Blogday 2020: Communication, Communion and Common Prayer

As usual, today I reflect on this little blogling which has now attained the age of fifteen. 2020 has not been a kind year to many of us, and it's rather been like a teenager spending his free hours walled up in his bedroom. An interesting biological fact is that puberty kills off a lot of connections in the brain which enable communication skills. This is why communicable eleven year olds turn into  monosyllabic teenagers.

This has not been a good year for communication. First, as is evidenced by the American Election in the US and Brexit in the UK, people are becoming ideologically divided, and this has ramifications on how we communicate with each other. Some communication is already being stifled in order to cease causing offence to others or inadvertently stray into "hate speech" - a term which still lacks a coherent objective definition. There is a risk that those who are offended by another's words may call on "hate speech" legislation. This is already taking place. We are also seeing increasing violence as people of different ideologies are beginning to clash, especially at political demonstrations.

Secondly, the restrictions in movement and COVID have pushed more communication online where anonymity creates a veil behind which "trolls" thrive. By "troll", I mean one who has the full intent to offend or upset. Here I think of the dreadful comments made about the Duchess of Sussex following her miscarriage. Rather than comfort a woman in mourning, words were used to harm.

A troll is not the same as someone with an intent to challenge another's worldview. If we publicly express an opinion then we must be prepared to allow others to challenge it fundamentally and even robustly.

We are indeed free to say what we wish to say, but all rights have responsibilities as the other side of the same coin. If we tell a joke then our intent should be to make people laugh and not to injure. Yet, many a true word is spoken in jest, and satire has a value in waking us from complacency to a hidden reality to our condition. We have to be careful what the object of our lampooning is. We also have to be careful to see any offence that we take for what it is. At all stages of humour, as I said earlier this year, there must be the unconditional love that thinks the best of another's motives until evidence presents itself to demonstrate their ill-intent. This is based on the fundamental principle of law of "innocent until proven guilty".

Mr Biden seeks to unify an America broken by ideological conflict. He will only do this if he has a principle that both sides of the ideological barrier can accept. Just appealing to "truth, justice and the American Way" is no longer possible if people are now questioning whose truth, whose justice and which American Way.

The Continuing Anglican world might also be similarly divided. Remember, not every Anglican Church can properly call itself "Continuing Anglican" unless it has been born from the Congress of St Louis for that is the moment of the term's definition. For example, the Orthodox Anglican Church doesn't really call itself "Continuing Anglican", even though it does continue what the Lambeth Communion has ceased to practise, because its origins predate St Louis. I will therefore be concentrating on the jurisdictions I know within the Continuing Anglican movement and assume that other extra-Lambeth Anglican Christians supply their own mutatis mutandis.

By the early 1980s divisions occurred within the emerging Continuing Church which resulted in three different jurisdictions and there were further divisions in the 1990s. Yet, by 2017, these jurisdictions are working towards a greater organic unity. It will still take time. That's okay. Good things take time to do well.

At the heart, there is a unifying principle in the Book of Common Prayer, and it is this that holds it together. Continuing Anglicans live out the "Common" part of the Book of Common Prayer and this means we have a good degree of affinity. 

Of course there are details that produce some diversity. Which BCP do we use? For the American Churches, this is easy. The book that was in use before ECUSA started going doctrinally wobbly was the 1928 BCP and did the job, replacing some of the elements that the 1789 BCP omitted, like the Athanasian Creed. Yet, for the movement to grow there needs to be an appreciation of local history, culture and custom. In the UK, we don't have the same history as the US and, as a result, the equivalent Prayer Book is the 1662 BCP which has a rather truncated canon of the Mass. That truncation is not enough in itself to invalidate the Mass but it is enough to produce confusion about the central aspect of Communion, namely the Real and Objective Presence of Christ in the Mass and therefore cause doubt and unease among Anglican Catholics who see as full communion as possible with Christ as central to the life of the Church. It leaves out too much to express adequately what the Catholic Church believes.

 For Protestants who prefer some ambiguity about the objectivity of the Holy Presence, this is fine, but for Anglo-Catholics who believe in the transformation of the Host and Wine in some form of transubstantiation, it is not, despite the design of the Prayer Book to hold different "wings" together. In trying to do away with Papal edict with the deliberate removal of references to the Real Presence and the insertion of the Black Rubric, the Reformers threw out the baby with the bath water. Of course, the fact that the Anglican Catholic Church seeks to replace that which the Reformers omitted is seen by some as Revisionism despite the fact that the Reformers were probably just as Revisionist of the Catholic Faith in the first place. If Anglo-Catholics are revisionist then they are merely revising reforming revisions. (There's a blog title I missed! Rabbits!)

 The Anglican Catholic Church Constitution allows for local latitude in the use of the Prayer Book: the 1928 US Prayer Book is in (very) good keeping with the original BCP of 1549 from which the others sprang. Thus, with the 1549 as the basis and all understanding of the liturgy being read through the doctrine of the Primitive Church (i.e. through the doctrine of the Oecumenical Councils) the Continuing Anglican movement has a potential for global community which can work if people are willing to accept those principles.

I have made no secret of the fact that, in my private prayer, I use the Monastic Breviary  It is deliberately designed so that it translates the old Latin Breviary with the Psalms and collects from the BCP and uses Antiphons in conformity with the epistles and gospels from the BCP. Thus, I am saying the same words with the same intentions as everyone else using the Prayer Book, albeit in a different order. Anyone Prayer Book user who picks up my Breviary will see this conformity immediately and know that, as a Benedictine Oblate, I can follow the Benedictine Offices and yet remain faithful to the spirit of the Prayer Book which, itself, is born of the Catholic Faith in England and desirous to remove the excesses of Roman politics on liturgy and doctrine. The same is true with the missals which the Anglican Catholic Church authorises to be used in conformity with the BCP

This is the genius of both the Prayer Book and the Canonical intention of the Anglican Catholic Church. I am allowed a diversity of practice and yet remain faithful to the spirit of the Catholic Church in England before the Reformation and Post Reformation and the spirit which unifies other Anglican Christians.

I would also like to give some comfort to those who worry about my lack of use of the Prayer Book. If, as and when I am required to say public Offices in a parish church, then I have no qualms about using the BCP for Mattins and Evensong. As a chorister who has sung in many a cathedral, I have a deep appreciation for the Prayer Book Offices. I also recognise that not everyone is Benedictine and thus I must minister to them in the "secular" Offices which are as laid down in the BCP. Were I to be part of a Benedictine community, then I would use the Breviary in that community.

Whether we like it or not, the Prayer Book is part of Continuing Anglican history - indeed part of the history of the Church of England. Whether it is a defining aspect of Anglicanism is debatable: I maintain that there is Anglicanism before the BCP and that the BCP is a product - a good product - of that Anglicanism and thus an expression not a definition of Anglicanism. It proceeds from Anglicanism.

I would also like to give comfort to those Catholics who worry about my love of the BCP. As I have said above, the Anglican Catholic Church reads the BCP through the Catholic Faith. There are many deficiencies in the intention of the Reformers to omit perfectly Catholic and Faithful practices and doctrine. The Sarum Office is the basis of much of the Prayer Book, but is fuller and more in line with the Catholic Faith. The Sarum Office requires the daily recitation of the Quicunque Vult which, in an age of rejecting tradition, can only be a good thing.

As an expression of Anglicanism, both Catholic and Protestant can assent to the spirit of the BCP and use it as they see fit, either by its direct usage or by texts that conform or which have grown up in conjunction with its spirit. If we can all agree that it is a godly book, then we have a unifying principle by which we have some community.

