Lenten Attitudes: 2 Attitudes To Ourselves

The kids have finally managed to persuade you to take them to Zeppo’s Amusement Arcade. You’ve navigated the Dodgems and the Teacups and you’ve sampled the local delicacies - toffee apples, ice cream, candy floss, popcorn and the like. Now, you are being persuaded to enter the Hall of Mirrors. How do you feel about going into the Hall of Mirrors, especially since you are full of all that food?

How do you feel about the Hall of Mirrors anyway?

[PAUSE]

As you know, the mirrors are designed to distort your reflection. As you walk through the hall, one mirror magnifies your head to make it look as if you’ve been blown up like a balloon. Another squashes your reflection and makes it look as if you’ve been sat on by a hippopotamus. Other mirrors make you tall and thin, or make your tummy protrude, or make your feet look like canoes!

Finally, you come to a mirror that makes you look normal. Actually, as you look a bit closer, you look a bit better than normal. Come to think of it, you do actually look drop-dead gorgeous in this mirror!

Is this mirror a proper mirror, or is there something wrong with it? It’s not as obviously distorted as the others, so perhaps it’s a normal mirror. But do you really think that it is a proper mirror? How would you know?

[PAUSE]

We are often presented with distortions of individuals as if they reflect reality. We can look at celebrities and get a very false idea about what they are like when they appear on camera. Television very rarely presents us with anything other than a caricature of a celebrity. Yet it is very interesting to see some celebrities start to live in order to fit their image.  Why do we then buy shampoo on the strength that it is endorsed by a particularly stunning celebrity when we know that that celebrity is probably held together with gaffer tape and Polyfiller in order to achieve that look?

Not only are we presented with the idea that we are gorgeous, but we’re also presented with the idea that we can have anything that we want and it will only make us better. And why? Because we’re worth it, as L’Oreal would have us believe!

Fashionable Science, too, seems to suggest that we can be perfected with new organs, and plastic surgery, and injections and liposuction et c. Some scientists are even talking about the possibility of immortality!

It all seems rather worrying. The prospect of having our minds downloaded into a robotic lookalike of Kelly Brook or Tom Daley is horrid, principally because we would cease to be ourselves.

[PAUSE]

This idea of distortion lies at the centre of the sins of Gluttony and Pride. With Pride, we are accepting that a certain image that we have of ourselves is true. However, that image has been distorted by Sin, the World and the Devil. One of the effects of our Original Sin is that the view we have of ourselves is fundamentally distorted. We cease to see ourselves as we truly are. For many people this means seeing themselves as “better” than other people, even when it is meaningless to make any comparison in the first place. Yet for others, the same sin of pride makes them believe that they are irredeemably worse than anyone else. In both cases, the sin is to accept something as true which is actually not true. It makes God out to be, at best, mistaken and, at worst, an out and out liar!

It is God who sets the truth because God is true. He is the only being Who can be said to truly exist because He is the only source of all our being. God has searched us out and known us. He knows our downsitting and uprising and discerns our thoughts from afar. He has created us in His own image, but that image has been marred by our sin, and we need to be aware of it. Not one of us is irredeemable, for God sent not His Son into the World to condemn the World but that the World through Him might be saved. The whole World is capable of being redeemed through the Precious Blood of Christ.

While Gluttony is very much like Avarice in that it deprives other people of what they need, it is very much related to pride because it distorts our wants into our needs. We may be aware that we would like a large cappuccino with semi-skimmed steamed milk produced by cows on the south side of the Isle of Wight, but Gluttony convinces us that it is our right and a bodily need for us to have things our way. Witness the fuss in a restaurant when a diner orders gazpacho soup and, complaining that it is cold, sends it back to be heated! Not only is the diner a glutton for assuming that he can get what he wants, but the other diners who look down on him snobbishly with derision are full of pride and self-satisfaction because they know that gazpacho soup is to be served cold. Pride and Gluttony go hand in hand and reveal our attitudes to our very self.

[PAUSE]

If we are to enter into a true and loving relationship with God, then we have to base that relationship on truth. We cannot hide the truth from someone we love, nor would we want to. If we are absolutely honest, then we know that, we don’t really know ourselves at all well. We even have to rely on God to show us who we really are, and that’s not always a pleasant sight until we accept it in humility. We have to hold onto our trust in God. Indeed St John reminds us, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when He shall appear , we shall be like Him; for we shall see him as He is”.

If Life is our Hall of Mirrors, which mirror are you looking in now? How is it distorting you?

Lenten Attitudes: 1 Attitudes To Things

Sermon Preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis Rochester on the First Sunday in Lent

The time has finally come, and the demolition team has arrived to begin the deconstruction of the now defunct St Cedd’s Monastery to make way for new housing. The first blows of the wrecking ball take out the bell tower and the Oratory roof. Subsequent blows remove the dormitory walls and the kitchens.

As Geoff the foreman co-ordinates the destruction, he notices on a ridge well out of the way the cowled figure of an aged monk staring out at the demolition. Geoff walks over to the monk.

“I’m sorry Father,“ he says genuinely, “this must be very hard for you to see your old building demolished.” “Indeed it is,” says the monk, his ancient face made more sombre by the sadness in his eyes, “I left my iPod in the dormitory.”

Even monks are not immune from the fashions and fads from secular society, it seems. How many adverts do we see on the telly that bombard us with the latest thing and the must-haves?

It’s fascinating to watch the language here. What is a “must-have” and why must we have it? What is it about this Xbox console which makes its purchase so important, so vital, so necessary that life is not worth living without it? This sounds like a lot to live up to. We seem to get sucked into this mentality very easily. We even use shopping as a remedy to cheer us up and call it retail therapy. Yet, when we look at the clutter of our lives, we don’t understand why our possessions or our desire for possessions really help us feel better.

St Maximos the Confessor says, ‎'He who forsakes all worldly desires sets himself above all worldly distress.' DFS and Foxy Bingo Dotcom have other answers.

