You just get what you believe in.

This is an attitude that I seem to be hearing quite a bit. So what precisely does this belief state?

Essentially, it's a palliative statement designed to offend no-one. The whole premise of this statement is that when we die we will all go to the afterlife that we have in our belief system. Those who believe in reincarnation get reincarnated. Those who believe that we go to Heaven go to Heaven, and those who believe in nothing, well, cease to be.

Essentially then we are saved by faith alone! - but faith in what we choose to believe.

Of course from a Christian point of view there are several problems. If God created the Universe, then quite clearly it is His idea of Heaven that counts and not ours. If we reject Him then we reject His Heaven which he prepares for us. If we Christians go to the Heaven we believe in then the God we worship is a created god, nothing more than an idol.

There are other problems with this idea besides Christian doctrine. If we are all in charge of our own afterlife, then this points to another solipsist universe. We become the creators of our own ends. What we say goes. If our final end is our decision, then it is limited by our imagination. There is no Eternity in the Human mind. It is clear from our humanity on Earth that no matter what we enjoy, we can have too much of it. A Heaven of chocolate pudding would soon become a Hell as our taste for chocolate pudding evaporates within the first four hours of our attainment of our personal Nirvana.

Well perhaps our taste for chocolate pudding will never fade. Perhaps we will remain in love with our favourite dessert for all Eternity. Well, then surely we would cease to be the human being that we are. We wouldn't be we! Perhaps that's what we're truly frightened of - being the people we are. Perhaps our Heaven is the place where we find solace from the tyranny of existence. In ceasing to be the people we are, we are faced with only one alternative - Oblivion.

But can we really reconcile an afterlife of Oblivion with a life which sees people suffer pain and misery. Could we really turn to the starving child in Africa as that poor little life ebbs out and say "don't worry, there's nothing after this!" Well perhaps that might be a blessed relief, but where's the justice? A life of suffering followed by nothing? Whose imagination is that? What is the point?

Certainly if the Universe is indeed a the product of a Calabi-Yau 3-fold with a 4D spacetime, then there is plenty of room for us to exist without meeting another person - all 6000 million of us and the ones who have ever lived. But an existence where we go where we believe is inconsistent with our life on Earth. We do live with others. Even the most colossal introvert like myself has experiences of others and it is through those experiences that we grow. If our destiny is to go our own separate ways then what is the point of that interaction? If our end is solipsist, then so surely is our beginning. If not, then why is there an existence over which we have no control which evolves into an "Eternity" of our own imagining?

If our existence is not dependent on an uncreated God, then there seems much inconsistency. Sure, it's possible that I believe in God because He satisfies a desire in me for a consistency of my existence. But the fact that I exist and that others exist with me, apart from me, different from me in a diversity of ways, and there still exists some order as we all try to live together point to the necessity for that consistency. The Natural Law shows us consistency of our experience, and that consistency points to a God who made order from chaos.

I am not a solipsist. There's no way that an introvert like me has the capacity to imagine the different people of the world. I believe in a Creator God and I am pleased to rely on His Eternity a truly Transcendent Eternity rather than my paltry understandings of Infinity. I would rather explore the Heaven of an infinite being rather than the vapid and facile imaginings of my own mind. No. I've no idea what heaven will be like. I don't want to know now because I can't know now. All I can do is trust the One who made me.

Ten in the Bed… the sinister version.

Sadly, one of the most hard-working members of my Parish died on Monday after a long battle with cancer. I couldn't preach according to the lectionary because of the nature of the material.
I therefore preached a more personal sermon today, and I publish what I would have said here.

Sermon preached at St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Swanscombe on the second Sunday after Trinity Sunday 17th June 2007, based on II Samuel xi.26—xii.15 and St Luke vii.36—viii.3.

Leo is desperate. It is now nearly three days since he last got his fix of Heroin. There is only one clear thought in his head: get the next dose as soon as possible. He searches his pockets, his coat, his room. No money. So he leaves his filthy squat lined with dirty newspapers and even filthier hypodermic needles, in a frantic search for money to stop the pain in his stomach.

On his way he meets Kyle. Kyle refuses to give him any money, so Leo stabs him dead with his rusty penknife. He takes from Kyle a grand total of £3.87. Not enough.

Of course, Leo is caught and convicted of Kyle’s murder.

How long do you think his sentence should be?

[PAUSE]

He is sentenced by the judge to 7 years. Too short?

In prison, Leo attempts to kick the habit. But he is always faced with the same symptoms. He sits in the centre of his cell with a gut-wrenching pain in his stomach, his hands shaking almost uncontrollably, dreading the return of his cell mate. Several times he succumbs and manages to get hold of some heroin from the underground trade. But still he must face the withdrawal symptoms, the same symptoms which cost Kyle his life in return for £3.87, the same symptoms which make Leo wish that he were dead.

Does the severe physical and psychological pain of Leo’s withdrawal symptoms change your mind about what his punishment should be?