I would say that there is something else, something deeper within Anglicanism that unites Continuing Anglican communities. The Anglican Catholic Church is as Orthodox as Constantinople and as Catholic as Rome. What is perhaps different about us is that we have a higher regard for the laity and need to continue to have that higher regard. This comes from our Anglicanism side. Many of the architects of the ACC were laymen, including the canonist Fr Stahl (God rest him) who was only ordained after his work on our canons. Having been to the Provincial Synod and meeting some of those who were at the Congress made me appreciate that we are not a Church who seeks to make the laity obedient sheep but rather engages with them actively at all levels. We need to let that continue by developing a well-educated laity which doesn't see the need to be ordained in order to get involved in building parishes and preaching the Christian Faith and thus include women fundamentally in the work of the Church rather than just seeing them as nuns, wives and mothers. I have seen personally the activity of many intrepid, strong, intelligent and intimidating women at the Provincial Synod who have been instrumental in building parishes and developing spiritual ministries.

The Continuing Anglican way has this written into itself more than, perhaps, the Lambeth Communion which broke away from us. It is why I wrote my book Whom seek ye? at my bishop's behest in order to encourage the laity not only to be educated but to continue to educate themselves in full commitment to the Anglican Catholic cause. 

As I end this dreadful 2020, I find myself very hopeful about Continuing Anglicanism and the possibility of its growth but then I am always the optimist. We now have mechanisms in place to grow and serve even from our state of smallness. I look forward to what the future brings for us, though the work is going to be very tough. I continue in prayer for this vision,  for God's will to be done and for the unifying presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the community.

The Truth of St John

Propers for St John's Day

Sermon for St John's Day

The world of Biblical Scholarship is sometimes a strange place to be for Christians. If you are a certain type of scholar, you don't talk about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you talk about the three Synoptic gospels and the Fourth gospel. Why?

[PAUSE]

You will hear some scholars say, "well, we don't really think John wrote that gospel." They give all kinds of reasons based on very scientific observations about how the texts were written and how the gospels were copied and translated through the centuries. There are some biblical scholars who say that the gospels have been tampered with to make it appear that Jesus is God. On what basis do they make this claim? All too often, their reasoning is that miracles don't happen and therefore all reports of miracles must be faked. They think that science shows that people can't rise from the dead. This colours all their views.

[PAUSE]

Of course, this makes it difficult for Christians to spread the gospel. If the Bible is shown not to be true, then we are fighting a losing battle. 

It's at this point we meet St John.

St John tells us categorically that he is telling the truth in his letters. We should believe him. St John is the only apostle to have lived into old age. Indeed he has his own disciples like St Polycarp and St Irenaeus who write and pass on his teaching. 

St John shows us that Christianity is more than the Bible alone. St John speaks of things that Jesus says and does that aren't written down. He shows us that the Bible is part of the Church and, the moment you take it out of the Church to take it to.bits, you lose the message it conveys. 

The message of the Church is found in the Bible, but that message is about seeking to be part of the Church and seeking to make God the most fundamental part of your life, not making detailed analysis as to whether the Bible is true based on the type of ink St Paul used.

St John tells us what he has seen and heard. He tells us that he is always close to Jesus, even leaning his head upon the Lord's breast. He is even embarrassed to name himself in his gospel as if it will make him seem more important than he is.

The gospel he writes points outside itself. Indeed, the whole Bible points outside itself. It cannot be of any value in the hands of those who do not believe. The Bible will convince them of nothing unless the Holy Ghost decree it. The only thing a good evangelist can do is tell the truth.

This is why we need to learn what the truth is. We have a faith that seeks understanding and it is as we search that we tell the truth as we find it. This is what St John does and his gospel leads our faith to a better sight of Our Lord.

And when He shall appear, we shall be like Him because shall see Him as He is.

Christmas Spirits

Propers for Christmas Day

Sermon for Christmas Day

Why do we tell ghost stories at Christmas?

There is a real tradition within English culture of sitting in front of a fire and speaking of ghosts. Charles Dickens uses the tradition to great effect to describe the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge. The great biblical scholar Montague Rhodes James also entertains the fellows at King's College with a ghost story for Christmas. But why?

[PAUSE]

At Christmas, we reach the darkest point of the year. The sun sets in the early afternoon; it is cold, wet and windy. The Christmas lights twinkle somewhat ineffectively against the coming night. It is a time when we cannot see well and we still have the fear about what may be lurking in the darkness. 

We try to dispel that fear by raising it to entertainment. We acknowledge our fear and give it some fantastic reality as a tale of ghosts and spirits. What is interesting is that these tales are moral. Someone does something wrong and they pay for it at the withered hands of some spectre. It shows that human beings still live in fear of the consequences of our actions.

We may not know it. We may pooh-pooh the idea. But we are a people who still live in fear. We have to admit that we are afraid of the dark. The world is very dark at the moment.

[PAUSE]

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.

We may be haunted by the ghosts of our actions but no ghost can abide standing in the light to be seen for what it is. Ghosts are insubstantial and, the moment the reality is seen, they dwindle and fade into a laughable nothingness. Shadows evaporate when the light shines. The imperfect vanishes away when the perfect comes.

Our tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas expresses Humanity's fear of the dark and the reality of the evil that stalks the shadows looking to devour us. In confessing this fear, we are able to turn to the Light which is appearing. Our antidote for the ghosts is a little baby lying in the manger. We realise our need for His tiny presence. We find comfort in His tiny limbs reaching out of that stall for a simple and unconditional cuddle. We see the hope shining out of His tiny eyes as they take their first blinking look out into the world He created.

[PAUSE]

It is so simple to exorcise a ghost: we just show it the Baby but we have to let the Baby in first! We only reach Christmas Day in our lives by flinging wide the stable doors to let the light stream in.

O Virgo Virginum

O Virgo Virginum

O Virgin of virgins! how shall this be? for neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? That thing which ye behold, is a divine mystery.

 From some quarters, a certain murmur arises that to turn our focus from the Lord to Mary borders of the Mariolatrous. The undisputed fact is that, until the Baby is born, we can only gaze upon the Mother. If the unborn St John the Baptist recognises the unborn Messiah despite a double barrier of flesh then we, too, gazing upon the Lowly Maiden may enjoy the presence of Christ yet veiled in His Mother's flesh.

Far from worshipping the Mother, our concerns are directed to the One who will enter into this world and spend His first years tightly embraced in her loving arms. Only she gets this honour with all its pain and sorrow. 

The Lord will not return to us like this: He has already acquired His humanity through Mary's flesh and there is no need for Him to be born again. Yet when He comes again, we shall find that His Mother is there in the place where royal mothers are to be honoured. As we look upon her, our eyes will be drawn through her to her Son.

Until He is born, all we will see is Mary the ever-Virgin. We take her hand, make her comfortable and support her as she allows the Great and Mighty Wonder to occur. 

We look to her precisely so that we may worship Jesus Christ Our God.

O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their salvation: come and save us, O Lord our God.

God is with us and yet we have only been able to encounter Him physically, save in the Blessed Sacrament, for not even forty years some two millennia ago. 

God is with us and still we say, "How long wilt Thou forget us, O Lord. Forever?" God is with us and still we live as if He were a nice idea or an afterthought or a genie. God is with us and yet still we sin. If we believe that God is with us how can we still lie, cheat, steal, lust and kill?

Humility is the only true way that we can cope with our sinfulness. It becomes necessary to tolerate the fact that each one of us is fallen and broken, and it also becomes necessary by the same token to refuse point blank to accept that brokenness and sinfulness are the masters of our lives. We simply cannot repair ourselves but must rather turn to our Maker for repair and even then we must live with the consequences of our sin. That is how we can embrace Death as the means to ending our constant fall and constant need to repent. 

