Recognising the Angels.

Sermon preached at St Augustine's Church Canterbury on the occasion of their Patronal Festival 26th May 2012 based on I Thessalonians ii.8
Ebbsfleet station is not a place that one would normally associate with Saints. It sits in a rather remote area amid the urban sprawl of North West Kent, boasting a 17 minute trip to London and a 37 minute trip to Canterbury West. Buses shuttle the traveller into Gravesend or to Bluewater shopping centre. It all looks very modern, very stylish, very clean… and very soulless. It’s not the sort of place where you could imagine a rather nervous, saintly monk and equally twitchy entourage getting off the High Speed Rail Link from Paris onto the wind-swept, grey platform clutching a papal mandate to evangelise the Angels of the British Isles. Indeed, is there anything angelic about Ebbsfleet?

[PAUSE]

Of course, St Augustine’s Ebbsfleet is nearer Ramsgate than it is London, though history might be very different if he had been able to use the Eurostar. It would also have been very different if there had been the wrong kind of leaf on the line. The mission to the Angels of Angleland would be stranded at Paris Gare de Nord.

Yet, strictly speaking, it is St Augustine who becomes the Angel, after all, the Greek word Angellos means “Messenger” and what a message Augustine brings. This is a great irony about Augustine’s mission: he is an Angel to the Anglish Angels! There are more angles here than a icosidodecagon!
Of course, the area we now know as England was already Christian long before St Gregory saw the Angelic Angles in Rome. There were English Bishops at the Council of Arles nearly 200 years before Augustine and the famous heretic Pelagius was a priest here on these shores. It is the constant raiding and looting by the pagan Vikings and Arian Germans throughout the Roman Empire that have rather put paid to the integrity of Christianity in this country by the sixth century.  Christians have to live in isolated pockets in the West of the country or move to Wales or to Ireland.

Imagine that! Being part of a Church so ravaged by secular and pagan cultures that you’re reduced to worshipping in disparate parishes all around the country!

[PAUSE]

It does sound familiar doesn’t it?  Our Orthodox English Christianity that has existed from the beginning and which Augustine’s ministry re-invigorated, is now back to where it was, reduced to pockets here and there.

But let’s just hold on here! Is this really where we see ourselves fitting in? Do we really regard ourselves as the remnants of English Orthodoxy and thus sit back and wait for a new Augustine to arrive and reinvigorate us?

It’s tempting to think that way and to make parallels which don’t quite fit. Let’s just review things here. While we are growing, our size does make it difficult to thrive, this is true. However, this really does not mean to say we’re on our last legs unlike the ravaged Christianity of the 6th Century. What we do have is a robust structure already in place; we are just as established as the Church that Pope Gregory intended to found through St Augustine. The evidence for this exists in that we have an Archbishop who visits us and encourages us, that we have brethren all over the world in growing numbers and that we have members here who do commit themselves deeply to the Gospel.

It is clear that we shouldn’t see ourselves as needing the ministry of a new St Augustine: we are already called to emulate our Holy Founder in whose name this parish is dedicated for the greater glory of God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is we who are called to minister to the spiritual needs of this country.  So what do we do? How do we express this calling? With St Paul, we have to be desirous of not only trying to impart our Gospel but our very selves to those to whom God has called us as ministers.

[PAUSE]
What was St Augustine called to do but to bring the good news to Pope Gregory’s Angels? In those Anglish slaves in the Roman market place, Pope Gregory recognises the Angels who need to hear the word of God. Likewise, there are Anglish angels in our midst who are slaves to the tyranny of this world and its secular values. There are folk around us who want to be free from servitude to a global and spiritual power which is determined to take away their humanity and replace it with some material worth through the lure of material things. We have to be honest, we are affected ourselves by this erosion of our faith by the secular. It is only because we meet together and are committed to Christ and to our Diocese that we are able to fend off the secular. We might be as fragile as St Augustine and his little band who stand on these shores with us albeit separated by the centuries, but all things are fragile compared with the might and the love of the God whom we preach.
The trouble is that very often we tend not to recognise people of Britain as being particularly angelic.  Can we honestly say  we know what Angels really look like? We might be forgiven for the confusion, after all, we only ever attribute the angelic look with some particular style of Gothic and Renaissance Art. Think of all those paintings of winged beings with classically beautiful features, long golden hair, large, liquid, languid eyes, wings that look beautiful but wouldn’t hold up an emaciated budgie and lustrous full lips which are usually employed in the playing of cornett, shawm or slide trumpet. Now think of the folk huddled on the windswept platform at Ebbsfleet, or the empty-eyed shoppers in the supermarket, or those aimless individuals pouring out of the pubs and clubs. Where are Pope Gregory’s angels for us to give the good news?

[PAUSE]

The fact is, Biblically speaking, angels are not readily recognised except through the eyes of faith. Even then, as in the case of St Raphael and his dealings with Tobias and Tobit, it is only when they reveal themselves or God reveals them to us. It is our job to maintain our prayers to God in our own personal life, not just in our corporate worship, for eyes to see Gregory’s Angels around us and for ears to hear the voice of their calling. It is our job to meet with Our Lord and to listen for His mandate which will bring us near those desperate to hear the Good News. They won’t necessarily hear it by what we say, but rather by what we do. The closer we are to God, the more he will reveal us to be the Angels for those who need the Love of God in their lives.

So who are the angels really? Is it those to whom we have been sent? Or is it we ourselves? Do you know?

Congratulations to a new Bishop

It is with much happiness that I've learned of an old friend's consecration as Bishop. The gentleman I first met on the old Anglo-Catholic Central message board as Fr Jerome Lloyd was consecrated Bishop in the Old Roman Catholic Church, Latin Rite in Canada yesterday. Bishop Lloyd has been a much welcome presence as a representative of Old Catholic views on the Anglican Diaspora and was very much a help during my sojourn in the wilderness of the CofE.

Please join me in praying for his work.

Gifts that will change your life.

My first sermon within the Anglican Catholic Church. It's been a long time since I have posted something under "Sermons" rather than "Homilies". I look forward to publishing more.

Text: St John xvi.5-15
Is there something special that you’d like for your next birthday? Is it something particular that you’ve been dropping hints to your family that you might like? A nice chocolate cake? A new mobile phone? A DVD of All Gas and Gaiters? No? Perhaps you’d looking for a new car, a 48” plasma television, a mansion in the Dales, or perhaps, perhaps you’d like a little peace and quiet… on a luxury cruise to the Algarve? Your family are more likely to be thinking along the lines of the first set of presents, aren’t they?

[PAUSE]
Suppose, however,  on your next birthday, there’s a knock at the door. It’s Geraldine the post lady and she’s got a package for you. After thanking her, you take your parcel into your house and read the label. “Happy Birthday,” it says, “This gift is going to change your life!”
This gift is going to change your life. How do you feel about that? You might think, “How on earth did they manage to pack my mansion in the Dales into that box?” Would you be a little afraid though? This gift is going to change your life. What might it be?
[PAUSE]
Surely, your main concern is going to be just how this gift is going to change your life. It’s okay if it changes it by making life a bit easier – a vacuum cleaner that sucks up the dirt rather than blow it all over the carpet – but what if it’s a gift that is going to play around with your very personality. What if it’s a gift that is going to change who you are? Does it worry you that you might not be the same person that you are now just by opening this present?

