Anglican Catholicism and the Nicene Creed

 Why is the Nicene Creed so precious to the Anglican Catholic Church?

Clearly apostles

Sermon for the Feast of St Peter and St Paul

There is just 

so much noise.

A million voices

ricochet around us

spreading confusion 

and misinformation. 

We hear so much

that claims to be news

but isn't.  

It's fake news.

And that which is called

"fake news"

sometimes turns out

to be true.

And we don't know 

what to believe.

[PAUSE]

We don't know 

what to believe 

until we hear a voice

"Thou art the Christ,

the Son of the Living God."

A moment of clarity. 

The clouds of confusion part.

Not St John the Baptist.

Nor Elias. 

Nor Jeremiah.

Nor another prophet.

But the Christ!

Peter's words

might just be more words

among so many.

Just another statement 

of fake news.

What makes them different?

[PAUSE]

It's the truth!

If Our Lord tells us

that He will rise from the dead

and then does so.

If He preaches,

and then backs up His words

with miracles. 

If He touches the hearts of people

and inspires them to love

and go to their deaths for love, 

then He is telling the truth. 

His is the voice 

that we should believe.

And St Peter 

confirms that with his words.

In St Peter,

there is clarity 

a rock on which the Faith will grow.

Christ the chief cornerstone of the Church

and Peter the rock.

And to St Peter 

are given keys 

the authority to bind 

and loose sins.

That authority 

isn't given to St Peter alone 

for St John tells us

that it is given to all the Disciples

when the Lord 

breathes the Holy Ghost on them.

St Peter has the truth

as do the other apostles.

And as does St Paul.

[PAUSE]

St Paul,

the zealous Pharisee

is given the truth 

that blinds him for a while.

He is blinded to 

the cacophony of sights

which,

like the noise,

disrupt and confuse our lives.

The blindness of St Paul

helps him to be

refocused on the truth,

a truth which he once thought

unpalatable 

but now defends 

with his every breath,

with his every word.

And to him

is given authority 

to bind and loose sins

as he becomes 

one of the first bishops 

to receive episcopal consecration 

at the hands of the Apostles.

He is given the authority 

of the Truth

to cut through the swathes

of falsehood 

through the doctrine 

he has received through

the grace of Christ.

[PAUSE]

For us,

the noise is louder than ever.

False gospels are being preached.

The truth is supposedly 

being debunked.

The saints are still being 

contradicted

and even vilified.

For us, 

there is much confusion

and disharmony. 

But for us,

there is also truth

a truth which grounds our Faith.

Our Faith begins

when we say with St Peter

to the face of the man Jesus

"Thou art the Christ

the Son of the Living God."

That is where we put our trust.

That is where we ground 

our knowledge,

our belief, 

our faith.

And we grow 

by reading the first writte documents

of our faith

which are the letters of St Paul:

Gospel written before

the gospels.

This is how we cut through

all the noise.

We shut it out

and listen to the Holy Apostles 

for they speak with greater clarity

than the world can know 

and yet wants to prevent us

from knowing.

Jesus truly is the Christ

the Son of the Living God.

Why did the Anglican Catholics leave the Church of England?

 Contrary to what one commentator says, we show why we could not have stayed.

Articulating Christ's Body

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi

"The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper

was not by Christ's ordinance

reserved,

carried about,

lifted up 

or worshipped."

Does that sound familiar?

And yet,

we do reserved the Body of Christ,

we do carry it about,

we do lift it up

and we worship Christ

in the Most Holy Sacrament. 

Are we being wrong?

Are we being idolatrous?

Are we blaspheming?

[PAUSE]

One reason why 

we Anglican Catholics 

do not regard 

the Thirty-Nine Articles

as being authoritative 

is because of their ambiguity.

They were designed to appease

polarising factions 

within the Church of England.

They were designed

to stop the struggle 

for the Soul of England

to be a war within the streets.

And that's why 

the Articles have 

a historical importance 

that has allowed 

Anglican Protestants 

to walk with Anglican Catholics 

until comparatively recently.

So they are necessarily ambiguous. 

And this Article 

about the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,

which we Catholics 

commonly call the Mass,

is deliberately ambiguous. 

It's true to say

that Our Lord

at the Last Supper

does not tell His Disciples

to reserve His Body

nor to carry it about

nor to lift it up

nor to worship it.

Neither does He expressly 

forbid it

even though He knows full well

the tendency of human beings

to fall into Idolatry.

He remembers the Golden Calf incident 

all too clearly.

And He does not forbid 

the reservation,

the carrying around,

the lifting up

or the worship

of His Body.

Why not?

Why does He not forbid it?

[PAUSE]

There is three underlying factors

behind how we Catholics

treat the Sacrament of the Mass.

Simply, it's Faith, Hope and Love.

By our Faith in Christ

we believe that 

what we behold

in the Sacrament of the Altar 

really, truly and fully 

is the Body and Blood

of Christ.