Our attitude to our property tells us much about how we expect to find true happiness. Our Blessed Lord Himself observes “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Society often presents us with two choices with regard to property: we may have something and thus be expected to want more or someone else has something and we are expected to want what they have. We are encouraged into Avarice or Envy by big companies so that employees can reasonably earn wages. The trouble is that these employees are also subject to the same temptations to Avarice and Envy as everyone else and so require higher wages. Sounds a little bit circular, doesn’t it?

It is important to be clear about the attitude that we should have towards possessions and property. We read very clearly in Genesis that God creates and enjoys His creation and that He Creates Mankind and expects Mankind to enjoy His creation. There is nothing wrong with possessing, using and enjoying what is part of God’s creation. Indeed, that’s the original idea! However, there is a fine line between enjoying God’s creation and nurturing selfishness.

The Lord says to the Rich Young Man “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” While showing clearly that none of us are perfect without Him, Our Lord is making the point that carving up the world into “things that are mine” and “things that I want” is not the way to view the world. It prevents us from being perfect.

What does the Lord mean by “perfect”?

He means reaching the purpose that God has created us to fulfil. Our attitude to what we have stops us from being what God wants us to be. Our selfishness actively stops us from being happy.

How on earth can we happy being envious? Envy is surely the most miserable of sins. There’s nothing to enjoy about it. At least, with Gluttony, you get to enjoy your food. There is nothing to enjoy about Envy. Avarice may make us happy for a while.

However, things decay and the Lord again says, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal : But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”

We cannot be truly happy until we see ourselves apart from what we claim we own which is how God sees us. This is why we need to learn to be flexible with our belongings. Like the money changers in the temple court blocking access to the worship of God, it is our attitude to our belongings that clutters our pathway to the Divine.

So what is the antidote?

Should we be as violent as Our Lord is when He throws the money changers out of the temple precincts? We don’t need to be as extreme as St Francis who even threw off the clothes he was wearing to be free from ownership, but we certainly do need to be firm with ourselves. The best remedies against avarice and envy are to be temperate in our taking and generous in our giving. The more temperate we are, the more we can spot when we are being selfish. The more generous we are, the less attached to material things we become and we are able to prize more the Presence of God in our lives.

How much more of God are we willing to make room for in our lives?

How generous are we going to have to be?

Lenten Attitudes: The Preamble

Foreheads have been blackened with a smudgy mix of burnt palm leaves and oil. That old call to remember our fragile state of being and how it will one day dissolve into component parts and be no more recognisable as ourselves has been issued and we find ourselves in the time of purple and violet. Lent is here and we are required by our love for God to reflect on our lives.

Much of what makes us who we are is how we approach the things of life. How we react in certain situations, how we cope in the long term, how we view the outside world reveals much of who w are, warts and all. We are, however, not completely transparent to the world nor even really to ourselves. Our search for what consciousness is is clouded by the long shadow of our own consciousness obscuring the facts of our existence and our understanding of that existence.

However, we can begin to reflect upon our fragile being by kneeling before God and considering our attitudes towards our lives. Our attitudes to Things, to Ourselves, to Others, and to God need to be considered, and considered very deeply as it is within these that we find the Eight Deadly Sins. In our attitude to Things, we find the sins of Avarice and Envy; in our attitudes to Ourselves, we find the sins of Pride and Gluttony; in our attitudes to Others, we find the sins of Lust and Anger; and in our attitude to God we find Sloth and the monastic sin of acedia.

I will be preaching in Rochester on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th Sundays of Lent and intend, with the help of God, to speak on these four attitudes. On the fourth Sunday, I will be leading Mattins with Deacon Mass in Dartford, but perhaps I will try to reflect on our attitudes to our parents for Mothering Sunday.

It's worth remembering that we really are very, very fallen, corporately and individually. But we really, really are loved by God. A good reflection on our attitudes with Him holding our hand will bring us only closer to Him

The Power of the Housegroup

Whenever we think of great events, we always picture great cathedrals in which kings are crowned, princes and princesses are married and the noble heroes are laid to their final rests in grand ceremonial. Treaties are signed in great places of meeting, tents of battle, fields and plains of note and worth. And souls are saved in the upper room of an inn in Jerusalem.

No, I know that's not a complete picture, but it was in that upper room that the whole mystery of the Incarnation was crystallised in the institution of the Eucharist. The Lord's ministry was spent mainly either out in the open with the large crowds or within houses. Look at the faith of the friends who dug through the roof of a house to lower in their bedridden friend. Such faith is rewarded by a miracle from the Lord. Quite what the owners of the house thought with a hole in their roof. Perhaps it didn't matter. Perhaps the miracle within their four walls was more than enough compensation for such a minor inconvenience.

For the Early Christians, the changing of lives and the redemption of souls happened in housegroups. Like-minded people thirsty for the Good News, longing to hear of the end of the influence of Sin, the World and the Devil, met in little houses huddled around the warmth of the promises of Christ while the winds of the Zeitgeist raged and bore away those who would rather reject the Eternal in favour of the Material.

It is not the Cathedral that is the Crucible for the Christian Faith. It is not the grand places where our Salvation is worked out, but in the everyday. We battle with everyday temptations, everyday sins and everyday demands on the choice between God and Not-God. Our dance with Eternity happens in our own homes, behind closed doors, in our real lives.

If we are truly sincere in our Christian Faith, then we will have a rule of life;we will say our prayers, and we will seek others with whom to share our faith. This is difficult in a world which prefers fragmentation than unity. Much ado is made about of "diversity of expression" among Christians and this has included diversity in doctrine to the extent that the integrity of the Christian Faith is not being preserved in the mainstream Churches.

As the Established Church is blown away by the Zeitgeist, we find ourselves in the same boat as the Early Christians. They survived in housegroups and catacombs, and perhaps now is the time that faithful Catholics must worship in the houses of other Catholics, or at least make more honest relationships and build social bridges on the small scale. A greater and deeper faith can develop in a meeting of Catholics praying together and discussing and searching for Christ in the living room than in the superficial faith of an all-singing all-dancing extravaganza that many Parishes have swapped for the established liturgy and doctrine of the Holy Church.