[PAUSE]
If you think way back to Septugesima Sunday, the third Sunday before Lent, we read the first chapters of Genesis and in them we read of the Creation of the world by God.  In all of these, we focus on what the Lord God does for us and the gifts that he gives us. In the beginning, we are given the gifts of existence, form, personality, reason and emotion and all the other aspects that make us who we really are. Everything comes from God the Father who forms the Source of all things. God looks at all He has created and it is very good. You cannot get a more life-changing gift than the gift of Life itself!

In little over three months, we have celebrated together two of the great festivals in the Church’s year. The celebration of the Lord’s Birth and the Holy Triduum of Easter. On both feasts we reflect on the gifts that God gives us. We are always encouraged to see this as God the Son giving us His gift.  And what is this gift? Nothing less than His very self. His life, death and resurrection have given us the gifts of health and salvation to return us to the fullness of the life that we lose because of our wrong  and sinful choices. Again, this is a profoundly life-changing gift. This gift of Christ’s new life is what we Christians call Grace.

Now, after His Resurrection, Our Lord Jesus is pointing us to a new gift from Heaven, another gift that will profoundly alter who we are. How will this gift change our lives?

[PAUSE]

“And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”
Would you open a gift if it was going to reprove you of sin, righteousness and judgment?
Well, of course you would! You’re here in Church which means you are well aware of the worth of being shown sin and righteousness and judgement. We are in no different a situation from that of the disciples who, although they may not fully understand what’s going on, still want to open a gift that is going to make them aware of their sin, of the righteousness of Our Lord Jesus and their judgment at His hands.
The same is true for us. We are here to worship our God for the gifts He has given us. All things come from Him and of His own do we give Him. The Holy Ghost gives us the gift of sight, the ability to see God’s gifts for ourselves in our lives.
He convinces us of our sin. This is painful but, in recognising our sin, we become aware of our need for God. He convinces us of Our Lord’s righteousness, that His death and resurrection are absolutely adequate for removing that Sin. Finally the Holy Ghost convinces us of the return of Our Lord Jesus as our Judge, the One who will know how to stamp out injustice completely and rectify every evil committed.
[PAUSE]
However, the gift still needs to be received. In the midst of our busy lives and with all the cares of the world that are forced upon our attention, it is important that we continue to turn back to this gift anew. With Whitsun around the corner, we have to make the decision again this year. Do we really want our lives changed? Do we really want to be aware of how we stand with God? Do we really want to receive this gift that the Lord Jesus will send us after He ascends into Heaven? Well, do we?

The Apocryphal Destiny of Man

God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it. But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery, And their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace. For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality. And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself. As gold in the furnace hath he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering. And in the time of their visitation they shall shine, and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble. They shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people, and their Lord shall reign for ever. They that put their trust in him shall understand the truth: and such as be faithful in love shall abide with him: for grace and mercy is to his saints, and he hath care for his elect.

Wisdom ii.23-iii.9

Among Anglicans, the Apocrypha receives mixed appreciation. Some will give it more weight than others. Officially, the Apocrypha adds no extra doctrine to the Church, but it does enhance the doctrine that can be found in the rest of Holy Writ. This passage from the Wisdom of Solomon is a wonderful example of that enhancement and just shows how the Old Testament gets bound to the New. St Paul himself probably reflects on these very words when he speaks of the destiny of mankind in his letters.

One of the dividing issues in Christianity is the idea of predestination. I cannot go with the Calvinistic interpretation of "once saved always saved" which doesn't really seem to mean anything until the death of the individual. Our Salvation is both corporate and individual; individual because our own humanity matters to God with its free-will; corporate because we are saved in unity with Christ in the Church. Human beings are destined to follow the same, almost paradoxical, quality of the Godhead. Oliver Clement describes the Church as one human being in the multiplicity of persons to mirror one God in a Trinity of Persons. An individual is saved because the Church is saved and the Church is saved because an individual is saved. Human being is a mystery in itself, even if we try to probe that mystery with neuroscience, anthropology and sociology.

It seems to be Man's quest to find himself and understand himself fully, and it is this very question that taxes his imagination. Can Man understand the reason why he wants to understand himself? Can he expect to find the answer to that within himself? Is the answer to that to be found within the individual, in a representative sample, or within mankind as a whole? The quest for self understanding is an ouroboros like the snake eating its own tail. It is self-consuming if all it does is perform an overinvasive introspection, and if something consumes itself, can we honestly describe that as a healthy state of affairs?

In this passage from Wisdom, we are also pointed towards a purgatory of a much more beautiful nature than as a place of punishment. To see Purgatory as a place of punishment is to view Salvation far too legally - in fact, that idea points more towards a stimulus-response relationship. The word Salvation has its roots more in the idea of health, rather than law. It is true to say with St Cyprian of Carthage that extra ecclesiam nullus salus since being part of the Church is a return to health. This is Purgatory, a return to full health in God.

The Church is very visible, but that is not to say that it is entirely visible for the same reason that the whole human nature is not visible. Those whom the Lord saves are part of the Church, thus St Cyprian's statement is more of a tautology if viewed legally. If viewed from the point of view of health, then one perhaps understand St Cyprian's aphorism as a call to find that very renewal within the broken society which the Church seems to comprise.

But we need to see the Church as an entirety. Those who have died are as much a part of the Church as those who are alive now precisely because the Church comprises of the people destined for perfection. The Church really does have a democracy of the dead because, although they seem to have died, her members are still extant and vital. The one who forgets this is the one who cuts himself off from the fulness of the Church and lives a half-life as a thin film between the past and the present whose existences he denies to be full.

To the one who has no concept of eternity, the sufferings of the Church and her members indeed look like punishments - arbitrary enforcements of a law as penal code. The route to the full health of a human being is the way of perfection and, considering that the Devil entices us to fight against that perfection, to take the easy route out and to regard our health as restrictive, unkind, intolerant and contrary to the happiness of the individual, we can see why the way of perfection is hard, painful and, at times, deeply depressing.

This passage in Wisdom is very clear because it encourages us to look out of ourselves. We can only find an ecstasy (i.e. a standing out from ourselves) if we are prepared to look out from ourselves, out from our existence, indeed out from our assumptions about our existence. If we cannot find happiness within ourselves, then it is because happiness is not just within, but without and not just without, but within.

Physicists postulate that 70% of the universe is "Dark Energy" which underlies the fabric of reality. It underlies all things, pervades all things, exists within a vacuum. Thus Science itself is pointing to something more to our existence which does not meet the eye, (or oscilliscope or Large Hadron Collider). All humanity possesses this tendency to perfection, this predestination if that's what you want to call it. It is our choice whether to accept that destiny in its fullest in the arms of God, or to the half-life of what we assume ourselves to be.

Archepiscopal Visitation

Just a reminder that the Most Rev Dr Mark Haverland, Metropolitan Archbishop and acting Primate of the Anglican Catholic Church is visiting the Diocese of the U.K.

It is a real joy to have him back on these shores and it would be wonderful if as many people would turn out as they can to welcome him as a show of traditional Anglican solidarity and confraternity. All information about his visit is here.

Future fractions and Ecclesiological Integrity

Looking at the state of Christianity in the U.K., one might be forgiven for not being very optimistic. Not only is there greater antipathy towards the religion more ingrained in our culture as evidenced in the Radio Times and the increasingly critical attitude of the BBC, but Institutional Christianity itself is changing quite rapidly.