God is with us, walking unseen beside us, calling us to repentance and loving us even as we sin. It is through His Death that we die to destroy our sins, and through His Birth that we are born anew into Eternity.

O Rex Gentium

O Rex Gentium

O King of the nations, and their Desire; the chief Corner-stone, who makest two both one: come and save mankind whom Thou formedst of clay.

With our excellent gift of self-deception, we project that for which we long most onto that which is more readily available. We complicate our lives, masking our true happiness with something that we can understand better and  see more clearly until the illusion becomes more ingrained as reality in our lives than the truth. 

Our Chief End is God Himself and it is for His Transcendent life that we truly long: eternal light, eternal love, eternal peace, eternal joy...

Thus God is the desire of all people albeit confused with the love of created things. God is not of confusion but of truth and our existence is built on His. God becomes Man to make immanent that which is transcendent: transcendence becomes immanent, human nature and divine nature unite in one person to give some tangibility to the Desire of Humanity and make credible the promise of the fulfillment of that Desire in Him which cannot be completed until the Day of days. 

Light becomes Clay so that Clay may become Light. 

Virtual Nine Lessons and Carols 2020

I thought, given the circumstances, it might be good to try again an experiment that I made a few years ago and blog a virtual celebration of Nine Lessons and Carols.

Please do click on the links in sequence to get the full intended affect. You might also like to listen by candlelight as well and, if you like, sing along with the carols. If you do find this in any way complementary to your experience of the season, please have a mince pie and a cup of mulled wine on my behalf after the benediction.

Organ Prelude: Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (Johannes Brahms)

Carol: Once in Royal David's City

Introduction

First Lesson

Anthem: The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came

Second Lesson

Carol: It came upon a Midnight Clear

Anthem: Ding Dong Merrily on High (Charles Wood)

Third Lesson

Carol: While Shepherds watched their Flocks

Fourth Lesson

Carol: In the Bleak Midwinter

Fifth Lesson

Anthem: A Spotless Rose (Herbert Howells)

Sixth Lesson

Anthem: The Coventry Carol

Seventh Lesson

Carol: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Eighth Lesson

Anthem: In Dulci Jubilo (Michael Praetorius)

Ninth Lesson

Carol: O Come All Ye Faithful

Closing prayers and Benediction

Carol: O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Organ Postlude: Von Himmel Hoch (J. S. Bach)

The Crowded Wilderness

Propers for the fourth Sunday in Advent

Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Advent

A voice cries in the wilderness. How on earth is it expected to be heard? It's like the tree falling in the forest when there is no-one to hear it. Does it make a sound?

[PAUSE]

We speak in order to be heard. We speak because we seek to communicate with those around us. But if there is no-one around, is there a point? St John the Baptist says that he is the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness. If he is not calling out to God, then who does he expect to hear him? Who goes out to the wilderness?

Certainly not the rich folk of the city. They are comfortable with their circumstances. Certainly not the merchants, the captains of industry, or the chief executives: they need to stay near people in order to make a profit. Certainly not the revellers, the party-goers or thosr who enjoy the noise: they are satisfied with each others' company and all the booze.

Who goes out to the wilderness?

[PAUSE]

We recognise the noise of the city. All day and every day there are things fighting for our attention. On social media there are voices demanding our acceptance of their opinion and who scream at us if we differ or hold to Godly moral values. In our day and age we are surrounded by a cacophony of voices crying out to us. We can barely hear ourselves think.

The people who come out to the wilderness are those who know that there is a din in their lives. They shut themselves away, unplug the phone, turn off the laptop, disable the apps. And they sit, and they listen for the voice crying in the wilderness.

It's there to be heard. And that's the point. Without St John calling in the waste land, there would be nothing to hear, no call to repentance, no promise of salvation, no expression of God's love.

[PAUSE]

In the beginning, there was the uttermost wilderness. There was nothing but God. He calls in the wilderness of nothing and, lo! there is light. If He had not called in the wilderness, we would not be.

St John cries in the wilderness for those who will hear. 

And what of our calling?

[PAUSE]

As Christians, we have a duty to preach the Gospel by living lives that display the love of God. But we preach in an age of noise. Won't our message get lost in the hustle and bustle of news, opinion, and demands to share the latest meme on Facebook?

[PAUSE]

Ironically, in all this noise, we are calling out in the wilderness. It looks as if our message will not be heard above the crowds of people shouting their own messages. But the lie that Satan feeds us is that there is no point in talking because we will not be heard. We won't be heard if we don't preach and that's what Satan is counting on.

All we have to do is open our mouths and tell the truth. There is a God. There is a God Who loves us. There is a God Who dies for us and rises for us. There is a God Who brings us into true Eternal happiness. There is a God Who is coming soon. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

O Oriens

O Oriens

O Dayspring, Brightness of Light Everlasting and Sun of Righteousness: come and enlighten him that sitteth in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Before light can shine there has to be a source. When a mass of gases collapses under gravity, the intense heat causes a nuclear reaction to ignite and a star is born. Light is the first matter of Creation - a product of the Wisdom of God. Light is the first thing that is not God but rather reflects His being. Further, in order for Darkness to exist, there has to be somewhere for light to be absent, something upon which light is not shining.

 In separating Light from Darkness, God is creating things that emit and things that absorb light. All this is determined in the beginning. 

As our modern science observes Light itself in ever finer detail and sees individual quanta of light and their counterintuitive effects, so the mathematical reality of our universe is revealed to be elegant and beautiful. Mathematics sheds light on science, making sense of our observations and enabling predictions. 

And yet, that a non-material mathematics might reveal the intricacies of a material universe is itself a marvellous wonder. Our universe becomes a reality of the material mixed with the non-material - aspects of reality invisible to the physical sciences. In denying the uncreated light, materialist minds are in a primordial darkness and will remain there until their eyes are opened to the Truth. Just as a few first century Jews have the Light shine upon the words of the Old Testament to reveal Salvation, so the first century Gentiles have the Light shine upon their philosophies to reveal Christ there. And forth these folk go to shine light and proclaim the message.

This is the message of the Church: sleepers wake and the light of Christ will shine on you!

O Clavis David

O Clavis David

O Key of David and Sceptre of the house of Israel, that openest and no man shutteth, who shuttest and no man openeth: come and bring the prisoner out of the prisonhouse and him that sitteth in darkness and in the shadow of death.

A door exists to provide a temporary entrance and a temporary barrier. Our Lord calls Himself the door of the sheepfold and we can therefore expect that He will provide access to the fold for some and deny access to others. A sheepfold keeps the sheep safe, gives them comfortable surroundings and allows them the freedom to be sheep.

A prison is in many respects the opposite of a sheepfold. It is designed to keep prisoners shut away in undesirable circumstances, control their movements, and prevent the prisoner from exercising their own will for their lives. 

Our sin shuts us away from God. It prevents us from living lives of freedom and denies us from being in control of our lives. Our desires are clouded by the darkness of Sin and its effects pervading the cosmos like the smoke of Hell itself.

Jesus is a door, but he is also the Key of David. He opens doors. He opens the doors of those minds used to the Old Testament to behold Him as the One Who fulfills the Old Testament fully. In so doing, He opens the doors of the prison of our sin by reconciling us to God. In rising again, He breaks down the gates of Hades and our inevitable departure from this life.

No man has control of this door save Christ. He chooses those for whom to open or to close based on their desire for Him and their rejection of sin. To enter in by Christ is to choose to leave the prisonhouse of sin. To take control of one's life by giving that control back to Christ is the means of our salvation.

