The house of good repute

Sermon for the eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

The house of Windsor. The house of Tudor. The house of Stewart. The house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Here in the UK, these houses mean something to us. They are the royal dynasties. The last one is that of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. You'll notice that they each have a different bearing on British history. They each have a reputation. The Tudors are the reformers; the Stewarts are the monarchs struggling for power. And the Windsors? Time will tell.

Each house has a reputation made by its members and, perhaps, you might hear an older member of the house saying to his son, "remember, you have the family tradition to uphold!" The reputation is set by the elders and maintained, theoretically, by the juniors as they grow. To be a member of the house means to look back at the founding father and continue his legacy. The authority is backward pointing.

[PAUSE]

And what of the Messiah, the son of David? Well, surely any son of David would look to King David and seek to uphold his name? Any son of David would bow to David's good example, preserve that heritage and continue to uphold the principles. However, a reading of the Chronicles or the second book of Samuel shows us that many of the sons of David have not been worthy of the name. 

It's not altogether surprising why. King David, while a hero of the Hebrews, is deeply flawed. Even as a king, there are times when he lets his children behave appallingly to the extent that Absolom rebels against him and temporarily takes his crown. Every house has its skeletons in the closet. And these skeletons come back to haunt the generations that come after.

[PAUSE]

Yet, with David regarded as the hero, to be a son of David is a big deal. The Messiah is a son of David and the Jews hope that he will be very much the conquering hero that David is in their eyes. 

Our Lord Jesus, however, points out something odd about the Messiah. Psalm cx says "The Lord said unto my Lord..." The Messiah is the one whom King David calls, "Lord". Rather than the Messiah deferring to David as the head of the house, David recognises the Messiah a thousand years his descendant as his senior. The Messiah may be the son of David, but it is the Messiah who is head of the house.

This is why the Scribes and Pharisees are silenced. To admit this means that their reputation of David as the head of the Royal household is broken. It means their reliance on being from good families to bolster their standing in society is ruined. It means that the Man standing in front of them is the true head of the house and they do not like it. Jesus is the son of David. He is the Messiah. He is the Lord.

[PAUSE]

Again we see Jesus being the one after Whom the whole family of God is named. In Him we are related and it is His name that we bear and it is a good name.

I does mean that we do truly need to see everyone who calls themselves Christian as part of our family and treat them accordingly. This is what it means to be born again. In being baptised we are born into the family of God. We cease to be of the family of the world.

It also means that we need to see those who aren't Christian as being potential members of our family and treating them in such a way that they should want to be part of our family. The Scribes and Pharisees use the name of David to shut the door to salvation. Jesus uses the blood and water from His side to open that door and to make every human being who chooses to become a blood relation through the waters of Baptism.

[PAUSE]

The one outside the Church needs to be able to say, "see how these Christians love one another!" The one outside the Church needs to be able to recognise the head of the household in us. The one outside the Church needs to be able to see that he or she is welcome to become part of that family and this family will be brought to salvation in Christ Jesus.

If this is what the one outside the Church needs then how will you live your life to give them what they need. How will you prove that you are a member of the house of Jesus?

Swatting Swots

 

A reflection on the dangers of intellectual pride.

For He shall give His angels...

 

A reflection for Michaelmas.

The End of Unity

Sermon for the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

The Lord Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath Day. The Scribes and Pharisees are scandalised. They cannot offer an explanation as to why it is not lawful to heal on the Sabbath Day. 

But can't you sympathise with them a bit? After all, it's there in the Ten Commandments. Keep the Sabbath holy. Do no work on the Sabbath. And there are lists and rules to tell you what is meant by work. This is a law given by God Himself to Moses. Surely, the Scribes and Pharisees are right to worry about the business of healing someone on the Sabbath, aren't they?

[PAUSE]

We often get accused of observing petty rules, too, don't we? We have rules about fasting, rules about moral conduct especially in private matters , rules about how the Church should be run. Is Jesus saying that we need to forget the rules sometimes and do what feels right?

If so, do rules really matter if they can be disobeyed with God's approval? What if it's the rules that God Himself gives that can be disobeyed with God's approval? Does this not make them completely arbitrary?

[PAUSE]

As always, the Lord is making a point. The rules for the Sabbath Day have been made for a reason. To do no work on the Sabbath Day is a clear statement of freedom. Only slaves work all the time. But to save your ass or your ox from a pit is to save your livelihood and your ability to control how and when you work. It isn't every day that your ox falls on a pit, so it isn't every day you have to get them out. It is still in keeping with the Sabbath and it is still true that one should do no work on the Sabbath.

The rules of the Sabbath Day have a clear purpose, one that is rooted in God's love for us. We need to rest and God provides us an opportunity to take that rest and tells us to treat it seriously by separating it from the rest of the week. He is acting less like a Commander and more like a Father.

This is true of all God's laws. They are not arbitrary: they point us to where we're going. They have a reason and there are times when the spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law. Look at how Our Lord actually makes the rules tougher when He says that even to be angry with someone is like murdering them. Look how He says that lusting after someone is committing adultery. 

Behind every rule is a reason and that reason must point us and lead us to God.

[PAUSE]

The rules of the Church sometimes seem arbitrary and wrong. But the spirit behind them can show us why they are necessary and just how far they apply. Wearing the wrong colour chasuble won't invalidate the Mass but it will stand out against what the rest of the Church is doing. 

At every stage, our every action needs to be weighed against what God wants for us as individuals and as a species. The Church serves as a means to help people realise who they are. The rules of the Church are there to help people progress to their common end - unity with the Most Holy God in His Kingdom. 

Healing on the Sabbath is not only permissible, it is mandatory for the good of another, for love is ever abiding. 

[PAUSE]

So we, the Church, stand up and say, "yes, Lord, it is permissible to heal on the Sabbath!"

And then we say, "but heal us, too, Lord!"

And then He does.

Synod, society and sociability

 A reflection on the current Provincial Synod

Raising a family

Sermon for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

For many people, the family is a terrible place to be. For some, Dad's an alcoholic who beats Mum when she hides the money. But then Grandad abused Dad when he was a boy. But then Grandad never knew who his father was, but only a succession of men who showed up in his house and treated his mother like dirt.

There is a reason for a family's dysfunction and often it goes back - way back!

[PAUSE]

Of course, we cannot be held responsible for the sins of our fathers, but we are responsible for how we allow the sins of our fathers to affect our life. Dad may be an alcoholic but we need not be. Grandad may be an abuser, but that will not excuse any abuse at our hands. The sins of our fathers provide an explanation for  their actions not an excuse nor a justification for them.

But the sins of our fathers leave us weakened. We need to heal.

[PAUSE]

At first glance, the Church does not seem to be the place to heal. We know well that there has been a woeful catalogue of abuse carried out. Some who have been entrusted with the care of souls have sought the care of their own perverted pleasure rather than bringing the love of God to those desperate to know that they have some value.

But the Church is a family. We are all related to each other by more than our own blood. We are related by the blood of Christ. Jesus is our surname.

[PAUSE]

God chooses to reveal Himself as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He chooses His words with care. It is clear that He wants us to think of Mankind's relationship with Him as being a family. This is why He uses the names of Father and Son. In receiving the sacrament, we take into ourselves the true Blood of Christ. We become blood relations more and more as we continue in the Church.

Jesus gives life to the family. See how He raises the son of the Widow of Nain. She who loses a family has it restored to her. He is the means by which the whole Christian family is reconciled to God. This family, dysfunctional, filled with scandals and sin, is restored by Christ Himself Who is ever present in His Church. We sin but we have a way to return.

But we have to play our part in helping this family to heal and grow. If we love Christ, we must keep His commandments. We must love God. We must love neighbour.

And we must forgive other who trespass against us.

[PAUSE]

Just as the sins of the fathers infect later generations so the virtues of fathers can help the healing progress. To forgive truly is an act of rebellion against the Devil and a renunciation of his membership of our family. To forgive the unforgivable is an act of heroism and sacrifice, and sacrifice means to make holy. 

A life that is committed to God, seeking forgiveness and freely forgiving, seeking His love and freely loving, seeking holiness and freely offering sacrifice - this life is the life of the Church and one that we need to embrace in order to find healing.

[PAUSE]

God is a father, but He is not an abusive father, though He will be accused of that by some who do not read the Scriptures carefully and fully. God is Our Father and our surname is Jesus. Whether we like it or not, we are the family of the Church and we will find healing in that family despite the sins of the fathers. Jesus can raise this family from the dead. Indeed, He already has!