Over the life of this blog, I've been commenting on the fragmentation that is occurring within the Established Church. The Ordinariate has certainly increased the speed at which parishes are leaving the CofE and, judging by the Ecclesiastical press, there are rumblings within Southwark Diocese because the top positions are filled by "liberal Catholics" (whatever that means) and the Evangelicals feel squeezed out.

The Partisan nature of the Established Church has been with it since the Elizabethan Settlement. It is interesting to note that the main political parties are struggling for domination of the centre-ground, while, ecclesiastically, the polarisation and estrangement is increasing and little is being done to at least encourage some sense of brotherhood between the parties.

The latest parish to join the Ordinariate described the CofE's attitude to them as telling them to "Sod off" [sic], the formal statement from the CofE is "we wish them well in their new home." I;ve been there myself and have personally experienced this "well wishing" which we know is just lip-service. There has been no attempt by any diocesan officials even to discuss the situation and offer some understanding, some little show of encouragement to stay or real regret that some parting might occur.

Forward in Faith are trying to hold together the CofE and Traditionalists in the Society of St Wilfred and St Hilda. The idea is to ensure the integrity of Anglican Orders by providing some enclave with Bishops, Priests and Deacons of the traditional mind-set for the Parishes that need them. The idea is certainly laudable in intention but overlooks the fact that the Bishops will be appointed by the CofE. Thus the Society's existence is entirely dependent on the goodwill of the CofE. Given the CofE's record, it seems that this goodwill will be supplanted by the strident voices of the liberals demanding total recognition of their changes. Can members of SSWASH be confident in the goodwill of the Established Church? Given that promises made to them in 1992 have been broken, this seems unlikely though not impossible and I will continually pray that they always have the provision they need. However, SSWASH would do well to ensure that it receives some concrete (and, regrettably, legally binding) assurance in writing!

What has to be appreciated is that there is more fall-out from the Established Church than just the Ordinariate and SSWASH. There are individuals who have fallen out as fragments from fractures, and they are very easily overlooked. These individuals are vitally important because they represent a silent majority of the unwillingly unchurched. These evolve into the willingly unchurched and, further still, into the increasingly anti-Church.

What can we do to reach these folk? There needs to be some kind of contact with these folk, particularly if they find themselves completely isolated. To develop a network of contacts is of vital importance. The more contacts made, the more communities can be built up. If individuals can be encouraged to follow a personal rule of life of prayer and reading, then there will be some binding influence for them to follow so that even the most isolated can find common ground with others.

However, this has been tried. A good priestly friend tried to do something just like this - an online community following the Rule of St Benedict - but it fell apart because confidences were breached. Without this trust, there was no binding agent.

So what do we need?

1) We need to reach out to isolated individuals.
2) We need to meet those isolated individuals personally to discuss their situations and needs.
3) We need to encourage them to meet together occasionally at some convenient venue in order to provide for them Sacraments and spiritual assistance.
4) We need to provide a quick and easy way to contact each other. An online forum would do well here.

However, one thing is clearly missing. How on earth do we find these isolated individuals? Well, this means that we need to be caring enough to look out for our isolated brethren and, if the isolated brethren are serious about their faith, they need to be searching too, though admittedly this is rather tricky.

Often what happens to us in the ACC is that someone pops into the parish, raves about what we do and then departs never to be seen again. Why? Is their raving false? No, for the most part it isn't. Often they find themselves a home in the Roman Church or they drop out altogether. If someone is isolated then we must establish what the real reason for that isolation is.

For many people, it is the loss of what they've been used to. The familiar words and expressions, the beloved prayers and rituals are being changed and adapted to respond to a modern and often more materialistic age. For the ACC where these rituals, words and prayers have not been changed but are used at their fullest, these will certainly gladden the heart of one from whom these precious morsals have been torn.

For others, it is the change in doctrine, though for many people this tends to be a bit superficial. They leave the church "because of gay clergy" or "because of women at the altar" or "because they've changed the words of the hymns" or "because they've got guitars" as if these single issues were entire of themselves. What they need to appreciate is that all these are symptoms of a deeper misconception which has infiltrated deeply into the system and that rejecting the symptom may affect how other issues that they had accepted.

For example, they may have become isolated because of gay clergy but be very comfortable with women "priests" unaware that the two are very much related. The same is true vice versa. What we have here, of course, is why the fractures from the CofE are so fine. Playing pick and choose with doctrine damages Ecclesiological Integrity. For the mainstream church, we see this in the fact that it is becoming an umbrella organisation for any philosophy imaginable in order to somehow incorporate those of all faiths and none. The result is a loss of any integrity because there is no way of reaching back to the same faith as our forefathers.

This is something that the Isolated need to consider. What do they want of a new establishment? If it really a single issue, then they will find another parish somewhere within the CofE. However, if they sit and really think, then they will realise that these issues stem from a matter of belief, not of superficiality. This needs encouragement on a 1-1 basis if they are to recover some integrity as well as find some confraternity.

The fact of the matter is that people do see through insincerity and single-issue Churches will not really give the depth for which people are searching, and people are searching for that depth and integrity. Why? Because integrity is born of endurance, character and love and these are all things that Humans are looking for.

However, if anyone is reading this and finding themselves isolated, or knowing someone who has been isolated by the movement of the CofE from orthdoxy, the Anglican Diaspora is a forum for people to speak to others. If anyone is interested in the ACC, then do check out the link on the right and do get in touch if we can help. You'd be very welcome.

The Day of Resurrection 2012: The Dignity of the Human Condition

Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

There is in the world today a terrible tendency to look at human beings in a terribly negative light. Many scientists are beginning to regard human beings as mere biological machines which have all the illusions of self-knowledge and some ability of self-delusion in believing itself to be something special before collapsing into a bundle of fatty acids and proteins when they came.

Any joie de vivre is spawned from some belief that this is all there is, and it is better to learn to be happy because the darkness is coming to put a stop to it. In the West, there is a hatred of old age, because old age is a reminder that the joy of living will be slowly extinguished before the end comes.

Others see human beings as corrupt despoilers of Earth, the ultimate parasite destroying whole ecosystems. They see proliferation of wars and violence, endless political wranglings, intercommunity hatreds and battles, and they conclude that humanity is intrinsically evil. They see little in human achievement which is merely the product of anthropological societal construct, convention and evolution.

Others look out into space at the massive structures of the universe, calculating sizes in millions of parsecs, billions of light years and working on scales of galactic clusters and they see human beings as a meaningless speck of insignificance in the void that exists for a glimmer before oblivion finally envelopes it.

Yet, the Resurrection says otherwise.

If we believe in a God that creates, then we believe in a God that wants to create.

If we believe in a God that wants to create, then we believe in a God that willingly decided to create human beings.

If we believe in a God that willingly decided to create human beings, then we must believe that He has some regard for our being.

We have been willed to exist by One who defies our understanding. We have been placed here on earth amidst the complex circling of the arches of the heavens, to evolve and grow according to the elegant rules of organic structures, and to live our lives with each other as independent units seeking understanding, to investigate and enjoy. We seek meaning because there is meaning to seek. And the Resurrection is proof.

We are fallen. Our choices are wrong. They affect others. They hurt others. Sometimes we care because we see that pain and feel it. Sometimes we don't because we are obsessed with our own pain. But God, in His absolute love for us seeks to free us from the pain of our choices by irradiating the entire universe with His love and by transforming it with His very being. We receive our existence from the existence of God. We share it with Him and Our Blessed Lord's Resurrection shows us that we are invited to share, not just Existence with God but Life with God.