It is important, then, that those isolated by the movement away from orthodox Christianity find some commonality. If you're an orthodox Anglican then the Established Church is not exactly going to help you to find the fulfilment you crave. Because you're orthodox, you know that sitting back and letting your faith slide into oblivion is not an option, so what are you going to do?

Why not form a housegroup and just invite people in to study the Bible? Or why not arrange to meet up at another location ant pray Mattins or Evensong together. Once you've established yourself, why not look for a trustworthy priest to provide you with the Sacraments. There are folk out there who will help. Why not join an online forum and find like minded people in your area or find a Continuing Anglican Church with an outreach programme. Your faith is too big for Cathedrals and Palaces: it's almost big enough for an upper room, isn't it?

Coalition for Marriage

Epiphany 2013 - Finding that which was lost.

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the feast of the Epiphany and after an adult Baptism.

Where has it got to, this time? You had it a minute ago and you’d just put it down while you went to collect something else, and it’s gone! Where do you look?

Well, you try retracing your steps but that doesn’t work. You check various containers and jars and boxes that you’ve got round the house.  Finally, with great dread and trepidation, you realise that there’s only one thing for it. You have to look down the back of the sofa - such uncharted territory!

The back of the sofa is one of those places where things just go. Change, keys, and safety pins seem to be the most common items, though one might speculate that the lost tribes of Israel could be found there too!


[PAUSE]

 Looking for things is a common experience to us all and it generates within us a great sense of unease and distraction as we wrack our brains. We cannot get settled until it’s all been sorted out; our hearts will only become eased again when it has been found with imaginary trumpets and a sense of relief and elation.

But what if we don’t really know what we’re looking for?

[PAUSE]

Wise men from the East – probably Persian Astrologers – are searching for something that they don’t really know. They follow a star in the East to find a baby, the king of the Jews who is worthy of worship. They can only be looking for God Himself.

 Does that sound a little odd to you? Magi from a far distant land East of Israel travelling westward following a star in the East? Are they walking backwards? You can’t really find anything by walking backwards, can you? But then, you might retrace your steps to find something! Of course, the text means that it was while they were in the East that the Magi discovered the star.

Scholars believe that the star of Bethlehem was more of an astrological event than astronomical. After all, the relative positions of the stars and planets matter more to an astrologer than an astronomer. Rather, they have seen in their charts and almanacs an event in the stars that signifies the birth of this new king who must be worshipped.  The Heavens are telling the Glory of God, the wonder of His work displays the firmament.

This is what they are looking for, even if they don’t know what they might find. They have to journey across rough terrain and dangerous country with precious gifts, ever at risk from bandits and robbers. This is not a search down the back of the sofa; this search is based on a reality which is not yet fully formed in their understanding. Yet this has been placed in the hearts of these men by God Himself, and they know that they will be uneasy until they do find this child. After all, this child is not only the king of the Jews, He is worthy to be worshipped!

And yet, they find him in the manger in a little stable, not in a great palace.

[PAUSE]

The experience of the Magi is common to us all. Human beings have within themselves a desire to know, a capacity to seek and find out. This research leads us into the solving of many problems, a cure for HIV, a perfect house, an act in law that saves a case. Until that research is complete, we cannot rest or relax. We have to deal with a sense of unease in our hearts until that search has come to an end. We have to endure frustration because we don’t get all the answers we want at once.

All Christians go through this journey of seeking, not necessarily by going anywhere. St John the Baptist is looking for his Christ by doing what he believes his Christ wants him to do – to baptise people. St John puts himself in God's way. His search takes a major turn when He finally meets the Lord at His Baptism in the Jordan, but that’s for next week! It is important to realise that, although St John meets Jesus and recognises Him, His search is not complete even then for this is God revealed as Man. St John must wait for this Man to be revealed as God. For St John, this does not take place in his lifetime, but rather after his death.

[PAUSE]

Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.
The Christian life is one long search for God. It is a journey to a place that we’ve only heard of based on the words of people now far away in the distance, people whom we only vaguely know. But we know them nonetheless, and their testimony is true. It is a journey to find God, One whom we seem to recognise in a deep memory , almost a dream but cannot pin down. Yet God is always with us! It’s a search that we can refuse to make, or can put down at any time, or try to drown the sounds of our unfulfilled restlessness with the trappings of superficial amusements.

To come to Baptism as an adult is a conscious decision to engage with one’s personal search for God. Baptism puts us in God's way where we might get closer to finding our heart’s desire in the Love of God and to be part of a community of others who have also entered on this search. Together we can draw each other’s attention to glimpses of the Divine in our world and share experiences of His presence. By becoming a member of the Church, we commit ourselves to finding the One Who Made us – a search that will eventually succeed with great joy.

Sometimes though, we find what we are looking for has been with us all along, tucked away somewhere safe. Might this be true for you?

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

Twelve drummers drumming, so how does one drum the Christian Faith into willing minds?

Peter.—1. I believe in God the Father Almighty;
John.—2. Maker of heaven and earth;
James.—3. And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord;
Andrew.—4. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;
Philip.—5. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried;
Thomas.—6. He descended into hell, the third day he rose again from the dead;
Bartholomew.—7. He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
Matthew.—8. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead;
James, the son of Alpheus.—9. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church;
Simon Zelotes.—10. The communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins;
Jude the brother of James.—11. The resurrection of the body;
Matthias.—12. Life everlasting. Amen.

Although it is doubtful that the Apostles pronounced the Apostles' Creed at all, the twelve points that the creed contains is based fully on the Apostolic Faith inherited from the Apostles after Pentecost. The Original Apostles did not have the word "Trinity" but they did understand the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Whose three-fold name they were commanded to baptise. As good Jews, they would have understood God the Father creating the world. They were certainly present with Jesus in His Life, His Death and His Resurrection. They will have seen the Transfiguration, the miracles, the ascension and believe Him when He tells of His return as Christ the Triumphant King.

