How happy is happiness?

Homily preached at Eltham College on 21st September 2009 based on Ecclesiastes ii.17-26.

You’ve been lucky enough
to be invited to a wedding
of one of your older friends.

The ceremony is over,
the wedding dinner is finished,
the best man has finished speaking
and is well on his way
to being completely paralytic.

The dance floor is cleared
and the music begins
with the bride’s favourite
“Don’t upset the rhythm” by the Noisettes.

After the happy couple have finished
their first dance together
as husband and wife,
this is when the awful horror happens.

A horror so unimaginably vile,
so spine-chillingly terrifying
that it churns the stomach
and turns the blood into
half-melted Haagen-Dazs.
Yes, this is the moment
when every Dad in the room
gets up to dance.

It might begin innocently enough,
just a vague swaying from side to side
like a hypnotised penguin
during Kanye West’s Homecoming.

It’s during Gnarls Berkley’s Crazy
that things get spectacularly awful.

Uncle Vic grabs Auntie Edie
and starts flinging her about
like a middle-aged mass of pizza dough
in some style which they claim
is from the 1950s.

Why is it that they think
that a dance style that went out
with post-war rationing
is in any way appropriate
for post-millennial R’n’B?

Of course,
you sit there with your friends
praying that it isn’t your family
making a fool of themselves.
And what do you say about this?

It’s all too sad.

Well, if that’s sad, what’s happy?

Aren’t they happy?

[PAUSE]

Are you happy?

No, really, are you happy?

Well, how do you know?

Come to think of it,
what is happiness?

We’ve all got an idea
of what makes us happy.

Arsenal/Chelsea/West Ham/Spurs
(delete whichever is applicable)
beating
Arsenal/Chelsea/West Ham/Spurs
in the F.A. Cup.

[PAUSE for kerfuffle]

As you’ve just demonstrated,
one person’s happiness
is another’s misery.

The spectacle of Uncle Vic
doing bump’n’grind with Auntie Edie
is something that makes you wish
that there were some way
you could disinfect your own eyes
with Dettol.

For them,
they are reliving the happy occasion
30 years ago when they got married.

This isn’t being sad,
it’s happiness.

What does happiness really depend on?

[PAUSE]

Happiness, happening,
mishap, haphazard, hapless.

That “hap” bit is all to do with chance.
Indeed the Latin for happiness
– felicitas –
is the same as the word
for good luck.

The German word Glück
means both happiness
and good fortune.

The idea of happiness that we have
seems to relate to our circumstances
and the random deals that life throws at us.

“Call no man happy until he is dead”
say the Greek philosophers.

You can only really be happy
when no further bad things
can happen to you.

It’s true to say that
this marriage could end badly
in arguments and a bitter divorce.

All the happiness that you see
as the happy couple stagger their way
through “Agadoo” following too much
WKD could possibly be over in a year.

What is your happiness worth
if it can be taken away by sheer bad luck,
through no fault of your own?

Isn’t it better to look for some happiness
that Lady Luck can’t snatch away from you
like a ten pound note in the sight
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Does such happiness exist?

[PAUSE]

The trouble is,
sadness is a fact of life.

We cannot escape the fact
that all of us will be faced with tragedy
and hardship at some point.

Some of us have already had to face this.


What we want is for us to be happy
despite the horrible things life throws at us.

Surely, the thing that is going
to help us to be most happy is at least
to minimise Life’s tragedies .
We are all afraid of
Poverty,
Hunger,
Violence,
Loneliness and
Sickness
all of which
could happen to us.

Yet think about it.

World hunger and poverty
are increased by the greed of a few
who take more resources than
they actually need,
leaving some with far too little.

Much chronic sickness in the world
is increased by the rich
not sharing their resources
with the poor.

The violence in this world
is increased by people’s anger
with one another,
refusing to give in,
refusing to share.
More and more people
are becoming lonely,
because they are being overlooked,
because their families
are breaking down,
or because they are utterly selfish
and view other people
as servants to do with
what they will.

Much unhappiness in this world
is increased by human misbehaviour.

If we behave better towards one another,
we reduce unhappiness,
not just for ourselves
but in the whole world.

Every act of compassion,
kindness, respect,
friendship,
hope and generosity
reduces the suffering in this world.

The more that we become aware
about how greedy,
proud or cruel we are
and then work
to become more
generous, humble and kind,
the more we will see happiness.

[PAUSE]

Yet, you will soon realise that
becoming generous, humble and kind
will give you another sort of happiness,
a happiness that cannot be taken away.

Christians call this type of happiness “joy”,
and we believe that it is a gift of God
that grows in us the more we cultivate it.

It is different from happiness
because it cannot be taken away
from us by bad luck.

This work also gives us another happiness.

Christians call this “peace”
and it is another gift of God
that grows in us and, again,
Peace cannot be taken away,
but rather will help us
to carry on our lives
despite the tragedies
we suffer in life.

[PAUSE]

The more we work for it,
the happier we will become.

What do you need
to do with your life
to be truly happy?

Upsetting the Appellation Cart

In the past few years it has become more and more difficult to answer the question "...and which denomination are you?" On hospital forms, I always put down "Christian" under religion for that is what I am, and intensely proud of that name of Christ as all Christians should be.

These days, when I am asked that question "what denomination?" I always say "Catholic" and let people make up their own minds as to what that means. I am bound by Scripture and Tradition, I value and desire all seven sacraments, and see myself as one cared for by a great cloud of witnesses as well as God.

I find saying "Catholic" much more simple than just replying "Anglican" since, as I wrote below, "Anglican" means different things to different people. Say it to one chap and he will sigh a relief and proceed to try and get me to sing at his wedding to his male partner under the ministrations of a lady "priest". Say it to another and I get a tirade as to how we should be stoning every homosexual to death. Say it to a third and I am harangued into supporting the 39 Articles to the interpretation he wishes to give then; to a fourth and I am regaled by a thousand meaningless worship songs. The Church Times letters' page seems to be full of shots backwards and forwards between Anglicans who do or do not hold to the doctrine of the Real Presence. This is surely ridiculous! Even "Anglo-Catholic" is a problem as some are Aff Cath and some are not.

A great flame-war seems to be being waged among the Continuing Churches over the relationship that the Anglican Church has with the Holy See. Much virtual ink has been spilt on the subject and a lot of invective and subjective statements have been issued. It's got to the point where I am now utterly fed up with being called "Anglican" though I love my Anglican heritage deeply. It's not the name that's important but rather the faith that I hold. I don't understand why all these arguments that are being put forward by "classic Anglicans" (particularly of an American bent) aren't being taken to authorities in Rome in the spirit of honest debate rather than being shouted obstreperously across the internet and read only by others with the same bent on polemics. If these arguments truly hold water, then Rome doesn't really have any choice but to listen to them.

But I think that the Catholic Faith is more than theological consistency, indeed more than logical consistency. It seems that we can drum up a theological support for everything, one only has to look at ECUSA to find theological support for heresy. These great big theological arguments are all very well, but, to my mind they lack the simplicity which allows an unlearned person to understand what is right or wrong. Of course Richard Hooker starts his work on Ecclesiastical Polity by stating that the Truth is something that one has to work hard at seeking.

Well, this is true. However, as I quoted before, "knowledge puffs up...". I don't really see how the Continuing Churches are going to grow if they sit there sniping at one body for trying to find some unity against Rome, and convince another to jettison its Anglican heritage. How does a priest whose head is buzzing with the latest riposte to an argument in Transubstantiation minister sensitively to one who cannot understand the wider philosophical issues, or for whom intellectual argument merely deepens the problem? The Cure d'Ars was a rotten intellectual and a brilliant priest. From my point of view, the American Continuum is populated by some terribly intellectual priests who seem to be arguing their jurisdiction into non-existence while the rest of the Anglican Church goes to Hell in a handcart.

