The reputation of an Apostle

 

A reflection for St Mary Magdalene's Day

The infernal coin

Sermon for the seventh Sunday after Trinity

"When you're dead, you're dead!"

How many times have you heard that? How does it make you feel?

At first sight, doesn't really mean anything, but then you understand that the person saying this means that he does not believe in life after death.

We all know that we are highly likely to die. Enochs and Elijahs don't come along every day. We know that death is something that we will have to face. If there is nothing of us after death, then this life is all there is and we have to make the most of it. So why not devote your life just to enjoying yourself. The pain of living is only temporary, so just do what you want. When you're dead, you can't feel pain or humiliation or anger. 

When you're dead the lives of the people you leave behind can't matter. Love ends at death, and so do all the affections that you have for other people and those that others have for you. There's no need to love, there's no need to get caught up in families. There is only the need to enjoy yourself. Do what makes you happy.

[PAUSE]

Dear God, that is such a bleak philosophy! While the fear of death does not prove the existence of the afterlife, our experience that life has some meaning seems unshakable. Yet, if there is only death then there is no meaning.

We know that every human being has a meaning, even those who live for just a day, even those whose lives are blighted by pain and suffering and poverty and sickness and slavery. And that means that we believe not only that there is life after death but there is also justice after death.

We believe in God and we trust in His promise of Life Eternal with Him.

[PAUSE]

The fact that we die leaves us open to the temptation to sin. Sin and death are the two sides of the same coin. We sin because we think it won't matter in the long run. We die because our sin cuts us off from God Who is Life. 

To remove sin from our lives, to come to God soiled by our wrongdoing and be washed by His Grace, these destroy Death's sting because we enter life through the Cross of Christ. In Him, the sufferings of us all are not only put right but sanctified to the extent that our scars become more beautiful than gold, diamonds or precious stones.

The wages of sin is death, so all the poverty that comes from renouncing sin brings us to greater riches.

[PAUSE]

We are Christians and we believe God that our lives mean more than we know. If sin and death are two sides of the same coin, then perhaps that coin needs to be flipped into the pit whence it came.

Ruling the rule rules

 

A reflection on how rules should be used.

The Opinion of Benedict

Sermon for the feast of St Benedict

As far as the Church is concerned, you ought to have a distrust for isms.

The Church has suffered much from the heresies of Arianism, Donatism, Nestorianism and Modernism and many more. So why should we trust Benedictinism?

[PAUSE]

It's good to know your heresies because knowing how things go wrong puts you back on track. All heresies come from an opinion. Some people think that Jesus was created or just a good man: that's how Arianism and Ebionitism work. Some people think that Jesus' God-ness can be separated from His Man-ness: that way lies Nestorianism. Some people think that, because we are more technologically and scientifically advance than we were, the Christian Faith needs to change in order to reflect those advances: that's Modernism.

You notice that a heresy starts with "some people think that..." A heresy never starts with "it has been revealed to the Catholic Church that..." The Church is still fighting all these heresies today. If there is one thing that can help, it's Benedictinism.

[PAUSE]

Why should St Benedict be any different from Arius? Both are putting forward opinions. Surely it's one man's word against another's. Except...

Except St Benedict preaches the virtue of humility. His is a practical theology. He doesn't seek to change Church teaching: he seeks to fit his life to the life of Christ and bend his will to do the will of God. St Benedict knows that he is just a man and wants nothing more than to do as God bids him.

For St Benedict, it is the good of the community that matters more than individual thinking. Indeed, he tells his Benedictine monks that they can always bring their opinions to the discussion but, once they have presented them, they must sit down and not press them. Those opinions are then weighed by the abbot who has been given the charge of the monastery. If he rejects those opinions then that decision must be respected, even if it is the wrong decision. The wholeness of the community is worth more than the value of opinions no matter how good they are.

[PAUSE]

Today, having your opinions rejected is regarded as having everything you hold dear rejected. It's almost like your opinions are a part of you. And then we begin to see the trouble.