The formation of the Church is in their hands and they already have the pattern for its existence in their hands. They will not know the word "Catholic", but they do understand the centrality of what they have been taught and the need for people to find The Way through their testimony and teaching. They recognise the need to be One in Christ, both now and in the World To Come. The seeds of the Creed are within the Apostles' understanding and will be ratified by the great councils to come.

The Catholic Creeds speak of the Apostolic Faith in which we are told of the fruits of the Spirit which lead to the beatitudes borne from cultivating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in addition to the gifts of Creation and Life under the Law of God announced in the Gospels in which the Glorious Trinity expounds His twofold covenant ratified in the blood of Christ Crucified.

All this comes from the Birth of a Baby, True Love born among us. The Faith is simple, made complex by the frailty and failings of Mortal Man who have lost the language of heaven and learn it by the convolution and interaction of so many ideas. We cannot express the faith in its entirety. Its words cannot be entirely spoken save only in the language of living.  Eternity is beyond our comprehension because of the lack of Time. The Language of Eternity can only be spoken by lives lived completely according to the whole, not in the part. The Christ Child bridges temporality and Eternity and completes our language for us. Twelve days are over, the Epiphany begins.

The Eleventh Day of Christmas

Eleven pipers piping - eleven faithful apostles. The fidelity of the apostles is of great importance to the Church. It is upon the rock of the faith of the apostles that the whole Church stands. It is by the apostles that the Church has grown. It is through the blood of the apostles that people have seen the sincerity and determination with which simple men have been fired.

God has given the gift of Apostleship to the Church not only to form its backbone, but also to generate its growth. Apostles have been granted a method of generating apostles through Consecration and Ordination, and the Church continues its faith precisely because of the fidelity of the original 11 Apostles. Yet from their apostleship comes the apostleship of St Paul, the great missionary bishops such as St Barnabas, the great evangelists such as St Luke, the great Mystics such as St John the Divine.

The call to become an apostle or a successor of the apostles is not a job for the individual but rather a gift to the Church and it is only in the light of the Church that the call to apostleship can be recognised. To claim apostleship as a right is to miss the point. To see it as a Sacrament Machine is also to miss the point. Indeed, to equate it with any specific task is to miss the point because it neglects the ontological character of Ordination.

While not every Christian is called to be an Apostle, we all have ownership of apostleship through our Baptism into Christ. We find our apostleship by listening to Christ in Scripture, in the Church, through the Apostles. We link back to those who heard, saw, and touched the Incarnate God through the unbroken chain that the Incarnate God has given us in the Succession. We owe it to ourselves as God's Creation to follow Him in fidelity.

It is the work and teaching of the apostolic faith that we are told of the fruits of the Spirit which lead to the beatitudes borne from cultivating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in addition to the gifts of Creation and Life under the Law of God announced in the Gospels in which the Glorious Trinity expounds His twofold covenant ratified in the blood of Christ Crucified. Apostleship is our way of responding to His True Love.

The Tenth day of Christmas

Ten lords a-leaping and ten Commandments. These are seen in such a negative light that the real joy and strength that they possess is obscured by the word "don't". Four of these commandments underpin our understanding of the legal system - murder, adultery, theft, perjury - and three of these are regarded as criminal offences. Adultery no longer counts as a criminal offence, but then neither do blasphemy, Sunday trading, failure to attend Mass, or being envious of another's propert. Does this mean our legal system is deficient?

The question of legality is actually irrelevant. The Ten Commandments are not a stick with which to beat people. They are a framework for identity, the skeleton on which we can build our understanding of "Love thy neighbour as thyself", the beginning of how we can understand relationships with other people. To understand what murder is means that we have to understand why it is a crime and that leads us to why the lives of others are not only as valuable as ours, but more valuable to us in their preservation. To understand what adultery really is means that we recognise that relationships have boundaries and sacrosancta that must not be violated. The ten commandments provide us with boundaries that keep us safe and aware of the Love of God.

We should meditate on the ten commandments which are, after all, the beginning of the Jewish Law since the Torah is full of commandments and edicts. These are misunderstood by so many folk these days and yet they represented the founding of God's own people in the Jews before Salvation was offered also to the Gentiles in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

God has given us the framework  in which we can bear the fruits of the Spirit which lead to the beatitudes borne from cultivating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in addition to the gifts of Creation and Life under the Law of God announced in the Gospels in which the Glorious Trinity expounds His twofold covenant ratified in the blood of Christ Crucified. Our True Love commands so that we may indeed know we are loved.

The Ninth Day of Christmas

Nine ladies dancing - Nine fruits of the Holy Ghosts. We previously have touched on the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, but gifts are only the sowing of the seeds to germinate within our lives. These gifts bring about changes in our lives and lifestyle which bring us the fruit that God wants us to bear. These are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.

These fruit are not something which are just nice to bear. It is mandatory that a Christian bear them! Our Lord tells us about how to tell the difference between a true teacher from God and a false teacher = "by their fruits shall ye know them." These fruits need to be seen, to be visible to all people so that we might show that the Holy Ghost truly has a temple in us.

If the vicious atheism of Christopher Hitchens and his companions tells us anything, it is that we Christians have not been bearing this fruit well enough. Hitchens has a point. How can we persuade an unbelieving world of the existence of a loving God if we are not prepared to bear His fruit?

Of course, we are all frail and feeble. Yet it is our feebleness and frailty that allows the true light of God to shine through our failure to bear His fruit. We have to trust in Him to shine in us and keep focused on bearing His fruit for His worship despite our tendency to get the wrong end of the stick - badly! Fruit requires cultivation of the gifts we have been given. This is hard work, but necessary if we are to thaw heart made cold by cynicism based on Humanity's past.

Cultivation of the fruits of the Spirit lead to the beatitude from cultivating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in addition to the gifts of Creation and Life under the Law of God announced in the Gospels in which the Glorious Trinity expounds His twofold covenant ratified in the blood of Christ Crucified. True Love always bears fruit.

The Eighth Day of Christmas

Eight maids a-milking - the image sends us back to simpler times when human beings worked with their hands to provide for families and communities. A romantic idyll, possibly, but simplicity and purity are rare commodities to find in our lives controlled by the second hand of the clock rather than the rolling of the celestial spheres. Yet how happy are those who live in that simple and honest lifestyle in which appearance correlates with actuality.