O Radix Jesse

O Radix Jesse

O Root of Jesse, which standest for an ensign of the people, at whom kings shall shut their mouths, to whom the Gentiles shall seek: come and deliver us, and tarry not.

The Root of Jesse springs into life for the purpose of hanging on the Tree for all to see only to rise again in equal exhibition to confound the rulers of this world and their desire to hold earthly power. 

Right at the beginning, the Tree of Life is present with fruit to eat which we may not consume on account of our broken nature and our fall into sin, for, were we to eat this most excellent fruit in a fallen state, our brokenness and sinfulness would be eternal and thus irredeemable. 

And yet Jesus is the Life and the Root of Jesse. He is the True Vine stretching backwards and forwards in Time and Space from His birth in Bethlehem so that we might all be redeemed and all have available to us the fruit of the Tree of Life once more. 

Our Eucharistic sacrifice is the means by which we take the Root of Jesse into ourselves in order to draw living water and gain the substance of God Himself to repair that which we have broken by sin and gain Eternity enjoying the fruits of pure Love.

O Adonaï

O Adonaï

O Adonaï, and Leader of the House of Israel, who appearedst in the Bush to Moses in a flame of fire, and gavest him the Law in Sinai: Come and deliver us with an outstretched arm..

Adonaï is the Hebrew name that stands for the Holy Name of God which our Jewish brethren may not pronounce on grounds of their reverence for Him. Christianity, on the other hand, has a name for Him - Jesus - at which our knees bow willingly and with much love. As Jesus is the image of the invisible God, so is His Name the image of the Divine Name by which we, in our humility, are permitted to address Him even as we are permitted to touch Him, embrace Him and consume Him. 

Jesus is the arm of God stretched out to pull us from the mire of Sin and Death which we only know to exist by the gift of the Law given by God to Moses. Although that arm burns brightly with Divine Light, it does not consume us. We have consumed Christ and He burns within us to make us like Him. As we shine with His Light, by that Light we shall see the New Jerusalem in which we may dwell for Eternity with Him.

O Sapientia

As befits the Old English usage, I begin a series of reflections on the Advent Antiphons beginning today on the 16th of December.

O Sapientia

O Wisdom, who from the mouth of the Most High proceedest, spanning from one end as far as the other, firmly and sweetly setting forth all things: come for to teach us the way of prudence.

The relationship between Wisdom and the Holy Trinity is imperfectly reflected in the way that we speak. 

The Church Fathers, especially St John Damascene, see the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity being like the spoken Word. When we speak our words proceed from us born of our minds and borne on our breath.

We see this reflected in God: the Father speaks the Word and it is borne on the Holy Ghost. But God is simple which means that the spoken Word and the Divine Breath have the same substance and are God. Their emanations of Word and Breath from Father are different but are the same God. 

This is the Wisdom we are given, for the Word is the Truth: He is what really is and we exist only because He is. This Wisdom is in Eternity with God but is not God: she only has existence because Creation exists and Creation requires knowledge of its Creator. Without Creation, God is complete in Himself and requires no Wisdom to communicate the Truth. The Word is the means of communicating the Truth to us and He conveys Wisdom to us.

We need to be taught about Our Creator, first because we are created and therefore different from our Creator, and secondly because we are capable of falling from Him and have fallen from Him. This is the prudence we need to be taught: The Word becomes flesh and dwells among us for pure love of us and our salvation.

Virgin on Eternity

A reflection on how virginity provides its own spiritual strength.

Art Thou He?

The Propers for Advent III

Sermon for the third Sunday in Advent

Is the Jesus that you worship the same Jesus that the Church worships?

[PAUSE]

"Of course He is!" you say heartily and you will recite the Nicene creed by heart, quote Holy Scripture and bless the Holy Name. Is that enough?

There are many people who would do the same thing and then say that their Jesus loves them so much that He accepts their lifestyle no matter what they do, just so long as they are true to themselves.

This is a Jesus who approves of their rich and luxuriant life and understands why they can't support the poor. This is a Jesus who condones a divorce because, well, the marriage just isn't really working out. This is a Jesus Who just wants you to be happy with a series of partners just as long as you're nice to them. This is a Jesus who wants you to be a revolutionary so that you can tear down governments that won't let you be free to do what you want because that's what He stands for.

Is that Jesus? How do you know?

[PAUSE]

Our Blessed Lord challenges everyone because everyone is broken and in need of His salvation. Even in prison, St John the Baptist is surprised by the reports of what Our Lord is doing. He has to send messengers to check.

And the Lord says,

"Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me."

[PAUSE]

The Lord makes Himself quite clear: He has come to repair humanity, not to indulge our brokenness. The deaf hear, the blind see and the lame walk.

And the poor are made rich?

No.

Not with money or power or possessions. 

Our Lord is clear: true poverty is not knowing Him. True poverty is being without the promise of eternal life bathing in the light of God's smile in Heaven. Material riches are nothing. Material relationships are nothing. Material power is nothing. What matters is God. What matters is our neighbour.

[PAUSE]

There is a difference between tolerance and acceptance. God accepts us as His children but tolerates our sinfulness only as far as is necessary for us to repent and accept Him for Who He is. 

Those who want God to accept them for who they are often don't want to accept Him for Who He is. They never return the favour. God goes to great lengths to show us that we are loved and in need of that love to the extent that He is made Man. By showing us Who He is, He gives us the opportunity to be made like Him. 

[PAUSE]

"If ye love me," says the real Jesus, "keep my commandments." 

Our salvation isn't something that goes one way. God saves us through His Incarnation, yes, but we have to play a part - we have to accept the salvation that we are given. 

It won't be the salvation we want. It will be better than that because we will be better in the real Jesus. 

Unity in Community

 A few thoughts on how unity might be achieved in a disunited world.

From the old to the new

Listen to Propers Advent II

Sermon for the second Sunday in Advent

You will have noticed that many people see how God appears in the Old Testament as being profoundly different from how He appears in the New Testament. People see Him as being wrathful and smiting in the Old Testament and a nice, kind daddy in the New. If they do then they miss the character of God completely: they have not read the Holy Scriptures correctly.

Do we?

[PAUSE]

If everyone was open to the Holy Spirit, we would not need the Bible: we could rely on His influence to show us the Truth in all things. Human beings, however, have a bit of a gift for going astray. We die because we sin and we sin because we die.

The Bible is there for us to tell us about God and that's how we need to read it. It tells us the Truth about God and that means we need to treat it with respect. The World treats the Bible like any other book and applies modern forms of criticism often to try and show that it is just another book. But we also look at Our Lord Jesus Christ and we see how He quotes from the Old Testament readily and interprets it so that we see how to behave.

In the Old Testament, God tells us not to kill and, in the New, God shows us how we can kill a person just by hating them. In the Old Testament, God tells us to be faithful to our spouses and, in the New, God shows us how we can be unfaithful just by thinking wicked thoughts. Jesus is the lens through which we read the Old Testament and His Life is the way we encounter God.

The Old Testament is the hope of those who live before the birth of Jesus. The New Testament is the hope of those who await His return. The moment we start seeing them as different or not being as God-breathed then we lose the coherence of God's message to us.

[PAUSE]

The Church has been given the Scriptures as a gift by which it can present what she has always believed in every place and by all who seek to worship Our Lord in His Truth. 

The Bible is hard to understand at times but so is life itself. The sheer complexity of comedy and tragedy that makes up our fallen condition is mirrored in the holy texts. The temptation is to see the Bible as a book of answers, or as a compendium of solutions to our difficulties. Yes, it does show us the Truth but we can only see that Truth if we are surrounded by people on whom God has imprinted His image rather than in the pages of a book.