So, I've made a little decision. I'm not going to refer to myself as being Anglican any more until I start to see a credible Anglican identity in the U.K. alternative to the heretical mainstream of the C of E. Unless the Continuing Churches stop their pointless bickering, there will never be Unity. I applaud the TAC's step to talk with Rome and I pray for that goal to succeed, but the TAC's presence in the UK is far too small. If other Continuing Churches loathe Rome that much, then they don't have to participate and can just stay away.

Unless the Continuing Churches stop their pointless bickering, there will never be any growth. England is in dire need of a sensible Anglican presence - if all they get is a bunch of dry, dusty old theology professors quibbling about what the Lord meant when he said "and upon this Rock I will build my Church" then they will find no spiritual refreshment there and seek it in the arms of a Communion that has sold out, or turn away and let their faith slowly gutter and die because they can find no solace for their spiritual pain. My area in the U.K is growing rapidly as the culmination of several government schemes. The potential harvest is great, but the workers aren't even there!

If I am brutally honest, today I am actually ashamed of the title "Anglican", not of the tradition which I love, but rather of those who seek to "preserve" it by tearing it to shreds.

I'll happily call myself Anglican when the Anglican Church gets its act together.

Choose love.

Friday sees the eighth anniversary, and none of us need reminding of what we are remembering. Certainly, it is a date that carries with it a heaviness that once it had not. How many other dates go down in infamy? 07/07 for the British bombs, 08/11 for the Enniskillen bombing, 11/05 for the fire at Bradford City football club, 01/09 for Beslan. Of course, there are others, some personal to us.





Most dates tend to fade away in history. With the departures of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, the final British servicemen to have fought in WWI, 11th June-10th November will no longer have the significance to us as the dates of the Battle of Paschendale as it did to the generation before us.





I suspect though that 11/09 will always remain of great rawness because of the sheer volume of media coverage. Of course, the assassination of President Kennedy had a great deal of coverage, but the sheer scale of these terrorist attacks was quite enormous. I personally cannot forget those poor ladies and gentlemen choosing to leap to their deaths rather than to be burned alive, nor of the towers folding like packs of cards as they crumbled to the ground.





Where was God?

In this picture, we see the body of Fr Mychal Judge SSF being taken from the wreckage of the towers. Here is God because here is Love.

Had he not loved, Fr Mychal would not have risked his life for the care of others. He chose to love rather than to save his own skin, rather than stand back as a more sensible person might, and reasonably so. He was called by God into the midst of the horror, an alter Christus in life and an alter Christus in death.

If I am sure of one thing then it's that because Fr Mychal chooses to love that this picture shows us a miracle - Altruism exists, is real and tangible. This man now sits with God in Heaven and is happy.

If we choose love, then we too choose the manner of our own hardships, our own demoralisations, our own deconstructions and our own deaths. We may watch our father die from a debilitating disease that takes him away from us slowly. We may see our daughter killed in a road accident, our nephew caught taking heroin and our spouse badly injured as a result of an "act of God". And we will say "Where is God?"

And God will say - "here I am!" You are hurting because you have chosen to love rather than be indifferent. You are hurting because you bother to hold someone other than yourself to be dear. You are suffering because you are more than some automaton, more than a biological machine. Here is God - in your love. So no, you will not receive your father and daughter back from the dead. No you will not be able to prevent your nephew from taking drugs. And chances are that your spouse will never quite heal from the injury. Not because God doesn't want to stop your pain, but rather that your pain becomes a testament to your love, a badge of honour.

This isn't all our existence. We exist beyond the grave, beyond the wreckage, and way, way beyond any hatred that inspires death and destruction. As St Paul says, what we suffer now is nothing in comparison with what we shall receive if we just keep choosing love no matter how badly it hurts. Notice that he doesn't say "what we suffer now means nothing in comparison with what we shall receive."

No, our sufferings mean a great deal to God, and as we choose to love, He chooses to suffer with us, alongside us with every drop of blood, every tear, every scream of pain, He is there and He cares. He cares because you bothered to care. You chose love. You will not regret ever having done so.

O Solitude

O solitude, my sweetest choice!
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult and from noise,
How ye my restless thoughts delight!

O solitude, my sweetest choice!
O heav'ns! what content is mine
To see these trees, which have appear'd
From the nativity of time,
And which all ages have rever'd,
To look today as fresh and green
As when their beauties first were seen.

O, how agreeable a sight
These hanging mountains do appear,
Which th'unhappy would invite
To finish all their sorrows here,
When their hard fate makes them endure
Such woes as only death can cure.

O, how I solitude adore!
That element of noblest wit,
Where I have learnt Apollo's lore,
Without the pains to study it.

For thy sake I in love am grown
With what thy fancy does pursue;
But when I think upon my own,
I hate it for that reason too,
Because it needs must hinder me
From seeing and from serving thee.

O solitude, O how I solitude adore!

Katherine Philip (d. 1664)

I love hearing James Bowman's glorious voice drawing on these words by Katherine Philip.

I must be getting quite a bit of a hermit these days, since I perceive that my best work is done in complete solitude. Yet it seems that so many people fear solitude with a passion. Solitude breeds loneliness, and loneliness is not a desirable sensation in a day in which Blogger, Discussion Forums, and Facebook as well as the many variegated matchmaking websites can connect the lonely soul with someone to talk to.

There is of course a great danger that solitude can bring. One can become too comfortable with oneself so as to exclude others and make oneself the centre of the universe. Indeed, for many people, the example of the hermit is a great fear, fear of becoming strange like the crazy cat lady down the road, for strangeness creates further loneliness.

For many, loneliness means that they have to face up to what is going on in their head. Whilst work and business, fun and trips to Agia Napa, wine, women and music, and whatever else we choose to fill our day, at some point we have to sit down alone and face whatever is going on inside.

I don't think it's necessary for me to elaborate on just how horrific and upsetting some of our thoughts can be. Indeed, how often do we disturb ourselves with some absolute shockers that seem to have dredged themselves up from the pit of Hell itself that make us doubt our own sanity?

For others, it is the sheer torment of past follies, indiscretions, mistakes that have compounded and built up into guilt, past cruelties, petty hatreds and the misplaced word. They bubble up to tell us that we are wicked, wicked beings and make us shudder and feel worthless.

For others, it is the sheer emptiness of life, its futility, that sense that everything has been done and makes no difference. We can have the sense that there is no point to our lives, that all we are doing is just staving off the inevitable.

I wonder if you are comforted to know that we all have thoughts like this.

These thoughts tend to occur when we are alone, so we try to blot them out, anaesthetise ourselves and pretend they don't exist with activity and chatter.

What would happen if we decided to stop and confront the tyranny of our own thoughts? Just stop sit down for an hour or two completely alone and do nothing except listen to the buzz in our brains, can you do that?

Of course, a Christian realises very quickly that he is never alone. Again, this can paralyse a particularly scrupulous individual on realising that God is aware of every single though that passes through his skull - including those from the Pit. Yet as he grows in maturity, the Christian not only accepts this fact, he derives great comfort from it. Making a good confession really does liberate the soul from past transgressions - I speak from personal experience here. Knowledge that we are loved unconditionally by God, and that we are fallen human beings helps us realise that there is nothing that can stop us from being regarded as valuable.

Armed with this, we can do something quite spectacular - let our thoughts tell us something about ourselves, even the infernal ones. We see how we can be tempted into doing wrong, where we need support and, most importantly of all, where God fits into our lives. If it isn't the centre, then we have to ask how we can put Him there. The more that we can accept our thoughts as they are, the more we can accept ourselves as human beings, and in due course love ourselves and others in the commonality as thinking beings. So why fear solitude? Why not try it out occasionally?