Eight is the number of the Beatitudes pronounced by the Lord as He preached on the mountain.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, those unencumbered by the clutter of things that force the attentions onto material goods, those who recognise that they own nothing of real worth and look humbly to the hand of God to feed them. These folk recognise that only God can provide and only God will rule. They possess the kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, those who express honest emotions of sadness at the injustice in the world, at the needless deaths, at the lives that pass unloved and unrecognised by a world to busy to deal with the apparently useless. Blessed are those who are simply unsatisfied with how Society cares for other, cares for the world. Blessed are those who allow their hearts to be broken by cruelty in any form. These folk will find comfort in God. God, not Society, will make all things new. All sadness will end; heavy hearts will be lightened; joy will come in The Morning.

Blessed are the Meek, those who do not rely on any authority of their own, who are humble and realise their limitations. Blessed are those who know if they are put in charge, then they are accountable for their decisions not only to those above, but also to those below. Blessed are those who know that they must explain their actions to the Highest power and act accordingly.These careful and gentle folk will be given the tender care and concomitant joys of their stewardship of the Earth, knowing that they are supported by a loving God.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, those who are simply not satisfied with the claims of governments and monarchs to know what's best, those who treat philosophical theories of ethics with caution and scepticism, those who seek what is truly right from the Absolute Truth that does exist, These folk will find precisely what they are looking for - the true righteousness that is inherent and characteristic of the Divine Being.

Blessed are the merciful, those who are not blinded by hatred of those who do them wrong, those who see the real interpretation of "an eye for an eye", those who let go of the injustices they suffer through forgiveness because they are aware of the transience of human action. Blessed are those who refuse to demonise any human being whatsoever, who accept human judgement knowing that a greater judge will try each and every human being. Their generosity of spirit will be returned to them. Their failings will be forgiven, and they will find true and complete absolution for their faults because they choose not to remember the faults of others.

Blessed are the pure in heart, those who have no ulterior motives for their actions, those who seek simplicity of action. Blessed are those whose lives are focused entirely on God, who do not weave complex schemes to get their own way. These folk will look into a mirror and, because their lives are purer than crystal, they will see God shining through them, and rejoice at the privilege.

Blessed are the peacemakers, those who hate hatred and fight against fighting. Blessed are those who seek to mend wounded communities, who look to heal divisions, to repair Society, to enfranchise the demonised and to accept the outcast. Blessed are those who see the good in both sides, who see the human beings in both sides, who see the children of God in both sides. These will be recognised as the Children of God, just as they recognise the image of God in all people.

Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake, those who see that there are things more valuable than comfort, health, and even the preservation of life itself. Blessed are those who hold principles dearer to them than their own blood, and who will stand up for their belief in goodness, in kindness, generosity, love, peace and truth and in the God who is the source of all these properties, even though it will mean degradation, oppression, torture or death. They too recognise God as their king and He will choose them for His kingdom for their loyalty to Him. They will have all that which has been taken from them restored an hundred fold for Eternity.

These Eight Beatitudes demonstrates the nature of God as One Who Blesses. Such Blessings are evidence of the happiness of humanity in receiving the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in addition to the gifts of Creation and Life under the Law of God announced in the Gospels in which the Glorious Trinity expounds His twofold covenant ratified in the blood of Christ Crucified. These Beatitudes are the effects of the gifts of our True Love.

The Seventh Day of Christmas

Seven swans a-swimming, moving over the face of the water. In Genesis we are told about the Spirit of God moving over the face of the water before the Creation. This is a strange statement that needs expansion in itself and perhaps I'll come back to that in a future post. Let us, however, concentrate on this seven.

Seven is the Hebrew number of perfection. There are many sevens in Holy Scripture and even in secular society! Seven days a week is certainly something that has an almost global appeal even from ancient times. In the early chapters of the Revelation to St John the Divine, we read of the Seven Spirits of God. One might get confused and believe that there are Seven Holy Spirits, after all the phrase "Spirit of God" occurs in several places to stand for the Holy Ghost, notably at Our Lord's Baptism. This is always in the singular.

This is not what is meant in the Revelation, these are the Seven Spirits given to the Seven Churches. They are not seven separate Holy Ghosts: there is only one Holy Ghost. Our Lord tells us such when He tells us to Baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

St Thomas Aquinas points us to Isaiah xi.2-3:

et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini spiritus sapientiae et intellectus spiritus consilii et fortitudinis spiritus scientiae et pietatis et replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini non secundum visionem oculorum iudicabit neque secundum auditum aurium arguet

And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge [and piety - this is not found in the KJV, but is present in the Latin Vulgate and in the Septuagint] and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:

and identifies:

1. The Spirit of Wisdom, (sapientia)
2. The Spirit of Understanding,(intellectus)
3. The Spirit of Counsel,(consilium)
4. The Spirit of Might,(fortitudo)
5. The Spirit of Knowledge,(scientia)
6. The Spirit of Piety, (pietas)
7. The Spirit of the Fear of the Lord, (timor Domini)

These are the Seven Spirits which rest upon the Root of Jesse, namely upon Christ and upon his followers. We receive these Spirits at our Baptism and they are strengthened by our Confirmation because they are all gifts from the Holy Ghost. Why then do we seem to be lacking?

The trouble with these gifts is that often we do not take off the wrapping paper and use them, but preserve them in their plastic cellophane and put them on the mantelpiece looking pretty and hoping that they will increase in value. We do need to exercise ourselves in using the spiritual gifts of our Baptism by living an examined and active Christian life. To use wisdom, we need to seek it. To understand, we must wrestle with things that we don't understand. To counsel, we need to understand our experiences in life and learn from those who counsel us. To be strong, we need to endure. To know, we need to question. To be pious, we need to be humble. To fear God, we need to look at how really very small we are and how feeble our efforts are and compare that with a God who loves us despite our smallness and whose love for us can burn with a ferocity enough to vaporise planets and throw galaxies around space.

