord, they cross the threshold from a world groaning for Salvation into a world in which Salvation is present for those who want to receive it.

And the threshold of this Salvation is Christ the Door, the Strait Gate, the Way. He is the threshold between Life and Death. He is the door of the tomb for those who wish to pass from death into Eternal life.

[PAUSE]

This is as much our Resurrection as His. This is why He comes back to see us and show us the truth that our faith may be strengthened and our joy complete.

The sun rises and the blackness of the tomb lies behind us. Let us proceed in the peace of Christ into His life.

The Clamour and the Crucifix

Sometimes, it all gets a bit much.

Trying to maintain your Christian Faith in a world which wants you to alter those beliefs sounds very straightforward when you say it out loud. It's when the fall-out hits you: today's Western World may not seek to stone you, throw you to the lions or crucify you literally. No. Today's tactic is to destroy your faith through "science", social pressure, complex legal arguments, and more and more trivialities-dressed-as-important so that your mind is torn hither and yon seeking for the way to honour God - the God Who is with us, for us and fiercely on our side; distraction, distraction, distraction. It is all noise.

We can see just how much the world hates Christianity: it is called the Cross and, today, we behold our sovereign saviour, our Lord and God Incarnate, stripped, nailed, reviled and mocked on the cross. You can hear the noise around Him as He hangs there. All He can hear are the taunts of people who are anti-understanding, seeking to drown out His message with their list of obligations. This is how Our Blessed Lord is no-platformed - pinned to a cross and drowned out.

It is only those who stare at the cross in tears and silence that hear the one thing that the Devil was trying to stop us from hearing.

"Tetelestai!"

It's this that the Devil doesn't want us to hear because it is the truth: he has been conquered and his eternal fate known in Time. It doesn't matter what you hear around you. The truth is the truth. The cross is the cross. And God is God. No matter how this world tries to drown out what you know to be true in your heart, it cannot. It might as well try to convince you that two and two are five. You may not know why two and two have to be four, but you do know that it is four despite even courts ruling that the sum should be otherwise.

The only approach to this clamour is silence.

In silence, we hear the little voice of God who seeks out only those who want to hear Him. The world may hear tetelestai and drown out, distort and confuse its meaning with words, psychobabble and redaction. But we hear it, and we hear it in context: Christ has done it; He has perfected His salvation; He has poured Eternal Truth into the world through the opening of His hands and His side.

All we have to do is sit at the foot of the cross, look up, listen and be loved.

A Passionate Embrace

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent called Passion Sunday

Why do we suffer?

Perhaps we will never know for sure but we can be quite sure that suffering is pretty much guaranteed for all of us at some point in our lives. Perhaps this suffering will make us call God into question. Perhaps it will weaken our faith. Perhaps, in searching for the answers, we will lose sight of all that is good and holy.

Knowing that this is an unfathomable part of the human condition, why do we refer to Our Lord's suffering as His Passion. Isn't passion something felt between lovers who aren't backward at coming forward to express their love?

[PAUSE]

The words, "patience," "passive," and "passion" are all related and come from the same Latin word which means to suffer or to endure. If you are a patient in a hospital, then you are experiencing a passion. A passion is something that happens to you. As we enter Passiontide, veiling the images and the statues and crucifixes, we are demonstrating that in being a saint, we have to be willing to suffer because Love suffers. Perhaps that's why suffering has to exist so that we can learn to love truly and thus truly know God.

That's thoroughly unpalatable in this day and age when we have all kinds of medicines and distractions that can dull our pain but without actually addressing the cause. We see too many people addicted to painkillers of many forms. Some embrace the pain, seek to have it define their lives and thus become perpetual victims. There are those who simply cannot stop grieving for one whom they loved so much and, in so doing, settle down into a comfortable half-life of grief. If passion is something that happens to us, then what else can we do but let it happen? Isn't Jesus, in His suffering in the dreadful events of the coming week, a perpetual victim?

[PAUSE]

Indeed Our Lord is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. It is by His eternal victimhood - His Eternal Passion - that we are reconciled eternally with God. What makes the Passion of Our Lord so unique is that He isn't just the victim: He is the priest as well. He makes the sacrifice happen. This doesn't mean that Our Lord is suicidal: it means that, by being in control of His passion, He can put it to the best use possible.

"CHRIST being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands; that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves; but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."