A reflection for time

 

A few thoughts on why it is best to keep our minds focused on the here and now in our prayers.

Signalling Holiness

Sermon for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Do you find yourself being beaten by the good deeds of others?

You offer a man a slice of cake and he says loudly, "oh no! I'm a vegan. I wouldn't dream of hurting animals just for a slice of cake!"

You try to sell a poppy for Remembrance Sunday but the woman says loudly, "don't you have one in this colour? I only support all those in the services who suffer from discrimination from their superiors."

You try to donate some children's bibles to your local school but the head of the PTA says loudly, "we can't possibly take those! We can't be seen to have those. It would ruin our image as an inclusive school!"

It seems that all your good deeds just aren't that good, doesn't it?

[PAUSE]

What is most interesting is that the response to your attempts to do something nice are met with loud voices of refusal. Why are they so loud in saying, "no!" and then giving a reason which makes you seem like the bad guy? They could just either politely say, "thanks, but not for me!" or quietly dispose of what you give them into the nearest bin.

Why be so loud?

To be loud means that they want other people to hear. They don't just want you to hear their disapproval, they want others to hear that they disapprove. They have to be seen to be first in tackling an issue to gain the approval of others or to remain in the acceptable set. They are virtue signalling.

[PAUSE]

Virtue Signalling is exactly that. Those who practise virtue signalling proclaim their disapproval of what is socially unacceptable loudly to prove that they are good people.

Why do people need to prove themselves to be good? Why not just be good and let others deal with their issues?

[PAUSE]

What is interesting is that there is a lot of talk of "being good without God." Of course, you can do good things without believing in God - some atheists have been better philanthropists than many Christians! But nonetheless, what is inescapable is that if there is such a thing as goodness then there is God.

And God wants us to be good, not to be seen to be good.

[PAUSE]

If we seek first the approval of others then we simply will not find any happiness. There will always be some way in which we have to struggle to keep up with the whims of society. Further, we alienate ourselves from others who are not keeping up with the whims of society.

Being socially acceptable falls under the category of Mammon because it is a lust for the approval of others. It is an idol.

Christ bids us to seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. He bids us to be holy not be seen to be holy. We are to do good because we love God and to make real our faith in Him. Of course, we do need to be worried about the welfare of others - we are to love our neighbour - but we must do so in the context of the love of God, not in the glow of society's nod of approval.

Doing things to be socially acceptable does not help us address our sins within us, nor does it help us deal with our own insecurities about who we are. Only God can deal with our sins. Only God can tell us who we truly are. Only God can transform us into the people that He created us to be and who we long to be. 

[PAUSE]

Jesus bids us to be holy in ourselves. How quietly can you be holy?

The ministry of the laity

 A few thoughts on the calling to be a layperson in the Church of God.

The dimensions of a hardened heart

 

A few thoughts on a recent dialogue with those who have lost the ability to hear.

How the mountain comes to Jesus

Ten lepers, all healed, but only one thanks Jesus in worship.

Why should it matter if this tenth leper - the one who returned to thank Our Lord - was a Samaritan?

[PAUSE]

Of course, the Jews and the Samaritans have been fighting since the time that they were released from captivity in Babylon. The Jews believe that Jerusalem is the place where God is to be honoured on Mount Moriah. The Samaritans believe that it should be Mount Gerizim. This may sound petty, but it's all to do with where the patriarch Joshua begins building the Jewish nation starting with the most important thought about where to worship God.

Once you have a division as to where your people should worship based on your treasured history and treasured relationship with God, then you can see how much this changes things. It not only means that the Jews and Samaritans worship in different places, but they have different scriptures and practices. In each others eyes, the other becomes unclean and to be avoided at all costs.

If Samaritans are to be avoided, and lepers are to be avoided, what must be the life of a Samaritan leper?

[PAUSE]

If the grateful leper is a Samaritan then what we see is something important about Jesus.

The first clue is in His Holy Name. Jesus is the Greek version of Joshua. It is the conquest of Joshua that leads to the establishment of the Hebrew Nation and it is the disagreement about Joshua's conquest that causes the Jewish-Samaritan schism.

And it is Jesus Who presents an end to that schism by making things whole. Notice that the nine lepers are all healed, but the Samaritan leper is made whole by Faith in Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of what Joshua started. Jesus is the King of God's Kingdom and it is Faith in Him that makes the Kingdom whole. It is Faith in Jesus Christ that makes us whole.

[PAUSE]

We, like the leper, are full of incompleteness, brokenness, and divisions. Our flesh wars against our spirit and so we cannot do the good that we should do. The divisions with our society and within ourselves are like disagreements in where to worship God. What matters is that we do worship Him in spirit and in truth.

The divisions in the Church will be healed by the Lord at His Coming Again, and we have to have faith in that. It means that we should show generosity to Christians who have different interpretations of Holy Scripture and end all point-scoring exercises which are designed to hurt, belittle and divide.

It does mean, however, that only Jesus completes the Faith. This is not a fake Jesus on a mountain of our own making, but the real Jesus Who does not sit in agreement with our society's ideas of good and bad, Who does not change His mind about what constitutes sin and Who demands our perfection in Him. It is Jesus Who makes the mountain not we who put Him on it.

Must prayer be mustered?

 

A few thoughts on the Rule of Prayer.

The hope of lawlessness

Sermon for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

A man lies bleeding and dying by the side of the road and the very people who should help him do not. The priest passes by. The Levite passes by. It is only the contemptible heretic who bothers to perform the act of humanity and lift this poor man out of the dirt.

[PAUSE]

Of course, the way that this is often presented is that the priest and Levite are utterly inconsiderate and practically inhuman in the way that they ignore the suffering of the poor man, but this isn't the point that's being made. Jesus tells us about the Good Samaritan as part of a discourse on Law, especially the Jewish Law which is quite extensive and not always interpreted correctly but rather for the convenience of those who impose that law.

The priest and the Levite show us that all that the Law can do is show us that something is wrong. The Law tells us that we have sinned. It convicts us of every little thought. Indeed, it is Jesus Himself Who shows us that the correct interpretation of the Law is more demanding than even the Scribes and Pharisees would want it. To burn with anger at someone is to murder them. To lust after someone is to commit adultery. Even the hidden things we think are judged by the Law. 

Ironically, it is the Law of the priest and Levite who pass over the dying man, that is not being applied fully. "Love thy neighbour" is there in the Old Testament before Jesus even opens His Holy mouth to explain it. For over a thousand years, "Love thy neighbour" has been present to Mankind from the mouth of God to Moses, yet the priest and the Levite pass it by.

So what's the point of living under laws? They clearly don't work!

[PAUSE]

That's not the point either. Laws do work at the task assigned to them. Laws allow human beings to know how to live together. What laws cannot do is make us better people. Every day we are scandalised and hurt by the news of people breaking the law across the world. Our inability to do anything about it is the same inability of the priest and the Levite. We can only do so much, but we cannot make the wounds of humanity heal by throwing the rule book at them. Two thousand years after meeting the Good Samaritan and we are no better.

The only way that Humanity can be made good is for someone to create goodness in us. We cannot create goodness. We need the Samaritan.

[PAUSE]

But the Samaritan is a heretic! Surely heretics lead us away from God.

This is true. Read the Church Fathers and you will see that there are so many heretics who try to distort what Our Lord Jesus tells us or what the Father has given us or what the Holy Ghost inspires. The Samaritan worships the same God as the priest and Levite, but his love is genuine and is not bound by the law. This Samaritan possesses a goodness which fulfills all the law, even "Love thy neighbour".

It is Jesus Who is the Samaritan for that is what the Scribes and Pharisees call Him for His apparent lawlessness. Rather, it is this Good Samaritan, this Lord Jesus who not only shows how the law is supposed to work but also shows how He fulfills it in Himself. It is He Who restores life to the dying. It is He Who pays the price for our care. It is He Who gives His Church the grace through the two pennies of Word and Sacrament to keep alive human beings broken by the robbery of the Devil. The law gives nothing. Grace gives it all.

[PAUSE]

We must prepare ourselves for the reality that this world is not going to get better. We have not become more moral people, nor have we become less. We have not become more enlightened through technological advances, nor have they obliterated the wisdom of the ancients. We are not getting worse but we are certainly not getting better.