We are not to worship the Bible as we do God but we are to respect it and allow its words to reveal God's word. In the end, it will be utterly unnecessary because the Word will return and we shall see Him as He really is as we all stand before His throne together as one Church.

The Advent Prose

 Rough and ready as always, but I hope this will be of use to some.

Listen to The Advent Prose

Lo!

Listen to Propers Advent I

Sermon for Advent Sunday

Charles Fort is known as a collector of tales of odd occurrences. One of his books is entitled simply "Lo!" It details an outlandish new astronomy involving teleportation based on tales of disappearing ships and fish falling from the sky.

Of course, it all sounds a bit odd. You might think tales of fish, frogs and fowl falling from the sky as rather mediaeval. Yet, even in the 1970s there are reports of raining nuts, peas and seeds.

[PAUSE]

There will probably be a scientific explanation for these occurrences but if something unexpected happens, does it point to something greater in significance?  A strange happening begs for explanation but also challenges the security of our lives.

There are to be signs in the heavens, wars and great distress when Our Lord comes again. But aren't there always signs in the heavens? Every year, there's a new report of an asteroid that is going to crash into the earth. There have been some huge wars. People have been in great distress in every decade of every century. And we expect someone to cry, "Lo!" and for the Lord to appear in great glory.

The thing is, Our Lord has form for not giving us what we expect. Sometimes, coming in great glory is entering the city sitting on a donkey.

[PAUSE]

The events of Palm Sunday do demonstrate God's glory. Remember, glory is the impact that we make on our surroundings. Angels demonstrate God's glory by shining with God's light. Human beings wave palm branches and rejoice. Both will make the watcher say, "Lo!"

The fact is that Our Lord Jesus will return in great glory, but He says Himself, He will come like a thief in the night. We will not expect Him. The reason is clear: if we expect Him at nine o'clock on Tuesday morning, we will spruce ourselves up, tidy the kitchen, and arrange for the children to be in a play-date elsewhere just to make ourselves presentable. Not knowing when He is coming means that we have to be prepared for Him in the humdrum, everyday aspect of our lives. Not knowing when or how He will appear gives us chance to practice our sincerity in believing in Him and improving that belief.

The season of Advent gives us an opportunity to assess our sincerity by asking ourselves what if God were to tap us on the shoulder tomorrow or even a minute from now.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord was born in great glory when He came the first time and still many people missed the glory of the angels shining all around. We have to admit that when He comes again, we will not have a clue when or how but, if we love Him, we will know that it is He who has come for us. And His Advent for us will make the greatest impact on our lives Eternally.

Tying up loose ends

Before the sermon, a little something for St Cecilia's Day

Sermon for the Sunday next before Advent

Is Sunday the first day of the week or the last? 

Either way it has its place in the weekend in the same way that a piece of string has two ends: one of those ends is a beginning.

Sunday is always about Resurrection. It is the centre of our Faith and the beginning of a new week. It is the first day of Creation; it is the first day of the Church Militant; it is the first day of the liturgical year.

Today, however, is a last Sunday. How can a last ever be a first?

[PAUSE]

In our experience, life falls into cycles and circles: as we orbit the sun, we see the seasons come and go; as the planet spins, we see day become night and night become day; we see birth and death and we think they are different.

But there are cycles we don't see because we don't live long enough. Ice ages have come and gone; there have been mass extinctions as the planet has changed and new species have risen to take their place. Our whole solar system orbits the galaxy every two hundred million years. 

It seems everything happens in cycles. Ends and beginnings get tied together.

But the Incarnation of Our Lord, His Life, His Work, His Death, His Resurrection, aren't these just a one-off? These aren't repeated. And neither are we. We don't go round again, do we?

[PAUSE]

Sunday gives us the answer: the first day of Creation, the day of Resurrection. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself ties our creation to our resurrection. We die because we sin and we sin because we die as St Paul tells the Romans. Death and sin are tied together. In being made Man, God gives us someone for us to tie ourselves to. Our births and our deaths become united in Him and we are raised to a new life with Him.

But we cannot be tied to Christ and to sin. A string only has two ends and we need both our ends to be tied to Christ. 

[PAUSE]

As our liturgical year ends, so we are reminded that the cycle begins again in order to help us untie ourselves from sin and unite ourselves to Christ. Now is the time to reflect on the year that is gone and prepare for the year that is coming. Now is the time to see Christ ascend into Heaven and prepare to see Him in the manger. Now is the time to allow the cycles of the Church year to tie our loose ends together more tightly in Christ.

In tying ourselves to Christ we tie ourselves to Eternity and to joy.

Exclusive Inclusivity and the Church

Sermon for the twenty-third Sunday after Trinity

Have you ever been forced to do something you didn't want to do through sheer peer pressure?

[PAUSE]

The way that a human society holds itself together is by making the idea of being an outcast very unpalatable. These days, being inclusive is something that we strive for: everyone must belong to our society as a valued part. It's very reasonable and well-intentioned. We Christians know full well that every single human being is a precious child of God.

These days we would not exclude people from society for being blind. We involve them in playing an active part and give them access to the same opportunities that are available to everyone. The fact that they are blind does not pose a barrier to being included in our society.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with the man born blind of whom St John is speaking in his gospel. This man is excluded precisely because he can't see: he can't work or contribute or participate in the temple; he probably looks different too if his eyes are not properly formed. The assumption that society makes is that he is blind because he has sinned and therefore he ought to be avoided by polite society. 

To an extent the Church agrees with that. Both St Peter and St Paul say that unrepentant sinners are to be put out of the Church until they do repent: those who seek to sin damage the community and that's not on.

But the blind man hasn't sinned. There's no sin here. There's no reason for his exclusion. What there is is incompleteness.

[PAUSE]

And so, God in Christ - He who formed Man in His own image from the dust of the earth - He takes the dust of the earth and completes the man's eyes Himself.

This is direct evidence that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

The man acknowledges his blindness and receives sight. And, just because he is healed by Our Lord, he is cast once more from polite society because he dares to tell the truth. He is cast out because he bears witness to Our Lord.

The sad thing is his parents do not stand by him. 

Oh yes, the world must hear of this wonderful healing from the lips of one who was blind but now sees, but his parents sell him short. They do not stand with him. They want to remain part of polite society and will not tell the truth so they don't get thrown out.

[PAUSE]

No society can be truly inclusive. Groucho Marx says that he would never join a society that would have him as a member. There is always some rule of conduct.

The Church is no different. The Church enjoys communion with God in Christ. Those who sin separate themselves from God therefore they separate themselves from the Church. But God gives a way back - repentance. Until we repent of sin, we remain apart from the Church. And only God can say what sin is because sin depends on what God is not.

[PAUSE]

Jesus seeks to bring the once-blind man back into society from which he should never have been excluded. And, thankfully, we have learned from this that the blind are to be included in our society to the fullest. If, however, a blind man tries to drive a car then he is acting unlawfully. Even in an "inclusive" society there are things in which it is for everyone's good to exclude the blind. It isn't cruel to do so nor diminishing but acknowledging the truth. 

[PAUSE]

The same is true for each of us. Human nature is broken and imperfect. It is true and honest to recognise and accept our imperfections and limitations. There are things which we cannot do without sinning. It is true and honest to recognise that we are tempted to go beyond our limitations and so fall into sin. It is true and honest to see where we have sinned and turn back.

[PAUSE]

As for the once-blind man, he is excluded from society for telling the truth. Our Lord shows that it is worth being excluded from such a society. The Church seeks the Truth because the Church seeks Christ. How can the Church embrace the falsehoods that Society wants us to hold?