It is the priesthood of Christ that turns around the notion of the victim on its head. Instead of being passive in His suffering, Our Lord takes what He has been given and endures it actively. While His life undergoes pain and torture, He takes the fight into the spiritual realm and smashes the whole of the Devil's work to make life a misery and death an Eternal inevitability.

[PAUSE]

And this is part of the nature of our Catholic priesthood. The Church, through the activity of all its members, offers up the suffering of the world through the exercise of Love. The Church, herself, is nourished through the obligations of priests who must participate in the active sacrifice of Christ in order to give each Christian the spiritual nourishment they need in order to keep the fight going.

Our challenge is not only to take up the Cross at Our Lord's command, but also to venerate it even as we would venerate the cross of Christ. We are to venerate the very cross to which we are nailed.

By accepting the suffering that we receive and carrying it with us, bearing one another's burdens as the Church, we can follow Christ into taking up the fight against Evil and, by enduring, win through God's grace.

We need not be passive in our passion. Christ isn't.

The Lie of Progress

In this period of Lent, Christians are invited through prayer and fasting to examine their consciences and make an appropriate repentance. Why?

Every Christian should have the goal of becoming more Christ-like: each of us is to put on Christ and put to death the old man who lives only according to the flesh. It seems very reasonable that there is, for each individual Christian, a perfectly well-defined notion of progress in life. We progress by committing fewer sins and by co-operating with the grace we receive abundantly from Almighty God. Our end is our beginning: perfection in God.

How do we measure that progress, though? Saying, "I committed five sins yesterday and only three today," might give the illusion that progress is being made but yesterday is not the same day as today. You never step into the same river twice.

"Ah!" says my detractor, "you always argue that whatever is sinful does not change in Time. How can you argue this if each day is contextually different from the next?"

Sin is defined in relation to God. Sin always misses God - that's what the term "sin" means, a missing of the target. Since God is Eternal and thus changeless in Time, whatever misses Him must also be Eternal, in the same way that one quarter, the square root of two, and 𝜋 must always miss the set of whole numbers. The time at which these numbers fail to be whole numbers is meaningless. What may change is the gravity of the sin within temporal contexts: murder - that is, the unlawful, premeditated killing of another human being - is always sinful, but the reasons why that murder is committed will differentiate it from being malicious and being weak. Unlawful killing? Which law? Clearly, the law of the one who gave it - God!

Take God out of the equation and there ceases to be any form of universal law. The unlawfulness of murder can be decided by whatever human authority is appointed to decide what law is. One only has to look at the last century to see that it is possible for the extermination of various groups of people to become lawful in human civilisation.

Okay, that's last century. That won't happen today! We've made progress.
If you haven't yet read it, make sure you read and understand Orwell's 1984 and see how already we are being conditioned to think in a certain way.

We know that slavery is wrong, yet still it happens and people are prepared to sanction it. Big businesses paying children a pittance in some part of the world to sew together cheap trendy trainers for wannabe rich kids.

We know that sexism is wrong, yet still women are being treated as an underclass by those who seek to assert their dominance through maintaining sexual stereotypes which serve only to make both sexes caricatures of humanity.Yet, the Western Governments are passing laws by which even the safe spaces of women's restrooms can be used by men by redefining what "men" and "women" mean - or rather by legislating that a word no longer means what it already means by the abuse of grammar.

If the Enlightenment seeks the progress of human beings, what does it see as the goal of Progress especially if part of that "enlightenment" is the destruction of belief in God?

The only goal of an atheist progress must be some form of Utopia to which end human beings are to work. From what little I understand of such a worldview is that Science, Reason, and Humanism are the means by which the ills of poverty, disease, injustice. war, old-age and even death are eradicated. Thus, all human beings become a means to this end and nothing more. If my life ends with my death then,  by virtue of the fact that I would not see Utopia, only work that I do towards it will be my worth as I fade into oblivion. The humanity of those who will see this Utopia will not be shared by those who have died to realise it unless this Utopia possesses the ability to raise the dead. How would that be possible for those, like Blessed John Henry Newman, who have completely gone to dust?

Perhaps I am being selfish and, by refusing to work for Utopia, I am depriving my descendants of that goal just because I want to be pat of it. Is it not better to embrace my existence as a means to the joy of my descendants and, with my dying breath, feel pleased that someone else will have what I have worked for but never had?