It is what He promised:

His flesh and blood

so that we might have life within us.

By our Hope,

we believe that showing people 

the Body and Blood of Christ,

displaying our faith

that what seems to be 

a disc of unleavened bread

is truly the Body of Christ,

we may stir in the hearts

of people hungry for hope 

the truth of Christ's presence with us.

By our Love, 

we reserve that Sacrament 

so that those who are unable 

to come to Mass 

may partake of the Body of Christ

and we carry it

to those who are too sick

to receive it.

And we do not worship 

bread and wine

because we believe 

that they have been transformed 

into the true Body and Blood of Christ,

Body, Soul, Mind, Humanity and Divinity

all that pertains to

the Person of the Son.

And the Son is God

and God is to be worshipped 

for our benefit

not His.

[PAUSE]

No. Christ does not command

that we should take the Sacrament 

of His Supper

and reserve it,

carry it about,

lift it up

and worship it.

He does not command that

but He does give us Himself

to be present with us

and to be consumed by us

so that we might love God

and neighbour.

We reserve the Love of God 

for our neighbour to eat.

We carry about the Love of God 

to our neighbour in his frailty.

We lift up the Love of God

for our neighbour to see.

We worship the Love of God

for our neighbour to share.

This is why

we put the Consecrated Host

into a monstrance 

for people to see

and be blessed 

so that one day they might receive.

[PAUSE]

The Articles of Religion 

are not authoritative 

for us Anglican Catholics 

especially when they give the impression 

that what we do is not 

part of the Catholic Religion. 

We don't need to hold them now

because, we pray,

we know better than going to war

with Anglican Protestants

whom we love despite our separation.

Nonetheless,

the Real, Objective and Physical Presence 

of Our Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament 

should draw us closer to Christ

in faith, hope and love for our neighbour.

Food for thought?

Or food for prayer?

An Anglican Catholic Priest reacts to the vote to decriminalise abortion.

 

What this recent vote in parliament means for the human person.

News from the Anglican Catholic Church and the Anglican Church in America

 

Will the G3 become the G2?

From the top

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

We know that Jesus can speak Greek.

Greek in Israel for Jesus

is like English is for us.

It's a language 

that everyone knows

but often not well.

Indeed, 

some older people

who have taken up English

later in life sometimes struggle

to say what they mean.

And even now,

we hear that confusion

and it is a confusion

that still affects the way

that people translate

Holy Scripture from Greek 

to English.

St Nicodemus hears our Lord say

that we must be born anōthen

- that's the Greek word.

It's a word that describes

the garment taken from Our Lord 

at His Crucifixion:

that seamless garment

woven from the top.

So anōthen is a word 

that we could translate

as "from the top".

The trouble is

that there are two meanings

to the phrase "from the top".

[PAUSE]

It could mean,

afresh or again,

and this is what St Nicodemus hears.

St Nicodemus hears

Our Lord say

we must be "born again"

which is why he gets confused 

and thinks that his poor mother

is going to have to suffer 

a terrible fate.

But that's not what Jesus means.

He us using the other meaning 

of "from the top".

He is talking about

being born from above 

from Heaven,

by the power of God

This is why He talks about us

being born of water and the Spirit.

It's a clear indication 

of our need for Baptism.

It is through the waters of Baptism

that we are born from above

into the Kingdom of God

and thereby into Eternal life.

This birth from above

is not from this world.

It is a birth that lies beyond

our experience in life

and why it is given to us

as a Sacrament. 

We see the external water

and know that,

through the covenant with God 

we are born in the Holy Ghost.

Our Baptism is Baptism by the Holy Ghost.

And our birth in Him

can only be known

in this world

through the water in the font.

And what on Earth 

has all this to do 

with Trinity Sunday?

[PAUSE]

What on Earth?

Well, that's the point exactly.

If we are born from above,

then we are aware of things above

which have only pale shadows 

here on Earth.

And our God,

The Triune God,

The Three-in-One,

Father, Son and Holy Ghost

Whom Earth and Heaven adore,

is not a thing of the Earth.

He is not created -

His Incarnation took

our Human Nature 

into His Godhead

- He is not created.

And this means 

we cannot expect

to understand 

with minds of Earth

the Truth from above

that God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

We know it 

because He shows it to us

in the words of Scripture and the Fathers

and the rational intelligence 

that draws its Holy conclusions

from the words of Scripture and the Fathers.

We know it by His revelation,

not by looking at shamrocks

or ice-water-steam 

or one flame on three wicks.

They are imperfect illustrations 

and even the most complete

theological understanding 

by the greatest Doctors of the Church

is like straw

compared with the reality of God

that is revealed from the top down to us.

[PAUSE]

If the world gives us grief

because it does not understand 

the Holy Trinity,

that is not our problem 

because the world listens 

with ears of clay

to words born from on high.

Our task is to spread the news

of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

and to baptise as many of those

who believe 

so that they may be born

from the top.