For what is Leo being punished?

[PAUSE]

In the court, the obvious charge is murder, but killing Kyle was the result of Leo’s desperation for his next fix of heroin. Heroin is an addictive drug, so is Leo’s real sin getting hooked on it in the first place? But it was his girlfriend Britney at his sixteenth birthday party who persuaded him to take heroin in the first place because it felt good.

So what was the cause of the chain of events that resulted in Kyle’s death?

[PAUSE]

Sin begets sin. It’s like a sinister version of “There were ten in the bed.” When the little one says, “Roll over,” someone ends up falling out. Someone said “Roll over” and the result was that Leo fell out. It only has to be a little one.

There is always someone who shouts “roll over.”

Robert forgets to hold the door open for Nancy and it hits her, taking the skin off her elbow. This puts her in a bad mood so she shouts at her secretary Jean for being, in her words, “bone idle”. Jean takes Nancy’s criticisms seriously and tries to compensate by working harder. She spends more and more time at the office trying to sort out what to do, so much so that she forgets about the needs of her children Bradley and Britney who crave attention from their mother and, without her guidance, start to wander away from the straight and narrow. And then Britney gets invited to a sixteenth birthday party where she meets Leo…

So is Robert’s unthinking action the cause of Kyle’s death?

Not entirely, but his actions certainly contribute. The cause of Kyle’s death goes back further in many, many directions and things get more complicated and twisted and we lose track of who caused what.

[PAUSE]

“For by one man came death…” As Christians, we believe that all sin has its source from our very beginning as human beings and we can see that that very first sin has affected humanity all around us, and will continue to do so.

As Christians, we come here every week and say “we have sinned.” How often, though, do we think honestly of the consequences of our actions? A moment’s lack of thought can set the wheels in motion for a murder. This isn’t something we like to think about, but it’s true – each burst of bad temper, each incident of “oh it doesn’t matter, no-one will notice,” each “I wish I were married to his wife” adds to a stream of events which will end in catastrophe for someone.

How could we live with ourselves if we knew the full extent of our actions?

[PAUSE]

One woman knows.

It frightens her. She’s filled with remorse at her actions as she sees their effects on her life and the life of her community. It seems that everyone around her is pointing – sinner! They believe her to be fully responsible for some of the unpleasantness in this town. Her sin is always before her and she cannot shake off the guilt. So what can she do?

She sees Him at dinner in Simon the Pharisee’s house and she begins to weep for her sins, for what she’s done, washing His feet with her tears – and her sins are washed away by His love. She is free from the guilt.

She still has to live with the consequences of her sin. She is still called sinner and shunned by those who have not heard the message of the Son of God. In the eyes of this world, nothing changes. But through her encounter with the living Christ she finds out that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.

[PAUSE]

Through the love of God the effects of our sins are cancelled out. They die with us in this frail and fleeting world. To be forgiven fully, we need to bring all that we have done to Him in honesty. This is why the confession at Mass is so important - we need to say “I have sinned”. We will only be forgiven as much as we are willing to confess. Christ shows us that in His parable.

How much was your confession worth today?

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus

Debate on this has been raging in the Anglo-Catholic Central message board. Is a Protestant sufficiently outside the Catholic Church to be excluded from Salvation?

We might be able to argue contrariwise through the Fathers, maybe even from Scripture itself that anyone outside of the Catholic Faith cannot be saved. However, one thing disturbs me - I Corinthians xiii.

si linguis hominum loquar et angelorum caritatem autem non habeam factus sum
velut aes sonans aut cymbalum tinniens.

I'm sure that we can argue someone outside of the the Church and to Damnation, since St Cyprian is right - there is no salvation outside of the Church. However, Salvation belongs to God.
I am not learned enough to get into this argument on the level of the Fathers, but a mere appeal to I Cor xiii suggests that if we can argue someone out of the Church, then we cannot ourselves be part of it unless we find ourselves in great pain.

How can we speak of the pain of others as Christians and not feel their pain ourselves? Our disunity as Christians is a scandal, and our further schisms too lightly described as "an embarassment". It must hurt us, it must be seen as the worst thing, but if people have no choice but to walk away then what can we do?

That there is a clear demarcation between right and wrong is correct. That we can see a clear demarcation between right and wrong is absolutely fallacious. The boundary between right and wrong is fractal possessing structure on every scale of magnitude. Get too close and you lose the bigger picture, go too far out and you lose the fine detail. Only an infinite mind can resolve an infinite structure. There are things which are irreconcileable within the paucity of our belief.

There are the "pot-boilers" which inflame polemics between the Catholic Church and the Protestant. As I said below, I believe the Catholic Church to be more consistent in its interpretation of the Divine Will from His Revelation. Only when this consistency is rejected do the "pot-boilers" become valid because they are argued from inconsistency.