If we value our opinions too highly, if we make them part of ourselves, if we defend them with more vigour more than our own lives, then we might just be worshipping our own point of view. We may just be worshipping our own ideology.

True: to be a Christian means to hold the opinion that Jesus is God. But it's more than that. It is truth. It is how we live our lives according to that opinion. Christianity is based in real, objective fact - not opinions. Jesus tells us to love God and to love neighbour. We can't have an opinion on that because He said it! Even then, He was quoting Moses! 

Over the centuries, the Church has come to recognise the Truth in her doctrine. Heresies have been shown up for what they are - an individual's ideology which denies the facts of what God has revealed to us in Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers. Those who hold to heresies hold opinions that are contrary to the Truth and value them more than the Truth. Those opinions are worshipped more devoutly than God.

St Benedict's answer is to be humble. He tells us to deny our opinions in the face of what the Church teaches. He teaches us to look for the goodness of God and work for Him and pray for Him. He teaches us to look out for the good of others and to build the Church community out and away of the noise of heresy and dissent. In short, St Benedict is teaching nothing more or less than the commandments that he has received from Christ Jesus Himself: love God, love Neighbour. 

[PAUSE]

At present, the monasteries and convents are dwindling. People prefer the comfort of their own opinions to living lives of stability, obedience and constant repentance. This is worrying as the monasteries have always stood against the divisions of this world as bridges to God in prayer. There are too few who will give up their lives and the worship of their own self-satisfaction in order to pray, work and study for the love of God. People prefer profits to prophets.

[PAUSE]

As Christians, it is our obedience to Christ that should stand out. Our obedience should scandalise the World with its desires for rights and freedoms and permissions. Our obedience to God and the sacrifice of our ideologies on the altar of the cross we bear, this obedience and sacrifice give us true freedom and true joy because the World and its foolish concerns for the material will pass away, fading into complete and utter insignificance.

Our Lord's challenge that St Benedict takes up is that Christians are indeed called to change the world. However, you change the world by changing yourself. If you become less greedy then there is less greed in the world. If you become more devoted to the Lord, the more that this world becomes devoted to Him.

 The fewer opinions we worship, the more like St Benedict we will be and the more like Christ we will become.

Making your mind up

Propers for the fifth Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the fifth Sunday after Trinity

St Peter says, "be ye all of one mind."

Now look at the people around you. Look at the people you meet today, at those whom you met yesterday or are planning to meet tomorrow. Would you like to have the same mind as them?

Is St Peter actually encouraging us all to think the same as each other. Are we not allowed to have our own individual thoughts? Is St Peter's Church a church for the brainwashed and thought police?

[PAUSE]

There is a great fear among some of us today that we are all being forced to think in a particular way. There are those inside the Church who are expecting persecution from Society for not thinking the right thoughts about various social issues. And there are those outside the Church who think that the Church will unleash the Holy Inquisition on those who do not believe in the right way.

To be honest, History shows that both cases have been true. There have been instances when members of the Church have forced their mind on people through fear and ferocity. There have been instances where the Church has been forced underground because of an oppressive political regime or a massive social reaction.

We still see that today, in both directions. And in both cases, there is one central principle: the human mind is not to be allowed to deviate from the mind of the ruling group.

It means that there are some who wish to deny you the very right to think your own thoughts so that they can have things their way. It is a denial of your humanity.

[PAUSE]

Notice that God does not want to force us to believe in Him. If He did, there would be no other religions, no atheists, no heretics. That is not what God is like. In His incarnation, He takes up a human will, a human mind and a human body to be distinct but completely inseparable from His Divinity. For God, even the risk of the chaos caused by sin and death in His Creation is not enough to stop Him creating us with our own individual minds and personalities.

And St Peter tells us to be of one mind?

How oppressive!

[PAUSE]

If we think that then we are missing the point of what St Peter is saying. He is asking us to agree, not telling us to think the same. He is asking us to be considerate of others, to be kind, compassionate, merciful and loving. All of these respect the dignity of another's being, just as God still loves with the same passion those who turn from Him.