Humanity always will be fallen until the Last Day when all will be raised in Christ. Until then, the Church has all that we need to keep ticking by until Christ returns. 

Miscommunicating Misogyny

 A few thoughts on the Catholic doctrine of the male-only priesthood.

Free Failing

Sermon for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity

Do you feel like a failure?

If so then it hurts to be asked why you think that, doesn't it?

Some people feel like a failure because everything seems to be going wrong. Others feel like a failure because they keep making matters worse. Others feel like a failure because they have not achieved what they burn to achieve. Others keep committing the same sin again and again and lose heart because they aren't stopping sinning.

A sense of failure can play havoc with our lives and we often wonder what's the point of carrying on when we make so much mess and hurt other people.

And it all looks much worse written down.

[PAUSE]

If someone were to present you with all your failures written down, the pain might be too much to bear. To see Life's F-grade staring you in the face seems to make it real, unmistakable, too true. Having your failures written down not only makes them real, it makes them permanent.

Just when you think that it's all too much to bear, St Paul wades in. "Oh no, not St Paul!" Yes, St Paul wades in and shows us how we have failed. Only he shows us how we have failed to understand failure. 

[PAUSE]

To see failure written down strips it of its full reality. The Ten Commandments are terrifying statements of God's will and they form the basis of our moral thinking, but they are flat - they don't have the full picture. Human beings have a tendency to have flat thinking where only that in black and white matters. By the letter of the Law we are condemned to death. Those who separate themselves from God, die.

And then Jesus comes along and says that He will not change a dot or tittle of the Law. Even He says that those who separate themselves from God will die.

St Paul tells us that Jesus' masterstroke is to give us His Spirit to draw us up from the page. In accepting the rule of Christ and in receiving His Spirit, we are drawn out of the page of our failures and given the fullness of His life.

St Paul testifies that this is true of himself: he once persecuted the Church of God and was responsible for the deaths of Christians but he is lifted from this failure into God's truth. The page is two-dimensional and we are not. The moral chaos of life causes us to stumble and fail, but the Spirit of God gives us the realisation that we are bigger and greater and more precious than our errors. 

Our failures do not stop us from being ministers of the New Testament, indeed, they show just how great God is and, further, how much more valued we are than what we have done. Our failures are two-dimensional; we are three-, four-, five-, six-, even possibly infinitely-dimensional in God.

[PAUSE]

We fail, sometimes so greatly that the very thought of our failure makes us question whether life is worth living. But, the Cross of Christ nails those failures to the page, His Resurrection lifts us up from the page, and His Spirit bears us up from the page. For nothing, nothing whatever, can stop us from being lovable and from being loved by God and in Him all our failures will be put right forever.

Reductionism and Groupthink

 

A few thoughts on two insidious aspects of modern thought.

Unacceptable Accidental Acedia

 

A few thoughts on getting back to church.

How to hail Mary

Sermon for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

How often do you say the Hail Mary?

Once a week?

Nine times a day for the Angelus?

One hundred and fifty times for a full rosary?

Or perhaps not at all! After all, the Hail Mary prayer is not in the Book of Common Prayer, is it?

It's a shame, because it is formed from ideas we find in the Bible, it has been repeated by many of the Church Fathers and there is good reason for us to say it. The Hail Mary is s good Catholic prayer: it belongs to the Catholic Church of which we are a part.

[PAUSE]

First, the prayer begins, "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." These are the words of the Archangel Gabriel when announcing the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ to Our Lady. These are words that cannot be separated from Our Lord's coming again. The angel calls her "full of grace" and he uses a word that is only found twice in the New Testament. On both occasions, it means that God has supplied His grace. The first time the word is used is here; the second time, the word is used by St Paul in the first chapter to the Ephesians in which he explains how the death of Christ bestows grace upon us for salvation. Mary is the only living person who is singled out as being full of grace before the Crucifixion and the Greek word used here shows that God's giving grace to Mary has been completed. She needs no more grace - she is full of grace.

This is a singular honour and shows that Mary has already received God's grace whereas everyone else receives God's grace as a result of the Crucifixion. We know this because the Archangel immediately says that God is with Mary, and we know that Grace is the active presence of Almighty God. Even before the conception of Our Lord, God is actively present with Mary. He has already foreseen her willingness to be His Mother and is with her. 

[PAUSE]

The next phrase is "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb" which are the words of Cousin Elizabeth to Mary. Her unborn son, John the Baptist, already recognises the presence of Jesus within Mary and this unborn baby reveals this truth to Elizabeth. This is why she calls Mary blessed and also recognises that the fruit of her womb is blessed, too, though she does not know His name. We do know, though, which is why we add the Lord's name to Elizabeth's words: "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!"

This allows us to understand the remainder of the prayer.

We say "Holy Mary" because Mary has been separated out for God's purposes which is what the word 'Holy' means. We call her Mother of God because Jesus Christ is fully God and fully Man. While Jesus is born a man of Mary, He is still genetically God and He is inseparable from His Humanity. Thus Mary is fully and properly Mother of God. 

This means that, if Jesus is King, then His Mother is a queen albeit a Queen Mother. In the Old Testament, kings could be approached at the request of their mothers as did Solomon's mother at the rather wicked request of Adonijah.

Further, we know that we are surrounded by the cloud of witnesses who stand with Our Lord in Eternity. If He can hear our prayers then they can too, for the saints are like Him. Thus it is perfectly reasonable for Mary to hear our prayers and bring them to her son, the Son of God. It means we can say quite sincerely, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."

[PAUSE]

Of course, we must always listen to other Christians who struggle with this. They may pray directly to Our Lord, and there is nothing wrong with that whatsoever. But in saying the Hail Mary, we are doing something perfectly biblical and perfectly healthy. We stand with St Elizabeth and her son St John the Baptist. We stand alongside the Archangel Gabriel and the angels with Him. We stand with the countless saints who have, themselves prayed the Hail Mary.

And we stand with Our Lady, Mary Mother of God. And she stands with Christ in worship of Him and Him alone. Likewise we all worship God alone alongside Mary and all the saints. Truly, she is full of grace and, one day, so will we be!

Newman, Patten and Piety

 

A reflection on how Orthodoxy must influence practice of the Faith and not the other way around.

Choosing destruction?

Sermon for the tenth Sunday after Trinity

Standing and looking upon the city, we see Jesus weeping. We are watching the Creator of the Universe overcome with absolute grief and why? He knows that Jerusalem will be destroyed in forty years' time. 

But why doesn't He stop it?

Why does He allow the destruction of Jerusalem to happen? Why not come again in glory with a horde of archangels and save Jerusalem from itself?

[PAUSE]

Jesus says that the destruction of Jerusalem is come because it has not recognised the time of its salvation. Jerusalem refuses to recognise that Jesus is Our Lord and Saviour and it must pay a price for its choice.

The consequences are clear, Jerusalem is indeed utterly destroyed. It passes away to dust.

This is because God has made a choice, too. He has chosen to honour the free will of human beings rather than to force them to worship Him. Human free will gives us control of our destiny and God chooses to give us that control. It means we are free to choose Him and recognise Him as the Saviour. It means we are free not to recognise Him as the Saviour.

Put bluntly, if we choose not to be saved, God honours that. He honours it and weeps. He weeps because refusing Salvation means destruction.

Jesus Himself tells us that there is an unforgivable sin and this is against the Holy Ghost. It is a refusal of God's help and love.

Jerusalem has refused the Saviour, so it passes into dust. Remnants exist but it only as a testament to its destruction.

And so God weeps.

But this weeping is not the end.

[PAUSE]

St John tells us of the New Jerusalem coming down from Heaven out of God. It is not the Old Jerusalem which is destroyed. It is the New Jerusalem adorned as a bride for her husband. God separates the Old Jerusalem from the New Jerusalem. God separates out the first Creation from the second. He makes all things new, and He offers us the choice to be part of that New Creation.

It is our choice to be saved and be transformed. It is our choice not to be saved and to be given up to destruction. This destruction is not God's will for us but it will happen just as surely as putting your hand in the fire will burn you. It's not the fire's fault you got burned, is it?

[PAUSE]

After weeping, the Lord comes into the temple and removes all the obstacles that others have put there. He throws out the money changers and merchants who are in the way of people honestly seeking Him.

He clears the path for us. He teaches us, warns us, shows us, weeps for us, dies for us and rises again for us. 