After all, what thoughts await you tonight in the wee small hours of the morning when you can't sleep? What are they really telling you?

Separated by a common Anglicanism?

I've been part of the online Anglo-Catholic circuit for some time now, and I am rather pleased to have done so as I believe that I have learned a great deal from many colourful and interesting characters. Of course, in the current climate, life has become less easy, indeed it is becoming nearly impossible, to hold an orthodox faith in the established CofE. However there is always hope of something better happening.

I find myself pulled from pillar to post by friends of all stripes who say that this is heretical, and that is heretical and I should avoid them or keep out of that, or leave because my soul is in the direst danger. Clearly, I have to listen very carefully to every voice I hear, and trust that, as I keep myself ruled by the orthodox faith given to me by God through the Catholic Church, I shall hear His voice clearly.

How should I make sense of what my friends tell me? They seem to fall into several categories which express themselves in different ways.

First and foremost is the difference in character between my American friends and my English friends. I speak from what I have observed, and in no way infer that all Americans are ..., nor all British are .... There are however big differences in which Americans and Brits approach orthodox Anglicanism.

From what I have observed, American orthodox Anglicans have the passion and conviction of their faith. They love their faith and its identity and they will defend it to the hilt. They are unshakable in their determination that this is the way forward and that they will give it their all, and do and act and make sure that anything that needs to be done should be done.

From what I have observed, British orthodox Anglicans have a consideration and careful examination of all the known facts. They have a desire to accept and to accommodate, to use the renowned British sense of "fair play" and reserve to ensure that all folk are treated fairly, rationally and with respect. They can hold together to some degree conflicting ideas and theories and not worry too much about it.

Of course there are flip sides to these characterisations, which again I have observed. If unchecked, the American passion, in the light of disagreement, can become defensive, antagonistic and polemical. They use intemperate language even in their theological demonstrations so that the argument becomes over-stated, and despite being sound lacks the consideration of people. St Paul reminds us that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Any argument that becomes more important than the care of people and recognising where they are is wrong, no matter how solid the reasoning may be.

For the British way, well the CofE bears this out very well. Accepting contradictory positions can lead to confusion and paralysis. Such a position blurs the boundaries and makes it difficult for anyone to see how they are following the Way or not. Such fence-sitting clouds every issue and the resulting uncertainty is destroying faith in Britain, because there is no conviction of following the right path. They lack the gumption and courage of their convictions to leave behind the aesthetic and adiaphoral in order to do justice to what they believe.

I am given to understand that most American Anglo-Catholics are of the prayer-book variety, and this befits them well. They have the baseline from which they can be certain that the path they choose is the right way.

Many British Anglo-Catholic are of the Anglican Papalist variety of various strengths of conviction about the position of the Holy Father. Some Anglican Papalists are Ultramontane, other Anglican Papalists are into the primacy of the Pope, but not the supremacy. Their source of orthodoxy comes from Rome whence they split and follows along the faultline of history.

Being British, I am happy to hold together these two expressions of Anglicanism as being distinctly Anglican. The reason is that both are decidedly orthodox. My own belief is that a universal church requires a universal primate which leads me straight to the Pope. I find that prayer-book Anglicanism is too deficient in seeking relationships with other orthodox Christians and seeking more to justify its identity - "he who loves his life shall lose it". However, there is room in orthodoxy for both expressions of authentic Anglicanism without this word "heretic" being bandied about.

Let me set down what is clear to me:

• Rome is not heretical;
• Orthodox Prayer-Book Catholicism is not heretical;
• Orthodox Anglican Papalism is not heretical;
• Anglican Papalism (done properly) is not an enemy of traditional Anglicanism, but rather a way of encouraging good relationships between Anglicans and the Holy See, and should extend as far as is possible with the Eastern Churches.

And now I shall do something unBritish and say that I believe these four statements, and will not hear a word against them unless it can be proved to me in the spirit of 1 Cor xiii that I am wrong.

I am personally fed up to the back teeth of polemical, "I'm right, you're wrong" argument between orthodox Anglicans which spill forth invective and subjective statements like a black tar poisoning relationships between churches which have the same roots. It is this in-fighting that worries me intently as it is the liberal neo-doctrines that stand to damage the church more severely because they detach themselves from Scripture and Tradition, something which cannot be said of any Anglican who holds to the Catholic Faith. Even so, it is the liberal doctrine that is inimical to Christianity - the enemy are not the liberals themselves: they need to be loved as tenderly as Christ Himself would wish us to do.

If we are to argue then let's argue, but if we're going to denounce and lose love for each other, then it's best for us to keep quiet.

E=mc2: More spiritual energetics

The faithful, as soon as they wake up and are risen, before beginning work, shall pray to God, and then go to their work. But if there is any instruction in the Word, they shall give this preference and go there to hear the Word of God
for the strengthening of their souls. They shall be zealous to go to the church, where the Spirit flourishes.

St Hippolytus Traditio Apostolica Cap xxxv

I am most interested by the last sentence that St Hippolytus writes here as it issues an enormous challenge to each Parish Church of each and every denomination.

I wrote earlier about the need for the Church to be a place of energising for the people of God - after all, it should be hard work being a Christian. Those of us who hold down full time jobs work at the spiritual coal faces as well, bringing our Christianity into the places where we are. We shouldn't suppress that. Saying that, neither should we force it down people's throats. Let us be content to live our lives as to make people curious about our faith and, further, to want to share it. Then, because we are terribly thirsty, tired and hungry we come to the Church. Remember that lovely old hymn by Horatius Bonar:

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Come unto Me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down Thy head upon My breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad;
I found in Him a resting place, and He has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one, stoop down, and drink, and live.”
I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in Him.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s Light;
Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, and all thy day be bright.”
I looked to Jesus, and I found in Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that light of life I’ll walk, till traveling days are done.

The hymn speaks of the refreshment that we receive in the person of Christ, and of course, Christ is present at Mass for the express intent of nourishing us with His very self as far as we allow Him. However, St Hippolytus points us to an unpalatable truth. He implies strongly that the Church is "where the Spirit flourishes."

This then provides us with a criterion for examining our Parishes very carefully. "Is the Spirit flourishing in your Church?" If the answer is no, then it does cast some doubt as to whether one's Parish is part of the Church.

What are the signs of the Spirit flourishing?

St Paul's letter to the Galatians does tell us about the fruit of the spirit being

Ὁ δὲ καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἀγάπη, χαρά, εἰρήνη, μακροθυμία, χρηστότης, ἀγαθωσύνη, πίστις, πραΰτης, ἐγκράτεια: κατὰ τῶν τοιούτων οὐκ ἔστιν νόμος.

Galatians v.22

But the fruit of the Spirit is (Unconditional) Love, Joy, Peace (in the Jewish sense this can mean prosperity, health and welfare), Patience (literally the opposite of being quick tempered), Goodness (or Usefulness), Goodness (in the senses of personal integrity and, towards others, beneficence), Faith, Meekness (or forbearance) and Self Control (i.e. continence and temperance): against these things there is no law.

(My Translation)

These things need to be seen in each Parish, and if they aren't then one must ask the question, "what can be done?" But we should not be too perturbed: notice that the translation says that there is only one fruit of the Spirit - the word καρπὸς is singular indicating that this one fruit of the Spirit is transcendental, unifying the list of wonderful virtues. One can take heart then that if just one aspect is found in one's parish, then something is growing. Of course, the goal must be to ensure that all of these aspects are active in our parishes.

