A traditional game of pass the parcel.

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.

It’s Tessa’s birthday party
and you’re sitting in a circle
ready to play pass the parcel.
Tessa tells everyone that
 this is a very special game of pass the parcel
 as the final prize is very unique
and very valuable.
Considering that her dad is a billionaire,
you can be sure when Tessa says “valuable,”
she means valuable!

So the game starts
and after about 6 or 7 goes,
the parcel lands in your lap
 just as the tortured strains
of the Birdie Song stops.

 However, 
just before you take off the next layer of wrapping,
you notice that it looks as if
someone has tampered with the wrapping paper.
 There seem to be some tears in the paper already – big ones!

Of course, you play your part
and take off your layer of wrapping
but, just as the music starts up again,
you notice that the next layer shows
 the same signs of tampering.
Those tears in the paper
may go all the way down
to the box containing the prize.

How confident are you that the special,
valuable prize is still there?
Can it have been stolen
or lost or replaced,
or is it just that the wrapping paper is torn?
How can you tell?

[PAUSE]

It would not be unreasonable
to lose confidence in this game of pass the parcel.
Your enjoyment of the game is a little tarnished
and the possibility that there is no prize at the end
spoils the point of the game.

What has caused you to lose confidence
in the first place?
Well, surely it is those tears
in the wrapping paper.
They are signs that something isn’t
as it should be.
They break with our expectations.

[PAUSE]

It is important for us to be able
 to be confident in our Christian belief.
 Every eleventh Sunday after Trinity,
St Paul hands onto us
that which he has received.
This is the blessing of possessing
 the Holy Scriptures as we do:
we are passed a most valuable prize,
 the Good News of Jesus Christ.

However, there’s a little problem with this Gospel.
 St Paul writes in Greek, not English,
so how do we know that the Gospel
has been translated properly?
Of course the translators of the Greek
passed on what they received
and produced the Gospel
in a language we can understand.

They did not tear the wrapping paper!

 They were steeped in the same Tradition
as St Paul and the Gospel writers,
 passing the parcel faithfully.
The prize is still there and intact.

 This is the beauty of our Tradition.
 If we are faithful to it,
 then the Word of God can go out into all lands
and to the end of the world His message.
Yet things aren’t as simple as that.

[PAUSE]

Every year,
usually around Easter or Christmas,
 there is some archaeologist
or Biblical translator coming in
pushing forward a new interpretation
 of the life of Lord Jesus.

Some will deny that Jesus was ever born;
others will deny that Jesus regarded himself as the Messiah,
and still others will claim
that He married Mary Magdalene,
was crucified and died
without resurrection. 

Whom can we trust?
Are these scholars passing onto us
what they received intact
or are there tears in the wrapping paper?
 Is the prize still there?

We also are faced with the temptation
to change what we believe by making the liturgy
more understandable,
 by taking out the difficult bits of the Gospel
 which others think
are tricky to understand,
are not politically correct or,
to others,
 seem downright offensive.

We are also faced with the temptation
to reinterpret the Gospel to be in line with
modern thinking.

Many Christians do just that and,
 in doing so.
 fail to pass on all that they have received.
Are these all just tears in the wrapping paper,
 or has the long-awaited prize been lost?

[PAUSE]

Our Lord Jesus says to each one of us,
“Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God”.

 How can we see God
 if we have muddied
the pure, clear waters of our Tradition?
St John tells us that
we shall be like God
for we shall see Him as He really is.
How can we be like Him
if we have completely changed the way we see Him
from what we have received
from the Christians who have gone before us
 in order to make Him fit
our way of thinking?

Can we be sure that our god
is the same God as for all the Christians
who came before us?

It is a fine and marvellous thing
 to hear God speak to us in our society
and in the context of our modern lives. 
It is quite another
to try and interpret His will
to fit our modern thinking and expectations.

Some modern scholars look down
on the thinkers of the past
and give thanks to God
for being more enlightened than they were.
But then. the modern thought trumps
 the thoughts of the past, doesn’t it?

Yet, the Pharisee looks down on the Publican,
and who goes home justified before God? 

Followers of the Gospel of Christ
are convicted of sin by that Gospel,
 but find in that same Gospel
the love and forgiveness of God
in Christ Jesus Our Lord.

In following the Traditions
and the patterns that God laid down for us,
we find ourselves receiving
 the prize of Christ Himself.

It is our duty then to pass
on to the next Christians
what we have received
with care and diligence.
Anything that we add or subtract may be
evidence of hubris and a complete lack of humility
 before God.

If we are faithful to what we receive,
 we will find ourselves
in the presence of the One
 whose Gospel we have spread.
There is no greater prize than that!

[PAUSE]

One day we shall peel off the last layer
of wrapping paper from the parcel.
What will we find beneath it?

St Benedict's Priory Salisbury 2012: Service and Humility

As usual, I spend my retreat with the Monks formerly of Elmore now based at Salisbury. Although, I'm no longer technically in Communion with these gentlemen - one of the casualties of the CofE's break with Tradition - I received much kind hospitality and shared much with them in their Offices and in their day-to-day running of the monastery.

This year, with my ordination imminent, it was seemly that I make the focus of my retreat the nature of Christian Service and Humility. The trouble was that I didn't get much in the way of retreating. With Dom Francis away on holiday, I found myself insinuated into washing up, running errands and playing roles in the saying of the Offices. To be honest, I thought nothing of it until I began to write these words, but it strikes me that the best way is not to think about Christian Service at all but to do it and thank God for it afterwards. Perhaps too often, I think about what I should be doing than actually doing it and perhaps you do too. We can plan grand schemes for our lives based on our qualifications and experiences, but perhaps our greatest ever accomplishment in our lives will be to give a cup of tea to a lonely old soul, to wash up after a monastic tea party, or to make an anonymous donation to a charity.

It is clear that we are not saved by works, i.e. not by what we do. We are saved through the Grace of God and by cooperating with that Grace willingly. If we are given the package of salvation, then we do need to open it! What brings us to God is that we do works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal. This does rather sound that I am rather making more of my kitchen duties than perhaps I should: where's the humility in that?

Well, quite.

My main point is that we do not know what will be our greatest accomplishment in life in the eyes of God. God's vision of us is completely different from our own and levels our accomplishments so that the ones we think are least important turn out to be most so and vice versa. Our humility must be in recognising that we are limited even in the things we think we do well, but it also must be that we have the capability in every limited action of seeing God transfiguring that action into something dear to Him. It's not what we do, it's that we do.

Yesterday was the Feast of St Laurence the Deacon. When told by the wicked Roman Prefect to turn over the riches of the Church, St Laurence brought to him the poor and needy of the region explaining that these people were the riches of the Church. Tradition has it that this is the reason that the holy deacon ended up roasting on a gridiron for this effrontery.

But the point is clear. Things do not have worth in themselves. Money is just metal and paper, gold just a metal, possessions just things - all will disappear when the Sun goes nova. Likewise all the values that we hold, our degrees and knowledge, our sporting prowess, all will die with us. Our worth is extrinsic - it comes from bearing the image of God in our very selves. If we deliberately blind ourselves to this fact that we are of infinite value to God, then there can be no salvation from death.
Likewise our actions, what we do, can be given a worth more than we understand by allowing the Divine Will to consecrate them.

So what are you going to do now?

Worship Groups and Wesley's Rules

John Wesley's rules for singing:

1. Learn these Tunes before you learn any others.

2. Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or 'mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.

3. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing.

4. Sing lustily, and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of it being heard, then when you sing the songs of Satan.

5. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, as to be heard above, or distinct from, the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound.

6. Sing in time. Whatever time is sung, be sure to keep with it. Do not run before, not stay behind it; but attend closely to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can. And take care you sing not too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from among us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.

7. Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this, attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve of here, and reward when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.