These seven spirits have been given as gifts to us in addition to the wonders of all Creation which follow the Physical and Moral Laws of God, announced to us in the Gospels in the love of a Trinity who makes a two-fold Covenant with us, sealed and ratified in the Blood of Christ on the Cross. These are seven more gifts given by our True Love.

The Sixth Day of Christmas

Six geese laying eggs. As we celebrate the birth of Our Lord, we are minded very much of the first Creation. He who created the world enters into Time from without to be born of the Virgin.

This last sentence is bound to upset many who cannot reconcile the Biblical account of the Creation with the evidence of Science pointing toward the Big Bang, or who do not see parthenogenesis as applicable to human beings. The real fact is that no-one actually KNOWS what happened at the moment of Creation. The Big Bang is still a theory, and very, very convincing it is too as it does fit observable facts. One can be justified in one's confidence in the theory.

The Biblical account could still be true, though then one has to reconcile the two Creation stories in the first and second chapters of Genesis. Perhaps that can be done. Whether it can be done or not is not really the point. Whether there were six days of Creation or a Big Bang is not the point either, but rather reasons for people to talk past each other. Genesis says that God created the Universe, but it doesn't say how except in figurative and poetic allusions to Man's affinity with the dust.

Six days of Creation - Light, Waters, Fecund Earth, Heavenly Bodies, Animals, Man - all relate to our common human experience of living. Our days begin when light falls on our eyes, blinding us temporarily as we fumble about from our slumber. We feel the water on our face as we freshen up, ready for the new day. We eat our bowls of cereal, the product of the Earth's fertility. We leave the house and see the sun in the sky. We stroke next-door's cat as she mews loudly at us passing by, and then we greet our fellow co-workers as we begin our working day. This is the point of our creation story: all this has been made possible by the coming together of elements from all over the universe. every atom in our bodies has passed through the heart of a star. According to our understanding, every proton in us has been forged in the first few seconds of the life of the Universe and is now present within us for a little while before it carries on its journey in spacetime.

Our everyday lives have their beginning in God in so many beginnings of which we are necessarily completely ignorant. Yet, God is behind our existence from the micro- to the macroscopic to the astronomical, having decreed the physical law as well as the Moral Law which is expounded and expanded by the Torah and Gospels of the great Incomprehensible Trinity who deigns to make a twofold covenant with us, unified and ratified in the blood of Christ on the Cross. Our Creation gives us the first glimpse of the gift of Life given by our True Love.

Blogday 2012 - Knocks and knocks

Well, today is the birthday of this little blogling! I know I don't have the largest readership in the world, but I am very grateful to those who do visit to see my paltry offerings. This time last year, I was ruminating upon my identity as an Anglican Papalist despite retreating somewhat from a more Ultramontane position that I held somewhat erroneously.

Of course, I am still an Anglican Papalist, but these days I feel less need to affirm it. The reason is because I am no longer as isolated as once I was. Indeed, this year has been a year of transformation and a great leap out of various types of solitude.

Solitude is certainly a good source of spiritual discipline, but one that does go against God's observation that it is not good for a man to be alone. Even the greatest hermits, such as St Anthony and St Julian of Norwich engage with their fellows albeit rather briefly. This is how we hear of them. Too much solitude, especially solitude untempered by the monastic discipline, can result in too much introversion and the adoption of positions which may be against the doctrine of Almighty God and which only another can truly espy.

This year, my natural isolation has been knocked and suddenly I find myself catapulted into a different life and a different role. When God knocks at the door and you open it, He can knock you for six as well. It's as if He forgets to stop knocking when you open the door! Perhaps God likes cartoons!

As it is, I am in a new relationship. I am now ordained and a curate for my parish in Rochester. It's a position in which I now have responsibilities and the happy duty to serve my title. It means that my eremitical life has had to change immensely. New relationships must be accommodated by jettisoning the things which, though good, prevent that relationship from growing properly and in a healthy manner. It's a painful process but not in any way unwelcome, in fact it is necessary for the health of the soul.

We now live in a society in which solitude is becoming the norm, and not an healthy solitude either. People are now isolating themselves, or are being isolated as Society's boundaries change to exclude in the name of a strange inclusivity. This strange inclusivity is borne of the wedding between scientific materialism and moral relativism. Scientific materialism denies the existence of anything outside the range of empirical observations; moral relativism denies the existence of any personal accountability beyond the indigenous legal system. This strange inclusivity narrows the individual down to the god of his own little world. This can only result in an isolation at the deepest level of our identity. We can have no connection with anyone if we do not believe that other people exist as individuals in themselves, and yet this existence of other minds defies empirical observation.

Shared belief creates communities, but only if that belief is allowed to play a role in society, to question its motives and probe its assumptions. Admittedly, shared belief also creates boundaries between believers and unbelievers. That needs careful management and goodwill, but if belief is not allowed to play an active, critical role in society, isolation will result as people shape their own lives according to their own understanding of morality and of what it means to be human that do not relate with anyone else. Identity is reduced to the level of the individual to be preserved in aspic rather than something that can be shared.

The knock of God at the door is an opportunity to break one's isolation and to relate with Him and with His Creation. It is often painful, but if one's love for God allows us to love others, that pain of readjustment, of jettisoning unnecessary but comfortable assumptions and precepts pales into insignificance in comparison with being part of a community with like-minded but not identical souls. It's worth being knocked!

The Fifth Day of Christmas

Five gold rings would seal five marriages, covenants between five couples to forge relationships built on mutual love and trust. For the Jewish people, the great covenant made between Israel and God is the source of much joy and inspiration. For the Jews, the Law gave them an identity unique among the tribes of the world and also a means to bind the community within that identity. This covenant is summed up in the Torah, the first five books in the Bible.

In this day and age, many see these books as being horribly proscriptive and prohibitive, denying some people rights and enforcing arbitrary and bizarre laws on ordinary people. They were not intended to be abitrary or bizarre and a careful reading of the context of the laws replaces that which modernity has taken away - a sense of reason and care for a fragile community which could have flown off the rails at any time (and often did!)