Such cultivation can only come about if the Sacraments are distributed and received with due reverence, realising that they are the vehicles by which the grace of God abounds in us. If the Spirit of God was present at the Creation (however it happened, pace O Scientists) then it is clear that this Spirit seeks to put into order rather than to allow chaos to reign. This order has to be considered at the level of the person, of the parish, of the diocese and at the jurisdiction. The fragmentation of the church is an impediment to the order that the Spirit seeks at the level of the jurisdiction, and perhaps it is no wonder that we struggle as Christians. There has been no golden age of the Church, unlike the great golden age of Judaism, or the height of the Roman Empire. Either that is God's plan to keep us humble, or it is because we refuse to seek full order.

That order will come, at the hands of the Prelates in building Christian Unity, but ultimately at the hands of God.

We have a lot to do. If we wish to have the energy to serve God truly, then we must seek to ensure that our Parishes allow access to the wells of living water. How will your Parish work towards this?

Elmore 2009

Well, I left Fr Prior Simon, Dom Bruce, Dom Francis and Dom Kenneth earlier this morning, and I am deeply thankful for their kindness, hospitality and unique Elmoreness.

One gets a true sense of community worshipping with them, and the Veil seems to get thinner every time I go.

But for how much longer?

The average age of these four gentlemen religious is 67. The Abbey is large and the monks rattle around in it whenever it is shaken. Dom Kenneth is a testament to the Benedictine direction of perseverence, as he just keeps on going. But he is finding it hard going, and there seem to be so few people who are willing to help them out. It is certainly no surprise that they are looking for other arrangements. The community of four will survive, but it seems likely that Elmore as an Abbey will go the way of Nashdom and Pershore.

I took the time to review my calling, and to my honest regret, it isn't to be a monk at Elmore - at least yet. I still have work to do at the College (I don't regret that) and so my involvement is limited.

The point is that retreating to Elmore may be a nice way to have a break from work, or to review one's relationship with God, but this is a by-product service that is being provided by the Community. They will welcome all and sundry through the doors because they want to and they are called to do so, but their primary objective is to carry out the Opus Dei - the prayer work of God. Nor should we feel guilty about visiting them provided that we are sympathetic to their ways and seek to aid them by praying well in the offices.

If Elmore is to continue as an Abbey then there must be a very swift influx of young men (i.e. under 45s) willing to take up the full scapula and dedicate their lives to prayer and service. I appreciate that these days this is a rare calling indeed, but I do live in hope. Please remember these very special gentlemen in your prayers - they have some hard decisions to make.

E=mc2: ecclesiastically speaking

Yesterday, of course, was the Feast of Our Lord's Transfiguration on Mout Tabor. I didn't go out to Mass.

The first reason was that I am recovering from the flu (which may or may not have been of the Swine variety) which was sufficiently potent to keep me indoors and away from folk of a more fragile constitution.

The second reason that a Mass for the Feast wasn't actually being offered by the parish, probably moving the celebration to the Sunday.

Why do we have this practice of moving the celebration of important feasts to the nearest Sunday, and forget others completely?

This does seem a modern phenomenon: even I, in my comparative youth, remember the Feasts of Corpus Christi, of the Transfiguration and of St Peter and St Paul's being celebrated with midweek Masses. These days a celebration will only occur if the feast falls on a day when a Mass is being held.

Why? Is it solely because "people don't go to midweek Masses any more", the reason being that they are too tired from working? Is it because the priest is frightened by having too tiny a congregation?

To the numbers obsessed clergy, we can easily warn with the Prophet Zechariah against "despising the day of small things". They are not priests for numbers, they are priests for the glory of God and the service of His Church whether that expression of Church be a Cathedral, or a housing estate in Brixton.

There is an issue as to why people do not come to church on weekdays - because they are too tired from working. Of course we are! Work is hard and we try to do a good job and earn our wage. However this does speak of a sad indictment of how the Church is performing in society.

Consider: one of the reasons for Mass is spiritual nourishment, a re-energising effect on the soul. If our Masses are not giving that energy to the congregation, then there must be something wrong with the way we are doing our Mass. Seeing that Christ Himself speaks of the living water that wells up within each of us for our continuing refreshment, one wonders whether the practices of the Church have rather sought to stem the flow of this water so that coming to Church is more of a chore than a joy.

I've spoken before about the inherent Apathy, Complacency and Apostasy that are infecting our society - "don't care, can't care, won't care". The spiritual problem is that of accidie and seems to have overrun the C of E with it's desitre to distract people with innovation which undermine its own teaching such as the ludicrous service of Wedding-cum-Baptism - how is the Church supposed to speak out against the erosion of the family through fornication now that it liturgically supports it, Dr Williams?

The Church needs to seek ways of energising its congregants. Lack of Energy is a sign of the lack of the Holy Spirit acting in the Church life and in her members, and ultimately leads to a vicious cycle of disenchantment and disbelief.

At the risk of seeming a bit gimmicky and silly, Einstein's (overcited) equation E=mc² could still stand if E stands for the energy derived from Mass, m stands for the quality of the Mass done and c the effort that one puts in to living a prayerful Christian life. I suppose that one could interpret that equation in other ways!

Defining or Dogmatising Anglican Identity

This seems to be a very well-asked question in the debates between Catholic jurisdictions and Sees. What is the Anglican Identity? Does it even exist? Should it even exist? Defining an identity is a terribly tricky – indeed it’s probably impossible. Definitions and Dogmata are intrinsically very different things and really inhabit different spheres of philosophical thought.

Definitions really belong to the mathematical sphere more than anywhere else. When a mathematician defines an object/set/operation/process/quality it has a very specific meaning upon which all can agree upon assumption of given axioms. Mathematically, some work has to go in to showing that two definitions of an object logically agree. Further, sometimes it is necessary for the definition to be checked as to make logical sense, yielding the mathematical notion of being well-defined.


The number two is defined to be the number which we get when we add one to one, i.e. the number of apples on the table when having one apple on the table, we proceed to put another apple on the table. Similarly, three and four and the rest just follow from the process of adding one. As a result, 2+2=4 is a logical deduction, a fundamental theorem that arises from the facts that 1+1=2, 1+2=3 and 1+3=4 – the definitions of 2, 3 and 4.

It’s all precise under the assumption that we follow the same rules of adding. Changing the rules of adding produces different theories of number, for example modular (or clock arithmetic) in which 12+1=1, or 23+1=0. Sounds daft, but we use such a strange arithmetic in real life. Think about it.

Mathematics is built on axioms and axioms are static assumptions. You don’t disagree with axioms. Change an axiom, then you change the theory; preserve the axiom and preserve the theory.

Dogmata just do not work like that. They come like individual suitcases that require to be unpacked.

“I believe in One God” is a wonderful suitcase containing ever more nested suitcases: “believe”, “God”, “One” and “One God”, and even “I”. It is in opening these suitcases that we find the richness of theology and philosophy. Does that make the Church a collection of baggage handlers?

No. In entering the Church, we are given one particular suitcase to open. It contains our way of identifying ourselves with the coherent structure of Christian belief in engaging with our earthly lives, helping us to make sense of who we are and how we are here and a way of communicating with the many wonderful and varied folk around us. This suitcase is the Truth, and it is in its ability to hand out this suitcase and pack and unpack it that the Church possesses the fullness of Truth.

So now it looks as if I have strayed from the point, but I haven’t.

Anglican identity is not something that can be defined to a precise degree. Even the theoretically narrower term of “Anglo-Catholic” takes in a broad sweep of conflicting views ranging from the Ultramontane to the Protestant. So what causes people to identify themselves with Anglicanism?

An individual’s identity, again, cannot be defined but can be experienced by interaction. We know who our family and friends are without knowing them in full, without being able to define their identity in terms of axiomatics and specific qualia. We also get some idea of our own identity through interacting with them.


If we say that we are Anglican then we are clearly stating that we share an aspect of our own identity with others, namely that of being Anglican. So what is it that we share?