St Peter asks us to agree on what is central so that the Church can thrive by introducing people to the true Christ. We see this already as the Church agrees that Gentiles can become Christians. We see that the Church agrees that God has revealed Himself through the Creeds and Church Fathers. There is agreement, there is one mind so that we can be of one mind. This is the mind of the Church and it is given to her by the God's revelation of Himself to all mankind.

But what if we don't agree? Admittedly, the track record there is not good and there have been too many stakes and gibbets. We have to be compassionate enough to allow people to be wrong though we must protect others of the harm that comes from this wrong.

A bishop is free to preach that there is no God but the Church is also free to declare that he is wrong and deprive him from preaching: he has removed himself from the mind of the Church. He is no longer of one mind with the Faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ. He should be reasoned with but not burnt at the stake. He may not preach until he repents but he should be allowed to repent through his own free will and be received back with love, kindness and generosity. For his part, he must publically recant his heresy and proclaim the Faith in all honesty and sincerity.

[PAUSE]

The Church has obtained a reputation for brainwashing. While she allows people to choose how to live their lives freely, even in sin, she cannot be accused of brainwashing, for brainwashing allows no freedom of choice. However, to be of one mind with the Church is to be of one mind with Christ and this means we want to hear Him, to repent of our sins, to surrender our lives in the service of His will in truth and love of God and neighbour.

[PAUSE]

We choose to be of one mind with the Church. She presents the facts of God the Holy Trinity as far as they can be known. She is organised to preserve this unity of mind through the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. 

Alternatively, we can choose not to be of one mind with her but this means that we love our own mind more than Christ.

But, whether we choose God or not, He will still love us regardless. But He loves us so much that He will allow us to walk away from Him if we want to. Do we really want to think about what happens then?

A blood donor sketch

 

A reflection on the Precious Blood of Christ.

Putting things wrong

Propers for the fourth Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Trinity and within the Octave of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

St John the Baptist cries out that every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain. He's not the person that you would want to hear while walking the glorious hills and vales of Yorkshire. A landscape is often more beautiful and inspiring because of its hills and valleys. Is St John really suggesting that we take a bulldozer and road rollers to the lot?

[PAUSE]

Of course St John is referring to preparing the way of the Lord. There should be no obstacle for anyone to come to the Lord Jesus but often there is. Often there is something that looks insurmountable like a vast mountain ridge that will prevent people from coming to God.

Often that mountain has been put there, not by God, but by other people who have moved it out of their way to Jesus. They have moved it out of their way and into someone else's. In making their way straight, they have made someone else's way crooked. 

This is all evidence for one simple fact: human beings cannot truly put things right. We will always put things right in one place, only for it to cause trouble somewhere else. The reason is that our judgement for what is right has been impaired by our fall from God. That judgement has not been obliterated: we can still know what is good and what isn't, but our ability to put things right is deeply flawed.

We try to do good but we fail because we try to do good without God. 

[PAUSE]

Our Lord tells us that if we do not judge, we will not be judged. God is judge indeed but he judges to put things right, not to send people to Hell. If we try to take the judge's wig from God, then we will send ourselves to Hell because we are worshipping our own right and wrong, not the true good that comes from God.

We see this very much in our society at the moment. There is much judgement and little forgiveness. We can say something supremely stupid on social media in our teens and, twenty years later, we can be refused a job even if we have repented of of our stupidity publically. In our attempts to right the wrongs of society, we end up being more judgemental than the society we condemn. 

And Jesus tells us to put mercy first. Before judgement, there must be mercy. With judgement there must be forgiveness. Forgiveness does not stop the need to accept the consequences of a bad action, but it puts an end to that bad action.

As human beings, our ability to do good and judge good is flawed. Our Lord is clear that, for this reason, we need to cultivate both mercy and forgiveness. This will inevitably lead to suffering for Evil will always seek to ensure that human beings judge each other harshly and without full possession of the facts. Our suffering is a consequence of the evil that our first parents brought into Creation.