The Torah points to a God who truly cares about His Creation enough to make a covenant - a binding agreement with them. Human beings have not been faithful with our side of the agreement. A moment's check with the ten commandments will convince us of that. Yet, throughout, God has sought to fulfil His side of the agreement. He is faithful to His children, refusing to contravene what He has agreed and refusing to change the terms. God will not move the goalposts.

Human beings, however, have a tendency not only to move the goalposts, but also to change the rules to the game. Time and again, we have reinvented the terms of the covenant to renege on God's agreement and diddle Him out of His due honour.

Yet, the agreement is there and still in force. God will not allow anyone who truly seeks Him to fail or to fall away. The Golden Covenant still stands and the five rings of the Torah still remind us that we are meant to relate with God. This Law forms the framework of the Gospels in which we learn more of our relationship with the Triune God whose two-fold covenant is ratified in the blood of Christ on the Cross. This is indeed true love!

The Impact of Man and the Glory of God

Sermon Preached at St Mary and St Eanswythe, Dartford on 29th December 2012

What do you imagine when you hear tell of the Shepherds abiding in the fields watching their flocks by night? How does this familiar (perhaps a little over-familiar) passage strike us as we hear it for the umpteenth time? Think of it, a handful of Israeli shepherds huddled in the cool of the night, one playing his little reed-pipe, his tune punctuated by the bleating of the sheep and the gentle munching of clumps of grass. All is calm, all is bright. And then, the Glory of the Lord! How do you see that Glory in your head? Is it just a burning bright light? If so, then somehow, you must account for this light being specifically the Glory of the Lord. You somehow have to differentiate between that light and, say, the floodlights at Wembley Stadium or the glare of a 100W bulb being switched on first thing after a night’s sleep. How do you do that? How do you turn a brilliant light into the Glory of God – infinite, omnipotent, ineffable?

The Glory of the Lord!

Do we understand what Glory really is? [PAUSE]

The Israelites first meet the Glory of the Lord in the cloud following their Exodus, then later as a consuming fire on a mountain top. So Glory is not exclusively peculiar to a shining light, but Glory is certainly something we associate with God. We hit that usual problem: how on Earth can we talk about the Lord God in a way that we can understand and yet do justice to His Unique Being? As usual, we look at what “glory” means in the context of Man and then draw the analogy upwards as far as we can to Our Heavenly Father.

So what can we say about the Glory of Man?

[PAUSE]

Perhaps we think of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Perhaps we hear the trumpets and the sound of the choir singing Handel’s Zadok the Priest. Perhaps we see Archbishop Fisher placing the crown upon the head of a young woman - St Edward’s crown – weighing a hefty 4 pounds. What a weight! Is that an occasion at which we would say we had seen something glorious?

In fact, Her Majesty’s experience of the heavy crown gets us very close to what glory means. The root of the word in Hebrew is that of weight and impact. The glory of a boxer is the imprint of his fist in his opponent’s nose. The glory of an architect is the sense of awe that we feel when we stand at the bottom of The Shard in London and look up. The glory of a Queen is the impact the sight of her has on us when she is full regalia. These are, however, superficial factors – mere appearances. What is the true Glory of Man?

[PAUSE]

If we start to look closely at the impact that Man has had on the world, then we quickly see the problem. Most ecologists would quite readily attribute the climate change to the result of Man’s influence.

If we look at our glorious monarchs then, just this week, we see the murderous rage of a King so paranoid and intent upon holding on to his fleeting power that he kills little children. In the past few weeks we have seen that happen again in America!

Even today, we remember St Thomas of Canterbury, struck down in his cathedral for daring to stand up to the glory of a king armed only with the glory of God.

Look at how fleeting the impact of Man is, how readily it decays or is corrupted. Look at how the same Church that St Thomas of Canterbury tried to protect has become riddled with heresies and schisms and hatreds and political ambitions. The weight of Gothic architecture has had to give way to the more humble setting of the upper room or the municipal catacombs. This, then, is the Glory of Man.

Where, then , is the glory of God? How on earth can we find anything in our glory to associate with the Glory of God? Can there be any similarity?

[PAUSE]

Of course there is, but never where you’d expect to find it! God is not a tame god!

Where is the glory of God that the shepherds see?

A tiny baby in a donkey’s trough?

Oh yes! It might not look glorious in our superficial sense, but the impact of that baby is immense! How can it be that two millennia later, we are still talking about that baby. That’s glory! That baby has had more impact on this world than any other child born to woman. We still feel the full force of that birth and, some thirty years later in His life, we feel the force of His ignominious death on a Cross, followed by the greatest moment since the creation of the world, namely its redemption in the glory of the Resurrection! Now that is the Glory of God!

Does it shine? Well yes it does, because it illuminates our understanding and fires our hearts. It causes us to want to work and live and spread the word, even when we’re few in number and tired and disheartened by the glory of the world weighing on us. The glory of God does shine in us if we let it. The yoke of God’s glory is easy and His burden is light. We still have to lift this weight, this impact, this glory, but we do so with the support of the Christ-Child. The glory of God does indeed shine in our world. Does it shine through us?

The Fourth Day of Christmas

Four Collybirds - blackbirds. These make quite a noise in the spring. The jet black male has a bright golden beak and golden rings around its eye. Their plumage makes quite a statement and its call is certainly persistent. Not surprisingly then, the number four is associated with the Four Evangelists whose call still persists as they hold unique places among the prophecies, histories and epistles that make up Holy Scripture.

The cry of the blackbird can be quite irritating, especially the famous alarm call which is usually accompanied by the fluttering wings as the startled bird burst forth from the bushes. In the same way, many find the gospels an irritant. They do appear to be inconsistent; they do appear to have incorrect details; they do appear to be odd in their insistence at attributing too much to the miraculous. These irritations occur because we approach them with a different mind. These gospels were written to tell us good news and we are faced with a choice, to believe or to reject their testimony.