We have been given the choice. Either we refuse to see any good in human beings, refuse to see in the Crucifixion the price of true love, ignore the mystery of the incarnation thus fulfilled through the cross and beyond into the Resurrection, or we realise the full potential of this event which rocks history to the core. When Christ commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves, He is not just telling us to do something, He is also inviting us to see others how He sees them and this is a participation in His existence. In commanding us to love God with all our being, He is inviting us to see in Him the source of all love and to be a part of that love in Creation. The Cross and Resurrection stand together as two fulfilments of physical and spiritual natures and as two ends of a tunnel through Death into a perfected life.

This is the promise and it is the promise of a God who regards human beings with such dignity that He respects their choices even if they hurt Him. Here we stand at the cross-roads. Do we turn back or move forward. Of course we move forward, but let us move forward in joy as well as penitance. Our penitence is temporary, but our joy is eternal.

May God richly bless you this Paschal time and forever.

The Passionate Antagonists: 6 Simon Peter

Peter an Antagonist? Really?

While I've been reflecting on these characters from the crucifixion, I have been thinking of just how vulernerable, how fallible and how human they are, none more so than St Peter whose love for Christ is remarkable. Yet he falls spectacularly.

"The pathway to Hell is paved with good intentions" is, apparently, a paraphrase of St Bernard of Clairvaux and surely it applies to Peter who intends to follow Jesus to the end, and yet, when his life is threatened falls away as he denies his discipleship of Jesus three times.

Had he done this in the Diocletian Persecution, would he have been labelled traditor and barred from further office by the Donatists? Well, St Peter does form the case against Donatism.

Peter shows us clearly that even Christians fall away and reject Christ when it comes to the crunch. The Church is comprised of sinners who yet still manage to maintain the teaching of Christ. It is by that teaching that even the greatest Christians can be convicted of sin. So the Church, far from being corrupt, has in place a failsafe device that ensures that sin cannot be simply hidden under the carpet by shamed Christians. Often it takes folk without the Church to demonstrate it!

Mere adherence to the rules does not save us. We may fall again and again usually with habitual and ingrained sins. How can keeping the rules bring us back to God when we have broken them? We must keep the rules by first keeping Christ in order for that grace to grow.

What grace? See tomorrow.

The Passionate Antagonists: 5 Gestas the not-so-penitent Thief

"If thou be Christ, save thyself and us."

These are the sole recorded words of a man whom tradition has named Gestas, one of the men crucified with Jesus. He is said to have been crucified for robbery and it is clear that he has little respect for people, either their belongings or their situations. Why should it be that in the last hours of his life, that all he can say are taunts to Jesus? Does he expect to be saved? Why does that phrase enter into his head?

Clearly this is a man who doesn't believe that he should be punished for transgressing the law. He seems to be one of those men who only believes that punishment is only for someone else and that he has a right to help himself everything that he wants. This thief is a law unto himself. Why else does he entertain the possibility that, should Jesus work a miracle, he can expect salvation automatically?

Salvation only comes with an intention to submit to the rule of Christ. This is entirely personal between God and the individual as evidenced in the conversation between Jesus and the other thief, traditionally named Dismas:

But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds : but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

We have no power to make the decision for another's Salvation. We may only pray to God for it and hope that He will include that other in the Church outside of which there can be no salvation. Do we accept the rule of Christ's kingdom or do we expect salvation on our own terms and thus reject Jesus as the one who calls the shots?

The Passionate Antagonists: 4 Barabbas and the Crowd

What makes a crowd call out in favour of someone who has proven guilt of being a revolutionary and a murderer? Was it simply the incitement of the Chief Priests whipping the crowds up into a frenzy, or was the notoriety of Barabbas so compelling? Would he be the person to succeed where Jesus failed in the eyes of those who sought freedom from the Roman Regime?

In this age we have the cult of celebrity. The nature of what it means to be a "celebrity" does not seem to be very well-defined. Some celebrities are singers, others are actors, some are heroes for climbing Everest or presenting fascinating television programmes. Others are celebrities for no other reason than they have just been in the right place at the right time. Yet others are famous for being infamous - the Kray twins, Katie Price, Monica Lewinsky. Sometimes we choose the wrong role models in life - people who have done nothing to make being human praiseworthy. Yet, there are plenty of people who make one very proud to be a human being because they fight against oppression. Some fighters, however, are fighting for causes which are less than honourable, or a fighting for good causes in less than honourable ways.

It is often the case that Jesus is rejected in favour of someone more glamorous, or because we have decided to follow the crowd rather than been discerning in our choice of exemplar. Whom do we prize most of all as our hero, today? Why?

The Passionate Antagonists: 3 Pontius Pilate

Like Judas, Pilate is another complex character. Much of what we know of him comes from the Gospels, though there are apocryphal mentions in the Acts of Pilate and the Gospel of Peter. There is some (disputed) archaeological evidence in the "Pilate" stone, a first century inscription bearing the name "...TIVS PILATVS". That he does exist can be seen from Philo, Josephus and Tacitus who do not regard him very favourably.

However, how does Pilate come across in the Gospel? Historically, he is the governor of a very troublesome province which has a history of uprisings and insurrections. Jesus is hauled in front of him very visibly beaten up by the Jewish authorities. Here in, Pilate's mind, is another potential flashpoint brewing. His main concern is to establish what's going on in order to avert another crisis. Couple that with the message from his wife that she has dreamed that this Jesus is nothing but trouble, and one can see in Pilate's mind only one impetus: find out what's going on in order to stop the trouble.

He has the Chief Priests on the one hand and possibly the followers of this King of the Jews about to cause another conflagration in the city which he must somehow contain. Careful questioning must take place.

However, when Jesus refuses to commit Himself to any political leadership and rather points to the kingdom of heaven, it becomes clear to the disinterested Pilate that this Jesus is utterly innocent of every charge and poses no "real" threat to the Roman Rule.

How then, when convinced of a man's innocence, can Pilate then just let him be crucified? The baying of the crowd for the man's life threaten the stability of Roman Rule and, seeking the easy way out, it becomes expedient for the man to be got rid of. Pilate has established that Jesus doesn't have hoards at the gates of Jerusalem ready to bring down the Imperial Government. It is better to let one man get crucified in order to keep the peace. Yet, knowing Jesus to be innocent, he simply washes his hands of the responsibility and gains for himself a larger stain on his soul.

Anything for a quiet life? Even at the cost of your soul? Are you sure?

The Passionate Antagonists: 2 Judas Iscariot

Of all the people in the Passion Narrative, none is more wretched than Judas Iscariot. There's so little of him really mentioned in the Gospels that it is difficult to get any idea of his motives or what was going on in his mind.

So what little do we have to go on?

He is consistently named as one of the twelve disciples.

He is described by St John as the one who kept the purse.

He is also described by St John as a thief. (St John xii)

He is the one who goes to the Chief Priests to betray Jesus and that he receives money (30 pieces of silver) in order to do so.

He leads a mob to Gethsemane and betrays Jesus by indentifying him with a kiss.

He either realises what he has done, returns the money to the Chief Priests and hangs himself (according to St Matthew), or bursts asunder (according to St Luke in Acts). This is easily reconcilable if we make the assumption that the hanging body of Judas remained on the tree for some time and then fell in a state of decomposition. It might not be correct, but it's a credible explanation.