It would indeed be worth working for, if it were possible, but I cannot believe that such a future humanist Utopia can exist, perhaps in the same sort of way that an atheist cannot believe in God and Heaven. Personally, I find that there is much more empirical evidence for the existence of God than there is of progress in human nature.

Here and now, there continue to be people who live in absolute (not relative) poverty in Africa and India. Frankly, I believe Our Lord when he says "ye always have the poor with you; but Me ye have not always." There has always been disease and even now we are at the mercy of drug-resistant bacteria and viruses. We still haven't eradicated the common cold. I fail to see how there can be any true justice without the existence of God since injustice continues conveniently unrecognised by the media. Science itself seems to suggest that we cannot naturally live past 120 years old and that this is genetic in nature. As for Death, the Universe itself is predicted to die out via Science. This planet will not survive the death of the Sun. Science fiction may give us the inspiration to go universe-hopping, but there is as much scientific evidence for the existence of other universes as there is for God. If there is a Utopia, it will not last and all the effort of those who strive for its realisation will be in vain anyway.

All I see of this Utopia is anodyne, unimaginative and, quite frankly boring. If they do invent a machine that can raise the dead, then count this as my desire not to be raised in this way. I don't want this resurrection because it won't be a resurrection - I doubt it wil even be me.

The whole idea of working for a Utopia is really a form of Pelagianism which seems to attract the SJWs among Christians. Of course, we need to follow Our Lord's commands and help those in need with the utmost care and love that the dignity of human nature has been given by its Creator. The poor need to be helped; the naked must be clothed; the bereaved need comfort and help. But we cannot pretend that we can work our way to building Heaven on Earth. That's not going to happen. The Kingdom of Heaven is with us now - right now - and this is despite the horrors that take place in the world. The only way to Heaven is to seek God now, accept His rule and await the resurrection of the Dead on His terms.

Unless there is clear evidence the human beings are changing for the better, that the old sins of murder, adultery, coveting, stealing and bearing false witness are dying out, I will remain unconvinced of any progress worth its salt.

Tuna sandwiches

Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent

Feeding the five thousand? In Lent?

That's a bit cruel of those who wrote the liturgy for us, isn't it? Here we are, all good and a bit ravenous for a chocolate biscuit, and then we see Our Lord dole out a magnificent feast for a multitude from five loaves and two small fish. Is your tummy rumbling yet?

Perhaps not if you don't like tuna sandwiches.

Why is the feeding of the five thousand part of Lent?

[PAUSE]

There are two occasions in which Our Lord encounters large numbers of people on mountains - the Sermon on the Mount and this, the Feeding of the Five Thousand. A mountain pulpit in these cases is largely practical: mountain spaces are wide enough for large crowds and, by positioning Himself uphill from them, Our Lord can address them well.

However, it is important to notices that in both cases the crowds are already hungry. In both cases, the multitude comes to Jesus because they are hungry for what He has to teach them. He offers life, hope, joy, peace, and love as a reality, not just as a nice idea nor as a campaign for social justice. To Him come the people who are tired with the second-rate substitutes for happiness that the world offers. They come to be nourished with good things, and this means leaving their working lives behind, just for a moment, and finding what truly matters.

And Jesus feeds these hungry people with what they seek. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

At the mountain, Our Lord feeds the hungry with good things and then he feeds them with bread and fish. To Him, both body and soul matter together: you cannot be truly human unless you have a body and a soul, so both need looking after. In feeding five thousand, the Lord is demonstrating a wonderful miracle that He performs to this day. Every Christian who will have ever lived will be fed by Christ Himself by His word of life in the preaching of the Gospel and by His very self in the Mass.

In order to receive these, we have to be prepared to climb mountains, and this is the true purpose of Lent.

[PAUSE]

In Lent, we climb out of our comfortable world with all its junk food for both body and soul. We leave behind all that which feeds us but doesn't really nourish us, and make our way up out of the life on the flat earth and into a life more suited to heaven. Like Our Lord, we may be tempted to throw ourselves down again, but we can resist and, when we fall, begin the climb again.

When we find God, we know that we shall be fed truly and fully.

This is the climb for which we don't pack the picnic basket:  the buffet will be provided.