[PAUSE]

This makes Mercy and Forgiveness unappealing because they potentially let those who do wrong off the hook. Mercy and Forgiveness make the possibility of being hurt greater and more severe. They are costly and agonising.

But we know that! 

We know the cost of Mercy and Forgiveness. We see that cost all around us in our Church. We see Our Saviour nailed to the cross, not only crying out for our forgiveness but also that we must dare to be like Him.

[PAUSE]

Hunan beings will claim that we can be good without God. This is true. The Atheist can be kinder, more loving and more generous than the Christian. But Goodness is more than just an action. Goodness is found only in God.

We can certainly try and exalt valleys and lay mountains low but we will do so with bulldozers and cranes, and the result will be ugly. Instead of the rolling hills of green will be car parks of grey.

Far better that we learn to be good at the feet of God and allow Him to put things right than for us to put things wrong.

Making a prophet

 A reflection on the Nativity of St John the Baptist.

Satisfied with Pride?

Propers for the third Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the third Sunday after Trinity

What are you proud of? An accomplishment? Some aspect of your life? Your family?

And then you hear Our Lady say that the Lord scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

Are you prepared to have all your pride scattered?

[PAUSE]

There's something that doesn't sit right in this, isn't there? What's wrong with being proud of being autistic and overcoming the social difficulties that arise, or being proud of your son's first steps, or being proud of being a Christian.

The word "pride" here is being used to mean thankful, gladdened and satisfied deeply. We can be satisfied deeply and warmly with our acing the test, writing that book or our father's serving his country in the war. This all seems reasonable. We can indeed find satisfaction in what we do. We can see St Paul's pride in the people whom he has brought up in the Faith. He is proud of the Colossians, the Ephesians, and the Philippians. This pride forms an attachment; it develops relationships and draws the Church together. But this satisfaction - this pride - is born of humility. 

How can this satisfaction have anything to do with the sin of pride?

[PAUSE]

The sin of pride is an idolatry. It means that there is an aspect of yourself or of your life that you put over and above God. It becomes something you worship and protect before your duty to God. It is something created that you hold to be of greater value than God.

It means that the thing you are proud of most becomes you. You can be proud of being autistic but the moment you allow that to be the single defining issue of your life, you make yourself smaller - a self-caricature. You can be proud of your son's first steps but, the moment they become the best first steps over anyone else's, they become ridiculous. You can be proud of being a Christian but if you call yourself Christian and reject the teaching of Christ, it's a label and little more.

At each step, pride makes your universe, your life and your very self smaller. To take one aspect of your life and demand that everyone else respect it, submit to it and worship it is to make yourself less of the person that God made. The noise of those who make such demands on others is the roaring of the Devil seeking whom he may devour.

The only antidote is humility.

[PAUSE]

Humility makes us bigger people. Humility helps us to realise that those things that give us that warm and deep sense of achievement are just a fleeting fragment of who we are. Humility helps us to see that we don't even know ourselves sufficiently and that there are greater accomplishments in life which require us to submit to the will of God and leave behind what we have done before. Humility helps us to see that, if we seek to define ourselves, we become very small indeed.

[PAUSE]

It is fine and good to be proud of being autistic or producing a piece of fine art or of the little drawing that your son has done, for God delights in these, too. And God delights in you too, not the you you say you are, but the you He created for Himself. Accepting this means seeing all pride scattered until only the humble and beautiful truth remains. 

Telescopes and Microscopes

 

A reflection on how we have to be able to look at the big and the small simultaneously.

Refusing God

Propers for the second Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the second Sunday after Trinity

God is love.

This is something that St John takes great pains to tell us. And he would know. 

St John, together with St James and St Peter, has spent his time so close to Jesus that he knows Him so well. He hears Him teach; he sees Him heal; he sees Him die and rise from the dead. Also, St John is entrusted with the care of the Virgin Mary, Our Lord's Mother, after the events of Easter. Of all people, St John knows that God is Love.