The first question we must ask is: what does Jesus see in Judas that makes him call him as one of the twelve? Is it simply that He knows Judas will betray Him? Judas, being a human being always has the choice to betray or not betray. So perhaps the question should be, what did Judas see in Jesus that he would accept being in the party? Was Judas so thoroughly a rogue that he could see Jesus as someone from whom he could embezzle funds as St John suggests? If so then he could easily have been seen the bribe of the Hierarchs as irresistable. Why then the change of heart at the end? Why did it bring him to suicide?

If Judas were one of the twelve, then he must have been privy to some of the deepest teaching of Jesus and received much of his personal ministrations. There must have been a considerable affection between them if it were in some way normal for an affectionate kiss to be shared between them. It seems that whoever Judas was, he cannot have been unaffected by the person of Jesus.

Yet still, Judas rejects Jesus. Material things mean more to Judas than spiritual. Money seems to hold a deeper place in his heart than what Jesus means to him and yet he is haunted by his doings which does indicate some conscience. However, rather than confront what he has done, he takes an easier yet horrifying route to silence that inner voice.

Judas is complex, yet rejects Jesus for material reasons. Does this mean he deserves the reputation of being so thoroughly bad? Are we completely free from association with Judas?

The Passionate Antagonists: 1 Caiaphas and the Chief Priests

As we begin the Passion Narrative of St Matthew's Gospel, we meet the people who have had it in for Jesus ever since He started teaching about the Kingdom of God. These are the Scribes and the Pharisees, most heartily embodied in Caiaphas and the Chief Priests of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Let's be very clear, there was nothing wrong with being a scribe or a Pharisee per se. Both St Nathanael and St Paul were Pharisees, and very good Pharisees too, but these two very learned gentlemen did something that many of their colleagues refused to do. They risked their reputations as learned men by submitting their intellect to the teaching of Jesus Christ.

By way of contrast, Caiaphas and his ilk were so full of intellectual pride that they were driven to plot, conspire and, ultimately bear "legal" responsibility for the crucifixion of the Lord. They believed that they were right and they had the power to inflict that vision of their own self-righteousness on others. So great was their fear of losing their power that they refused to believe the evidence of their own eyes when a non-descript itinerant preacher came preaching about the love of God and claiming to be His Son and, further still, backing up that claim with miracles which went in contravention of their laws and understanding.

Jesus does not come to change the substance of the Pharisees' teaching. They have the right words but the wrong tune and they are putting the emphases in all the wrong places. However, rather than be corrected, Caiaphas and the Chief Priests play the legal card and trump up charges of blasphemy. They refuse to consider all the evidence, they limit themselves and the judgement to their terms and by clinging to their learning rather than find its fulfilment in Jesus, they seek His destruction.

Many people today reject Jesus because what he teaches runs contradictory to their understanding of the world. They may accept His, “love thy neighbour” and “do unto others…” but as soon as they hear Him claim to be the Son of God, they stop short. The modern mind hates miracles because they do not fit into the pattern of everyday experience forgetting that if they did fit into the pattern of everyday experience, they wouldn’t be miracles.

Perhaps if we become more willing to look beyond the world we understand, we might glimpse the beauty of the world we don’t. Caiaphas wasn’t so prepared, an, wallowing in his own understanding he ends up rejected by the One Whom He rejected.

The Passionate Antagonists: 0 Introduction

This year, I'd like to spend some time reflecting on the characters in the Passion, primarily those whom I collectively refer to as The Antagonists because in some way they add to the suffering of Our Lord, and yet they stand for the fallibility of flawed human beings. Each rejects Christ even as we reject Christ and we really have no moral high ground on which to stand here. In some way, we each embody one of these folk who aren't exactly villains but are certainly very far gone from righteousness.

Ironically, it is because of their actions that Christ is able to do precisely what He intends to do. It is the nature of fallible human beings that brings about the circumstances in which Jesus Christ can become Salvator Mundi. St Paul alludes to this in Romans viii.28 and St Augustine refers to this whole Divine Good from human Sin as O Felix Culpa. Before we can really appreciate what has been achieved on our behalf, we need to appreciate just how our wickedness plays its part. This way we can look towards the Resurrection and be assured that we can be made clean and live cleanly in the eyes of God.

Palm Sunday: Gory Garments and Saving Wrath.

Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe

Who is this with garments gory,
Triumphing from Bozrah’s way;
This that weareth robes of glory,
Bright with more than victory’s ray?
Who is this unwearied comer
From his journey’s sultry length,
Traveling through Idumè’s summer
In the greatness of his strength?

Wherefore red in thine apparel
Like the conquerors of the earth,
And arrayed like those who carol
O’er the reeking vineyard’s mirth?
Who art thou, the valleys seeking
Where our peaceful harvests wave?
“I, in righteous anger speaking,
I, the mighty One to save.”

“I, that of the raging heathen
Trod the winepress all alone,
Now in victor garlands wreathen
Coming to redeem Mine own:
I am He with sprinkled raiment,
Glorious for My vengeance hour,
Ransoming, with priceless payment,
And delivering with power.”

Hail! All hail! Thou Lord of Glory!
Thee, our Father, Thee we own;
Abraham heard not of our story,
Israel ne’er our Name hath known.
But, Redeemer, Thou hast sought us,
Thou hast heard Thy children’s wail,
Thou with Thy dear blood hast bought us:
Hail! Thou mighty Victor, hail!

There are times when I have sung hymns which have raised the hairs on the back of my neck. This morning at Mass I sang this hymn for the first time to a tune which I've always attributed to O the deep, deep love of Jesus and I must confess that it gave me quite a start.

Bishop Coxe based his words very closely on the episode in Isaiah lxiii of the figure who has trod the winepress visiting the wrath of God upon the enemies of His people. It is a troubling and arresting image for all those who cannot reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New. However, there is a great deal of hope in both Bible passage and the subsequent poetic rendition.

Of course, there are (not so massive) cultural differences between ourselves in the West and the original hearers of the prophecy of Isaiah (in this case trito-Isaiah). For the Israelites, the relationship with Edom was always very rocky. Edom became a vassal of Israel under David and Solomon, but later helpe Nebuchadnezzar II to plunder Israel, and it is this act to which God is responding through Isaiah. Interestingly, the name "Edom" has the idea of redness and was etiologically associated with Esau, Israel's rubicund brother. If we have that in the back of our minds when we approach Isaiah lxiii, then it gives our brains another jolt when we read of the "gory garments".

Of course, for many people, the difficulty is how we reconcile a wrathful God with a God of Peace. We tend to be a bit squeamish these days about gods being called upon in fighting battles. We tend to think of battle and war as being "politically incorrect", after all, Christians have still the problems of the effects of the Holy Wars known as the Crusades to deal with! We don't like to fight our battles in the name of God.

However, we are seldom at peace. For the past decade, the West has engaged in a "War on Terror", trying to rid the world of acts of violence which we saw all too clearly on 11th September. This has still resulted in horrible acts from all sides and it is quite right that we should find war repellent. We should be living as if “I hate you” was the most horrible swearing and cursing of all. Nonetheless, in this day and age we are still in the middle of wars and battles. Note well that, in the hymn above and the generating Biblical passage, Bozrah is the old name for Basrah of very recent memory in Iraq!