Our Lord's victory upon the Cross is the successful and total removal of the barriers which prevent us from getting back to God, thus opening the way to Salvation. Surely it's about time we made up our minds to be saved, isn't it?

Pride, Polemics and Validity

 A reflection on why trying to browbeat each other into conversion simply will not be convincing.

Led into temptation?

Sermon for the ninth Sunday after Trinity

Sometimes familiar words trip off our tongues and we are unaware that we use then so frequently. If an atheist says, "goodbye" to you then he is actually praying "God be with you!" 

We, too, become ignorant of what we are saying with our familiar prayers. The Lord's Prayer is a case in point. How often do we rattle that off without thinking about it? Yet it contains things which ought to worry us. It tells us that the way our trespasses are forgiven depends on how much we are prepared to forgive others their trespasses. It also mentions the fact that our Faith can be tested. We are all in danger of falling into temptation. The Christian is in no less danger of sinning than anyone else.

[PAUSE]

This is what St Paul is telling us. The Israelites have gone through the Exodus from Egypt. They have all seen the cloud of God's presence. They have all drunk from the water from the rock. This is how they have received Baptism and the Eucharist before Our Lord's life on Earth. And yet they have fallen into sin. The world around them has tested their faith and they have made idols and the have committed fornication, despite being God's chosen people. And, despite being God's chosen people, they did not see the Promised Land on account of their sin.

And St Paul warns us, the Church, that the same could happen to us. The wages of sin is death. If we sin, we end up losing the life that God wants for us. It doesn't matter if we've been baptised or confirmed or ordained, sin brings death. Being part of the Church doesn't excuse us - indeed it makes things worse!

[PAUSE]

We do face temptation daily and we do sin. This is why forgiveness is so important. Repentance brings us back in line with Christ and His Life-giving Death. Yet, the fact that, whenever we fall into temptation, God gives us a way out of temptation shows that we cannot be excused from sin by saying that we were tempted beyond our means. If we walk with God then we should see the way out when we are tempted. But St Paul is talking to the whole Church. We need to be looking after each other. If we admit our temptations to others, if we go to Confession, if we let people know that we are struggling with temptation then God gives us the Church itself as a sanctuary to help and encourage and support. In the Church there is forgiveness and compassion as well as a rejection of all sin. If you cannot find forgiveness, compassion and rejection of sin in your church, then that church must answer to God for that. The point is that we never go through temptation alone. 

This also means that we, too, must be ready to help and support anyone who is facing temptation in the same manner that we would want help and support. We are only forgiven as much as we are ready to forgive. We should not expect support inbour temptation unless we are willing to support someone in theirs with the same level of generosity and love and rejection of all sin.

[PAUSE]

Living out God's commandment of Love is hard work and we often face an uphill struggle against Sin, the World and the Devil. But God has given His Church victory over Sin, the World and the Devil. We stand fast, keep turning to the Lord and He will not lead us into temptation but deliver us from Evil.

Anglican Catholicism and the Intercession of the Saints

 

Why do Anglican Catholics pray to saints? Is it allowed?

The Greater name of James

Sermon for the feast of St James the Greater

What do you know of St James?

You might first ask, "which one?" for you know there are two disciples called James. The other we celebrate with St Philip on the first of May.

The fact that this James has a feast day of his own might tell you that this is St James the Greater, the brother of St John. This is the James who, together with St Peter and St John, bears witness to the more intimate sayings of the Lord. He is also present at the Transfiguration. This James is the first Bishop of Jerusalem. He is the first of the Apostles to lose his life as a martyr under Herod.

The second thing you might know is that his name is not James - it's Jacob.

[PAUSE]

Well, that's a bit pedantic. It's like saying that the Lord's name is Joshua and not Jesus. While Jesus is the Greek version of Joshua and is fairly direct, the name James is actually a medieval Latin version of Jacob. The name has travelled quite extensively and, unlike the Lord's Name, St James would never have been called that in His lifetime. He will always have been Jacob.

Now, why is this relevant? Why is the fact that the name of this Holy and Venerable Apostle has changed so radically in contrast to his Master and Our Lord?

[PAUSE]

The life of St James has been embroidered by stories. There is a tale that he went to Spain but there is no evidence for this before the eighth century. All we really know of St James is what we see in the New Testament and we even hear his name hidden in our modern ears.

Like Jacob, St James wrestles with God - not physically. He asks to drink the same cup as Our Lord. He asks Jesus to sit down with his brother either side of Him in Heaven. He wrestles with this Jesus who goes to His death. He wrestles with himself as he flees from the scene of His arrest. Yet he stays with the other disciples to bear witness to the Resurrection. 

Like Jacob, St James witnesses God. He sees Heaven opened and the light of God pouring out on Mount Tabor. Like Jacob, St James becomes the spiritual father to an uncountable number of Christians.

His name travels and, in travelling, alters. His testimony does not. While his name gets altered by the centuries, the name of his Master does not but is repeated faithfully and lovingly to all people. In having his name altered, St James receives the promised new name from Our Lord. He is like the patriarch Jacob but he is so much more for He has not just wrestled with God and seen God in a fragment of His glory, but He has born witness to our Salvation to the extent of his own blood. He has decreased to make his testimony increase.

[PAUSE]

Our names, too, will change and alter. Like many martyrs of God, our names will probably be forgotten altogether by an indifferent world. But God gives us our new name, our true name by which He calls us. God is always faithful, we have to learn to be faithful too, just like the Great St James himself.

The reputation of an Apostle

 

A reflection for St Mary Magdalene's Day

The infernal coin

Sermon for the seventh Sunday after Trinity

"When you're dead, you're dead!"

How many times have you heard that? How does it make you feel?

At first sight, doesn't really mean anything, but then you understand that the person saying this means that he does not believe in life after death.

We all know that we are highly likely to die. Enochs and Elijahs don't come along every day. We know that death is something that we will have to face. If there is nothing of us after death, then this life is all there is and we have to make the most of it. So why not devote your life just to enjoying yourself. The pain of living is only temporary, so just do what you want. When you're dead, you can't feel pain or humiliation or anger. 

When you're dead the lives of the people you leave behind can't matter. Love ends at death, and so do all the affections that you have for other people and those that others have for you. There's no need to love, there's no need to get caught up in families. There is only the need to enjoy yourself. Do what makes you happy.

[PAUSE]

Dear God, that is such a bleak philosophy! While the fear of death does not prove the existence of the afterlife, our experience that life has some meaning seems unshakable. Yet, if there is only death then there is no meaning.

We know that every human being has a meaning, even those who live for just a day, even those whose lives are blighted by pain and suffering and poverty and sickness and slavery. And that means that we believe not only that there is life after death but there is also justice after death.

We believe in God and we trust in His promise of Life Eternal with Him.

[PAUSE]

The fact that we die leaves us open to the temptation to sin. Sin and death are the two sides of the same coin. We sin because we think it won't matter in the long run. We die because our sin cuts us off from God Who is Life. 

To remove sin from our lives, to come to God soiled by our wrongdoing and be washed by His Grace, these destroy Death's sting because we enter life through the Cross of Christ. In Him, the sufferings of us all are not only put right but sanctified to the extent that our scars become more beautiful than gold, diamonds or precious stones.

The wages of sin is death, so all the poverty that comes from renouncing sin brings us to greater riches.

[PAUSE]

We are Christians and we believe God that our lives mean more than we know. If sin and death are two sides of the same coin, then perhaps that coin needs to be flipped into the pit whence it came.

Ruling the rule rules

 

A reflection on how rules should be used.

The Opinion of Benedict

Sermon for the feast of St Benedict

As far as the Church is concerned, you ought to have a distrust for isms.

The Church has suffered much from the heresies of Arianism, Donatism, Nestorianism and Modernism and many more. So why should we trust Benedictinism?

[PAUSE]

It's good to know your heresies because knowing how things go wrong puts you back on track. All heresies come from an opinion. Some people think that Jesus was created or just a good man: that's how Arianism and Ebionitism work. Some people think that Jesus' God-ness can be separated from His Man-ness: that way lies Nestorianism. Some people think that, because we are more technologically and scientifically advance than we were, the Christian Faith needs to change in order to reflect those advances: that's Modernism.

You notice that a heresy starts with "some people think that..." A heresy never starts with "it has been revealed to the Catholic Church that..." The Church is still fighting all these heresies today. If there is one thing that can help, it's Benedictinism.