But he also knows that people do not love. He has heard the swearing and cursing of the Holy Name of Jesus. He has heard the jeering laughter as Holy healing hands are pierced with nails and then lifted on high in agony. St John himself suffers at the hand of those who hate as they try to boil him in oil at the Latin Gate.

St John knows love and he knows hate.

Hatred is a absence of love. If we choose not to love our neighbour, we choose not to love God. 

Can we choose not to love God?

[PAUSE]

St John hears Jesus tell of those who refuse to come to the great banquet and thus give place for those who did not know they were invited. Those who refuse are those so preoccupied with worldly living that they regard the banquet as not worth their time. And when the banquet happens, they do not go in. They have refused love. They have refused God.

[PAUSE]

The act of being indifferent to love is just as bad as hating. St John sees a person in need as a chance to make God apparent to them by the act of loving them. If we say that we love but don't actually love, then we are preventing those in need from receiving God at our hands. Of course, God will present Himself to anyone in need some other way. But it is the one who only pays lip service to love who refuses God. He who fails to love loses Eternal life.

We are free to choose to love. This means we are free to withhold love. This means we are free to walk away from the banquet of God. We are free not to enter into Eternal life with God.

[PAUSE]

This is a terrifying thought. The act of our will not to choose God means we miss out on Eternity. The first word of Our Lord's ministry is "repent!" It is a call to turn back to God. It is a call to enter through the narrow gate of the Cross in a commitment to loving our neighbour as ourselves. Failure to do so means the outer darkness with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[PAUSE]

The absence of love is hatred and there is no place for it in God's kingdom. All sin is a form of hatred of God and neighbour and even oneself. As long as we hold on to sin, we hold on to the outer darkness. 

If we hold onto the Cross then we cannot hold on to sin. If we, through love, are nailed to the cross we bear, we cannot hold on to sin. St John sees that most clearly when he begs us to love one another. Love is costly and hard work, full of pain, struggle and sorrow. Sin is easy, sickly sweet, comfortable and snug.

[PAUSE]

The struggle of the cross is the sign of true love. Choose the cross and you will not refuse love. Refuse love and you refuse Eternal life in God. St John says it is that simple.

Ten years: grief and joy

Today I celebrate ten years since I joined the Anglican Catholic Church. In leaving the CofE behind, I left behind much of what I loved. I miss the buildings, the choral tradition and the sense of being a part of English history and establishment. I also very much miss being in communion with old friends.

In many ways, though, it was me that was left behind as the CofE showed me clearly that our paths were markedly different. A DDO said of me that I was "loyal to a church that had passed away." I have come to realise that he was right. So, when the last straw fell onto the most preponderous pile that had grown, and I was forbidden from proclaiming the incarnation of the Lord - the core doctrine of the Church - at Evening Prayer in the words of the Angelus by a Rural Dean who was clear in her desire to eradicate all dissent, I finally allowed the CofE that I loved to pass away from me.

Joy always involves a death somewhere along the line: a moment of realisation that heaviness and heartache are not permanent and that we can be free to live. That moment of liberation in joy is exhilarating and terrifying. 

And so, even in the midst of death, I dare to rejoice because ten years ago I found my new home, and it looked like the old one. I found new friends and a new reason to carry on worshipping in the way that I was used to. I look back and realise that I have grown so much in those ten years. All has changed and for the better - well, not everything has changed. The Church has not changed and the ACC reflects that. 

Despite the lack of buildings, despite the fewness of members, despite the lack of choirs and concomitant triumphant pipe organs, it is the Church of England that I was once part of. It is the Church of England that I was told had passed away. My studies and research show that it is built upon surer and sounder foundations than the CofE.

I still look back and mourn the passing of the church that I once belonged to. Mourning is important because it shows that one still loves what has gone, and love is the key to living.

But, for the Christian, there is also the challenge, the almost obscene double-dare to rejoice in the face of grief because of the fact of Resurrection. The Christian lives with conflicting emotions and is almost torn apart by them: we weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. We weep through love of neighbour, we rejoice through love of God.