Yet, it is the titanic battle between Good and Evil that we overlook because it continues invisibly and yet affects us all the time. We are called to fight this battle, and yet more often than not we languish and fall to sin. All sin deserves the wrath of God because God thoroughly hates all sin. This brings us back to the picture of the wrathful and vengeful God that is supposedly peculiar to the Old Testament and different from that of the New. However they are the same God, and if we believe that Jesus Christ is God as the Second Person of the Trinity, then Jesus too possesses the wrath of God.

God’s wrath is a terrifyingly beautiful notion if we think about it. It is not we who are the objects of God’s wrath but Sin. If we choose to sin then we put ourselves in the greatest danger of death because God will not be where Sin is. We are so steeped in Sin. All around us we see the effects of greed, hatred, lust, loneliness, selfishness, cupidity and envy which are killing us and do we have anything that can help us?

This is where a passive, emotionless god would be useless, because such a being would sit on the side-lines, wringing his hands and calling ineffectually. Instead, God in His wrath does something.

It is He Who steps into the world, getting his hands, feet and garments gory with bloodshed. Ironically, this blood is His own, not that of His enemies. We are presented with a God who willingly pays the price for Sin, who makes good the satisfaction for the evil that we have done, do and will do, if only we will turn to Him. The price is His very own lifeblood.

This is such a very different wrath from that of a human being. This is because the idea of “wrath” is a human term and God is not simply a human being – the analogy breaks down if we think this way. God doesn't suffer from emotions and passions as we do, but He does act justly and with the most intense dispassionate compassion that one can every know. What we can understand is the intensity of emotion that wrath carries, that burning passion and the fact that it drives us into activity, usually foolishness and to our shame. But God’s foolishness is higher than Man’s wisdom and by His wrath we are saved.

This week, we behold that very foolishness and this very wrath. How will we experience them in our lives?

Passion and Spiritual Eczema

There's little more infuriating than having an unscratchable itch. Any sufferers from eczema will be more than aware of that itch which does not seem to be relieved even from scratching and yet the temptation is to keep scratching it more. The results are often quite horrendous. The only thing to do is not to give into the temptation of scratching that itch. One has to learn to suffer.

These days, of course, there are many over-the-counter remedies that can be used to soothe the itching that eczema causes and which calm the inflammation. One really does have to have these to hand otherwise that temptation to scratch just comes back and any good is undone.

So it is true with our habitual sins. None of us are at all perfect, but we are perfectible and indeed, if it is our firm intention to walk with God, we are in the process of perfection. Nonetheless, our imperfection has within it the potential for our bad habits to take over our lives. Very often we find ourselves back in the rut which our habitual sins have carved out for us and we go around the cycle once more. We scratch the itch until we are really quite sore and very damaged and in need of the restorative Grace of God to be renewed in us.

It is quite common for habitual sins to blight our lives quite profoundly and seriously. They can even cause us to despair of our very salvation, which is indeed a most serious situation. All sin is serious; some sins are most grave and require urgent attention; but all sins are forgivable - except one!

The good news about the Unforgivable Sin is that if you are really and honestly worried that you've committed it, then you haven't. The Unforgivable Sin is a continued wilful rejection of God's love and a hatred of the Holy Spirit. To some extent, all sin is a rejection of God's love, but for the soul that is open to His correction this is completely soluble. Those who can't be forgiven are those who just don't want to be forgiven either because they don't believe God, or because they hate Him. The choice to be forgiven is ultimately ours.

So what does this mean about our habitual sins? Well, they have to be recognised for what they are and worked on. The skill is in the recognition of old habits and doing something to counteract their effect. This takes some doing. The itch is deep, and insistent and we fall more often than we want. Yet, if our heart is true, we should not let this discourage us. We suffer much less than some.

Liturgically, we observe Passion Sunday, the beginning of the inexorable trip to Calvary. It's a time of mixed emotions for the Christian. One cannot have Easter Day without Good Friday and we cannot have Good Friday without Easter Day. Our Lord suffers, and suffers horribly voluntarily on our behalf. He knows that the only way to get to Easter Day is through Good Friday and so suffering is both inevitable and completely undesirable. How can any man want to be crucified?

Jesus doesn't want to be crucified - He is not some kind of masochist, as some modern critics rather ignorantly describe Him - but He does want to save from scratching ourselves to pieces for eternity. Hell is, after all, being left with an eternal, untreatable, irresistible and completely debilitating itch. This is where the fire of Hell comes in, for such sensation could only be accurately described as a burning. Crucifixion is the only remedy, and this is the price that Jesus is willing to pay on our behalf, freely, generously and lovingly. Those who wish to keep scratching their itch for eternity are free to do so.

The crux (literally!) of the matter is that Christ accepts something that He does not want to do, that no healthy human instinctively wants to do. The habit of humanity as an animal is to flee suffering, often at all costs. This is the origin of our innate impatience. Much of our sinfulness has its root in this primeval impatience. Anger often results from our impatience of another’s perceived faults, or of an inconvenience for ourselves. Sex occurs before marriage on the grounds that people cannot endure the physical separation from the other who excites them. Gluttony occurs when we cannot be patient with waiting for food or not having the food the way we like it. In fact much selfishness occurs because we are impatient with that which gets in the way of getting what we want. Impatience produces the itch – our instinct is to scratch. Stimulus – response, stimulus – response.

God made us more than just creatures of unthinking stimulus –response mechanisms. However, if we are to get to grips with the very nature of our humanity, then we have to rise above mere animal instinct, to rise above seeing ourselves as nothing more than biological machines that, if you press one button a specific response occurs. The reality of this transcendence is that of Passion in its original meaning of suffering.

If we wish to connect with all humanity as we are commanded then we must see the suffering in others and be impatient with their suffering to the extent that we suffer in order to help them. Christ may indeed have done something that no other human can replicate – the redemption and eventual salvation of sinners – but He has given us the pattern of taking up the cross to follow Him. This taking up of the cross is a very public thing. Those due for crucifixion were very visible, and to take up a cross willingly is also a very visible thing. If one is doing so to accept the concomitant suffering rather than for effect, then one is truly following Christ.

We should always take heart: if we firmly intend to follow Christ, then our habitual sins cannot prevent our growth and , provided that they are dealt with realistically, firmly with contrition, but also with recognition of our frailty as human beings, we can overcome them. However, this means accepting suffering and using that suffering to lift those more vulnerable up and out of theirs. We may have the tub of E45 cream – if we can’t reach the eczema on our own backs, why not apply it to the back of someone more needy than ourselves?

Crosser and Crosser

The tensions between the sacred and the secular seem to be growing of late. Many Christians feel that there is some anti-Christian sentiment in the British Government evidenced by the latest kerfuffle over whether the wearing of the Cross is a genuine and necessary expression of faith in the same way as the turban for the Sikh and the Burkha for the Moslem. The Government seems to be arguing that because the Cross is not an obligatory item of apparel that it is reasonable for an employer to demand that it be removed.

I've been asked to consider the issue carefully and produce a few thoughts which I may try to crystallise later. As an exercise in thought, I’m going to try to proceed scholastically here.I apologise unreservedly in advance to the Angelic Doctor for mangling his style so hideously.

The question is: Has an employer the right to demand an employee to remove their cross?

Objection 1: It seems that an employer has the right to demand that an employee remove their cross as it is not a requirement of the faith to wear one.

Objection 2: It seems that an employer has the right to demand that an employee remove their cross as it now only holds decorative value. Many people who wear crosses are not Christian.