[PAUSE]

Why should St Benedict be any different from Arius? Both are putting forward opinions. Surely it's one man's word against another's. Except...

Except St Benedict preaches the virtue of humility. His is a practical theology. He doesn't seek to change Church teaching: he seeks to fit his life to the life of Christ and bend his will to do the will of God. St Benedict knows that he is just a man and wants nothing more than to do as God bids him.

For St Benedict, it is the good of the community that matters more than individual thinking. Indeed, he tells his Benedictine monks that they can always bring their opinions to the discussion but, once they have presented them, they must sit down and not press them. Those opinions are then weighed by the abbot who has been given the charge of the monastery. If he rejects those opinions then that decision must be respected, even if it is the wrong decision. The wholeness of the community is worth more than the value of opinions no matter how good they are.

[PAUSE]

Today, having your opinions rejected is regarded as having everything you hold dear rejected. It's almost like your opinions are a part of you. And then we begin to see the trouble.

If we value our opinions too highly, if we make them part of ourselves, if we defend them with more vigour more than our own lives, then we might just be worshipping our own point of view. We may just be worshipping our own ideology.

True: to be a Christian means to hold the opinion that Jesus is God. But it's more than that. It is truth. It is how we live our lives according to that opinion. Christianity is based in real, objective fact - not opinions. Jesus tells us to love God and to love neighbour. We can't have an opinion on that because He said it! Even then, He was quoting Moses! 

Over the centuries, the Church has come to recognise the Truth in her doctrine. Heresies have been shown up for what they are - an individual's ideology which denies the facts of what God has revealed to us in Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers. Those who hold to heresies hold opinions that are contrary to the Truth and value them more than the Truth. Those opinions are worshipped more devoutly than God.

St Benedict's answer is to be humble. He tells us to deny our opinions in the face of what the Church teaches. He teaches us to look for the goodness of God and work for Him and pray for Him. He teaches us to look out for the good of others and to build the Church community out and away of the noise of heresy and dissent. In short, St Benedict is teaching nothing more or less than the commandments that he has received from Christ Jesus Himself: love God, love Neighbour. 

[PAUSE]

At present, the monasteries and convents are dwindling. People prefer the comfort of their own opinions to living lives of stability, obedience and constant repentance. This is worrying as the monasteries have always stood against the divisions of this world as bridges to God in prayer. There are too few who will give up their lives and the worship of their own self-satisfaction in order to pray, work and study for the love of God. People prefer profits to prophets.

[PAUSE]

As Christians, it is our obedience to Christ that should stand out. Our obedience should scandalise the World with its desires for rights and freedoms and permissions. Our obedience to God and the sacrifice of our ideologies on the altar of the cross we bear, this obedience and sacrifice give us true freedom and true joy because the World and its foolish concerns for the material will pass away, fading into complete and utter insignificance.

Our Lord's challenge that St Benedict takes up is that Christians are indeed called to change the world. However, you change the world by changing yourself. If you become less greedy then there is less greed in the world. If you become more devoted to the Lord, the more that this world becomes devoted to Him.

 The fewer opinions we worship, the more like St Benedict we will be and the more like Christ we will become.

Making your mind up

Propers for the fifth Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the fifth Sunday after Trinity

St Peter says, "be ye all of one mind."

Now look at the people around you. Look at the people you meet today, at those whom you met yesterday or are planning to meet tomorrow. Would you like to have the same mind as them?

Is St Peter actually encouraging us all to think the same as each other. Are we not allowed to have our own individual thoughts? Is St Peter's Church a church for the brainwashed and thought police?

[PAUSE]

There is a great fear among some of us today that we are all being forced to think in a particular way. There are those inside the Church who are expecting persecution from Society for not thinking the right thoughts about various social issues. And there are those outside the Church who think that the Church will unleash the Holy Inquisition on those who do not believe in the right way.

To be honest, History shows that both cases have been true. There have been instances when members of the Church have forced their mind on people through fear and ferocity. There have been instances where the Church has been forced underground because of an oppressive political regime or a massive social reaction.

We still see that today, in both directions. And in both cases, there is one central principle: the human mind is not to be allowed to deviate from the mind of the ruling group.

It means that there are some who wish to deny you the very right to think your own thoughts so that they can have things their way. It is a denial of your humanity.

[PAUSE]

Notice that God does not want to force us to believe in Him. If He did, there would be no other religions, no atheists, no heretics. That is not what God is like. In His incarnation, He takes up a human will, a human mind and a human body to be distinct but completely inseparable from His Divinity. For God, even the risk of the chaos caused by sin and death in His Creation is not enough to stop Him creating us with our own individual minds and personalities.

And St Peter tells us to be of one mind?

How oppressive!

[PAUSE]

If we think that then we are missing the point of what St Peter is saying. He is asking us to agree, not telling us to think the same. He is asking us to be considerate of others, to be kind, compassionate, merciful and loving. All of these respect the dignity of another's being, just as God still loves with the same passion those who turn from Him.

St Peter asks us to agree on what is central so that the Church can thrive by introducing people to the true Christ. We see this already as the Church agrees that Gentiles can become Christians. We see that the Church agrees that God has revealed Himself through the Creeds and Church Fathers. There is agreement, there is one mind so that we can be of one mind. This is the mind of the Church and it is given to her by the God's revelation of Himself to all mankind.

But what if we don't agree? Admittedly, the track record there is not good and there have been too many stakes and gibbets. We have to be compassionate enough to allow people to be wrong though we must protect others of the harm that comes from this wrong.

A bishop is free to preach that there is no God but the Church is also free to declare that he is wrong and deprive him from preaching: he has removed himself from the mind of the Church. He is no longer of one mind with the Faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ. He should be reasoned with but not burnt at the stake. He may not preach until he repents but he should be allowed to repent through his own free will and be received back with love, kindness and generosity. For his part, he must publically recant his heresy and proclaim the Faith in all honesty and sincerity.

[PAUSE]

The Church has obtained a reputation for brainwashing. While she allows people to choose how to live their lives freely, even in sin, she cannot be accused of brainwashing, for brainwashing allows no freedom of choice. However, to be of one mind with the Church is to be of one mind with Christ and this means we want to hear Him, to repent of our sins, to surrender our lives in the service of His will in truth and love of God and neighbour.

[PAUSE]

We choose to be of one mind with the Church. She presents the facts of God the Holy Trinity as far as they can be known. She is organised to preserve this unity of mind through the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. 

Alternatively, we can choose not to be of one mind with her but this means that we love our own mind more than Christ.

But, whether we choose God or not, He will still love us regardless. But He loves us so much that He will allow us to walk away from Him if we want to. Do we really want to think about what happens then?

A blood donor sketch

 

A reflection on the Precious Blood of Christ.

Putting things wrong

Propers for the fourth Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Trinity and within the Octave of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

St John the Baptist cries out that every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain. He's not the person that you would want to hear while walking the glorious hills and vales of Yorkshire. A landscape is often more beautiful and inspiring because of its hills and valleys. Is St John really suggesting that we take a bulldozer and road rollers to the lot?

[PAUSE]

Of course St John is referring to preparing the way of the Lord. There should be no obstacle for anyone to come to the Lord Jesus but often there is. Often there is something that looks insurmountable like a vast mountain ridge that will prevent people from coming to God.

Often that mountain has been put there, not by God, but by other people who have moved it out of their way to Jesus. They have moved it out of their way and into someone else's. In making their way straight, they have made someone else's way crooked. 

This is all evidence for one simple fact: human beings cannot truly put things right. We will always put things right in one place, only for it to cause trouble somewhere else. The reason is that our judgement for what is right has been impaired by our fall from God. That judgement has not been obliterated: we can still know what is good and what isn't, but our ability to put things right is deeply flawed.

We try to do good but we fail because we try to do good without God. 

[PAUSE]

Our Lord tells us that if we do not judge, we will not be judged. God is judge indeed but he judges to put things right, not to send people to Hell. If we try to take the judge's wig from God, then we will send ourselves to Hell because we are worshipping our own right and wrong, not the true good that comes from God.

We see this very much in our society at the moment. There is much judgement and little forgiveness. We can say something supremely stupid on social media in our teens and, twenty years later, we can be refused a job even if we have repented of of our stupidity publically. In our attempts to right the wrongs of society, we end up being more judgemental than the society we condemn. 