As I watch my old church tear itself to bits, turn its churches into theme parks, close its choirs and allow the words of other religions to be read in its pulpit, I am sorrowful because I remember what she was and want my son who loves "church" to have the same experiences that I had and loved. I grieve with others who grieve, especially with those who have lost so much more than I have.

On the other hand, I rejoice because ten years ago, I was given hope and growth and a new potential to actualise. I have seen Missions open and close, but still the Anglican Catholic Church remains despite me being in it. I have studied it with the little faculties of reason God gave me, and it makes sense - more sense than the church that passed away from me. 

So, in the midst of hard work, in the midst of loss, in the midst of painful sacrifices, I rejoice heartily because I have much to be grateful for and much to look forward to.

One day, the double doors of the horizon will be flung open for me and its bolts unlocked. That will mean the same pain at leaving and the same joy of the great hereafter. My Church preaches that hope, and I rejoice in that.

Finding your direction

 

A reflection on the decline of Spiritual Direction and a call to reverse this decline.

When chicken soup and beef steak become lasagne

 

A reflection on the Eucharist and relationships between Christians.

Giving thanks for scotch eggs?

Propers for the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi

It's not exactly a feast, is it? A little wafer and a little wine. 

"Of course it is!" you say with vigour. How do you know that you are right?

[PAUSE]

What can we expect of feasts? The image that we have is a lot of people gathered together eating a lot, drinking a lot and generally enjoying each others' company with music and fun.

Oh dear. That sounds a million miles away from going to church.

Yet, certainly at the beginning, this was how the Eucharist went. The Mass was the culmination of the agape meal. This meal did get rather rowdy, as St Paul testifies. People are getting drunk. People are eating too much. Others aren't getting any food because the plates are bare. There is more concern over the quantity of scotch eggs than the Body of Christ.

St Paul effectively puts an end to the agape meal by redirecting its focus. How can we be discerning the Body and Blood of Christ if we are acting as if He is not with us? How can we be present at the wedding feast of the Lamb if we ignore the Bridegroom Himself?

[PAUSE]

As a result of what St Paul says, the rowdy behaviour, the drunkenness and the gluttony are ended. But has this killed the feast? How can we call the Mass a feast of it's nothing like a feast?

"But it is a feast," you say. And you are right.

[PAUSE]

Is there music? We sing hymns and psalms. There is a whole tradition of Christian choral music of all flavours and tastes. 

Is there good company? We have our brothers and sisters, some of whom we see every week, others once in a while. There are some who come for the first time. There are others who come from other countries and cultures who, having left their church behind, nonetheless find here the same family worshipping God.

Is there food and drink aplenty? The eyes of the World say no. But we say yes. For we discern the Body and Blood of Christ and His grace is sufficient for us. We see the Lord's miracle of the feeding of the multitudes with a little bread and a few small fish, and we see people having enough to eat and there is food left over in baskets. 

Is there rejoicing? Yes! It's the Eucharist! We come to give thanks. There is no hilarity because someone has gotten drunk and has managed to fall into the swimming pool. There are no silly games and contests. But rowdy behaviour is not the only way to enjoy yourself. The joy we get at the Mass needs to be discerned like the Body and Blood of Christ. It is there as we look with gratitude at our lives. Of course, Life can be hard and dark and cold, but the Mass is the one place where people who feel that life isn't worth living should be able to come and know that God does love them and thanks Himself for making each and every human being that ever was, is and ever will be.

[PAUSE]

We simply cannot look at the Eucharistic Feast in the same way as a party. It's better than that. We have to leave our worldly expectations at the door along with the booze and the scotch eggs.

Learning to dance

Propers for Trinity Sunday

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Christians all have to learn the dance.

Dancing is all about making the right steps at the right time - or at least it used to be. Contrast the courtly dances of Henry VIII or Jane Austen with how we dance today. What was once a finely choreographed group activity has become very individual. We dance with our own moves regardless to what others are doing, sometimes with acrobatics! We have moved from a group of dancers moving as one to a lot of people doing their own thing. We have lost the ability to participate as a unity.