Objection 3: It seems that an employer has the right to demand that an employee remove their cross as claiming religious reasons for defying an injunction would set a precedent for other employees wearing inappropriate articles under the pretext of religious belief.

Objection 4: It seems that an employer has the right to demand that an employee remove their cross as it may cause an accident or prove unhygienic.

Objection 5: It seems that an employer has the right to demand that an employee remove their cross as it may cause offence to those who oppose Christianity.

Objection 6: It seems that an employer has the right to demand that an employee remove their cross as it may upset an environment that requires a certain amount of religious neutrality.

On the contrary : Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. St Matthew xvi.24

I answer that: While it is true that there is no obligation for many Christians to wear the cross, this is not true for all Christians. The Orthodox Church presents a cross to the newly baptised with the expectation that it be worn constantly as a reminder to that person of their faith, The Cross is of central importance to Christians who are reminded of the willing sufferings of Christ on our behalf.

The cross has always been a sign of controversy. At the outset, it was simply a gibbet, an instrument of execution. That the fact that the Christians adopted it as one of their symbols, amused, bemused and even scandalised the Romans and others who saw the sign as somehow subversive. Of course, it was a sign hated by the Moslems during some terrible times during the crusades. However, in the U.K. the cross has always been associated with the religion of the land, namely Christianity. While, the U.K. can and should welcome all of every faith and none into its society, it cannot change the past in which the central sign of the cross remains iconic: Charing Cross Hospital, the Red Cross, King’s Cross station, the Union flag comprised of the three crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick.

These are part of our national identity as well as our religious identity. For many Christians, the religious identity is of greater importance.

The question of the rights of an employer cannot be separated from their responsibilities. If the employer has the right to ask an employee who sincerely believes to remove that symbol of their belief then what provision will they make for that employee to feel that their belief is being resected and that their sense of identity as a sincere religious believer remains fundamentally unchanged? This question requires an answer at both the general and the particular.

Reply to Objection 1: For those who genuinely profess the Christian Faith, the wearing of the cross may indeed be a requirement. For the Orthodox Christians it is indeed a requirement. Any employer needs to recognise the needs of their employees to have the freedom to profess
their faith as part of their intrinsic identity.

Reply to Objection 2: That non-Christians wear crosses means that they will have no objection to removing them. For the Christian, the fact that they do object to removing a cross, is sign that they have a genuine belief unless they demonstrate otherwise. An employer needs to understand the objections of their employee and act with due particular consideration rather than act generally.

Reply to Objection 3: Like the Burkha, the Turban and the yarmulke, the cross is a recognised religious symbol, in this case of Christianity which has a long establishment in the United Kingdom. Again, the employer needs to consider individual cases rather than issue general statements.

Reply to Objection 4: Unless it can be proved at the particular case that a cross is being worn in an unhygienic or dangerous fashion, there can be no objection on these grounds.

Reply to Objection 5: Christians have to put up with many unchristian ways of life being imposed upon them: Sex before marriage is presented as the norm via every media outlet; Gluttony is rife as evidenced by the increase in obesity; people are encouraged to believe that truth is relative; old folk are neglected; babies aborted. Christians are expected to tolerate these values which are contrary to the Faith and it is reasonable that this be done as far as possible (the horror of abortion is perhaps too much to tolerate) though the Christian has no obligation to accept these values as part of his lifestyle. Likewise, it is reasonable that the non-Christian should tolerate expressions of Christian values in the same vein. Advertisements are everywhere and no-one is expected to object to them, though many indeed find them disagreeable. Advertisements are part of modern life. Thus, if non-Christian values and advertisements are to be tolerated, so should Christian values and advertisements. The wearing of a cross is just as much an advertisement of faith as those who choose not to wear one. The tacit assumption thatGod does not exist should not be used as a reason for objecting to Christian values and symbols.

Reply to Objection 6: Religious Neutrality is a myth since every human being has a set of values and morals by which they live life and they exhibit these values in their manners and in the way that they dress. This is even true of those in uniforms since the wearing of a uniform takes on the idiosyncrasies of the wearer. The wearing of a cross is an outward expression of an inner faith and the symbol becomes a vehicle for the wearer to be aware of their religion as part of their identity. The employer has no right to change the identity of their employee.

Breadcrumbs and Theosis

Labour not for the meat which perisheth , but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed . Then said they unto him, What shall we do , that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent . They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see , and believe thee? what dost thou work ? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written , He gave them bread from heaven to eat . Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, ever more give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst . But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing , but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Today's readings from Mattins (Exodus xvi.4-15 & St John vi.27-40) would probably be better suite to Corpus Christi rather than Mothering Sunday. Yet both tell of the origins of the Mass as we know it. To realise the importance of the Mass, sometimes it's a good exercise to perform a little ecstasy. No! I don't mean taking illicit and illegal substances, nor do I really mean working oneself up into such a frenzy so as to induce an altered state of consciousness. I do mean that sometimes we need to be like one outside the Church looking in.

Of course there are lots of people who look upon the Mass as being quite a bizarre spectacle, including some Christians. After all, Sunday by Sunday, ever-dwindling groups of people appear to be turning up to see a bloke dressed in robes hold up a little wafer of bread, solemnly declare it to be the "Body of Christ" and then promptly distribute it to the folk around them. More scandalous to them is the Rite of Benediction when this little wafer gets stuck in a carry-case for people to kneel at and do this obscene thing called "adoration". For atheists it's just silly. For Protestants it's a scandal. What scandalises the Atheists is that Christendom is divided over the issue of this little wafer, and who gets to wave their hands over it, and the resulting tribal warfare has indeed brought shame upon the Church.

It all appears to be an utterly ridiculous, foolish and irritating waste of time.

But it isn't - at least not for the Catholic.

It is very difficult to explain to those from the outside looking in why this is so important, especially when many of them (a) restrict the number of words you are allowed to use, (b) are not really asking out of interest but to confirm their own positions and (c) are not really out to experience the Catholic Church as a mother.

The long and the short of it is that Mass is the way a Catholic experiences the love of God acting like a mother in nourishing His children with food that will make us grow into what He wants us to be. This seems a little odd, particularly in Western Churches where the taste-buds are regaled with all kinds of wonderful sensations. However, it is clear that He is not nourishing us for this world but rather the world beyond.

I freely admit that I find this world hopeless in itself and simply cannot believe the Atheist claims that this is all there is, that we are all predetermined bits of dust that suddenly grab this little thing called consciousness only to discover our own meaninglessness before evaporating into oblivious clouds of atoms into the far wastes of a cold dark universe. You may call my reticence a flight from reality, but it's just not the way that I understand not only the integrity of my own being as an amalgam of biological machine with a rational soul, but the integrity of every other person in this universe. It doesn't make any sense that I should become conscious, meet people, teach some of the most inspirational young folk, only for me, and they, these bright young things, just to wink out of existence in a few score orbits of a clod of matter orbiting a ball of burning gas. If atheists choose to believe that, fine, I'm not going to stop them, but how do they live life without meaning. Why is meaning important to a human being in the first place?

Of course, I believe in God, so I must concede that He wanted to create me and further, that He wishes to save me from the consequences of the fact that I can choose not to follow Him. If Christ is indeed right and that He is the key to some form of life beyond this one then it stands to reason that I am being invited to participate in this "other" life. While I admit that this could conceivably be a con by a supposedly evil deity, nonetheless I content myself to trust in what He wants is my good. The alternative is just as bad as the eternal bleakness of a cold, dead, Godless universe. So, not only do I believe in God, I also believe Him.