And Jesus tells us to put mercy first. Before judgement, there must be mercy. With judgement there must be forgiveness. Forgiveness does not stop the need to accept the consequences of a bad action, but it puts an end to that bad action.

As human beings, our ability to do good and judge good is flawed. Our Lord is clear that, for this reason, we need to cultivate both mercy and forgiveness. This will inevitably lead to suffering for Evil will always seek to ensure that human beings judge each other harshly and without full possession of the facts. Our suffering is a consequence of the evil that our first parents brought into Creation.

[PAUSE]

This makes Mercy and Forgiveness unappealing because they potentially let those who do wrong off the hook. Mercy and Forgiveness make the possibility of being hurt greater and more severe. They are costly and agonising.

But we know that! 

We know the cost of Mercy and Forgiveness. We see that cost all around us in our Church. We see Our Saviour nailed to the cross, not only crying out for our forgiveness but also that we must dare to be like Him.

[PAUSE]

Hunan beings will claim that we can be good without God. This is true. The Atheist can be kinder, more loving and more generous than the Christian. But Goodness is more than just an action. Goodness is found only in God.

We can certainly try and exalt valleys and lay mountains low but we will do so with bulldozers and cranes, and the result will be ugly. Instead of the rolling hills of green will be car parks of grey.

Far better that we learn to be good at the feet of God and allow Him to put things right than for us to put things wrong.

Making a prophet

 A reflection on the Nativity of St John the Baptist.

Satisfied with Pride?

Propers for the third Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the third Sunday after Trinity

What are you proud of? An accomplishment? Some aspect of your life? Your family?

And then you hear Our Lady say that the Lord scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

Are you prepared to have all your pride scattered?

[PAUSE]

There's something that doesn't sit right in this, isn't there? What's wrong with being proud of being autistic and overcoming the social difficulties that arise, or being proud of your son's first steps, or being proud of being a Christian.

The word "pride" here is being used to mean thankful, gladdened and satisfied deeply. We can be satisfied deeply and warmly with our acing the test, writing that book or our father's serving his country in the war. This all seems reasonable. We can indeed find satisfaction in what we do. We can see St Paul's pride in the people whom he has brought up in the Faith. He is proud of the Colossians, the Ephesians, and the Philippians. This pride forms an attachment; it develops relationships and draws the Church together. But this satisfaction - this pride - is born of humility. 

How can this satisfaction have anything to do with the sin of pride?

[PAUSE]

The sin of pride is an idolatry. It means that there is an aspect of yourself or of your life that you put over and above God. It becomes something you worship and protect before your duty to God. It is something created that you hold to be of greater value than God.

It means that the thing you are proud of most becomes you. You can be proud of being autistic but the moment you allow that to be the single defining issue of your life, you make yourself smaller - a self-caricature. You can be proud of your son's first steps but, the moment they become the best first steps over anyone else's, they become ridiculous. You can be proud of being a Christian but if you call yourself Christian and reject the teaching of Christ, it's a label and little more.

At each step, pride makes your universe, your life and your very self smaller. To take one aspect of your life and demand that everyone else respect it, submit to it and worship it is to make yourself less of the person that God made. The noise of those who make such demands on others is the roaring of the Devil seeking whom he may devour.

The only antidote is humility.

[PAUSE]

Humility makes us bigger people. Humility helps us to realise that those things that give us that warm and deep sense of achievement are just a fleeting fragment of who we are. Humility helps us to see that we don't even know ourselves sufficiently and that there are greater accomplishments in life which require us to submit to the will of God and leave behind what we have done before. Humility helps us to see that, if we seek to define ourselves, we become very small indeed.

[PAUSE]

It is fine and good to be proud of being autistic or producing a piece of fine art or of the little drawing that your son has done, for God delights in these, too. And God delights in you too, not the you you say you are, but the you He created for Himself. Accepting this means seeing all pride scattered until only the humble and beautiful truth remains. 

Telescopes and Microscopes

 

A reflection on how we have to be able to look at the big and the small simultaneously.

Refusing God

Propers for the second Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the second Sunday after Trinity

God is love.

This is something that St John takes great pains to tell us. And he would know. 

St John, together with St James and St Peter, has spent his time so close to Jesus that he knows Him so well. He hears Him teach; he sees Him heal; he sees Him die and rise from the dead. Also, St John is entrusted with the care of the Virgin Mary, Our Lord's Mother, after the events of Easter. Of all people, St John knows that God is Love.

But he also knows that people do not love. He has heard the swearing and cursing of the Holy Name of Jesus. He has heard the jeering laughter as Holy healing hands are pierced with nails and then lifted on high in agony. St John himself suffers at the hand of those who hate as they try to boil him in oil at the Latin Gate.

St John knows love and he knows hate.

Hatred is a absence of love. If we choose not to love our neighbour, we choose not to love God. 

Can we choose not to love God?

[PAUSE]

St John hears Jesus tell of those who refuse to come to the great banquet and thus give place for those who did not know they were invited. Those who refuse are those so preoccupied with worldly living that they regard the banquet as not worth their time. And when the banquet happens, they do not go in. They have refused love. They have refused God.

[PAUSE]

The act of being indifferent to love is just as bad as hating. St John sees a person in need as a chance to make God apparent to them by the act of loving them. If we say that we love but don't actually love, then we are preventing those in need from receiving God at our hands. Of course, God will present Himself to anyone in need some other way. But it is the one who only pays lip service to love who refuses God. He who fails to love loses Eternal life.

We are free to choose to love. This means we are free to withhold love. This means we are free to walk away from the banquet of God. We are free not to enter into Eternal life with God.

[PAUSE]

This is a terrifying thought. The act of our will not to choose God means we miss out on Eternity. The first word of Our Lord's ministry is "repent!" It is a call to turn back to God. It is a call to enter through the narrow gate of the Cross in a commitment to loving our neighbour as ourselves. Failure to do so means the outer darkness with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[PAUSE]

The absence of love is hatred and there is no place for it in God's kingdom. All sin is a form of hatred of God and neighbour and even oneself. As long as we hold on to sin, we hold on to the outer darkness. 

If we hold onto the Cross then we cannot hold on to sin. If we, through love, are nailed to the cross we bear, we cannot hold on to sin. St John sees that most clearly when he begs us to love one another. Love is costly and hard work, full of pain, struggle and sorrow. Sin is easy, sickly sweet, comfortable and snug.

[PAUSE]

The struggle of the cross is the sign of true love. Choose the cross and you will not refuse love. Refuse love and you refuse Eternal life in God. St John says it is that simple.

Ten years: grief and joy

Today I celebrate ten years since I joined the Anglican Catholic Church. In leaving the CofE behind, I left behind much of what I loved. I miss the buildings, the choral tradition and the sense of being a part of English history and establishment. I also very much miss being in communion with old friends.

In many ways, though, it was me that was left behind as the CofE showed me clearly that our paths were markedly different. A DDO said of me that I was "loyal to a church that had passed away." I have come to realise that he was right. So, when the last straw fell onto the most preponderous pile that had grown, and I was forbidden from proclaiming the incarnation of the Lord - the core doctrine of the Church - at Evening Prayer in the words of the Angelus by a Rural Dean who was clear in her desire to eradicate all dissent, I finally allowed the CofE that I loved to pass away from me.

Joy always involves a death somewhere along the line: a moment of realisation that heaviness and heartache are not permanent and that we can be free to live. That moment of liberation in joy is exhilarating and terrifying. 

And so, even in the midst of death, I dare to rejoice because ten years ago I found my new home, and it looked like the old one. I found new friends and a new reason to carry on worshipping in the way that I was used to. I look back and realise that I have grown so much in those ten years. All has changed and for the better - well, not everything has changed. The Church has not changed and the ACC reflects that. 

Despite the lack of buildings, despite the fewness of members, despite the lack of choirs and concomitant triumphant pipe organs, it is the Church of England that I was once part of. It is the Church of England that I was told had passed away. My studies and research show that it is built upon surer and sounder foundations than the CofE.

I still look back and mourn the passing of the church that I once belonged to. Mourning is important because it shows that one still loves what has gone, and love is the key to living.

But, for the Christian, there is also the challenge, the almost obscene double-dare to rejoice in the face of grief because of the fact of Resurrection. The Christian lives with conflicting emotions and is almost torn apart by them: we weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. We weep through love of neighbour, we rejoice through love of God.