It is better to be excluded from falsehood and included in the Truth for there is Christ and there is God. If you offend Society by telling the truth then Society will cut you off as Our Lord predicts. If you seek the Truth, however, then you are very much welcome in the Church.

Humour in sobriety

 A reflection on the Benedictine Rule and humour.

Unreal Idols and Real Ikons

Sermon for the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity

What a strange way to end a letter! No "yours sincerely", no "all my love", no "warm regards". St John's first letter ends simply with

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen."

It's possible that we lost the rest of the letter. If we did, then that's a shame but it cannot have contributed to our understanding and relationship with God. If this is it then it seems a very abrupt way to end a letter.

[PAUSE]

Clearly St John wishes us to impress upon us that idolatry is a big problem and he has spent much of his letter telling us why: we are to worship the true and living God and not created things.

St John has spent much of his ministry in Ephesus and has seen the idolatry of the Greeks and Romans with their whole phone-book's worth of gods to worship: Artemis, Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon.... Since St John is Jewish, he is also aware in his culture that there are people who worship Baal, Ashtoreth and the disgusting Molech. In such an environment, how is anyone to know the true God?

[PAUSE]

St John begins his letter drawing us to the fact that he has seen God, hugged Him, even laid his head upon the divine breast. He knows Jesus: he knows God.

He knows that there can be only one God. Another St John - this time St John Damascene - says that if there were two true gods then one would limit what the other can do and God can do all that can be done. Thus there is only one true God that exists: Jesus bears witness to Him and the Holy Spirit bears witness to Him.

Further, the Apostle St John whose letter we are reading, says that on earth there are three witnesses that God is with us in Jesus: the witness of the Holy Spirit throughout His ministry, in His miracles and in His preaching; and in the witness of the blood and water which poured out of His side on the Cross. All this points to one truth, one reality: that God Himself became flesh and dwelt among us.

[PAUSE]

This is the truth. Any god that is not seen in Our Lord Jesus Christ is an idol - a thing of our own creation.These are shadows and phantoms without any substance and whose demands haven't the power even to save a flea.

St John is clear, our faith in God is expressed in our striving to lead sinless lives by which he means lives that seek God and stick to Him like glue. When we sin we must confess and repent and we will find ourselves back with Him. We cannot  say that we love God and then ignore Him and what He asks us to do for then we are worshipping a false God which looks like the real one but who agrees with our sinfulness: if God wants us to be joined with Him, why should He tolerate anything that separates us from Him.

[PAUSE]

Unrepentant Idolatry is a sin unto death because we refuse to let go of the god that we have created and who accepts what we do without question. The true God will show us our sins and bear them for us upon His Cross. His pain and suffering will bear witness to that. Will our struggle to know and fight against our sin bear witness to our love for Him?

Relics of the Unknown Saint

Sermon for the solemnity of All Saints

How many saints are there?

There are some who believe that there are only 144,000 people who are going to Heaven based on reading St John's words in the Book of Revelation. Yet, a careful reading of this shows us very clearly that this number is formed from twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. If we are going to be literal about the number then we have to be literal about the people we are counting. If the Book of Revelation is being literal in its truth, then the only people going to Heaven will be Jewish. That rather contradicts the Gospel proclaimed to the Gentiles, doesn't it?

Yet, St John is clear. The communion of Saints is innumerable. We cannot count the number of the saints. Even looking at the collection of Saints in the Martyrology, we see so many saints that go unnamed, and whom history seems to have forgotten. 

The vast majority of saints go unnamed, without saints' days, without being recognised, without any earthly veneration.

Is this a tragedy, or is it a good thing?

[PAUSE]

Of these unknown saints, there is nothing left. "Some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them."

The World has forgotten them. Even the Church seems to have forgotten them. They appear nowhere in calendars or in reliquaries. Yet, perhaps these unknown saints bear witness to something more truly glorious.

[PAUSE]

Of course the Church has not forgotten them: they are the Church. They may not have magnificent tombs or people begging their prayers, but they bear witness to the sheer transitory nature of this life. Their bodies may have turned to the dust and been blown to the four winds. But, in time, this will be true of all of us. 

The fact is that our cathedrals will crumble; our books, discs, even our digital data in the cloud will decay and rot to nothing. Human civilization will evaporate as if it had never been. There will be a time when there will be no evidence for the existence of the Church whatsoever.

Depressed? Don't be. This is good news.

[PAUSE]

When the Church has disappeared from Earth, then its existence in Heaven will be complete. Earth forgets about Heaven but the Church does not.

Saints may disappear on earth. "Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore."

God does not forget, neither does the Church. When the world pronounces us insignificant, God remembers. When our work is disregarded, God remembers. When our suffering is ignored, God remembers.

[PAUSE]

Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints. In remembering the saints we know, we venerate the saints we have forgotten because all saints stand together. We, too, will be saints forgotten by the world but that means we have ceased finally to be of the world.

We will be forgotten, but the Gospel that we preach will resound until there are no ears left to hear it, and then there will be nothing else to hear but the song of worship sung by the innumerable cloud of saints for Eternity.

The Kingdom of Truth

Sermon for the feast of Christ the King

Throughout the day, we have been standing with Our Lord Jesus as He stands before Pontius Pilate. We have spent today gazing upon this one scene looking at all the aspects of what it means to be king and it brings us back to this meeting of leaders. What we witness here is a struggle between kingdoms and yet only one is a real kingdom. 

This is a strange struggle, though, as we don't see soldiers fighting. Our Lord says that He has legions of angels at His command and yet He will not use them. The battle we are witnessing is not like anything we know. No cannons roaring or bullets flying; no swords nor spears; no skirmish or battle cry - at least none we recognise and yet, here, in the Roman Governor's office a battle is raging between kings.

[PAUSE]

Kingship involves imposing control somehow. Every king must face the struggle of exercising their will. Some do this by brute force; some do this by persuasion and diplomacy; some do this by careful manipulation.

How does Jesus rule?

[PAUSE]

God rules by the sheer act of creation. Things are as they are because He wills it. He says as much:

 Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

The truth is what really is. We owe our existence to God: only He makes things exist. More than that, God uses the very existence of things to communicate with us. We know that the Heavens are telling the glory of God. They have no speech or language and yet their sound has gone out into all lands. This is the truth that we hear and what we hear is the voice of God.

[PAUSE]

Kings exercise control in order to impose their will whatever the motivation behind that will may be. The truth of God's kingship is that it is motivated by goodness and love for us. His will is to love. He does not seek to dominate us. He does not seek to terrorise us or gain some pleasure by pitting us against each other. He does not play with our lives or seek some demeaning services from us. We are indeed to serve Him but in serving Him we find true joy.

We have a king who truly has our best interests at heart.

As He stands before Pilate, Our Lord is intent on proclaiming this truth that He is here to save us from evil and that, in a few hours time, He will do that on the Cross. That is His declaration of sincerity. It is His new covenant with us.

[PAUSE]

The rule of a king depends on those who accept his authority. The struggle is with those who do not accept it. Standing before Pilate, Our Lord is struggling. He struggles not against Pilate, nor against Pharisees, or Rome or the world: if He were then these would not stand. Christ fights against all the forces of Evil which have infected us since Adam and Eve.

He fights and His victory is our freedom. We are fully free to choose and that is God's victory on our behalf for true love allows the beloved to make a free choice. The truth will set us free. We could, like the Devil, choose to reject God and that distance from God will be ours for Eternity. 

Or we could accept the rule of Christ and see the truth. That truth will open our eyes to own selves and we shall behold His glory as the One Who sits upon the throne. His control over Creation gives us life and this life with Him will be Eternal.

A little something for Halloween

I was dared by a friend to turn this famous "true" story into a ballad. This is the result. Sleep well.