St John does tell us that one day we Christians shall be like him because we shall see Him as He really is. Again, we are given another promise that somehow we will have put on ourselves a new being. This is a gradual process in our lives and we must look and see how this process occurs. If we become like Him, then we have somehow to take into ourselves something of what He is and allow that to build up, transforming our flimsy, atomic being into something far more substantial and indivisible. In St john's Gospel, we hear Christ say very specifically "I am the bread of life" He also tells us that unless we eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood we cannot share that Divine manner of living, we cannot somehow possess within ourselves the substance of our Creator. We have to choose to become like Him!

Our Lord Jesus as St Thomas Aquinas' self-wounding pelican, that mother bird who in legend feeds its young on its own self exhibits characteristics of motherhood in providing Divinity of Himself to those who seek Him, but not for those who seek Divinity apart from Him. He does this via the sacrament of the Mass. In receiving breadcrumbs, God Himself. We can't get crumbs of God, because God is indivisible, so we receive Him into ourselves as He is by our own choice.

Of course, it would all seem rather incongruous, even ridiculous, to those outside, but there is perfect reasonable sense here which has its origin in believing what the Lord Jesus tells us in the Gospels. Of course, one is free to discount the evidence of the Gospels and wander one's own sweet way in life, but it seems quite clear that one can only gain anything of Eternity from the being of God Himself. A single breadcrumb can be worth more than the entire universe itself because it contains the very being of God.

Do I have a shred of evidence to back up what I'm saying? The only evidence I have is that which many discount as being inadmissible because it conflicts with their idea of the universe. I suspect that I may well be guilty of the same, but I do live in a universe which is filled with hope and meaning that can't readily be scrutinised by any who refuse to use Divine light to see.

We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He really is, now in the Host where He may be adored in Benediction, then face to face as we grow into Him.

If this doesn't appeal to you, how do you find your hope in this universe?

Institutional entropy and Christian Chaos

No process is possible whose sole result is the transfer of heat from a body of lower temperature to a body of higher temperature.

Rudolf Clausius, German Scientist (1822-1888)

It is a direct result from the work of Clausius that the rate of change of Entropy increases in a thermodynamic system. While I appreciate that many of my readership are not scientists (indeed, I would hardly call myself a scientist) I hope that you understand sufficiently the consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as stated above - Entropy always increases.

Entropy is the amount of energy in a thermodynamic system that is not available to be turned into specifically mechanical energy, or work. In running a car, the amount of energy used in making it go is significantly less than the energy that you put into it and this difference is always increasing, much to BP's glee. Much of the energy is wasted as heat or as noise, and, as a consequence, it takes more and more energy to keep a system going, i.e. preserving order, as time goes on.

The amount of entropy determines the amount of disorder and so, if this increases, the system becomes more and more disordered. The physical laws stay the same, but the system becomes less and less predictable. In short, we end up with more and more chaotic behaviour.

That's the Science, but let's look beyond Science and at our own experiences of living. Is it objective to say that our society is becoming more and more fragmented, or is this purely our own opinion? Life is surely never entirely predictable, but there is always some small scale on which we can be confident that we can draw reasonable conclusions from the data. In the mathematical sense of the word, Life is Chaotic and we wouldn't expect anything else. One might say that Chaos gives Life its beauty, but then Chaos is also perhaps responsible for its ugliness too. Chaos is like beer. The more you have of it, the happier you feel, but the more likely you'll fall over - or worse, given some of the scrapes my former students find themselves in.

And then there's God. God brings order out of Chaos. What does this mean?

As a Christian, I believe that God is responsible for why there is something rather than nothing, though there is no undisputed Scriptural evidence for how He achieved this feat though Science gives us some convincing explanations. However, we find ourselves in a Universe which not only had stuff in it, but there are rule - law of physics - which determine how that stuff moves and interacts, or appears and disappears.

But, God's ordering influence is not related just to the physical but to the social as well. If one believes in an active Creator, it is clearly His intention that humans have some ordered society and that that we have a modicum of freedom in the way we interact. I believe firmly that humans were created to share in God's life as independent rational beings in our own right. It is that independence that causes the entropy of society.

Pope Benedict XVI said in visiting Croatia that "individualism ... gives rise to a vision of life without obligations". One might regard such lack of obligation as a positive, however there is always a price.

In the soundtrack to Metropolis, Jon Anderson speaks of the Cage of Freedom:

Cage of freedom
That's our prison
Where the jailer and captive combine
Cage of freedom
Cast in power
All the trappings of our own design
Blind ambition
Steals our reason
We're soon behind those invisible bars

On the inside
Looking outside
To make it safer we double the guard
Cage of freedom
There's no escaping
We fabricated a world of our own....

I would suggest that the Cage of Freedom is the entropy of our society. The more energy we invest in an individualistic system, the more it will be wasted because the only unit in the system is the individual. If the waste energy dissipates as heat then only someone other than the individual will be able to benefit from its warmth. The more energy the individual loses, the less it will be able to move, to function, to live except trapped within our cages of freedom.

It is individualism that does tear us away from God. So many liberal Christians think it's a good idea to campaign for people to be able to do what they want and proclaim that it's God's law and that any adherence to traditional teaching is a restriction of the Holy Spirit. What they have to show is that their interpretation of the Holy Spirit is compatible with what is actually present in Scripture and Tradition as has always been received. Of course, they are free to reject all this interpretation, but they then lose the right to criticise others for failing to see their reasons for rejecting the corpus of traditional thought. They also cut themselves off from those Christians who have gone before and who died in the faith that they now reject.

Of course, many of the Revivalists and Quakers have a much higher view of the individual's capability of accurately interpreting the movements of the Holy Ghost than Catholics who follow St Peter's dictum not to go in for private interpretation and St John's warning to try every spirit to see if it be from God. What does one test spirits against if one prefers one's own authority of interpreting Scripture to that which has been handed down? That's not to accuse Quakers of ignoring the body of Christian belief - they don't - but it does lead a lazy soul into misinterpreting that idea for their own ends.

Of course, there are lazy Catholics too who disregard the principles but they're usually easier to spot.

If Christianity is to have any impact on this rapidly fragmenting world, then it can only do so by offering to a chaotic, rapidly atomic, world an ordering principle - a life-ring to those drowning in entropy. Christianity must emulate the Creator by seeking His order in the Chaos and presenting it as something life-giving and, while not immediately safe, pointing towards a greater stability. Of course, there is a multiplicity of people who call themselves Christian but we each need to scrutinise our lives and our beliefs carefully so that we can indeed present something of the ordering principle of God to a world that fears order because it encroaches on its freedom to walk away from God.

We're not going to be able to rid ourselves of Chaos but, as I said above, there is always local order within a chaotic existence which, if we let it, will allow us to be carried along more peaceably than if we try to control it. It is God who provides such an order in His Peace which passes all understanding. Perhaps this is what the Christian can offer the world - the Peace of God.

But then we would need to be Peaceable in the first place, wouldn't we?

Just a reminder

Our Archbishop Mark Haverland will be visiting the Diocese in April. He will be celebrating Mass at Central Hall, Westminster as part of the Diocesan Synod at 11 o'clock on 21st April. He will also be celebrating Mass in the archdiaconal parish in Rochester at 10 o'clock on 22nd April. He is well worth hearing speak, so feel free to come along and see what the Anglican Catholic Church is all about.