I have a lot of time for Wesley. Rule 7 is very typical of his deep passion for seeing God in all things and puts him very much in the company of Du Caussade, Brother Lawrence, St Francis of Assisi, and St Benedict himself. It is tantamount that before we do anything, we first do it for the love of God.

The final cause of a hymn is for the greater glory of God and not, repeat not, for enjoying oneself. If we sing hymns for sensual reasons only then we shall sow what we reap, mere superficiality. My recollection of singing in the last days of my involvement with the CofE was that people sang because they "liked the tune" or because it made them feel happy.
There is an affinity between today's CofE with the Church of the post-Restoration and before the Oxford Movement in that the singing of hymns is accompanied by a band. Often this band is called the "worship group", primarily because it saw itself as leading worship. Yet, what we can often see and hear of "worship groups" is the band doing all the work while the congregation bask in the atmosphere when really it is their duty to join in. According to Wesley's Rules, a true worship group should seek to be of a secondary nature, playing the notes that are written without standing out.

Before I am accused of being musically snobbish, the same is very true throughout the English Choral tradition. A congregation cannot ordinarily join in with the execution of a Mass by Byrd, Palestrina, Ockeghem or Striggio. Their raison d'etre, we are told, is to enhance the worship of the Congregation. But how? By using the typology of heavenly choirs? Given the nature of the Catholic Mass, every ceremonial action and ritual is indeed a sign to draw one closer to Heaven. The choir then must seek to fulfil that type, just as the priest should seek to fulfil the person of the alter Christus in his role.

A hymn or anthem must always begin with the words which have to be sound theological poetry. Too many modern hymns have succumbed to the skill of the prattler of pious platitudes and of the egotist in which the word "I" makes a more frequent appearance than addresses to the Divine. It must mean something and convey truth upon which people can build their lives as well as sing in Church. One can tell the spiritual health of a parish by the quality of the hymns that it sings. A parish that doesn't mind what it sings is not likely to be thinking carefully about how it is approaching worship.

Likewise, the execution of sacred music requires thought. A choir, or worship group, should not seek first for people's enjoyment but rather for their alignment with God. Music that will have them "bopping in the aisles" is distracting from the presence of God. While it is possible for hymns in church to be accompanied by a guitar, often the guitarist treats the situation like a jam session and again people enjoy the music for the music. Of course, music is a gift from God, and musical skill is a gift from God, but it is imperative that one tempers one's musical skill and restricts one's exuberance with careful thought on "how am I going to play in order to bring the reality of God and the truth of His words to the congregation here present?"

Finally, execution of sacred music must allow people to sing with it. Many hymns and songs tend to become solos for someone who tries to emulate the late Whitney Houston by warbling all kinds of melismata over a tune. Some modern songs seems to be written to accommodate these vocal meanderings. The Reformers imposed a "one note to one syllable" rule for Church Music. While this might be rather excessive, it is not a bad maxim. Melismata can be left to the singing of a good choir who can execute them with discipline and the desire to narrow the gap between Heaven and Earth.
Surely that is worth working for!

Good as gold but beware of Trolls!

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all , but one receiveth the prize? So run , that ye may obtain . And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things . Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run , not as uncertainly; so fight I , not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection : lest that by any means , when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. (I Cor ix.24-27)

I am not a sportsman.

In fact one might make the analogy that I understand sport as well as Richard Dawkins understands the need for Religion. I'm sorry, I just don't get it. Cricket, Foot Ball, Ice Hockey, Basket Ball, Dwile Flonking et c. leave me completely cold. I don't get dancing either. I didn't watch the opening of the Olympics. I don't get the thrill of winning nor the disappointment of losing. Medals mean very little.

One thing that I do get, though, is that people get a thrill of winning and a disappointment of losing. I understand that people do benefit from sports, find great comfort from the team and find some direction in their lives. In some ways, perhaps, I'm missing out on some remarkable experiences, but then we are all made differently. That's where the analogy with Richard Dawkins breaks down. I don't see sport as a force for evil, by any means, though some aspects do disturb me.

 I read something today that saddened me very deeply. The young chap pictured above is Tom Daley who I believe is a swimmer. Apparently, he missed out on a medal, and has now been at the receiving end of some absolutely atrocious comments for not achieving his goal. I am led to believe that his motivation is to win a medal, not only for his country, but also for the memory of his dead father. Noble sentiments. So how is it then possible that someone can broadcast the message to this young man in his disappointment that he has let down his country and his dead father by not winning the medal?  I may not quite see the connection between medals and glory, but I cannot understand why he needed to be pilloried like this.

 Surely Tom's efforts and training and intention and desire has been to do well at every stage, to give of his all and to discipline himself carefully. But he is as fallible as any one of us. If he has not achieved a medal, then it I very much doubt that it is for want of dedication.

What then has happened?

I think it is a question of identity and identification. From what I see from my students and ex-students in their rather more playful rivalries between football teams, there is very much an identification of the individual with that team - an extension of oneself into the team and, given the number of Chelsea foot ball shirts I see, an extension of the team into oneself. One shares in the successes and defeats of the team.

However, there is a problem. One is not actually part of the team that we support, otherwise we would be actually competing, not cheering from the sidelines. There is a necessary distance between the supporter and the competitor which cannot be realised physically. However, there is an emotional investment which perhaps the supporter and competitor share more fully. When the competitor fails to achieve the goal, she suffers great disappointment, frustration and perhaps some (largely unjustified, in my opinion) anger at herself for failing. If these emotions are shared, then the supporter must feel these sensations too though they will not necessarily correlate with the emotions felt by the athlete. The danger then is turning these emotions onto the competitor. This is what has happened. Anger and emotion have not been controlled. Poor Tom has become the unwarranted object of emotions that are not his and which have not been controlled by a disciplined mind. His Troll is rightly to be censured and sanctioned for not exercising a fragment of the self-discipline and self-control that Tom has.

Rudyard Kipling reminds us:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same...

First place and last place are as much imposters as Triumph and Disaster. It takes reason and discipline and thought to realise this especially when one is caught up in the moment. The trouble is that the Media whip up the emotions so readily that each of us does get caught up more emotionally than is actually good for us, and I am as guilty of being emotionally whipped up by the Media as any. I very much get the impression that the team for the UK Olympics is being pressured to succeed, not supported, by the Media and subsequently by the ordinary supporters.

Support requires a stable base, standing still, like a diving board. It is the diver who uses the diving board to make his dive. It is not the job of the board to push back otherwise it ruins the dive. If people are going to support Tom, then they should let him find confidence in their support and acceptance of whatever the outcome should be. When we support a team we should be aware and respectful of the distance that separates us from our competitor however much our emotions seek to bridge that distance.

I gather that Tom will be swimming again at some point. I certainly wish him very well: he has my admiration for his self-discipline and training and I am sure that his father would be very proud of him whatever the outcome. I sincerely pray that he will get more joy out of his next competition than can be provided by winning any gold medal.

Adoption, identity and scotch eggs

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis, Rochester, on the eighth Sunday after Trinity.

Bill is playing on his Xbox 360
when his Mum calls him
 to the table for his tea.

As he tucks into his scotch egg,
 he is very much aware of
a certain awkwardness in the air.
Mum has something to say,
and it’s clearly not easy for her.

“Bill,” she says finally,
“I have something to tell you.
 I think you’re now old enough
to understand this and we do owe it to you
 to tell you the truth.

Your dad and I love you very much, but…”
Mum pauses;
 so does Bill, his mouth full of egg.

 Mum breathes a heavy sigh,
“You’re adopted, Bill.
We aren’t your real parents.”

A scotch egg will never
 taste the same again.

What do you expect Bill to do now?

[PAUSE]

Well, this surely depends
on how Bill is feeling,
and there are many different emotions
 that could be crashing through
 his head at this time.

You might guess that Bill
could be suffering from an identity crisis.

Everything
 that he believes of himself
seems to be false.