As I watch my old church tear itself to bits, turn its churches into theme parks, close its choirs and allow the words of other religions to be read in its pulpit, I am sorrowful because I remember what she was and want my son who loves "church" to have the same experiences that I had and loved. I grieve with others who grieve, especially with those who have lost so much more than I have.

On the other hand, I rejoice because ten years ago, I was given hope and growth and a new potential to actualise. I have seen Missions open and close, but still the Anglican Catholic Church remains despite me being in it. I have studied it with the little faculties of reason God gave me, and it makes sense - more sense than the church that passed away from me. 

So, in the midst of hard work, in the midst of loss, in the midst of painful sacrifices, I rejoice heartily because I have much to be grateful for and much to look forward to.

One day, the double doors of the horizon will be flung open for me and its bolts unlocked. That will mean the same pain at leaving and the same joy of the great hereafter. My Church preaches that hope, and I rejoice in that.

Finding your direction

 

A reflection on the decline of Spiritual Direction and a call to reverse this decline.

When chicken soup and beef steak become lasagne

 

A reflection on the Eucharist and relationships between Christians.

Giving thanks for scotch eggs?

Propers for the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi

It's not exactly a feast, is it? A little wafer and a little wine. 

"Of course it is!" you say with vigour. How do you know that you are right?

[PAUSE]

What can we expect of feasts? The image that we have is a lot of people gathered together eating a lot, drinking a lot and generally enjoying each others' company with music and fun.

Oh dear. That sounds a million miles away from going to church.

Yet, certainly at the beginning, this was how the Eucharist went. The Mass was the culmination of the agape meal. This meal did get rather rowdy, as St Paul testifies. People are getting drunk. People are eating too much. Others aren't getting any food because the plates are bare. There is more concern over the quantity of scotch eggs than the Body of Christ.

St Paul effectively puts an end to the agape meal by redirecting its focus. How can we be discerning the Body and Blood of Christ if we are acting as if He is not with us? How can we be present at the wedding feast of the Lamb if we ignore the Bridegroom Himself?

[PAUSE]

As a result of what St Paul says, the rowdy behaviour, the drunkenness and the gluttony are ended. But has this killed the feast? How can we call the Mass a feast of it's nothing like a feast?

"But it is a feast," you say. And you are right.

[PAUSE]

Is there music? We sing hymns and psalms. There is a whole tradition of Christian choral music of all flavours and tastes. 

Is there good company? We have our brothers and sisters, some of whom we see every week, others once in a while. There are some who come for the first time. There are others who come from other countries and cultures who, having left their church behind, nonetheless find here the same family worshipping God.

Is there food and drink aplenty? The eyes of the World say no. But we say yes. For we discern the Body and Blood of Christ and His grace is sufficient for us. We see the Lord's miracle of the feeding of the multitudes with a little bread and a few small fish, and we see people having enough to eat and there is food left over in baskets. 

Is there rejoicing? Yes! It's the Eucharist! We come to give thanks. There is no hilarity because someone has gotten drunk and has managed to fall into the swimming pool. There are no silly games and contests. But rowdy behaviour is not the only way to enjoy yourself. The joy we get at the Mass needs to be discerned like the Body and Blood of Christ. It is there as we look with gratitude at our lives. Of course, Life can be hard and dark and cold, but the Mass is the one place where people who feel that life isn't worth living should be able to come and know that God does love them and thanks Himself for making each and every human being that ever was, is and ever will be.

[PAUSE]

We simply cannot look at the Eucharistic Feast in the same way as a party. It's better than that. We have to leave our worldly expectations at the door along with the booze and the scotch eggs.

Learning to dance

Propers for Trinity Sunday

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Christians all have to learn the dance.

Dancing is all about making the right steps at the right time - or at least it used to be. Contrast the courtly dances of Henry VIII or Jane Austen with how we dance today. What was once a finely choreographed group activity has become very individual. We dance with our own moves regardless to what others are doing, sometimes with acrobatics! We have moved from a group of dancers moving as one to a lot of people doing their own thing. We have lost the ability to participate as a unity.

[PAUSE]

God, of course, is a unity: one God in three Persons, though even that is a bit of a twist of language. The relationship between the Persons of the Trinity goes by the name of perichoresis which is Greek for "dancing around". The human mind is incapable of understanding the Trinity because the Trinity is not like anything created so, to us, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost dance around in our minds as now we focus on the Trinity and now we focus on the Unity and now the Trinity and now...

Thoughts of God, as He is, jostle around our heads as we try in vain to think of Him. The good news is that He doesn't expect us to think of Him accurately. He wants us to love Him and trust Him. He wants us to learn to dance.

[PAUSE]

This means we have to listen to His music and learn His steps and that's enough for us to draw close to Him. If the music is a waltz then we have to take God's hand and let Him lead us, being careful to watch where we put our feet. If the music is a pavan then we must dance with God and with others, taking care to imitate the steps and move in time.

The dance of God is not a solo affair that we might find on Tiktok; it involves others and being in tune with them. Just as we see the Trinity dance around each other as One, so we too must dance as one.

When we think of God the Son, we move to God the Father to whom the Son looks in prayer and to Whom He submits His Humanity. When we think of God the Father, we move to God the Holy Ghost as He moves over the face of the waters of Creation. When we think of God the Holy Ghost, we see Him breathed upon the Apostles from the mouth of God the Son. And the dance goes around again. We are carried between the Persons by the dance of Eternity formed by their relationships to each other and yet, there is but One God.

[PAUSE] 

While this might be beyond our understanding, it forms the basis of our dance into the same Eternity. Our dance is with God and with our neighbour and it is borne on our relationships with each other. There will be disruption while we learn the steps; we will have to dance around those who dance only their solitary steps and content themselves with their own music; we will have to dance around those who seek actively to disrupt our steps. Letting God lead means we can dance around all obstacles: we might be ungainly or lumbering but God makes our steps with Him graceful and elegant.

[PAUSE]

Love is the dance and we must learn it. We might complain of our two left feet but that is not an excuse. God dances in Himself and He wants us to dance with Him.

Will you give Him the pleasure of this dance?

St Augustine and the Anglican Catholic Church

 

A reflection on how St Augustine's Mission is continued in the Anglican Catholic Church.

Feeling the Spirit

Propers for Whitsunday

Sermon for Whitsunday

How do you know the Holy Spirit?

There are many who claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit and are not. There are also those who hold Ebenezer Scrooge up as their model and regard any talk of being moved by the Holy Spirit as being affected by indigestion.

Both of these views have one thing in common. They both rely on the Holy Spirit expressing Himself through our feelings. But how do we know that our sense of the Holy Ghost is not just wishful thinking or a product of an overactive emotion?

[PAUSE]

The fact of the matter is that people can whip themselves up into frenzies and claim it to be the Holy Spirit. In many cases, it is really just a product of mass hysteria. Is that what happens to the Apostles?

Well, clearly not. There are certainly high emotion and unbridled elation. But there are also tongues of fire. And there are tongues of men. There is order amid the chaos - indeed, more order than chaos. The Apostles speak and they speak to be understood beyond the confines of Jerusalem. Moreover, they speak of the wonderful works of God. It isn't babble. Nor is it just the unrelenting use of platitudes. What they speak is substantial, true and intended to be heard by all who want to listen.

Of course, there will be those Scrooges who don't listen and, without further thought, accuse the Apostles of downing too many shots of tequila. Our Lord tells us that the World is deaf to the Holy Ghost. Indeed, St Paul tells us that the will of our flesh is in direct opposition to the will of the Holy Spirit. 

So how do we know the Holy Spirit?

[PAUSE]

We do not know the Spirit in ourselves only. We are fallen and need to learn to listen again. Our feelings are not reliable for us to say "this is the Holy Spirit moving in me!" The Holy Spirit is God and God is One. This means that, if we feel the Holy Spirit moving within us, then He moves us in accordance with what God has always said and done. In that sense, He will say nothing new because He will always be consistent with what Our Lord Jesus says and does. He will always be consistent with what the Father says and does. The same Spirit that moves us now is the same Spirit that moves the Apostles two thousand years ago.

The Holy Spirit moves us only as part of the Church and in a way that the Church recognises. He will not contradict what has already been revealed to us but He will clarify it. His effects may be felt but they will not be feelings alone. The Holy Spirit will allow His movements to be tested against Scripture, Tradition and Reason because these come from Him, too.