Listen to The Vampire of Croglin

1) 

As Charlie's reign draws to its end,

a fable rather strange

begins its haunt at the Low Hall

that's known as Croglin Grange.

Two brothers and a sister lease

this Hall that's near the church.

The graveyard's old; the stones are worn,

and there the phantoms perch.

2)

One night, the winds are high and howl

around the sister's room,

and from her window she can see

some movement in the gloom.

Two points of light, red fire aflame,

flit swift from tomb to tomb.

Afraid, she shuts the casement tight

and draws back in her room.

3)

And, as she swoons upon her bed,

wracked by foreboding plain,

she spies those self-same points of light

at her dark window pane.

A scratch upon the glass appalls

and pins her to her bed.

The beast outside, to entry gain,

unpicks the window's lead.

4)

A pane falls in, a finger long

creeps in and lifts the latch.

And through the window wide it slinks,

its victim now to catch.

It stands up, tall and thin and dark,

its face a shrivelled brown.

its eyes glow red and, to her bed, 

it holds its victim down.

5)

And into her poor throat all white

its fangs it deftly sinks

her roseate blood it trickles out

as Croglin's vampire drinks.

The brothers hear her screams and burst

into the sister's room.

The girl it drops and, whence it came,

flies out into the gloom.

6)

 The sister lives, though wounded sore.

Her neck the brothers bind.

They send her off to Switzerland

for health of mien and mind.

A few months pass, the girl returns

to Croglin's haunted hall.

She takes her chambers back again

to bilk the vampire's thrall.

7)

Yet, when the next the winds are high,

and red lights show their gleam

once more at sister's window pane,

she straightway starts to scream.

The brothers enter, pistols cocked

and see the vampire's frame.

A bullet fired into its leg

renders the monster lame.

8)

Across the grounds it limps and flees

towards the churchyard near.

And close behind, the men pursue,

no longer slaves to fear.

They find a stone all cracked and rent.

Beneath, a coffin old

its lid part off, the fiend within

all rank and all a-mould.

9)

A stake is driv'n; a spade is raised

and slices off its head

and, by the morn, the monster's burned

with its foul reign of dread.

Now, when the wind at Croglin's high

by candlelight, it's said

you may still hear the scratching sound

of unpicked window lead.

The hysteria of the Antichrist

Sermon for the nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

In the film adaptation of The Name of the Rose, there is a darkly comedic scene in which a murder victim is found in the monastery with his legs poking out of a large jar of pig's blood. The monks immediately leap to the conclusion that the Antichrist is here and the end of the world is nigh and there is much wailing and fear. And Brother William of Baskerville, the Franciscan hero of the story, remains calm and rational. Yet, one thing is very clear, the Antichrist is present in that monastery: the murder is evidence of his presence. However, the murderer is not the Antichrist as Brother William demonstrates.

[PAUSE]

Lots of people get into hysterics about the Antichrist and yet don't quite know who he is. Some say he's the Devil; some say he or she is a human being born in an evil reflection of Our Lord's Holy Incarnation; some even identify him as being the Emperor Nero, Martin Luther or even the Pope. This is not what St John means.

The Antichrist is not like that. What many people understand by the Antichrist is a product of artistic licence brought about by religious hysteria.

[PAUSE]

St John is actually very clear on what Antichrist means. The clue is in the name: Antichrist means something that is "against Christ". St John says:

"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son."

Just as the Holy Ghost inspires men to call Jesus Lord and recognise the truth of His Love through His Incarnation, so the Antichrist is the spirit which inspires us to deny the reality of Jesus. There is an important difference.

For its plan to work, the Antichrist wants you to believe that it is at least God's Equal. You know this not to be true because, as St John tells you, you know the Father. If you know the Son, then you know the Father. You know God. And one thing you know about God is that He creates everything. This includes the very spirit that will rebel against Him of its own free will. The Antichrist is created by God, but it makes itself the Antichrist by going against God. This is true of all creatures who go against God. How can it be God's Equal? There can be only one Creator.

[PAUSE]

The only weapon of the Antichrist is lies. Lies cause doubt and confusion. Confusion causes hysteria, disruption and distrust. All of these cause a greater attention to the World with all its lusts and hatreds and distractions and, most importantly, forgetfulness of God.

When we forget God, we fall into sin. This is critical to understand. Most of us do not sin as part of some wilful desire to disobey God. Most of us sin because we have forgotten God. We sin because we have forgotten to put God first, to seek His righteousness and accept His rule. We put ourselves first with our own selfish desires to make us feel good. When we realise that we have sinned, we come scurrying back to Him in repentance. But we need to have that realisation in the first place. 

The Antichrist wants us not to realise that we have sinned precisely so that we don't repent. 

[PAUSE]

Rather than looking for the Antichrist in others, we need to look for the Antichrist in ourselves. When we sin we become antichrist because we fall from Him and oppose His rule. This makes self-examination and confession all the more necessary. We must examine ourselves in the light of Christ. The painful reality is that the better we know Christ, the better we know our sins and our failings and the more agonising this becomes. 

The pain of the realisation of our sins is so good for us because this is the pain of death to sin. Dying to sin is a painful business and it calls for God's strength to be with us and the Church standing with us. In the Church, we confess, turn to Christ and find true forgiveness. It hurts.

Of course, pain is not something we want in our lives and we are open to distraction from it. This is why the world is in hysteria with all its conflicting messages on television, in the news, on social media. While we are concentrating on things worldly, we are failing to look at our spiritual lives with God. 

The greater the pain of realising that we sin, the greater the distraction we need and hysteria produces precisely the confusion needed to distract us. Perhaps this is why the world is so noisy at the moment.

The best way of dealing with the pain of dying to sin is to focus on the eyes of Christ Who sees all. Christ suffers pain for us upon the Cross so that the pain of our dying is given a greater meaning than we imagine. The more we focus on Him, the more bearable the pain becomes and the closer we draw to Him

[PAUSE]

We are in pain because of what the Antichrist has done to us right from the start. Only Christ saves us and is doing so now.

Hear His words cut through the hysteria of the World and trust Him.

Missing the Physician

Sermon for St Luke's Day

In the Gregorian Canon of the Mass, there are two places in which a whole host of our spiritual fathers and mothers are mentioned. One set of names occurs before the consecration and consists of the Apostles and Martyrs; the second occurs after the consecration and consists of more Apostles, Marrtyrs and Virgins. In neither list will you find the name of St Luke. For that matter, you won't see the name of St Mark. Why not?

[PAUSE]

To be fair, there are many names missing from the canon of the Mass. What of St Timothy, St Titus, or St Justin Martyr? To be fair, even when St Gregory writes the Canon down in the Sixth Century, the list of apostles and martyrs is huge. It is not supposed to be an exhaustive list, just a representative list.

We know that St Luke is from Antioch and probably heard the Faith from St Paul but we don't know whether he is Jew or Gentile. We know that he is a physician and that he is credited as being the first ikonographer. We have his Gospel which contains songs sung by Our Lady, St Zacharias and St Simeon, as well as the words of the penitent thief.

And yet, St Luke does not appear on the list and this really wouldn't bother him. The one thing that concerns him is that people know who Our Lord is. He writes his Gospel and the Acts for one reason alone and that is to bring people the facts of our Faith. Nothing else matters.

We cannot treat the lists of Apostles and Martyrs as a Hall of Fame: that's not how things work. We have to see the Church in them just as we encounter Our Lord in the words of St Luke.