All those holidays to Port Lympne,
 the birthday parties
and the games of kickabout in the back garden,
all seem strange and distant.

Those cards he made at school
 for Mothering Sunday and Fathers’ Day
seem to be a bit of a lie.
Where is Bill’s true identity?

[PAUSE]

We begin to find out who we are
at home with our families.

We learn by interacting
with our parents and brothers and sisters around us.

 The people who bring us up
show us how to live,
what values to treasure
and what we should and should not be doing
...not that families always get that right!
The first crucial experiences
that we have in life colour
how we see ourselves and,
further, how we live our lives.

If we find out that our parents
 really aren’t our parents,
then perhaps we are justified in thinking
that the way that they bring us up
 is not the way we should be brought up.

 Is Bill going to reject the people
 he has called Mum and Dad for all his life?

 Is he going to reject what they have taught him?
But this raises another couple of questions.

What would Bill think of his real parents?
Would he trust their values?

Not all parents are good parents after all!
Bill faces big choices.

He can accept the people
 he’s been living with as his family.

 Or he can reject them
and try to find his real family.

Or he can reject both and go it alone.
 Now that’s not an easy choice to make.

What is the right answer?

[PAUSE]

We do have to remember
the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ here.

 We cannot know precisely
how he knew that St Joseph
was not His real father.

We do know that He was thought of as “the carpenter’s son”.
Yet throughout His ministry,
 Jesus demonstrates quite clearly
 that He is not the son of Joseph.

Is this a rejection of His parentage?

Well, in one way it is.

The Lord tells us very clearly,
 “If any man come to me,
 and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
 yea, and his own life also,
 he cannot be my disciple.”

How does that make you feel?

Should we reject our parentage to please God?

[PAUSE]

If that’s true then we run up
against the commandment
 “Honour thy father and thy mother”.

The Lord cannot be contradicting
 His Heavenly Father, can He?

 The key to understanding
 what Our Lord is telling us
 is to understand what he means
by “hating” our parents.

 In fact, the Greek word
 that is being translated as “hate”
means “to love less”.

It’s the opposite of preferring.

The Lord tells us very clearly
that God is Our real Father before our earthly parents
and that only in serving Him
 do we truly honour our parents,
especially if they have brought us up
 to love God.

 We do not reject our parents
by choosing God;
we choose to see them first
 in the light of the Eternal parentage of God.

Indeed it is only within God
that we find our true selves.

 St Paul tells us,
” For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God.”
The more we love God,
 the more do we find in Him
our true lovable identity.

 To reject God as our adopted Father
means that we reject everything
 that is real about ourselves.

We thus accept an identity
which is distorted by our own preconceptions
and disfigured irreparably by our sins.

 Or, in rejecting God,
 we assume a false identity which is given to us
by other people
and which will alter and perish with them.

Our lives must be spent in rejecting anything
that attempts to draw us away from the reality
of our adoption.

[PAUSE]

The fact that Bill is adopted does not change his past.
 It changes only how he sees his past.


 If he looks back and sees love there
in the birthday parties,
in the holidays
and in games of footie in the back garden,
 then nothing has changed at all.

His cards for Mothering Sunday and Fathers’ Day
 keep all their meaning and perhaps have gained more.

Likewise,
if we realise that we are the adopted children of God
and adopted by His love for us,
 then we stop seeing the world
as children of the world
with all its evil, sadness and decay.

We look beyond it
to the Eternal face of God’s only true Son,
 the brother who signed our adoption certificate
in His Blood.

And although we might be adopted children,
we are offered, through Christ,
 the opportunity to develop a true family likeness
of our Heavenly Father.

How well have you accepted the fact that you’re adopted?

St Mary Magdalene: Guilt, Evolution and Purity

Today is the Feast of St Mary Magdalene, a woman whose reputation has suffered as much after her passing as before. At Mass in Rochester this morning, we were reminded that it is not good to speculate on other people's past sins, especially when it is not recorded what they were. We need to focus on her devotion to God and to emulate her humility and love.

If we should not speculate on the past sins of St Mary Magdalene, then we should be equally careful when we consider our own past sins, especially when we have confessed, repented and been absolved from them. We will still bear the scars of sins past which will haunt us if we let them. Yet do we use the memory of our sins to help us to be transformed by the love of Christ?

I believe firmly in Evolution. That's not to say that I can be certain that Evolution as THE way that things happened - no-one can. However, the scientific evidence is sufficiently compelling for me. Indeed further, the mechanism of Evolution is incredibly beautiful and, for me, actually provides further evidence of the existence of God who not only kicked the process off but wrote the rules for Evolution. There are still gaps in the theory, especially how puddles of amino acids managed to spark spontaneously into life: maybe we'll find out the truth, maybe we won't. With the discovery of a particle bearing properties predicted by the Higgs Boson, we can certainly find exhilaration that our theories fit the facts. It's worth exploring!

We must be careful of hubris though.

Evolution demonstrates that past actions dramatically affect the future. A moment's weakness in the past evolves gradually into the twisting and warping of lives, the tangling of the threads of our beings, our relationships and our views of the world. Species change, alter and adapt to fit the surroundings. Those that fail to adapt die out. Evolution implies growth, and that growth can be healthy or it can be malignant: it can allow us to grow fully into happiness or we can die out abjectly.

Thus it is that by failing to recognise our weaknesses and strengths in a spirit of honesty and reflection, we condemn ourselves to allowing our weaknesses to evolve within us and thus to twist our humanity into painful and grief-filled shapes which will remain part of us forever unless we allow the Eternal Gardener to prune the malignant growths out of our lives.

The other extreme is to become so aware of our sins that we wallow the guilt of them to consume us. We look at our tangled and twisted shape and believe that this is what we were meant to be, with no way out. Some Christians hold on to the guilt even after they have confessed and confessed and confessed. We do not allow ourselves to be forgiven. even if we are told so clearly that God does not desire the death of a sinner but rather that he might turn from his sins and be forgiven. To disallow God to forgive us is as much pride as denying that we have no sin in the first place.

St Mary Magdalene shows us the way out. Her redemption comes purely from her love and devotion for the Lord Jesus. Her sins are forgiven because she loves much. She does not have her future destiny in mind, nor does she desire to hang on to sins of her past. Her mind and heart are focussed on one person, Jesus. To be intently focussed on Christ is precisely what it means to be pure in heart. Indeed, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

That which is pure evolves purely. The memory of past sins may linger but, seen through a pure heart, those sins cease to have a negative effect, lessons can be learned without guilt and our lives seen to be untangled from that which seeks our destruction. All things work for good for all who love God. In purifying ourselves, as Mary Magdalene did, we shall see the truth and effect of the Resurrection of Christ and allow our lives to evolve around this, and after this life we will find our final form to which our evolution has been tending: full human beings in loving union with God in Heaven.

Benedict, Augustine and Osmund: Pilgrimage by staying still

I really ought to have blogged last Wednesday being the Solemnity of the Feast of Holy Father Benedict. As it was, there was a lot happening that day, not all of it very happy, but certainly a day of growth - a day of pilgrimage.

One of the big differences between being a member of the Anglican Catholic Church and being a member of the CofE is that one doesn't usually have an ACC Church on your doorstep. I could walk 100 yards to the nearest CofE Parish Church, but as it is, I have to travel a not inconsiderable distance to get to the parishes which I serve as Lay Reader. However the fact remains that I should not be measuring distance in terms of miles but in terms of belief.

This produces a dichotomy of which Dualists would be proud. The measurement of distance in miles is a physical measurement, it possesses quantifiable units (miles) which can be traced with pedometers or tracked by GPS systems and broadcast on Facebook. Spiritually the system of measurement is far different. I suppose one could say that one's belief is 10 miles west of Rome and thus give some impression that one's understanding of Christianity is very nearly Roman Catholic, but it doesn't specify what those further 10 miles are, or even if they are continuous!

How can one measure one's spiritual distance? Is it wise to do so? Is it wise to try?