The freedom of Jerry Springer

About ten or so years ago, there was a bit of a furore when the BBC decided to broadcast the controversial programme, "Jerry Springer: the Opera". At face value, the work is about the lurid visions of Jerry Springer at the point of death and that is what the composer, Stewart Lee, says that it is about. The opera itself contains much swearing and profanity, and there are some scenes that are very disturbing to the Christian mind. It is clear that Mr Lee is no Christian! That's his choice.

Christian Voice got wind of the showing of this programme on the BBC and managed to whip up 50,000 or so complaints before it had even aired. They tried also to bring the director-general of the BBC to court charged with blasphemy. Shops refused to stock the DVD of the broadcast and Mr Lee himself felt that he could no longer perform as a comedian to a general audience.

You might say, "Good! Serves him right!" But there's a problem and it needs thought.

For my part, I turned on the programme for all of thirty seconds, grimaced at what I saw, and then I turned the television off. Should I not have been complaining more about being offended?

That's the rub. What Christian Voice have effectively done is a spectacular piece of "no platforming." It is exactly the same thing as has been happening on the university campus both here and in America: academics and political figures who hold controversial views and ideas are not being allowed to express them to university students on the grounds that they are offensive. The Transgender debate (if there is such a thing as gender) is a prime example. Prominent feminist Professor Germaine Greer is not being allowed to speak in universities because she believes that there is no such thing as transgenderism. She is accused of hate speech and transphobia because of her views. She offends and must be silenced. However, the fact of the matter is that, as an academic thinker, she has been a loud, clear voice trying to raise the plight of women who are still treated as an underclass around the world. She has a point but, because she dissents from the current mode of political correctness, she must be silenced.

Unfortunately, that is something the Church has been very good at for centuries - silencing dissent.

Why should the voice of dissenters be silenced? There are two reasons that I can think of at this moment.

First, no one wants to hear things that they cherish being trampled on in the mud. There are things that are too offensive for us to bear, and this is good. It shows that humanity is not wholly bad - that each one of us is not wholly bad. It is reasonable to put these things aside if we can, but we should not do so at the expense of the truth when  that truth is important.

For example, I do pray regularly for juries who have to sit on some truly dreadful cases, such as the Fred and Rosemary West case. These people have to suffer the graphic details of the case to determine the truth. However offended they are by the facts, or even by the defendant's views, only the truth can matter. If someone holds terrible views and opinions but has not actually broken the law, then the truth of the matter means that this person is legally innocent, though their moral health is clearly questionable.

The danger then comes in trying to legislate that actually holding an opinion that is offensive. That's problematic because it effectively becomes the Thought Police. Yet, we still have to deal with people in a position of influence using that influence to radicalise and incite hatred in others. What we need to do is to educate people about questioning what they are being taught. This is fine and healthy, and brings me to the second reason why no-platforming occurs.

In the past, the Church has silenced dissenters and heretics (usually by burning in the medieval period) in order to preserve the spiritual health of simple Christians. This makes sense: a parent censors what a child is exposed to because the child is too young to cope with the issues they involve and will misunderstand them to their hurt. Yet, taken too far, this idea stunts good Christian growth. The ideal is to be Christ-like, i.e. sinless. While it cannot happen without the grace of God to begin the process, the process need to be maintained in the will by developing the conscience and through constant repentance. We are all children of God, some further along the road to perfection than others. But we are not all infants. Good Christian education is not indoctrination. It is the presentation of the facts of Christian Doctrine, which is immutable because it is God's revelation to all of humanity as a whole, in order that the individual can willingly be part of the Church, warts'n'all and thus find salvation. This can only happen if the individual is free to choose sin. This, of course, doesn't mean that we have to choose in. As this period of Lent shows, in His temptation in the wilderness, Our Lord is clearly like us: He is free to choose sin. He doesn't.

In silencing dissent, the Church has, in the past, infantilised her children rather than educating them. If we are free to sin, then the Church has precisely the mechanism by which people can return to God. If we sin and are reconciled to God, then we allow our mistake to inform us and make us better. All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. This even includes the effects of our sin. Our growing hatred for sin should prevent us from thinking that we can just sin and repent without tears and penance.  Love for God is the key. Nonetheless, the temporal consequences of our own individual sin must still be endured by all humanity.

In creating such an overreaction to Jerry Springer: the Opera, Christian Voice have given sanction for the strident Trans-Activists and other similar SJWs to silence those who dissent from their views. The trend of no-platforming is precisely due to the censorship that the Church has been involved with. The Councils of the Early Church were called precisely to thrash out the issues on both sides. The result is a clearer understanding of God's revelation to us about who He is and who we are.