The same is true of our lists of intercession in which we read the names of all those who are dear to us who are sick or have died. We don't remember them at the expense of the countless millions who are sick or have died; we remember the few in order to bring all those millions to God. The people whom we know become representative of all because we all share the same humanity with each other and with Our Lord Jesus Christ.

[PAUSE]

At the Mass, we are brought into the company of Heaven as our home. As we gaze upon Our Lord in the Holy Sacrament nothing else matters for God is here. Like St Luke we may not have seen Him walk the earth with the Apostles, but we see him in the lives of others and in their testimony to the truth. 

St Luke does not attend the Last Supper the night our Lord is betrayed. He attends it with us at the celebration of the Mass. That's where the Apostles and Martyrs who are mentioned either side of the consecration point: not to themselves but to Christ being present with us.

That is the nature of the Mass: no Christian is ever missing from it.

Sacramental Curtains

Sermon for the eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

If nobody had ever told you, would you believe that God exists? If there were no Church, no Bible, no Gospel, no people testifying, would you be a Christian?

[PAUSE]

Many people say that religion has been made up and the only reason that people are religious is because their parents, teachers and, indeed, people around them are religious. This is true to an extent. If all you hear are the teachings of a particular religion the more likely you are to believe that religion. There is something to be said for learning about what other religions say.

These religions exist because they give a language to the voice that we hear in us. They give words to the stirring of the spirit.

The trouble is, they might not be the right words.

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St John writes his letter to us in order to help us to hear the truth. He does not begin with myths and legends. He does not start talking of fables or spiritual utterances. He starts with what he has personally experienced. He has seen God with his own eyes. He has touched Him, embraced Him, heard Him speak and teach. He has eaten with God, seen God asleep in the boat, watched God work miracles before his very eyes. He has seen God crucified, bleed and die. He has been given the care of God's mother. 

And he is not the only one.

We are told that five hundred people see Jesus after His resurrection. They recognise that He died and they recognise that He lives. 

Unlike other religions, Christianity has eye-witness testimony to its truth. The voice that we hear in our souls is given a language in the truth.

But we don't have eyes to see what St John sees. Our eyes are in the darkness of two thousand years of history.

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We can't see God the Father: He stands outside Creation and our sinful little eyes are too separate from Him to stand His glory. We would burn up in an instant.

We can't see God the Son: His walk with us is too long ago for us to see.

We can't see God the Holy Ghost: He is like the wind and we can only see His effects.

And yet, God is Light. Our existence is like having the curtains closed on a sunny day. If we opened the curtains, the light is too much for us to bear. They protect us while we walk this earth. Somehow God has to reach us through the curtains. He gives us the eye-witnesses but He also gives us Himself in veiled form.

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While He walks with us, God is veiled in our Human Nature. While He is ascended, He gives us Himself veiled in the sacraments. His invisible grace is rendered visible by the curtain of our small reality.

What the Church does is give a language to what we experience in ourselves through the Holy Scriptures, through teaching the Catholic Faith and through giving us God Himself in the sacraments. This is why we need to go to Church: we need to hear what our soul is saying in the language of the One True God Who has shown Himself to be part of our History not our myths and legends.

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We see through the glass darkly. Once we have the language for it, we realise that what we glimpse through that dark glass is pure Love.

Whose lives matter?

There is a lot of racial tension going around the world. The latest manifestation of this is the deep unrest caused by the unlawful death of George Floyd Jr at the hands of the police. Given that Mr Floyd had been convicted of eight crimes prior to this fatal interaction with the police does suggest that there may have been sufficient reason for his lawful arrest. Yet the video evidence is compelling that the poor man had an officer kneel on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Why was there no due care and diligence from the officer?

The other fact that has to be acknowledged is that the outrage it caused has to have come from somewhere - no smoke without fire! It is clear that many members of the black community do not feel that their lives matter. This is why the Black Lives Matter movement has arisen.

Of course, many will counter this with, "all lives matter!" Of course, that is very true but we do have to be careful. Simple Aristotelian logic tells us that if all human lives are lives that matter and that all black lives are human lives then black lives are lives that matter. Barbara comes to the rescue again! It's very easy to get behind a slogan and allow that slogan to allow us to find some emotional equilibrium without confronting the issue.

The death of Mr Floyd raises the question as to whether people who say "all lives matter" really mean that or whether they mean "black lives matter no more than anyone else's". The trouble with this last meaning is that it allows for the possibility that black lives do not matter as much - this is precisely the problem!

If we really mean "all lives matter" then we need to be showing it. The content of the Lord's commandment, "love thy neighbour as thyself" is precisely motivated by the fact that all lives do matter to God and that He is capable of demonstrating that. Of course, He requires that each of us demonstrate that, too.

White people can never know the abject suffering of black people at the hands of slave-traders. It's for good reason why we cannot appropriate their culture nor try and buy their affection by trying to be like them as if our whiteness somehow makes black cultural acceptable. If anything, the statues of those involved in the slave trade should remind us of our cultural shame. In this instance, Shame is no bad thing. We all need to feel shame for our sins because that shame demonstrates that we recognise our own personal wrong-doing. Just as the Germans must live with the fact of Nazism so must we live with what we have done.

No, we have no personal guilt but our lives today are the results of the sins of our fathers. We are infected by their sin even if we are not guilty of it. This is precisely what the doctrine of Original Sin says.

I've been reflecting on the dreadful case of Emmett Till who was a black boy mutilated and murdered because he whistled cheekily at a white woman and whose white murderers got away scot-free. His mother tore the lid off of his coffin at his funeral because she wanted the world to see what had been done to this perfectly happy young man. Those who express outrage at the death of George Floyd are doing the same.

As with all movements, there are some who jump on the bandwagon in order to pursue some violent antisocial agenda. There will be those black people who seek vengeance and the extermination of whites. These are consumed with anger and bitterness and will perpetuate the violence if they are allowed to become prominent. 

The Catholic Faith teaches us that Baptism makes us dead to sin and that we must now seek to live lives worthy of our calling to be Christian. It is not a dismissal or rejection of the past: we need that past to remind us of why Jesus had to die so horribly. The Cross is both our shame for its necessity and our joy for our salvation through it. It is a sign that our lives matter but that this is not mere lip service to a slogan nor a subscription to a political ideology.

If we really want to show that all lives matter then we need to enter into meaningful and humble dialogue with those who believe that they are being told that their lives don't matter. Why do so many young black men go to prison or fall victim to gang violence? What is our collective contribution (or lack thereof) to that?

The Catholic Faith teaches confession, repentance and forgiveness. We also have to remember that forgiveness is not a right  for the penitent nor that it is immediate. Forgiveness takes time to complete and requires true contrition for it to work. We have to earn forgiveness with tears and sincerity: we have to let people earn forgiveness with both justice and mercy.

If people are crying out that their lives matter then we must accept that they have a reason to believe that their lives don't matter. Of course this does not give them carte blanche to make unreasonable demands: a life without the latest mobile phone is not an unvalued life but demands for that phone on the grounds of rights are rather evidence that someone has a system of value judgement that actually undervalues human life and dignity. Unreasonable demands make light of the sufferings that many endure.

Let us just talk. Let us get away from soundbite, slogan, sign and signalling. Rather let us listen - really listen - and then speak words which have some substance, address real issues, and express true sorrow. Let none of us try to be someone we're not but rather learn to live with the repercussions of our fathers' failures and seek to bring good out from them in the eyes of God who knows all.

Keep the statues and remember the history - the shame together with the triumph, the sin together with the virtue - for that confusion of Saint and Sinner is preceded what we humans are until we are transformed by God into His likeness.

Above all, let us continue to learn to love our neighbour as ourselves. Our neighbourhood is multicoloured and all lives matter because they are worth living just by the fact of their existence.