Well, Saints Benedict, Augustine and Osmund would say "yes".  All of them regard life as a journey or a pilgrimage back to God. While all three made not inconsiderable journeys in their lifetimes, their focus was on the inner journey back to God.

St Augustine is chronologically the first. His philosophy and theology are filled with this idea of the sinfulness of Man casting him very far into the dark moors from which in grief he must work his way back to the light of God. His little Augustinian Rule forms the basis for Dominican spirituality, but it is a Rule none the less. A measuring stick by which one can measure one's progress back to God.

Next comes Holy Father Benedict and his magnificent Rule designed to take away the stifling distraction of the practical ways of living so as to free the spirit into climbing the ladder of humility back to God. Even then, in his last chapter, he says that the Benedictine Rule is just a starter, just the first foot out on the journey back to God.

And then there's St Osmund. Why on earth have I pulled him into this discussion? Well, it being his feast day, I was struck by his short readings in the Monastic Breviary. St Osmund is an 11th Century Norman nobleman and Chancellor who becomes Bishop of Salisbury. He finishes construction on the Cathedral and then suddenly withdraws from the world in order to concentrate on study and contemplation. He is also responsible for the Sarum Liturgy but on completely conservative principles - no innovations or deviations allowed. There is no place for St Osmund's thought in the CofE! For Osmund, the Sarum Liturgy is to provide stability for the English Church.

St Osmund's withdrawal reflects precisely the withdrawal that both St Augustine and St Benedict espouse. This is a withdrawal to a stable base from which a spiritual pilgrimage can be made. By reducing the number of worries that distract them, they purify their lives so that they have light spiritual baggage for a long interior journey. Stability becomes the springboard into the uncharted regions of the soul the Rule of Life becomes the road map into the unknown; the light of the Holy Ghost shining in the Lantern of prayer lights the way.

Every Sunday, I make my pilgrimage to my spiritual community. While I must travel physically quite a way, I am never far away from what is, for me, a spiritual caravan moving purposefully toward the light of God. In that caravan, distractions can be laid aside and the interior journey can continue with priest and people to the Divine Light - a journey that is simultaneously accompanied by a myriad myriad of saints and angels and yet nevertheless completely solitary and lonesome. Commitment to stability and fidelity will help us to hold that great paradox together.

SS John Fisher and Thomas More: Heroes, Heretics and Hard hearts

Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, an aged man, and of a well favoured countenance, was constrained to open his mouth, and to eat swine's flesh. But he, choosing rather to die gloriously, than to live stained with such an abomination, spit it forth, and came of his own accord to the torment, As it behoved them to come, that are resolute to stand out against such things, as are not lawful for love of life to be tasted. But they that had the charge of that wicked feast, for the old acquaintance they had with the man, taking him aside, besought him to bring flesh of his own provision, such as was lawful for him to use, and make as if he did eat of the flesh taken from the sacrifice commanded by the king; That in so doing he might be delivered from death, and for the old friendship with them find favour. But he began to consider discreetly, and as became his age, and the excellency of his ancient years, and the honour of his gray head, whereon was come, and his most honest education from a child, or rather the holy law made and given by God: therefore he answered accordingly, and willed them straightways to send him to the grave. For it becometh not our age, said he, in any wise to dissemble, whereby many young persons might think that Eleazar, being fourscore years old and ten, were now gone to a strange religion; And so they through mine hypocrisy, and desire to live a little time and a moment longer, should be deceived by me, and I get a stain to mine old age, and make it abominable. For though for the present time I should be delivered from the punishment of men: yet should I not escape the hand of the Almighty, neither alive, nor dead. Wherefore now, manfully changing this life, I will shew myself such an one as mine age requireth, And leave a notable example to such as be young to die willingly and courageously for the honourable and holy laws. And when he had said these words, immediately he went to the torment.  (II Maccabees vi.18)

I hate, with a passion, the English Reformation. Please don't misunderstand me: I do agree that there was some need of reformation to address prevalent issues which were subsequently discussed at the Council of Trent (though without the presence of English Catholics). However, with the establishment of the Church of England comes the charge of treason for dissenters and with Treason comes torture and death regardless of service, good character and position. Many, many good Christians die as a result of reforming the English Church: some are orthodox, some are heretical, but all have a legitimate claim to martyrdom. I hate that these good men die without some council, some discussion, some reasoned discourse to air the conflict of doctrine. While I understand Henry VIII's desire to stabilise his dynasty and broker some peace in a land still recovering from the Wars of the Roses, there are other, better means and thus he is still very far from being my favourite monarch despite being the product of his time.

We celebrate SS Thomas More and John Fisher today, two men who are willing to stand up to a king who forces men to choose between their country and their religion. Their choice is to remain with the Church of their birth, not to recognise the king as Governor of the Church, but rather to continue allegiance to the Primacy of the Pope. Thus it is that they face the tide and are swamped by it, albeit temporarily. Yet as G. K. Chesterton says, "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."

There is much in common with these two men, Eleazar and St Polycarp, all of whom stand against heresy despite the venerability of their ages and offices. The word "heretic" has negative overtones, primarily because people like to think of themselves as being orthodox, in the right, or justified in their beliefs. The word literally has the sense of a choice, an option between many alternatives. However, with choice comes consequence and one cannot avoid what happens as a result of what one chooses.

In this day and age, we are overwhelmed with choices of what to do, what to wear, how to live, who to live with: we relish our freedom to choose and to change our minds when our choice does not have quite the outcome that we hope for. Indeed that freedom to choose is very much a mark of what it means to be truly human. Yet it is a freedom that we do abuse.

Each choice that we make really does affect others. Our little choices can affect the major life-changing choices of other people. If one person chooses to buy their coffee from Costa's, it could potentially be the loss of a sale that causes the closure of a branch of Starbucks with the resulting loss of jobs. For want of a nail... This sounds like a slippery-slope argument but slippery slope arguments are about future consequences; History is about examining the minute causes of large scale events.

Henry VIII did not change the doctrine of the first Seven Councils, though he did tamper with the Canons. This is no problem in Christianity because it is merely a question of governance, not of belief. If one takes the Canons of the Second Council of Nicaea at face value, every Bishop should know the Holy Scriptures by heart. Since then, the availability of printed Bibles and prayer-books have rendered that Canon obsolete, much to the relief of every episcopal heart. Note carefully, though: it is the law that has changed, NOT the doctrine of God. It was Cranmer and his Protestant influences under the juvenile king Edward VI who sought to change the doctrine of the newly established church. Cranmer is indeed a heretic in the real sense of the word but,  in my view at least, a most lovable heretic, and I do spare a thought for him on March 21st on the anniversary of his martyrdom. Despite his heretical beliefs, he did bring forth a prayer-book which now allows and tolerates Catholic teaching as well as Protestant.

This is the rub. In many of the choices that we face in our religion, we have the choice between what is orthodox and what is heretical. Our duty is always to choose the orthodox and thus choose to travel with God on His terms rather than ours. To choose God places a limit on what we can choose to do in our lives. We are bound to follow Christ with our cross - indeed the word "religion" has at its heart the notion of being bound and restricted. The "lig" is the same as the "lig" in ligature. This is something which the secular world cannot grasp, for the secular world seeks to make a choice out of every aspect of life and curses any attempt to restrict the freedom of choice.

In many ways, that is noble. Everyone should have the freedom to choose how to live and to paint their lives onto the canvass of Spacetime. This is the freedom with which God has created us and in which He rejoices. One must remember that the same God Who created the universe has a great interest in the lives of every sentient being and, being of an Infinite Majesty, can and does care about what each individual does. To deny this, is to deny the omnipotence of God.