We receive the Holy Spirit at our Baptism and our growth in the same Spirit is strengthened through Confirmation. Indeed, we can be sure of the presence of the Holy Ghost through the Sacraments. The Sacraments give us grace and grace is the active presence of God with us and in us. They are His promise to us. Denial of the sacraments is a denial of the work of the Holy Spirit in God's Church.

[PAUSE]

Let us all be clear. We can see the Holy Spirit at work if we live our lives as part of the Living Church. There are still signs and wonders. People still do speak in tongues but they speak to be understood. There are still miracles - light anomalies at the consecration of Bishops, improbable coincidences, stigmata and prophecy - but they happen within the Church and for the Church and for the greater glory of God. The world will explain them away but the Church will know.

You may feel Him moving, but how do you know the Holy Spirit?

The Will, the Communion and the ACC

 

A reflection on the relationship between the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Catholic Church.

Persecution preparation

Propers for the Sunday in the Octave of the Ascension

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of the Ascension

So what now?

The Lord ascends into Heaven and then there is this pause as the disciples wait for something to happen.

After standing around and being told by the angels about the Second Coming of the Lord, the disciples do the only thing that they can: they go home to their common room and stay together.

They're lucky. They know what they are waiting for.

What are you waiting for?

[PAUSE]

St Peter reminds us that the end of the world is nigh. It's a bit rich of him because, two thousand years later, we are still waiting for the end. There are lots of elaborate theories - premillennialism, postmillennialism, even some very spurious theories like The Rapture. So much ink has been spilled trying to predict or to determine when the end will happen.

But, after telling us that the end is near, St Peter tells us what we should be doing. We are to be sober, prayerful, and charitable. Nowhere does he say that we need to be obsessing about the end. Indeed St Peter is mindful that the Lord has told him that no-one - not even the Son - knows when the end will happen.

For St Peter, it's not when or how the end happens, it is that it happens. We are to prepare to meet Christ at any moment and that means living the faith. 

Indeed, rather than preparing for the end, we ought to be preparing for our faith to be tested by our living in this world. Our faith is tested by the suffering induced by living in a world that has become hostile to God. Our Lord says that this will involve persecution. 

Certainly this means the physical persecution that the Church has seen under the Emperors Diocletian and Decius, but there is also spiritual persecution that comes from other people, even Society itself, and from the Devil.

In Africa and Asia, there is gross physical persecution and we cannot forget our brothers and sisters being tortured and killed for the Faith. In the West, we have a different type of persecution - this is very much an attack on our spirits. We are encouraged to drop our Faith, or relax our standards, or accept that which is immoral. We are encouraged to receive the superficial expression of being virtuous in exchange for the struggle to be virtuous in our hearts. We are being told to shut up because we offend others just by telling the truth, and that our love, this true and wonderful life-affirming Holy Love that is God, is really hate-speech and the denial of the individual's right to control what other people think.

This is persecution nonetheless and we must be sober. This means we must not allow our spiritual senses to be filled by being drunk in the spirits of this world. We must stand firm using subtlety, generousity and that love which is not a simple feeling of "niceness" but that thing that underpins all of existence. If we think of love as just a feeling then we are drunk on the worldly spirit of deception and are no longer sober.

[PAUSE]

We are not to look for the end but be sober, prayerful and charitable. That end will come soon enough and not in the way we expect. 

So what are you waiting for?

Looking up for Humility

 A reflection for Ascension Day

Praying for sacrifice

Propers for Rogation Sunday

Sermon for Rogation Sunday

Does He really mean it? Can we really ask anything of the Father in Jesus' Name and it will be given to us?

There are people who really believe that you can ask God for whatever you want: as long as you add the words, "in Jesus' Name" to your prayer, you will get it! A fast car, a big house, smart suits, et c. In fact, they also say that if you don't get what you want then it's a sign that you don't have enough faith in God.

They are wrong.

[PAUSE]

As we listen to Our Lord in the garden on the night He is betrayed, we hear Him ask God to take the cup of suffering from Him. That's what Jesus wants. And God says, "No!"

There are some who say that this is evidence of a cruel God, of a weak Jesus and of the complete foolishness of the Christian Faith.

But listen again.

Jesus prays if it is possible that the cup would pass from Him, yet not what He wills but what His Father wills. He knows that He must suffer on the Cross: any human being of healthy mind would follow his instincts and run to preserve his life. 

But it is not possible for the cup to pass from Him. Yet rather than follow His human instincts, the Lord bends His will to obey His Father. It is His humanity that moves to fit the truth. The Son does not bend truth to fit His own will.

And this is how we pray in the Name of Jesus. We pray the truth.

We bring to God the things that we think we need and, having prayed fervently for them, we sacrifice them to His will. In doing so, we are admitting three things.

We admit that we are utterly dependent on God for His goodness. We admit that we do not know enough about ourselves or each other to pray for the right thing. We admit that we trust God to give us what we need for our good even when He gives us precisely what we are praying against.

To pray in the Name of Jesus is to sacrifice our will to His. Remember: to sacrifice means to make holy, to set apart for God. The more we make this sacrifice, the more we align ourselves to God and the deeper our prayers become.

[PAUSE]

Sacrifice means the pain of separation. If there were no pain then what we are giving in sacrifice cannot be worth much to us, nor can loving God.

We can pray for a loved one to recover from cancer, and pray with tears and wailing. But when she dies and our prayers seem unanswered then we remember that we sacrifice our tears, our sorrow, our grief and anger. We give our loved one back to God. And God Who weeps over the death of Lazarus takes her into Him. Her death is made holy. Our grief is sanctified. Our love grows.

[PAUSE]

Our prayers are valuable to God. They express our needs and desires so we need to make sure they are worth the sacrifice. They express ourselves to God. But this is a two-way street. If we expect God to hear us then we must be prepared to listen and obey. He has made sacrifices for us, after all.

The Oily bird catches the Warm

 A reflection on St John's experience of being boiled in oil and how it should lead us into modesty and humility.

Presenting Temptation

Propers for the fourth Sunday after Easter

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Easter

What does it mean to be tempted? How do you understand what Temptation is?

[PAUSE]

There is a gift for you, all wrapped up in shiny paper and string. It sits on your table looking full of promise. And there is the label, "Open Me!"

Do you?

Well, of course you do. It's a gift for you. It has your name on it. It contains precisely what you've ever wanted. But wait! Just before you start undoing the string, what do you need to do?

[PAUSE]

Who's the present from?

Does it say?

You know full well that someone who loves you will have given you something thoughtful. You know full well that someone who hates you will have given you a very nasty surprise. And there is someone who hates you. He hates you because he hates God.

That present could be something that looks perfectly fine, but only later will it reveal its curse.

[PAUSE]

Each thought we have is a present. If we want to open that present, if we want to let that thought into our hearts and minds, then we need to check who it's from first.

God is the Father of lights. He is the source of all being, of all that is. He does not change. He does not vary His opinions or change His mind. What is good stays good. What is evil stays evil. 

This is important. We cannot say with regard to good, "that was then but this is now." The whole point of temptation is that it tells us that what was evil is now good and what was good is now evil.

"Ah!" says the present, "what about slavery. Slavery used to be good and now it's evil!"

No. Read the Bible. Listen to God. See how servants, bondsmen and handmaidens had rights with God - they weren't slaves. See how they were given stability and care. See how they were released from any debt. See how Onesimus and Philemon were reconciled as servants of each other.

Slavery has never been good. What changes are the meanings of words. The Devil uses words carefully to wrap up his lies and convince us that God has changed good and evil. It is with words that the Devil wraps up his presents for us.

[PAUSE]

When we pray, "lead us not into temptation" we can be sure that God will not tempt us to sin, but we have to recognise that we can be tempted and, further, tempted beyond our ability. Each one of us can fall. Each one of us can open that present even though we know we are not supposed to. When we pray, "lead us not into temptation" we pray that God would keep us away from those great temptations where we will fall away from Him.

The Cross of Christ is our protection. When we fall, we look to that Cross and we find forgiveness and truth. In the Cross of Christ our sins die and we emerge from the tomb at one with Christ.

The present that God gives comes wrapped in the truth, even when that truth hurts us deeply. It may not be an appealing present but it is much more wonderful than the cheap baubles with which the devil draws us to Hell.

[PAUSE]

As far as we can, we must check every thought that comes into our head and see if it comes from God. It requires practice and, when we fail, we can try again. The more we do, the more we resist the Devil and he will flee from us.

Have you opened that present yet?