Since there is a great diversity of belief among scholars as to the reliability of the Gospels, one has to set up the criteria we require in order to believe the testimony. The trouble is that no-one is able to travel back and know the truth - we have no choice but to rely on testimonies. However, if we see the impact that the person of Jesus has had on Western Society, it becomes very difficult to see how one itinerant preacher's teaching overrides those of other contemporary itinerant preachers without some special circumstances that assisted its publication on so great a scale. There was no military might, nor influential approval, nor goodwill for the first three hundred years, so how an upopular sect spread and grew in the face of horrible tortures and executions is certainly remarkable.

There is clearly something contained in these gospels that give us a clue as to why. Their evidence cannot be ruled out just because they have been afforded a religious significance. However one regards the content, whether fact or fiction, these Gospels have shaped our society. Our Christmas is influenced by the great infancy narratives and we cannot celebrate Christmas without Angels and Kings and Mangers and Stars making their presence felt.

We have been given the gift of four remarkable texts which set up the context of the belief in the Triune God within the two covenants that God has made with us, unified and ratified in the Blood of Christ Crucified. This is a gift for which every Christian should thank the One Who Truly Loves.

The Third Day of Christmas

Three french hens? There is a rather unfortunate tendency in the U.K. to be just a little bit racist when it comes to mentioning France. The UKIP is now trouncing the Liberal Democrats in the polls and seems to suggest that associating with Europe is not a terribly good idea. The history between France and England is peppered with wars, skirmishes and unpleasantness. It's the casual racism, the unconscious stereotype, often done in a spirit of playful teasing that can escalate and make foreign travellers to the U.K. rather uncomfortable.

Spare a thought, then, for the magi as they make their long long way to find the Christ Child. The traditional misreading of the gospels has it that there were three wise men, or three kings, allowing the counting of the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to enumerate the number of bearers. Nonetheless, these men came with ideas foreign to Jewish law from Persian lands which have been traditional enemies of Israel, with the sole purpose of seeking the Truth which they find in Bethlehem.

Christ accepts them because they seek Him honestly. It is Christ's ministry that tells us to love the foreigner and not to treat them as outsiders, but rather to seek that which is common to us all. After all, none is stranger than God who is Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity.

If we cannot comprehend the being of Almighty God, who nonetheless makes Himself known to us, and seek to worship and love Him, is it not easier to seek and love those foreign in culture but common in origin in God?

This Great Trinity has deigned to give Himself to us in a spirit of Love and we can find His love expressed to us in the Two-fold covenants that He has made with us which are united in the one body of our Lord Jesus Christ and ratified in His blood on the tree.

The Second Day of Christmas

Two turtledoves - the sacrifice that a poor couple would make at the presentation of their firstborn unlike the rich who would offer a lamb and a pigeon. St Joseph and Our Lady are not rich or important in the eyes of this world and must make the lesser sacrifice. Of course they unknowingly bring the Lamb of God to the temple. We see here the confluence of the Old Covenant and the New seamlessly joined in the person of Jesus Christ.

Thus the two turtledoves represent the old and new testaments. The revelation that God brings us is not complete if one of these covenants is missing. The New Covenant makes no sense without the Old to make it clear why it is necessary, to bring to mankind the knowledge of Good and Evil and the awful realisation of the sin that is within humanity both corporately and individually. The Old Testament without the New brings us knowledge of sin, but of no redemption from that sin. Without the Old there is ignorance, without the New there is hopelessness.

The two are held together in Christ, the fulfilment of the Old and the beginning of the New. We find ourselves both enlightened and saved. Such is the respect of God for us. He wants us to understand. He wants us to have knowledge, understanding of the Truth, and also to be free from the concomitant death that comes with that knowledge. The serpent that infects human nature with sin has its head crushed by a little Jewish maiden just by her saying "yes" to God. The strength given to her to do so is provided by the Child she bares in her womb, brings into the world in a squalid cattle-stall, and presents in the temple according to her understanding of the Old Covenant.

It is Christ who holds Old and New together. In Him there is one Salvation for every human being who chooses Him.

The First Day of Christmas

In the Benedictine Tradition, we always begin again. Today, Christmas Day, we begin yet again that which has been begun again over two thousand times. We must begin at the beginning always and this means beginning with God.

There can be only one God. We Christians have always believed it to be true, Reason tells us that there can be only One God, and yet beginning with our One God, we find such richness pouring forth from His unity. In God there is something, and that something generates everything. Mathematically, once we have something, then we can start counting. One apple leads us into understanding two apples, et c. generating arithmetic, algebra, geometry and music as Pythagoras would have us believe. There are some folk who never get beyond two: one, two, some more. We must always begin with One but one leads us from the finite to the infinite too, into the mathematical spirituality of Cantor's infinities.

On the first day of Christmas, Our True Love gives us One thing - Himself! The true unity. He is the partridge, and the partridge can only be found in the pear tree. The tree is where Our True Love finds Himself at the end of the life He begins today. Bethlehem inexorably leads to Golgotha albeit at thirty years or so distant.

We human beings can get so obsessed by number one and attribute that number to ourselves, rather than to the One Who Is. We are the first person singular! In looking after number one, we find ourselves denying value to those around us. If we are the one who matters, then all must exist for us. We have seen this year such horror and misery caused by our attempts to own our own selves. This is the problem with such a small understanding of what one is. One is an enormous number and yet it is the smallest positive whole number. Likewise, Our God possesses humility and a desire to see all at unity in Him.

This is the property that we should seek from seeing ourselves as the first person singular - unity. For, in unity, we see our own personal oneness as a participation in the individuality of God. We can be number one and yet not alone because we should seek to be one with our fellow men.

At Christmas time, we converge on one trough containing one tiny, tiny little infant, squeaking and wriggling in His swaddling clothes amidst the straw. We converge there in order to be one as the Father is One with this little ball of reflexes who will grow up knowing the totality of the pain of humanity's tendency to diversity. We converge too, at Paschaltide, to the One cross, to the One tomb and then to witness One Resurrection.

We are One Church, proclaiming One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. If we truly seek God, then we must seek His uniqueness in others and be united with them in Him.

I wish you all a very happy, fulfilling and glorious Christmas.