Yet our choices need limitation in order that we can live with each other. We are limited beings who easily make false absolutes of our own wills. Whether we puff ourselves up with the grandiose conviction of our righteousness or constantly wallow in the abject abnegation of any good within ourselves, we still exhibit the sin of pride that our will and choice takes precedence over the judgment of God Who often convicts us of the contrary. Our hearts harden when our choice is restricted and we push back. Again, we see this in the Reformation as the pendulum swings between Catholic and Protestant, each side almost gleefully making martyrs of their heretics. Nonetheless, the cause of heresy is pride and its cure is the return to the Catholicism of the Seven Oecumenical Councils and to the humility of the hassock.

It is worth pointing out, though, that pride is a very prevalent sin and does not always manifest itself in heresy.

We see this now in the Church of England as it attempts to find some kind of order from the chaos of trying to ordain women as bishops. This is heresy in its technical sense - it certainly is not Catholic doctrine. Yet the Synod wrestles with trying to have its cake and eat it. This is the result of too much choice and of not allowing oneself to be bound by religion. The hardness of heart from the so-called inclusive majority is forcing out the orthodox minority. I honestly wonder if WATCH and FiF have ever actually sat down together to discuss this between themselves rather than use the Synod as their platform.Perhaps they have, but certainly no good has come of it. FiF will label WATCH "heretic" in a more pejorative sense, just as WATCH labels any dissent from the "priesthood" of women as "misogynist".

There will be lesser martyrs on both sides from the fallout of this synod. Treason is no longer punishable by death, but rather by ostracising, denouncing, excommunicating and demonising. The question is whether one is simply going with the flow, or standing against it. However, let us not be hard-hearted in our dealings by rejecting the heretic with the heresy, but rather exercise our charity in humility even in walking apart. Indeed, walking apart may be the most charitable way forward.

Vision on, vision off

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Trinity iv 2012 based on St Luke vi.36

Rolf Harris is painting a picture. It’s one of those large scale works on an orangey-ochre canvass upon which he daubs thick black paint. He’s putting patches here, flicking paint there and generally moving faster than an octopus after fifteen cups of coffee. You can bet your boots that when the picture is still practically unrecognisable, he’ll turn to the camera and utter the immortal phrase, “can you tell what it is yet?”

How would you feel if he just stopped there, the painting unfinished, and you with no clue as to what it is? Is it a hamster in a cage, a picture of Pope Innocent X, or some landscape from the Australian outback? Don’t you find that just infuriating? What can you do with an unfinished painting?

[PAUSE]

The infuriation comes because we’re not in a position to see fully. We can’t get into Rolf’s mind to “tell what it is” because he hasn’t finished communicating with us. His picture tells us something and until it’s finished, we’ve not got a clue.

Well, that’s not true. We’ve got some ideas. First of all, there doesn’t appear to be a recognisable figure at the moment. This makes it unlikely to be a portrait of Pope Innocent X. We can’t rule that out though. That bit there looks like a bit of fence, so it’s more likely to be a landscape of the Outback. So there are some things that we can say about this picture with confidence. We might not be certain, but we have a good idea.
[PAUSE]
Science works in much the same way. We collect data and information from measuring carefully. We make and test predictions and there is a lot that we can say about our world. However, there are limits to what our instruments tell us, so we cannot know things for certain. We can however, be confident that our theories are reasonable, give a clear picture of what we observe and produce results that we can predict some future events.
That’s how we live much of our lives - taking in what’s around us and making judgments on what we see. But what if there’s something wrong with your eyesight?
[PAUSE]
Losing your glasses can be a frightening affair. Things become vague and distorted. You get some impressions of the world around, but they are not accurate. Nonetheless, if you see what you think is going to be a ditch then you still try to avoid it where possible. Likewise, if you see someone heading for what you believe to be a ditch, you can still warn them to look out. What you may not be able to do is judge the size of the ditch accurately. Someone could conceivably come closer to that ditch than you are comfortable viewing.
If you are completely blind to the ditch, then you can say nothing. As Our Lord Jesus says, “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?”
Why then do we forget this principle in the way we live our lives?
[PAUSE]
If we see our worst enemy standing over the dead body of our best friend with a smoking pistol in his hand, what can we say? What would our witness statement to the police be? Well, obviously we can say nothing more than what we have seen, despite our feelings and emotions in the situation. We didn’t see the murder, but that’s assuming that it was a murder in the first place. We make too many assumptions based on what we’re feeling. Our view has been narrowed to what we believe to be one possible scenario. If we are honest, then we can only say what we see and no more. Our vision is not good enough to judge and we have to leave the judgment to one more competent than ourselves.
Our Lord Jesus tells us that we cannot make judgments until we appreciate the limits of what we can see. We need to be humble, looking at ourselves objectively and honestly so that we do not pass judgment on what is beyond our field of vision.
If we truly know that our vision is limited then we know that we have to trust someone to lead us in the right way. The idea of trusting another is not a popular idea – we prefer to rely on our own judgment.  Humility tells us that we can’t always rely on our judgment and that we must seek help from others who see things better. Going to Church becomes of great importance for help and encouragement along the way. We need to go to Church to feel our way through life in our blind spots, to help and to be helped.
[PAUSE]
Suffering, too, can narrow our vision too far for us to see God at work. In our times of extreme pain and suffering, all the more do we need to cry out for God for the ability to cope with our blindness.  Indeed, part of our pain is in not being able to see the end of the suffering or its purpose. It is easy to lose sight of God when we at our lowest ebb because his purposes are veiled from our sight and we lose heart. In looking to the cross of Christ and His suffering for us, we see another who lost the vision of God’s goodness and His promises. That doesn’t mean that suddenly they vanish, they have been eclipsed for a while.
[PAUSE]
As Christians, we have been given a vision of our life beyond, where all human suffering is suddenly given explanation, transformation and dignity in the Eternal presence of God. That vision is not perfect – we see only through a glass darkly - but we have a good idea of God’s Holy Word. How can we make sure that we clearly see what He is showing us?

St John the Baptist: Breathing the Orders of Prophecy

Today marks the Nativity of the Birth of St John the Baptist, the last great Old Testament Prophet who, ironically, features exclusively in the New!

It is also a time on which many Bishops ordain Deacons to the Sacred Priesthood. One such example is my good friend Fr Anthony Chadwick who celebrates the anniversary of his Priesting today. Here I  would like to publicly thank him not only for his ministry in France but also beyond to the wider world, and for his kind words and prayers for me.
The Church has often spoken of her Prophetic and Priestly ministries: she has Priests who offer the prayers of the people to God, and she has Prophets who speak the word of God to the people. Pope John Paul II spoke of the "two Lungs of the Church" being the Orthodox and Roman Churches. I'm not quite sure whether I agree with that statement entirely - I would need to think a little more on it - but I would certainly see the Prophetic and Priestly ministries as being the visible breathing of the Church. The Church breathes in the Holy Ghost in the Priestly ministry and breathes out the Holy Ghost in the Prophetic. I wonder then whether the two lungs of the Church are Holy Scripture and Tradition which operate with the diaphragm of Right Reason!

Now these Offices are part of the whole Catholic Church and thus every Christian participates in both the priestly and prophetic. In some sense, all Christians without exception have a priestly ministry of offering prayers to God every day and participating in the life of the Church through Sacrament and Fellowship - koinonia. There can be no exceptions for this because each Christian is to love both God and neighbour and to intercede for all Christians. In the Traditional St Augustine Prayerbook, there is a lovely litany for the Night in which a Christian may exercise a form of the priestly office by praying on behalf of those who have said no prayers and even to offer praise for those who have blasphemed or ignored God. We have the assurance that God hears the prayers of His Church and He will answer those prayers insofar as the free-will of man will allow.

But there is the Prophetic office too. How is a Christian to participate in this ministry? It is the duty of every Christian to discover the Will of God, to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and having made that discovery to share it somehow. This does mean speaking out. It means speaking out for justice, for mercy, for truth and for charity. It means speaking out for those who have no voice. Too often the Church is perceived as speaking out against something as if it sees every development as being negative or evil. This is not always the case and people very often mishear, though perhaps Christians have not been very good at proclaiming what they are for.