[PAUSE]

God, of course, is a unity: one God in three Persons, though even that is a bit of a twist of language. The relationship between the Persons of the Trinity goes by the name of perichoresis which is Greek for "dancing around". The human mind is incapable of understanding the Trinity because the Trinity is not like anything created so, to us, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost dance around in our minds as now we focus on the Trinity and now we focus on the Unity and now the Trinity and now...

Thoughts of God, as He is, jostle around our heads as we try in vain to think of Him. The good news is that He doesn't expect us to think of Him accurately. He wants us to love Him and trust Him. He wants us to learn to dance.

[PAUSE]

This means we have to listen to His music and learn His steps and that's enough for us to draw close to Him. If the music is a waltz then we have to take God's hand and let Him lead us, being careful to watch where we put our feet. If the music is a pavan then we must dance with God and with others, taking care to imitate the steps and move in time.

The dance of God is not a solo affair that we might find on Tiktok; it involves others and being in tune with them. Just as we see the Trinity dance around each other as One, so we too must dance as one.

When we think of God the Son, we move to God the Father to whom the Son looks in prayer and to Whom He submits His Humanity. When we think of God the Father, we move to God the Holy Ghost as He moves over the face of the waters of Creation. When we think of God the Holy Ghost, we see Him breathed upon the Apostles from the mouth of God the Son. And the dance goes around again. We are carried between the Persons by the dance of Eternity formed by their relationships to each other and yet, there is but One God.

[PAUSE] 

While this might be beyond our understanding, it forms the basis of our dance into the same Eternity. Our dance is with God and with our neighbour and it is borne on our relationships with each other. There will be disruption while we learn the steps; we will have to dance around those who dance only their solitary steps and content themselves with their own music; we will have to dance around those who seek actively to disrupt our steps. Letting God lead means we can dance around all obstacles: we might be ungainly or lumbering but God makes our steps with Him graceful and elegant.

[PAUSE]

Love is the dance and we must learn it. We might complain of our two left feet but that is not an excuse. God dances in Himself and He wants us to dance with Him.

Will you give Him the pleasure of this dance?

St Augustine and the Anglican Catholic Church

 

A reflection on how St Augustine's Mission is continued in the Anglican Catholic Church.

Feeling the Spirit

Propers for Whitsunday

Sermon for Whitsunday

How do you know the Holy Spirit?

There are many who claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit and are not. There are also those who hold Ebenezer Scrooge up as their model and regard any talk of being moved by the Holy Spirit as being affected by indigestion.

Both of these views have one thing in common. They both rely on the Holy Spirit expressing Himself through our feelings. But how do we know that our sense of the Holy Ghost is not just wishful thinking or a product of an overactive emotion?

[PAUSE]

The fact of the matter is that people can whip themselves up into frenzies and claim it to be the Holy Spirit. In many cases, it is really just a product of mass hysteria. Is that what happens to the Apostles?

Well, clearly not. There are certainly high emotion and unbridled elation. But there are also tongues of fire. And there are tongues of men. There is order amid the chaos - indeed, more order than chaos. The Apostles speak and they speak to be understood beyond the confines of Jerusalem. Moreover, they speak of the wonderful works of God. It isn't babble. Nor is it just the unrelenting use of platitudes. What they speak is substantial, true and intended to be heard by all who want to listen.

Of course, there will be those Scrooges who don't listen and, without further thought, accuse the Apostles of downing too many shots of tequila. Our Lord tells us that the World is deaf to the Holy Ghost. Indeed, St Paul tells us that the will of our flesh is in direct opposition to the will of the Holy Spirit. 

So how do we know the Holy Spirit?