The Pharisees crucified Our Lord in order to silence His dissent from the social norms. He in turn seeks debate, risks offending, calls into question, but never once stops loving the people He is fervent in trying to reach. If God has given us the freedom to walk away from Him, then we should afford other people the same courtesy. Love does not coerce: it seeks willing consent.

Freedom of speech may require that we take the consequences of what we say, but that does not mean that we are receiving those consequences justly. We recall that the word "freedom" is often described negatively as "freedom from" - lifting of obstacles, making the crooked straight and the rough places plain. Yet, we forget that "freedom" can be defined positively as the ability to excel in a particular endeavour. Freedom of Speech means that not only are we freed from being silence, but we are also freed from being told what to say in order to express ourselves clearly.

With regard to Jerry Springer: the Opera, I find myself squarely with what has been attributed to Voltaire (but may not actually be authentic to him).

Monsieur l’abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire.

(I wonder if I've got the right quote, Fr Anthony!)

I am sorry that Stewart Lee's career has been affected like this, though I am not sorry that I don't hear such awful things being said. He must be allowed to speak so that we can better hear the truth. Perhaps this is the lesson that he gives us. If the atheist can be silenced by the Church, then the Church can be silenced by the Trans-Activist.

Perhaps, if we are prepared to speak the truth and thus risk offending, we should strengthen our own resolve so that when we are offended, we shrug it off and examine what is said for the truth about us and the truth about God. If God can go to the cross and rise again in glory, then we should be able to get past the rising of our hackles at something unpalatable!

Better the Devil you know...

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent

You may remember that the ritual we use for Baptism contains three exorcisms. You should see the look on the face of the families when they realise that their child is about to be exorcised. How do you feel about that?

It's all a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps you have seen that famous film The Exorcist and still have nightmares about it. It's rather sensational, but why do we exorcise babies when they aren't levitating in their cots and throwing people out of windows?

[PAUSE]

First, we have to remember that the Devil does actually exist. Our Lord speaks about him using the names Satan and Beelzebub. The Devil is the one that can hurt both body and soul in hell. We also know that it is the Devil who tempts us to sin just as he tempts Our Lord. It is the Devil who is responsible for tempting us, but we are the ones who are responsible for how we act when we're tempted. That's the terrible thing.

The Devil wants us away from God permanently because he is away from God permanently and he will do anything to accomplish that.

This is why we have something to worry about. We don't need to be violently possessed to be influenced strongly by the Devil! He can possess us from outside using his temptations, thus making us his possessions.

This is why we exorcise people - even babies! - at Baptism. All humans are infinitely precious to God and it makes sense that the Devil already has his designs on them. By driving away the Devil and his followers away from someone being baptised, we are doing just as Jesus would want us to do and gives us the power to do it. We make as strong a statement as we can to the Devil and to the world that the person being baptised is a child of God and is being saved by the blood of Christ by becoming part of the Church. We tell him very clearly that those who are baptised are not possessions of the Devil.

We know that we live in evil times, however God is with us. We know things seem black and that we keep sinning and walking away from God. Whether or not we are Baptised, the Devil is still too strong for us. An archangel fighting against a fallible human being is not going to find much of a match. However, there is something that he wants us to forget - the words of Our Lord Jesus.

When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.

When Our Lord says this, He speaks of the Devil as a strong man who keeps human beings as his possessions. In seizing Our Lord in the same way, the Devil finds himself in the grip of someone much more powerful. How do we know? Our Lord uses just the finger of God to drive him out. A finger is all it takes.

[PAUSE]

As the Church is united to Christ by Baptism, we find ourselves united with Christ in our fight against the Devil. This means we can trust that God has the victory over Sin, Death and the Devil. The world around us may be blackened by the works of Satan, but we can look through that blackness by clinging to the Cross and seeing the beautiful creation of God through His light that dispels darkness.

Sometimes that takes a bit of doing. We still need to watch out. We need to be sober and vigilant because our enemy the Devil walks around seeking whom he may devour. We must resist him steadfast in our faith, come what may. However, through repentance and prayer, and seeking the Kingdom of God, our struggles and suffering at the Devil's hand will not be fruitless in the eyes of God. We are being saved from Satan right now through Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Evils of the World will cease to affect us. Do we dare believe that?