The trouble is that the zeal for our house does not consume us in the same way that it consumes Our Saviour when He throws the money changers out of the temple. It is often because that zeal is not Catholic, it is not for everyone but seeks to exclude. As I said in another blog post, the Church is for everyone, because God is for everyone. Yet, our zeal has the habit of promoting a god who is not necessarily the God in Whom we believe. Our bickering often reflects a lack of belief in an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent God and the times that this has been demonstrated in the past is horrifying.

There are times when I sympathise with the late Christopher Hitchens when I hear of Christians being thoroughly beastly to each other and to the outside world. The god in whom he doesn't believe is a god in whom I do not believe, either, to paraphrase Dr Alister McGrath! I saw on Facebook a post from the Vatican explaining the decision by Dr Williams to step down from being the Archbishop of Canterbury. The first comment on that post was the single word "Heretics!"  However, I must also confess readily and to my shame that I have not been the best representative for God - in fact I often wonder whether I've done more harm than good! I am truly thankful for Romans viii.28!

However, we should remember that the Hebrews find the Ten Commandments as truly positive Laws which promote true love, peace, equality and generosity. We must ensure that our Prophetic message is truly positive and seeks to build up individuals and societies, to preach peace rather than hatred, to offer the hand of friendship rather than to denounce, and to seek to embrace rather than to push away even when we are faced with something that is truly abhorrent. Christ throws the money-changers so that people can enter the Temple to worship God. His zeal brings light to those whose lives had been darkened by the detritus of sin which He casts out. We are often called to be Christ in the darkness of the world, whether or not we are ordained. Our zeal needs to be Holy, positive and fully grounded in the Love of God if it is to be seen as true Prophecy.

Of course, the Prophetic ministry is not always popular and many prophets (St John the Baptist included) have suffered for it. This still happens and is certainly happening within Continuing Anglicanism, though this seldom ends in summary execution. It seems that many in society want the lungs of the  Church to breathe the wrong way - to breathe in the spirit of the world and then breathe it out in the face of God, like cigarette smoke! Many faithful priests have been left high-and-dry on account of their prophecy and have been hurt because they have dared to stand against a flow which they see as being contrary to the will of God. How do they know? Because they have used their connection to the lungs of the Church, Scripture and Tradition. True Prophecy requires education of the conscience, participation in the Church, and zeal to accept the consequences of receiving the Prophecy.

It is at this point that I must now announce the fact that the Anglican Catholic Church has discerned within me a vocation to Holy Orders and that Bishop Damien Mead will (subject to the Divine will) ordain me Deacon on Michaelmas Day (29th September) this year. I am deeply honoured and humbled to be receiving this ministry and look forward to seeing where God is leading me in His Service in His Church which I love. From what I have written above, I hope that I have demonstrated why I feel very unworthy of such a calling. I expect to work hard for Christ and to be beaten regularly by Sin, the World and the Devil, but I know I have the support and love of Holy Church. I pray that God would give me the ability truly to extend that support and love to those to whom I am sent.

Neither Male nor Female: A study in foolishness

Let's start here.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

What do you make of this?

It's verse 28 from the third chapter of St Paul's letter to the Galatians. What does it say to you?

We have three mutual antitheses, Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female, which "are all one in Christ Jesus". Now, what can this "one" be? Does this mean that these antitheses become completely identified in Our Lord Jesus? Is that the same thing as unification? Well, one thing we do know about Our Lord is that He is Himself the union of two antitheses - the Divine and Human natures. Now these natures are one in Christ, but completely different. They remain antitheses, but are completely united. Thus we can understand that being one in Christ does not mean complete identification. Antitheses remain antitheses - they are not made identical or interchangeable by unification.
Now, let us pull back a little bit, because this verse does exist in context.

Chapter three begins with "O foolish Galatians". The Galatians have been bewitched by the Judaizers into believing that obeying the old Jewish Law is the root to Heaven, not by being united in Christ, that in order to be saved it is necessary to be Jewish. The Galatians are being taught by the first heretics that belief in Christ does not include the idea that He is the fulfilment of the law, thus diminishing the significance of the Cross. Indeed, as St Paul tells us in this chapter, if one holds to the Law, then one cannot believe in Christ as the Son of God. Under the Law, Jesus is a cursed criminal, executed upon a cross. Salvation comes through Christ, not through membership of a privileged community based on the Law of the Old Testament. On the contrary, adherence to Jesus as Christ creates a community of those who are redeemed through His blood and who are working out their Salvation with fear and trembling. It is adherence to Christ as King that defines Christianity, not the Jewish Law.

However, being Jewish does not rule out Salvation, but neither does being a Greek, or more properly, Gentiles. Likewise, a slave being subordinate to a master does not lose the potential for Salvation on the grounds of being a slave, similarly, being a master does not rule one out for salvation. There is a caveat to this latter, since St Paul then goes onto say how masters are to treat their slaves that subservience to Christ rules out slavery in favour of mutual service. Finally, the separate rules for men and women do not stop either sex from being part of Christ's community.

Notice that there is no "confusion of the substances" here. Greeks in Christ remain Greeks, Slaves in Christ remain Slaves, Women in Christ remain Women. This is about Salvation - who can be members of Christ's body. There is nothing here, in this third chapter, that says anything about how the Body of Christ is to be arranged. This chapter cannot be used to justify interchangeability of clearly defined entities. God does and has discriminated, though not to set up one group as being any better than another - just different. Slavery in the large has passed away because of the teaching of Christ about the value of individuals, and where slavery still exists, it is regarded by the majority as an evil.

Galatians iii.28 is constantly being trotted out to defend the notions of homosexual marriage or women's "ordination". We can see that the verse has absolutely no significance with regard to these issues. Those who believe it has, are reading into these verses that which is not there and eisegesis is not a good way to understand what a Scripture actually says. One must take context into account and too often the verse is taken out of that context.

Why not read all of the letter to the Galatians so you can see the overarching context for yourselves? That way we can stop ourselves from falling into the same foolishness.

Broken bones and broken hearts

The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken , and that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.
St John xix.31-37

Why is it so important to us that Our Lord's bones weren't broken? We have the prophecies of the Old Testament: Psalm xxxiv.20 tells us, "He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken" and  from Zechariah xii.10

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced , and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."

Thia might seem like a good prophecy about Our Lord's heart being pierced, but wait! What about:

"Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice ." (Psalm li.8)

or

"Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away : first the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones ." (Jeremiah l.4)

or

"My flesh and my skin hath he made old ; he hath broken my bones." Lamentations iii.4.

Why don't these work as prophecy for Christ's suffering? Is the Bible covering both bases. If they had broken Jesus' legs would these verses be trotted out as Biblical "proof"?

What is very interesting is that the broken bones all refer to the consequences of sin and the concomitant punishment. David was punished for his adultery and his repentance is summed up in Psalm li. In Jeremiah, Israel is punished by her apostasy and her bones are broken by the Babylonians.

What is more interesting is the passage from Lamentations. For the majority of the book, the "I" refers to Israel toiling and labouring in the exile and yet we read of more Biblical prophecies of Christ's sufferings, "Is it nothing to you...?", "the wormwood and gall". Again, the bones are broken as the result of Israel's transgressions. The breaking of bones is the punishment of the guilty.

Now if we look at the suffering of Our Lord, perhaps we begin to see the significance of what He has done for us. His bones are not broken because He has no sin, yet it is his desire to identify himself with transgressors. This points to a deep fact about the atonement: God does not punish Jesus instead of us; Jesus takes the inevitable punishment of our sins upon Himself willingly. As we watch the jeering of the crowd around the cross, we see folk so infected with sin that they don't know what's they are doing! No wonder our rebuke breaks His heart. In fact, it does so literally with the point of a spear.