Well, we could say “Anglican” means pertaining to and having continuity with the Church which lies within England. To be Anglican suggests that we have to hold in our own identity some continuity with what the English Church is. If we claim to be Anglican yet disassociate ourselves from every aspect of the English Church, then our Anglican identity is not shared with very many others and casts a large question over whether we are really Anglican at all.

Notice that I have failed to give a definition of “Anglican” but merely point to where it is. What on Earth do I mean by “the Church with lies within England”, especially since there are Anglicans all over the world? England became a unified state in 927 and there was really only one expression of Church until the Reformation. Prior to 927, England was separate kingdoms and before the Synod of Whitby in the 8th Century there was a dichotomy between Irish Christianity and Roman Christianity, the former largely succumbing to the latter which was carried principally by the Angles and the Saxons from Rome. Again, here we have problems because historical data is open to interpretation: History is written by the winners!

The Church of England claims to be Anglican stating that it has continuity with the historic Anglican Church. In what sense? How can this continuity occur? Listening to the people around me, I hear that one is Anglican


1) by continuing in the Apostolic Succession with Anglican Bishops.

2) by the continued use of Scripture, Tradition and Right Reason in continuity with the great Anglican Divines – Hooker, Andrewes et al;

3) by agreeing with the principles laid down at the Reformation;

4) by worshipping in the same places, in the same buildings as antiquity;

5) by being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury;

6) by being a Christian subject of Queen Elizabeth II and her successors

7) by adhering to traditional Anglican liturgies;


Have I left any out?


There are those who would define Anglicanism as being in Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, in much the same way as some define Roman Catholicism as being in Communion with the Pope. Personally I find this definition as being somewhat insubstantial. The histories of the roles of Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury are very different. Either the Archbishop of Canterbury is a substitute for the Pope, which most Anglicans would object to, or he is a Primus inter Pares.


If he is the first among equals, then saying that Communion with him is definitive of Anglicanism is either a property which is peculiar to the Archbishop of Canterbury in which case he has a quality which other bishops do not possess which raises a question as to who his pares truly are, or it must be a property shared by every bishop ordained by the Church of England – this would delight St Iranaeus! If a Bishop ordained Anglican ceases to be in Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, then the fact that his “bishopness” doesn’t sacramentally change suggests that to be in communion with any Bishop in the Anglican Succession must be fully Anglican.

Of course, I’m not entirely convinced that “not being in Communion” is well-defined in certain cases.
Are we Anglican because we use the Anglican Liturgies? Well, surely a liturgy becomes Anglican only if used by Anglicans. We may have lex orandi lex credendi, but does this mean that Anglicans who use the Missal are not Anglican if Anglicanism is defined by the liturgical use of the BCP? What about vice versa?
There is a decommissioned church building not far from me that was built in the 19th Century, was Anglican and was taken over by the Roman Catholics. I think this rather puts a darkener on the idea that it’s where you worship that makes you Anglican.




As for being sovereign subjects of Her Majesty the Queen (God bless her), many republican and papal and anti-papal minded folk would take issue with that. It certainly cannot be a necessary condition. As for its sufficiency – given that there are Priests who describe themselves as Anglicans yet reject (or redefine) Apostolicity and Catholicity of the Church (indeed who do not believe in God in an orthodox sense), no.


The other ideas are more substantial. I can accept adherents of the prayer book as being Anglican because they seek continuity with the Anglicanism that emerged with the Prayer-Book which Cranmer did largely put together from extant material. Also to be in communion with a Bishop from an Anglican Succession who holds to the Traditional Faith as received by the Church, this also has merit, though what if that Bishop were to secede to Roman Catholicism? For me, that’s not a problem. It is for other Anglicans.


These are just thoughts, and I refuse to say that they are in any way conclusive or terribly coherent. As I said, pinning down Anglican Identity is practically impossible. The only way that we can find out about our identities is to interact with others and see what we share and how we differ in our communication. It is in the interaction that Anglicanism exists, but by far the most important identity that we need to cultivate is our Christianity. That can only come about by interacting and responding with the One who made us, redeemed us and continues to walk alongside us. That is an identity for which it is worth losing whatever we presently consider to be our identities to be.

New blog

... to me at least. I introduce Fr Hunwicke an English Anglo-Catholic of the Papalist tradition of Frs Patten and Fynes-Clinton. His blog can be found here.

Pondering Polemics

There are times when I am glad not to be a gifted theologian. As soon as someone finds themselves thus branded, they also find themselves branded with a label and if this label is not popular, then the Polemicists come out and try to force that theologian into their way of thinking.

Being identified with the Papalist camp, I have my share of people trying to convince me that Rome is heretical and that I should not despise my Anglican identity, while others tell me that I am being chauvinist or homophobic or Mariolatrous or just plain nasty.

I perceive that the same Polemicists have descended upon the Continuum Blog in no small number. Unfortunately for me, they are Papal Polemicists and their bent seems to be to try and convince, nay forcibly convince, the learned members there that they are wrong. It seems that the Synod of Whitby is meeting again with even more snipery!

I disagree with the folk on the Continuum, but I have every respect and interest in what they are doing in presenting just how coherent Anglicanism really is. I don't regard the 39 Articles as defining Anglicanism, as far I understand them at the moment, though I do look through them to try and make sense of them in the same way as Blessed Father Newman did. I am still learning - it's not easy when you're doing this as an amateur. However, I do not see it as my job to tell people that they are wrong. I see it as my job to bear witness to the Truth as has been revealed to me by Our God through Holy Mother Church. Unless I've got the law courts completely wrong, witnesses don't get out of the witness box, grab the defendant by the throat and force their testimony down it.

To support what I'm saying here, I'd like to make an extended quote from the Sixth Discourse of Dorotheus of Gaza:

There are times when we not only condemn but also despise people; for it is one thing to condemn and quite another to despise. Contempt adds to condemnation the desire to set someone at nought - as if the neighbour were a bad smell which has got to be rid of as something disgusting, and this is worse than rash judgment and exceedingly destructive.

Those who want to be saved scrutinise not the shortcomings (as below) of their neighbour but always their own and they set about eliminating them. Such as the man who saw his brother doing wrong and groaned, "woe is me: him today - me tomorrow!" You see his caution? You see the preparedness of his mind? How he swiftly foresaw how to avoid judging his brother.? When he said "me tomorrow" he aroused his fear of sinning, and by this he increased his caution about avoiding those sins which he was likely to commit, and so he escaped judging his neighbour: and he did not stop at this, but put himself below his brother, saying, "He has repented for his sin but I do not always repent. I am never first to ask for forgiveness and I am never completely converted." Do you see the Divine Light in his soul? Not only was he able to escape making judgment but he humbled himself as well. And we miserable fellows judge rashly, we hate indiscriminately and set people at nought whether we see something, or hear something, or even only suspect something. And what is worse, we do not stop at harming ourselves, but we go and gossip and say, "Here, listen to what has just happened!" We harm our neighbour and put sin into his heart also.

How can we put up with this behaviour unless it is because we have no true love? If we have have true love, with sympathy and patient labour, we will not go about scrutinising our neighbour's shortcomings. As it is said, "Love covers up a multitude of sins." If we have true love, that very love should screen anything of this kind, as did the saints when they saw the shortcomings of others. Were they blind? Not at all. But they simply would not let their eyes dwell on sins. Who hated sin more than the Saints? But they did not hate the sinners or condemn them, nor turn away from them, but they suffered with them, admonished them, comforted them, gave them remedies as sickly members, and did all they could to heal them.

Let us acquire tenderness towards our neighbour so that we may guard ourselves from speaking evil of our neighbour, and from judging and despising them. Let us help one another, for we are indeed members of one another.