[PAUSE]

We do not know the Spirit in ourselves only. We are fallen and need to learn to listen again. Our feelings are not reliable for us to say "this is the Holy Spirit moving in me!" The Holy Spirit is God and God is One. This means that, if we feel the Holy Spirit moving within us, then He moves us in accordance with what God has always said and done. In that sense, He will say nothing new because He will always be consistent with what Our Lord Jesus says and does. He will always be consistent with what the Father says and does. The same Spirit that moves us now is the same Spirit that moves the Apostles two thousand years ago.

The Holy Spirit moves us only as part of the Church and in a way that the Church recognises. He will not contradict what has already been revealed to us but He will clarify it. His effects may be felt but they will not be feelings alone. The Holy Spirit will allow His movements to be tested against Scripture, Tradition and Reason because these come from Him, too.

We receive the Holy Spirit at our Baptism and our growth in the same Spirit is strengthened through Confirmation. Indeed, we can be sure of the presence of the Holy Ghost through the Sacraments. The Sacraments give us grace and grace is the active presence of God with us and in us. They are His promise to us. Denial of the sacraments is a denial of the work of the Holy Spirit in God's Church.

[PAUSE]

Let us all be clear. We can see the Holy Spirit at work if we live our lives as part of the Living Church. There are still signs and wonders. People still do speak in tongues but they speak to be understood. There are still miracles - light anomalies at the consecration of Bishops, improbable coincidences, stigmata and prophecy - but they happen within the Church and for the Church and for the greater glory of God. The world will explain them away but the Church will know.

You may feel Him moving, but how do you know the Holy Spirit?

The Will, the Communion and the ACC

 

A reflection on the relationship between the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Catholic Church.

Persecution preparation

Propers for the Sunday in the Octave of the Ascension

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of the Ascension

So what now?

The Lord ascends into Heaven and then there is this pause as the disciples wait for something to happen.

After standing around and being told by the angels about the Second Coming of the Lord, the disciples do the only thing that they can: they go home to their common room and stay together.

They're lucky. They know what they are waiting for.

What are you waiting for?

[PAUSE]

St Peter reminds us that the end of the world is nigh. It's a bit rich of him because, two thousand years later, we are still waiting for the end. There are lots of elaborate theories - premillennialism, postmillennialism, even some very spurious theories like The Rapture. So much ink has been spilled trying to predict or to determine when the end will happen.

But, after telling us that the end is near, St Peter tells us what we should be doing. We are to be sober, prayerful, and charitable. Nowhere does he say that we need to be obsessing about the end. Indeed St Peter is mindful that the Lord has told him that no-one - not even the Son - knows when the end will happen.

For St Peter, it's not when or how the end happens, it is that it happens. We are to prepare to meet Christ at any moment and that means living the faith. 

Indeed, rather than preparing for the end, we ought to be preparing for our faith to be tested by our living in this world. Our faith is tested by the suffering induced by living in a world that has become hostile to God. Our Lord says that this will involve persecution. 

Certainly this means the physical persecution that the Church has seen under the Emperors Diocletian and Decius, but there is also spiritual persecution that comes from other people, even Society itself, and from the Devil.

In Africa and Asia, there is gross physical persecution and we cannot forget our brothers and sisters being tortured and killed for the Faith. In the West, we have a different type of persecution - this is very much an attack on our spirits. We are encouraged to drop our Faith, or relax our standards, or accept that which is immoral. We are encouraged to receive the superficial expression of being virtuous in exchange for the struggle to be virtuous in our hearts. We are being told to shut up because we offend others just by telling the truth, and that our love, this true and wonderful life-affirming Holy Love that is God, is really hate-speech and the denial of the individual's right to control what other people think.

This is persecution nonetheless and we must be sober. This means we must not allow our spiritual senses to be filled by being drunk in the spirits of this world. We must stand firm using subtlety, generousity and that love which is not a simple feeling of "niceness" but that thing that underpins all of existence. If we think of love as just a feeling then we are drunk on the worldly spirit of deception and are no longer sober.

[PAUSE]

We are not to look for the end but be sober, prayerful and charitable. That end will come soon enough and not in the way we expect. 

So what are you waiting for?