Further, we may also see the bones as being a type of the Covenant which we have with God. Human beings continually break the Covenant and suffer as a result of it in the same way that we suffer when we break bones. The only human being who does battle with the Devil and survives without breaking bones is Christ. It is the soft flesh of His heart that is broken in His compassion for us.

It is through this wound that we enter into Christ Himself. What a price!

Catholicism: Not a church for anyone

I do honestly puzzle over the meaning of a certain thesis-antithesis pairing which seems to affect the Church these days. What does it really mean for a church to be inclusive? For that matter what does it mean for a church to be exclusive? Why is inclusivity good? Why is exclusivity bad?

Many of us have suffered from being involuntarily excluded from an event which we would dearly loved to have enjoyed. Some people find themselves excluded from society because of reasons of accident, and our Lord Jesus did indeed reach out to those whom Society excludes. How many times do we hear in Holy Scripture of the need to care for the Orphan, the Widow and the Stranger, the Deaf, the Blind and the Lame, the Leper, the Poor and the Unclean. Notice how these have all been excluded passively. Their exclusion is the result of something happening to them.

There are others who have been excluded too whose exclusion does involve a choice that they have made, for example the Prostitute and the Tax Collector. Notice how, as Christ includes them, they find reasons not to be what they once were.

Thus, inclusion into the Church necessarily is a life changing aspect. For many their circumstantial needs are met and their dis-eases attended. For others, there is a discovery of self-worth and a realisation that their lives can be made better by being included into the Church of Christ.

Yet this is quite a pivotal idea. Inclusion into the Body of Christ requires the desire to be transformed, and that transformation is not something we control. Inclusion into the Church of Christ means that we have to give up the full control of our lives. While this may mean the end of the pain of our previous existence, it also means an end to that within us which causes that pain to recur. Inclusion in the Church of Christ is solely on His terms, not on ours.

The Church is certainly inclusive but it is also exclusive. Simply speaking, it excludes all those who don't want to be included.

Can we be this simple though?

The problem lies in this word "Catholic". There is a tension in how people interpret it. Literally it means "according to the whole". People interpret it as "universal" and again there is an equivocation. Does Catholic mean "for everyone" or does it mean "for anyone"?

There's a big difference: "for everyone" implies the general, "for anyone" implies the particular.
"For everyone" demonstrates a general principle applicable to the whole as a whole. "For anyone" demonstrates a general applicable to the whole as a particular. The statement "ice creams for everyone" (i.e. "everyone can have an ice cream") is different in meaning from"ice creams for anyone" (i.e. "anyone can have an ice cream").  The first implies that each and every person actually gets an ice cream, the second still has the possibility that individuals have the ability to refuse.

The Catholic Church is not for anyone. It's for everyone!

A Church that is for anyone is a Church that caters for the desires of particular individuals. This initially sounds fine, after all God cares for the individual, and the Church must follow her Lord, but what if the individual does not want to follow the Lord, at least not in the way the He desires? If the Church is for anyone, then the dissenting individual is not only welcome but needs to be catered for. We then have a Church in which those who do not wish to be transformed are allowed not to be transformed. This is a clear contradiction to what the Lord Jesus wanted. As we demonstrated above, membership of the Church entails a desire to be transformed according to the will of the One who Created. If Sin is indeed the mortal sickness of humanity leading to Eternal Death and the Church the Hospital, how can the infection be controlled if the Hospital is not kept as clean as possible. The infection is common to us all and we all suffer from the effects of Sin. We cannot therefore include those who not only refuse to be healed but also desire to keep the infection alive.

An Inclusive Church is therefore for everyone and, by "everyone", we mean all the Faithful, the Living and the Dead - after all, Death is no barrier to those who believe he Church to be the vehicle to Eternal Life. This relationship seeks true unity with Christ and with others all together, not the acceptance of ways of life which do not seek the transforming power of Christ.

If that's what makes the Catholic Church exclusive, well then, it is exclusive, but that does not mean that it is not for everyone!

The Skeleton of Conservatism, Fleshly Liberality and Procrustean Polemics

Well, as the exam season has its hiatus, I have the opportunity to blog again. When I have moved on from being in charge of exam administration, I'll be able to concentrate more on writing for this blogling and elsewhere, I hope.

It's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. For me, all things Monarchist have somewhat lost their appeal since my move from the CofE. While I regard Her Majesty very much as my Governor and one deserving of my loyalty, I am no longer part of the state religion and rather find myself on the fringes looking in at the pageantry of which I once had some ownership.

I will be honest and say that I miss singing in cathedral choirs. Having heard Walmisley in D Minor and Wood in the "Fridge" recently, my memories have gone back to when I had a decent voice and a choir in which I could sing. However, my conservative beliefs have thrust me from places of great spires and vast organs into small chapels and upper rooms. One might say this is my own fault. Indeed it is my choice, but one that I should have made much earlier, despite the pain of not being able to sing again that wonderful Amen in Balfour-Gardiner's Evening Hymn.

I am very much a conservative in the real sense of the word. Mathematicians and Physicists speak of conserved quantities such as energy and momentum and use them to simplify what can be particularly nasty equations. Holy Tradition runs through the Body of Christ as its skeleton which has joints where it can bend and bones where it cannot. The trouble is that bones are hard, and when one hits bone, it hurts!

When I was fighting my battles all too Quixotically in the CofE, people accused me of seeing things only in black and white and not the shades of grey. Perhaps they were right so to upbraid me for those times when I overstated my case, but not all areas are shades of grey: some areas are black and white! Of course, in the CofE there were no such areas of black and white. I still do not understand how it is possible for a Christian priest to deny the existence of God or of the Virgin Birth, or to subscribe to the Creeds without believing them. Conservatism provides a framework which, though not immovable, supports a rigid structure and gives shape to our faith and our relationship with God.

There is, however, a rather worrying trend among conservatives now to use that rigid structure as a club with which to beat dissenters. I seem to get a picture of the bone-wielding apes at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey when I see some of the polemics that seem to abound on the internet. I notice that several of my online friends and contemporaries have ceased blogging because of all the negativity that is being expressed about the varying states of Anglicanism. There are shrill voices smashing some folk with "Extra ecclesia nulla salus", others with the XXXIX articles, others with Montanistic mantras, and still others with what amounts to a "be one of us or go to Hell" mentality though not always specifically defined. Perhaps this is what the com-boxes attract.

I have said many a time that the Church has only ever been given the keys to the kingdom of Heaven, not the keys to Hell. One of the Angels has these in the Book of Revelation and the implication is clear that judgment is only carried out by the Divine when judging individuals. I have also been lucky in that this little blogling does not have the readership of others, nor does it possess the intellectual kudos or scholarly learning of my contemporaneous blogs. I have thus fallen under the RADAR of some of the most spirited polemicists whose desire, it seems, is to foist their brand of Catholicism on others.

Once can understand to some extent whence they come. Many are like me, refugees from a body which has given up orthodoxy in order to pursue and synchrete modern secular standards. I have been most fortunate to find myself a place where I can not only grow, but really do feel myself growing. Others do the same. However, the fragmentation of the Orthodox into separate and rather disharmonic bodies, means that, in order to convince themselves that they have made the right decision in their move, some folk take up the trumpet and produce shrill discordant notes which drive more folk away than encourage others to join. The need to justify the move means that some go from the apologetic to the polemic and to the effective demonisation of the place they left. It is, however, tempting to do that and perhaps I am guilty of such behaviour too.

I maintain my stance that the Ordinariate is a marvellous place to be if one is happy to cease being Anglican but retain something of the substance of what Anglicanism possesses. I do, however, not believe that the Roman Catholic Church is THE One True Church in its entirety. Only God can say what the One True Church is; only God can say who are truly priests; only God saves, though Salvation is indeed integral to the Church. There is no point, then for the Ordinariate bound, to attack Continuing Anglicans for not being true Catholics when they should realise that true Catholicism is the driving principle of the Continuum. Nor should they attack Continuing Anglicans for their "alphabet soup" existence, especially in the light of recent interdenominational ecumenism. The Ordinariate is younger than Continuing Anglicanism and its future not known, though I pray for its flourishing just as I pray for the flourishing of the Anglican Continuum, especially my own beloved diocese.