When I hear that phrase "One True Church" I worry about the context in which it is being used. If that word "True" is not supported by some commitment to love, then I wonder whether it really is true. Human beings are not entirely rational and there are things of the soul which defy the rational thought of others and the self to make coherent sense of. I am still trying to understand how to be an Anglican Papalist. By that I don't mean a Romaniser, but rather how to bring the integrity of Anglicanism - and boy does it have integrity - into union with the Holy See. The Holy See is the One True Church. I firmly believe that, but I also believe that the Orthodox Church of the East is the One True Church and that the Anglican Church is the One True Church, because, as Dorotheus reminds us, each Christian is a member of every other Christian.

If we are going to debate the nature of what it means to be Church, then we need to do so in recognition of this basic, yet transcendent property of the Church. For an Anglican Papalist to despise his Anglican heritage is to cease to be an Anglican, and to become a Romaniser. Fr Hope Patten in rebuilding the Shrine at Walsingham sought to reclaim some of the Anglican Heritage thrown out at the reformation. He was not out to Romanise. Indeed, this archetypal Anglican Papalist despised Latin and used the Book of Common Prayer with a Roman twist. Other Anglican Papalists make use of the Anglican Missal, and Anglican Breviary which seek to reclaim the liturgical richness of the pre-Reformation without jettisoning the BCP.

As I say, the BCP is an Anglican product, but does not, in my mind, define what Anglicanism is, though I do not despise its use, nor those who use it. Indeed, I rather pine for the days when I used to sing Choral Evensong in the Church Choir, before being kicked out for having the wrong voice.

To the disgust of many a Prayer-book Catholic, I proudly wear my biretta at Morning Prayer. The horns make it very easy for me to doff at the Holy Name. The thing is, until they got back into the practice of wearing mitres, Anglican Bishops wore mortar-boards. I daresay many a prayer-book Catholic has nothing against a mortar-board. However, a mortar-board is just a modified biretta which has been joined to the zucchetto, hence the distinctive shape. How much of Anglicanism is the same, I wonder?

We Anglicans need to come together under the Kingship of Christ. We need to recognise our need in one another so that we can present ourselves whole and humble to each other so that we can embrace each other. Having heard Metropolitan Jonah's speech at the inauguration of ACNA, if he is right then there are lots of welcoming arms outstretched for us. We need to be humble enough to allow ourselves to be embrace and even dare to embrace others. In doing so, our embrace of Christ will be tighter and more passionate.

Sorry! Couldn't resist!

Ships that pass

Homosexuality was raised again in a homily I heard this morning. The priest criticised the Church for its attitude to homosexuals citing the story of Jairus' Daughter and the woman with a haemorrhage as examples of the acceptance of Christ for all people. However, he said nothing to indicate which particular attitude of the Church to Homosexuality was detestable to him.

If I've got this right, the Church says nothing detestable about homosexuality, the doctrine is: being a homosexual is not a sin, fornication is a sin. Homosexuals are acceptable to God, those who reject Him as King refuse to accept Him and thus render themselves unacceptable. I agree that the issue is not black and white, but there is a clarity to which some folk blind themselves.

The priest also went on to say that Christianity is not a set of rules. How right he was - it's one single Rule, the Rule of Christ. We therefore have duties of obedience to His teaching. Christ condemned sin strongly - we ought to hate it so much that we would rather rip off parts of our own bodies rather than fall into it. Christ also gave us the Way to live despite our sin - follow Him His way. If that is not a rule, I don't know what is.

Of course, the issue is ripping the Church to pieces. I find myself reading the account of the shipwreck in Act xxvii.

And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon.

And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat: Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven. 18 And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship;

And the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me. Howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island.

But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down in Adria, about midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country; And sounded, and found it twenty fathoms: and when they had gone a little further, they sounded again, and found it fifteen fathoms. Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day. And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat, and let her fall off.

And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for this is for your health: for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you. And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all: and when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some meat. And we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea. And when it was day, they knew not the land: but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into the which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship.

And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder bands, and hoisted up the mainsail to the wind, and made toward shore. And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmoveable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves. And the soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out, and escape. But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose; and commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land: And the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land.

It's quite fascinating if we see the ship as the Ship of the Church. How, during the storm, the sailors tried to hold her together with ropes, binding the hull, casting out all that was not nailed down, including the tackle and so on. Why did this crisis occur? Because those in control of the ship decided to sail a dangerous course at the worst possible time for their own convenience.

We see the sailors try to flee the ship, letting down the lifeboats ready to cast away from the storm-tossed vessel, yet they heed the voice of St Paul telling them to stay together otherwise they won't be saved. Interestingly, St Paul doesn't make it clear whether all had to stay on board in order for everyone to be saved. If someone had left the ship, would that have doomed everyone? The text doesn't answer that, but it does in my eyes draw attention to the many splittings that are occurring within Anglicanism and the slow disintegration of the Roman Catholic Church in the light of modern storms. It raises the question of the house divided against itself falling. The Church should stand all together or not at all.

I firmly believe that the Church needs to stay together in order to be the vehicle of salvation. Look what happens to the ship. The prow is wedged fast and unmoveable, the stern is ripped to pieces. One could draw parallels with the wise man building the house on rock and the foolish upon the sand, and it does seem to suggest that those who stick to the core traditional and orthodox doctrines of Christianity and remain unmoveable, whereas those who do not find themselves going through the greater ordeal of fragmentation and disintegration.

There is still much to be positive about. The Eucharist is present by which all are nourished. All make it to shore safely floating on bits of the ship. God's promise is that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church. I take that as a positive sign, that the Church does have a future as the vessel that carries all aboard to Salvation through the wounds of Christ. I just hope and pray that God sends us a decent shipwright very soon.

Christ in casuals?

That they may also ascend: Marcus Cornish’s new bronze statue for Our Lady Immaculate and St Philip Neri RC Church in Uckfield, East Sussex, shows Jesus in billowing contemporary clothing, defying gravity, looking down at and reaching out to all who enter the church.

What do you think?

Storm in a chocolate bar wrapper.

Homily preached at Eltham College on 5th June 2009 based on the fourth chapter of St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians verses 17 to 32.

It’s break time.

Of course, after a double period of P.E.
with your Games Master making you run
from here to the Lake District
and back
in lead-lined wellies,
your stomach feels as empty
as a Big Brother Contestant’s head
and is just as noisy.

Fortunately,
you have prepared for this eventuality:
in your bag is a King-size Twix.


So you find yourself
a spot in the quad with some friends,
take out your Twix from your bag,
open it up…


And woosh, it’s gone!

Snatched out of your hand
by an 11 year-old interloper!

Before he disappears
around the corner at Mach 7,
you can see him stuffing
your break-time snack into his mouth.


How are you feeling now?

[PAUSE]

Angry?

Furious?

Indignant?

Hungry?

What awful thoughts of retribution
are crossing your mind?

Catch the boy, rip off his arm
and beat him to a pulp with the wet end!

Ritually behead him with your shatterproof ruler!

Do something else even nastier with the ruler!

Ah!

But bear in mind,
you’ve got to use that ruler later in maths today.

Certainly these are inventive thoughts,
but what are you going to do really?

[PAUSE]

There doesn’t seem much you can do.

Your Twix has gone forever.

That boy has vanished
into the group playing Manhunt on the field.

All you are left with
is the rumbling of your stomach,
and the rumbling of your seething fury
at what has just ruined your break.


But why are you angry?

Well, duh!

Because someone has stolen your Twix.

Yes, but why does that make you angry?

Perhaps you are angry
because you are hungry after P.E.

You had legitimately purchased something to eat,
and now it has been stolen from you.

You feel cheated, outraged and still hungry.


The conclusion is that
somehow
you want to retrieve what is rightfully yours
which you can’t seeing that
it is now little more than a load of goo
inside another boy’s stomach.