Yet likewise, Continuing Anglicanism should not be attacking the Ordinariate-bound who have managed to find some integrity with which they can live, considering that they too have had to sacrifice much in order to pursue Orthodoxy. There is much that those who dissent from the secularism of the CofE have in common, and it seems strange that such polemics exist. These polemics are still the vestiges of the battle lines between Anglo-Catholics, Prayerbook Catholics and Anglican Papalists. Yet, how on earth does one win souls by polemic? One doesn't. Polemics ultimately attempt to force the Body of Christ onto the bed of Procrustes, taking pleasure in lopping off the bits which don't fit.
There really needs to be a liberality between all folk who call themselves Anglican. So far we have sniping, trolling, litigation and expulsion as being the major participles resulting from the interactions between Anglicans.  I no longer have to fight my corner with the CofE. Having left them to ordain whomsoever they please and use whatever liturgies they choose with their concomitant theologies which are not always compatible, I find myself thinking more about housekeeping and evangelising.

Good housekeeping is essential if one is preparing to invite others to come in. Fortunately, the Benedictine rule does flesh out this practice with its wonderful tightrope walking between extremes. How Aristotle would have loved St Benedict! Only in St Benedict can we find living in tension made practicable; corporate prayer is built in with private prayer, heads have to be in the clouds and down-to-earth, everyone is to be regarded as superior and yet there is one Superior.

If one truly wants to be conservative, then one must guard against atrophy and look for the soft, yielding flesh which covers the bone. If one regards oneself as liberal, then one must guard oneself against becoming amorphous and seek rigidity which gives the Body of Christ its distinctive shape. The Christian has to learn to live in tension with the two. Surely, this is easy since we live our human existence being precisely the union of soft flesh and hard bone every day of our lives. Since Christ shares our human nature, we need to look to him to show us how His Body works for the good of all Humanity. If Christ rejoices in our Humanity, then so should we. That doesn't mean chopping ourselves to bits in the process.

One Human Being in a Multiplicity of Persons

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis for Trinity Sunday 2012.
Text:  Apocalypse iv.

Why is the liturgical colour
               for Trinity Sunday not Rose,
                        or at least a sort of light reddish-pink?

We only see Rose vestments
           twice a year in Advent and Lent.

Why not Trinity Sunday as well?

After all,
       we remember God the Creator
                in the weeks before Lent,
                       that’s violet.

We remember God the Saviour
          at Easter and that’s white,
               and last week
                     we remembered God the Sanctifier
                               in the Red of Whitsun.

 Violet, White and Red together
            make an interesting Reddish,
                       Rosy Pink.
Seems quite reasonable, doesn’t it?
Let’s be clear: today is Trinity Sunday.

We may think about God,
             Creator,
             Saviour
             and Sanctifier,
                       but what we have not heard used
                             is the phrase:
                                 Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

That’s important.

It’s very important,
         and it’s something we human beings
                  can and do miss
                          if we are not careful.

So what’s the problem?

[PAUSE]

You’ve in the process
              of meeting a new friend
                   and you’ve just uttered the first question
                             “Hello! How are you?”

 Your new friend
              has just told you her name is Elizabeth
                      and that she’s very well.

What’s your next question?

Well, chances are, you’ll say,
              “and what do you do?”

 It’s very natural and quite reasonable.

No-one is going to take any offence
                 at that question, are they?

But why do we go straight
                to asking what someone does?

What answer would you expect?
         “I’m a lawyer,”
          “I’m a doctor,”
           “I test the taste of cakes for Mr Kipling.”

It’s a rather good question to ask,
          “what do you do?”
                 because it opens up a conversation very nicely
                         without probing into anything
                                unnecessarily deep too soon.

However, as the days,
             weeks and months move on,
                        you begin to know Elizabeth better than that.

She doesn’t just test cakes for Mr Kipling;
            she paints portraits in oils;
                      she jogs 3 miles a day to stop getting too podgy
                                 from tasting all those cakes;
                                     she loves watching Desperate Housewives
                                              but can’t ever watch Watership Down.

You learn more about her history,
          her philosophy of life and how she sees herself.

And so you’ve made a new friend for life.
In order to know Elizabeth better,
          we have to go beyond what she does.

As the rather over-used phrase says,
            Elizabeth is a Human Being,
                        not a Human Doing.

Do we treat God in exactly the same way?
Do we ever try to focus on Who He is?

[PAUSE]
God is our Creator, yes
         but that doesn’t pin him down
                   – He’s more than a Creator.

God is our Saviour,
     but that is only one (albeit vital) aspect
              of His interaction with us
                   and says too little of His character.

God is our Sanctifier,
           but that tells us nothing about Who He is,
                    save that His Presence makes things Holy.

He is God.

Indeed,
   to describe God just by what He does
              means we never get beyond finding out
                    Who He is.

Many Christians these days make a big mistake
             of not Baptising people correctly.

Our Lord Jesus commanded us
         to baptise in the Name
                  of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
                          not in the Name of
            the Creator, Saviour and Sanctifier
                    as some Christians do.

How does this give any depth
            to the new Christian’s initiation
                         into the family of God? 

If this is a family,
       then we’re beyond talk of what people do.

We don’t call Dad,
       Mr Machinery Operative at Balfour Beatty,
              or Mum,
                     Mrs Part-time Lecturer at the local Sixth-form College.

 We call them Mum and Dad,
                because that is what they are.

Our relationship with Mum and Dad
          is not about what they do,
                    though they do do an awful lot for us,
                         but it’s a relationship of being not of doing.

So it is with our Christian Family,
             we have a relationship of being with God,
                  and the Lord Jesus reminds us that
                        He knows us more intimately
                                than we can even ever know ourselves.

It is God who searches us out and knows us.

He knows our down-sitting
            and up-rising and discerns our thoughts long before.

Not only does God know us,
            but He wants to be known by us
                    and he promises us that one day,
                              we shall indeed see Him as He is.

Actually, He promises us more than that.

[PAUSE]

St John reminds us that seeing God as He really is
           has a profound consequence for us:

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.

We shall be like Him?

He is One God in Three Persons,
      Blessed Trinity.

How can we,
         little single persons,
                all individual, be like that?

[PAUSE]

If we look hard,
       we begin, perhaps,
              to see why Lord Jesus gave us
                     the second commandment,
                            to love our neighbours as ourselves.

  He tells us first of loving God
          with all that we are
             and all the faculties we possess
                  and then goes on to show that the same love
                        must be lavished upon those who are around us.

Both commandments are about relationships
      and forging those relationships.

In so doing we become like God,
     that is to say “one human being
          in a multiplicity of persons”.

How do you feel about that?

Does it make you a little uneasy?

Do you really want to be one
     with every human being who ever lived?

Aren’t there some human beings
       who do some horrible things out there?

God is always showing us
     how much He loves humanity
            no matter what.

He created us to be like Him
          despite our tendency to sin.

 While we are on this Earth,
      we are to walk with Him
           and with our brothers and sisters.

In this we find out more about who we really are.

In the Mass,
          we find that relationship with God
                    and others at its very deepest.

It is our destiny to be perfected,
          our sins destroyed,
          our brokenness healed,
          our weaknesses strengthened,
          our souls nourished.

We will never understand the depths of our own being,
    let alone God’s,
           but trying to understand
               and meditating on the Holy Trinity brings about
                    a deeper relationship with Him.

[PAUSE]

God is love and love makes us one.

In being one, we do not lose our individuality,
       but rather it is perfected
              by being in communion with God and others.

How much more do we need to love others
     in order to become more human?