You want exact some sort of judgement
on the perpetrator of this most diabolical of crimes.


But what judgement do you want to exact?

Revenge,
violence,
hatred,
some form of ridicule?

We know that violence in revenge
achieves very little of any worth.

We know that hatred just builds up
more hatred until violence seems inevitable.

Ridicule creates more ill-feeling
and resentment.

Honestly,
how confident are you that,
in this situation at your most angry,
you can administer justice
fairly, proportionately
and appropriately?

[PAUSE]

We could try turning the situation around.

What motive does the boy have
for stealing your Twix in the first place?

It could be for a laugh.

Granted, you don’t find it at all funny.

In fact,
it does say something very tragic
about a person who believes
that stealing from others should be funny.

Surely he is less someone to get angry with
and more someone to be pitied.


It could be that he’s hungry,
just like you,
but hasn’t had the wherewithal
to buy his own Twix.

It could be
that he has other issues in his life
which lead him to commit acts
which are socially unacceptable
– and Twix stealing is certainly
unacceptable.

Again, would that not mean
that he is in need of help,
not vengeance?

Or else,
he’s just too lazy or mean
to get his own Twix from the refectory?

Why should that bother you?

After all, laziness and meanness
bring about their own punishments in life,
and you aren’t lazy or mean, are you?

[PAUSE]

St Paul says: "In your anger do not sin":

Do not let the sun go down
while you are still angry,
do not give the devil a foothold.”

That’s the trouble with anger.

If it isn’t expressed rationally,
but rather purely emotionally,
it rampages like a fire
and causes damage.



When we are angry,
we need to step back,
out of the situation
so we can see the bigger picture.

That takes an awful lot of self-discipline,
but it’s worth learning.

It seems that it is often easier
for young folk like yourselves
to learn this than many adults.


If you’re unemployed,
then it’s easy to be angry at seeing
“foreigners” coming in and “stealing” jobs.

If we give in to the emotion,
then we end up
seeing valuable contributors to our society
as evil.

It is emotions like these
that the far-right use to stir us
into acts of bigotry and racism.


It is possible to be angry justifiably,
whether you are the victim
of a happy-slap chocolate-snatch,
or whether you are angry
at the way the Ghurkhas have been treated.


However,
we mustn’t confuse our passion
for fairness,
justice and liberty
with an uncontrollable emotion.

Like Joanna Lumley,
we can use the energy from our anger
to find rational,
peaceful and effective protests
in order to get our point across.

What we have to get rid of
very quickly
are the feelings
which threaten to consume us
and lead us down paths
of negativity and destruction,
impairing our judgement
and sense of fair play.

[PAUSE]

Twixes come in twos
– hence the name Twix.

You could offer in future
to give one away
to the very boy who has caused you
all this anger.

“Hmmph,”
you say,
“give me one good reason
why I should share with him.”

Can you give one good reason why you shouldn’t?

A week and a bit too early!

There is only One God in Perfect Trinity and Perfect Unity, but there seem to be several lesser holy trinities which point to the true Holy Trinity. St Paul's Faith, Hope and Love spring to mind as does St John's Spirit, water and blood. One could say that SS Peter, James and John also form a holy trinity, but that could be stretching the point: they form a triad rather than a trinity. Faith, Hope and Love seem to form a trinity because they seem to have separate identities but the same essence. The way St John speaks of Spirit, water and blood as separate entities yet sharing a unifying testimony, is a lesser trinity than that of Faith, Hope and Love, since their unity of essence is less obvious.

In my mind, there is another holy trinity. The Venerable Bede mentions in a sermon of his that the Peace "which the world cannot give" can only come about through Love. It seems to me that God provides us with a conceptual mirror of His existence in the relationships between Truth, Peace and Love, since all three are the same thing but have a separation and uniqueness of themselves.

God tells us that Love is the source of all things. It is because of Love that God creates all that is. Truth bears witness to the fact that Love exists and is real and, when it comes into contact with what has been created, Truth bears witness to the reality of Creation and the act of its creation in love. The Creature finds Peace only when it has the assurance of Truth of its creation in Love.

So we find ourselves as restless beings in various forms of agony: a cold numbness of complacency, a feverish endeavour to control things and people, a furious pushing away of that which challenges our perceptions and seeks to unseat us from our confidence that what we hold is true, a sickly obsession to finding an anodyne in what is created, and a nausea of believing that others possess the truth, love and peace that we deserve.

A search for the Truth brings Peace through Love. A desire for Peace can only be found in True Love, and Love can only ever lead us to Peace through the revelation of what is True.

Ἀγαπητοί, νῦν τέκνα θεοῦ ἐσμεν, καὶ οὔπω ἐφανερώθη τί ἐσόμεθα. οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἐὰν φανερωθῇ ὅμοιοι αὐτῷ ἐσόμεθα, ὅτι ὀψόμεθα αὐτὸν καθώς ἐστιν.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

I John iii.2

Because we were created in love, we ourselves bear in ourselves the Truth of our reality. We do seem to get confused by this, in that we can confuse our truth as an existence separate from other people, or to convince ourselves that the truth can only ever be reached by certain reductionist techniques. Our truth is totally subordinate to the Truth precisely because our truth is the Truth. The Truth of our reality can only be the Truth that God is. We seem more to be obsessed with the tiny diamonds of Truth that permeate our understanding, hoarding them, protecting them, polishing them and examining them rather than realising that these tiny fragments are merely the intersections of the Truth with our empirical reality.

The Church really does possess this Truth, because the Truth is God Himself, yet she only possesses Him in the sense that He desires the embrace of His Bride and yields to that embrace. Yet, at each instant in time, all we will be able to perceive of the Truth are the fragments we have so far collected, and the fragments that we are finding now. Our possession can never be an ownership, merely an experience of Divine Love.

Yet if the Lord Christ tells us that He is the Truth, if St John tells us that God is Love, and the Saviour also describes the Holy Ghost as a comforter, a bringer of Peace, then the trinity of Love, Truth and Peace offer us an active way of living out our belief in God as lovers, peacekeepers and proper scientists.

Trust or Trussed II: The Letter to the Gullations?

If you think about it, one of the lessons that life gives you is that people can't be trusted. However, life does not often teach you who can be trusted until it's too late and thus when you have been deceived. It is when you have been deceived and hurt by one whom you have trusted that you find yourself

1. hating them for deceiving you;


2. trusting less in people around you;


3. berating yourself for being so stupid.

This raises the issue of gullibility and over-credulity in people. Can it be that actually all Christians are gullible because they spend their time being controlled by the priests and pastors. They are being told what to think by a Magisterium or by pastors under a specific interpretation of the Bible. Even in this day and age, I still meet people who say effectively: "I believe in God because the Bible tells me He exists and I believe what the Bible tells me, because God wrote it." As arguments go, this is pretty weak. At some point, the Christian must be prepared to examine his faith in exterior to the Scripture.


Moderns reject the Real Presence as a piece of supreme gullibility. The body and blood of Christ cannot be physically perceived, so the believer in the Real Presence is being required to believe in something that is not physically verifiable. This, according to some, is a sign of gullibility, that others are seeking to control others through their belief.


If this is true, then to what end? It seems a strange sort of power to control what people believe if it cannot subsequently exploit that belief to some achievable end. If one just rejoices in what one can make others believe, then surely this rejoicing is deeply limited and become unfulfilling unless it moves into some form of exploitation. That is not to say that it cannot happen. I just doubt whether such a practice would last very long.


If gullibility necessarily leads to exploitation, then under what accusation can Christian belief be seen as gullibility? The ends seem obvious; according to the teachings of Christ, Christians are required to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, forgive one's enemies - the perfect mules for the world all for the pie-in-the-sky promise of eternal life.

What fools we must be - the fools for Christ as St Paul would have it. So St Paul's statement must be the way that Christians address the question "are you not being foolish allowing yourselves to be treated in this way, and all for some vague promise that you can't even provide evidence that it exists in the first place?" This provides the unbeliever with "evidence" that Christianity builds in a failsafe to prevent the believer from realising that he is being taken in.

So are Christians merely victims of a two-millennia long fraud?


Well, I am convinced the veracity of the Scriptural evidence of the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. I find the testimony of St John in his first letter very compelling.

Ὃ ἦν ἀπ' ἀρχῆς, ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν, ὃ ἑωράκαμεν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν, ὃ ἐθεασάμεθα καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν, περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life,

Again, I just don't see the point in lying about such a thing as this, especially when the core doctrine of Christianity is to help people live life well.

One could refer to the Jehovah's Witnesses and their policy on blood transfusions, but then the comeback is "well, isn't this exactly the same as the Catholic stance on contraception and abortion?"

Well, I can understand the doctrine on contraception and abortion. Both contraception and abortion stem from views of the body that are inherently damaging. Yes, there are complicated factors, but again, at the heart of these issues is the question: "are we considering the welfare of all lives involved here?" As a Catholic, I believe in the well-being of the unborn as much as in the well-being of the mother. I also question whether it really is better to let lust rampage through society with the widespread use of prophylactics than to teach people to cultivate a deeper love than to scratch animal itches.

I am not convinced that the Jehovah's Witness prohibition of blood transfusion stems from a similar interest in the well-being of others. It seems more to me like an arbitrary proof of faith than a way of deciding how to live well.

It seems then, that the whole difference between cultic gullibility and religious observance lies in whether or not the practice stems from a coherent philosophy of well-being. The Mass may seem arcane and meaningless to an outsider, but its purpose is to bring people together in a state of respect, love and generosity together with the God in whose existence we believe. Yes, the Mass done properly has much intricate ritual which can confuse and annoy those who do not understand what is going on, but each ritual again stems from a desire to be well in the presence of God and this is verifiable with study. If we believe in a God who desires not only to be present with us but to make his presence objective, then this is surely reasonable. The ritual killing of one's children as practised by the followers of Moloch is not.

Of course, the question of gullibility now boils down to a value judgement. If gullibility involves being drawn into believing something "false" and, as a result of that belief, making a "foolish" action then one needs to qualify "false" and "foolish". One also needs to understand what "well-being" is. All good questions, but they do raise doubt upon the militant atheist stance that religion is the opiate of the gullible.

As a Christian, I should look to everyone's happiness - a happiness that God created each one of us to have. Of course I fail, often miserably but I do not believe that I am being conned by some maleficent conspiracy. Judging by how long the Church has existed and the number of grievous errors she has made (the Crusades and the persecution of the Jews), the fact that she still exists with the same message convinces me that the Way is the way.

What you don't really want to hear!

I used part of a previously published sermon that I did not actually preach to form the heart of this homily.

Homily preached at Eltham College on Friday 1st May 2009 based on St John v.1-16

Why is it that Christians are unpopular?

For one thing, they go on and on about
trying to lead good lives
and pointing out
everybody’s sins!

When was the last time you sinned?

[PAUSE]

That’s seems rather a rude question
to be asked first thing
on a Friday morning.

How did it make you feel?

Uncomfortable?

Nervous?

Did you find it a laughable question?

Let’s face it.

You don’t want to be told that you’re a sinner.

Nobody does.

The question of sin is not exactly
an issue which makes
Christianity popular.

The idea of sin seems
outdated these days,
just an irrelevance.

What do you think of when you hear the word?

Something rude?

Is saying the word “bum” in chapel a sin?

Is eating too much a sin?

Can a cream bun really be sinful to eat?

Is sin what an MP does
when he runs off with his secretary?

Or is sin just a Christian’s way
of telling everyone to obey
an arbitrary and pointless set of rules
in order to spoil everybody’s fun?

If that’s the image of sin
that we Christians send out,
then we are ourselves failing
to understand what God wants for us,
and that’s a sin too.

[PAUSE]

Whether we are Christian or not,
there is a sense of
right and wrong in all of us
– within limits!


We would agree that deliberately
wiring someone to
the Van der Graaf generator in the physics lab
is clearly a case of murder
and is something
morally and ethically wrong.


Yet, is it murder
to allow a terminally ill patient to die
by turning off their life support machine?

Further than that,
is failing to hold the door open
for someone a sin?

[PAUSE]

Robert forgets to hold the door open for Nancy
and it hits her,
taking the skin off her elbow.

This puts her in a bad mood
so she shouts at her secretary Jean for being,
in her words,
“bone idle”.

Jean takes Nancy’s criticisms seriously
and tries to compensate
by working harder.



She spends more and more time at the office
trying to sort out what to do,
so much so that she forgets
about the needs of her twins
Bradley and Britney.

They crave attention from their mother
and, without her guidance,
start to wander away
from the straight and narrow.

Britney,
in order to numb the pain
of being ignored by her mother,
and finding her life meaningless,
gets hooked on heroine.
Later, she is invited to an eighteenth birthday party
where she meets Taylor.

They get pally.

She introduces Taylor to heroine.

He gets hooked, loses his job
and gets kicked out of his home.

One day, he leaves his filthy squat
lined with dirty newspapers
and even filthier hypodermic needles,
in a frantic search for money
to stop the pain in his stomach.

On his way he meets Kyle.

Kyle refuses to give him any money,
so Taylor stabs him dead with his rusty penknife.

He takes from Kyle a grand total of £3.87.

Not enough.Of course, Taylor is caught
and convicted of Kyle’s murder.

Who is responsible for Kyle’s death?

Taylor? Britney? Jean? Nancy? Robert?

Do you honestly have an answer for that?

[PAUSE]

It’s being said that
it is the greed of bankers
which is to blame for the Credit Crunch.

Do you really agree with that?

But then how did the greed get there in the first place?

[PAUSE]

It could be said that sin is nothing more
than finding different ways of being selfish.

This is a vast subject
and cannot be dealt with
in a couple of sentences.

But even a little selfishness,
as we have seen,
contributes to the suffering of other people.

[PAUSE]

So it seems that sin is serious.

Worse still, we are all guilty of being selfish.

Yes, you knew it didn’t you?

Christians always tell you that you’re a sinner,
but that doesn’t mean that you’re evil.

Actually,
quite the reverse,
it means you are no better,
nor worse than anyone else.

To realise that we all
contribute to the sufferings of others
is a brave thought,
and to seek to stop that suffering
is an even braver thought.

How?


Well it’s all contained in the phrase
“Love your neighbour as yourself”.

To love our neighbours
means that in addition to enjoying our lives,
we need to include
the interests and needs of others
and build them into our enjoyment of life.

To love ourselves means that
we have to see ourselves as we really are,
warts’n’all
and to be happy with who we really are.

[PAUSE]

Yes, we do need to recognise that
sin is a serious business,
that we do fall short in what we do,
but that is not the end of the story.



However far downhill
you think this world is heading
with corporate greed,
teenage pregnancy,
famine and poverty in the third world,
or even vile acts of genocide,
it really doesn’t have to be this way.

We can start
by following the example
of St Francis of Assisi
and look for the image of God
in every single person around us
and treating them
with compassion and interest.

Christianity is all about realising
that we need the direction of God
to prevent sin from destroying us,
and to trust Him to show us how
to limit the effects of Evil.


God has no desire to see us destroyed by sin,
and that’s why He sent Jesus Christ
to die and rise again.

What God offers all of us
is the opportunity to transform the World
into something brilliant,
free from sin and suffering.

After all, that is the message of Easter.

Isn’t it?