We cannot adopt consistency and inconsistency. Either the ordination of women is valid or it is not. Since it is not valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church, there is an irreconcilable split between those who hold it and those who don't. Does this damn women "priests" and their supporters? I pray to God that it isn't so, but I do believe that they have put themselves into severe danger.

So the Church is split, rent and fragmented into Communions and all we can do is follow the Rule of St Benedict and never despair of the mercy of God. We must also trust in God's ability to hold contradictions together. Reconciliation can and will only occur as a result of the Grace of God and if I am honest it will only occur at His hands. Until then the talking must occur, but there must also be a time for silence.

Making sense of beyond sense.

In some ways I'm at a bit of a disadvantage being a mathematician. It does mean that taking things on trust is not a natural thing to do. Of course there exists for each of us a level where we are forced to take something on trust, but some seem quicker to do this than others.

Unlike mathematics or science, Religion is not based on assumptions but certain inspirations and revelations, and it is upon these that the whole identity of the religion is based. Looking at the complexity of Catholic Doctrine, I can understand why some feel that it is restricting and stifles the spirit. Why is Christ's message of the love of God and the love of our fellow man not proclaimed as simply by the Church? Surely the doctrine of the Real Presence is unnecessary? Why do we ask the prayers of the dead? There does seem to be an inordinate complexity to all of these issues, but largely how does this complexity arise?

Complexity arises because of consistency. If we in the 21st Century are to find ourselves following the same religion as the Fathers, then we have to be consistent with their teaching. But why is consistency necessary? Is it necessary for our Faith to "make sense"?

It is necessary for us to understand what it means "to make sense". A religion exists to provide some meaning to our lives, to answer questions, to provide us with the means for a well-formed judgment, and a reliable direction for our lives' journeys. It also provides us with some comfortable cloud of unknowing in which, although not all of our questions have answers, our lives can go on regardless of not having those answers. One only has to read the works of the Cappadocian Fathers to see the edges of human understanding when they describe God as having a reality beyond all being, and that even the word "being" does not do justice to his existence because His reality transcends the idea of existence.

This makes our mind boggle and rightly so. Our understanding hits a wall and can proceed no further, but our relationship continues beyond our thoughts and into the darkness of Love.
However, in knowing that there are boundaries to our understanding there is a great temptation for us to be fearful or lazy about the limits of our thought that we feel that we can make statements which contradict our faith but need not be defended because their defense lies within the Cloud of Unknowing.

For example, Dr Ann Holmes Redding claims that it is perfectly consistent to be both a Moslem and a Christian. It may be consistent to live according to societal rules of both Islamic and Religious Cultures which are certainly consistent, but there is no Moslem that would subscribe to the Nicene-Creed as interpreted by the Catholic Church.

I am a Catholic because it is the most consistent expression of the Christian Religion. It eliminates personal interpretation of Revelation. Some may argue that this is a bad thing because it removes the possibility of God's personal relationship with the individual. But a submission to the Catholic Faith is a submission to a stable rock of Doctrine independent of the "winds of doctrine" produced by the winds of Zeitgeist. If the Christian Faith changes from century to century, how can we be sure that it is any way the Faith founded by Christ? If the Fathers held to the Real Presence - i.e. the physical presence of Christ in the Consecrated Eucharistic elements - then we must hold to the Real Presence. If not, then we have to answer the question: when the Presence suddenly cease to be Real? Was the Church so horribly mistaken? If it was mistaken, then how do we know it was right in everything else?
We could just cast the inconsistency into the Cloud of Unknowing and say "Oh well, it's a matter of faith", but if we investigate in honesty then we find that the inconsistency does not lie in the Transcendent nature of God, but rather the doctrine of men.

Of course, we can only make inroads into the unfathomable Cloud if we continue to talk and continue to treasure our beliefs almost simultaneously. God gave consistency to us so that we might have stability and order. It is a typical trait of our God to create order out of Chaos, and while our Church may be buffeted by strong winds at the moment, as long as we hold onto the order that the Church possesses by virtue of her espousal to God, then we shall pass cheerfully and boldly into that cloud validly and with humble boldness and eventually out into the knowledge of God.

It's a mystery...

Homily preached at Eltham College on Corpus Christi 7th June 2006.

A man walks into a Church
and goes into the Confessional.

"Father," he says,
"this is my first confession,
and I have a terrible sin to confess."

"Don't worry, my son,"
says the priest,
"I am duty bound not to reveal
anything said in this confessional."

"Are you sure, Father?

It's a terrible sin that I've committed,
and I'm so ashamed."

"Of course I'm sure, my son.

I cannot utter it to anyone at all,
even you after you leave."

"Then I can confess?

Oh, but it's a terrible sin."

"Yes my Son.

It'll remain between you,
me and God, I promise.

Now tell me all about it."

So the man confesses his sin to the priest.

[PAUSE]

And the priest?

Well he's a man of his word....

[PAUSE]

It's irritating when
our curiosity is not satisfied
- when we run up against something
that we’d like to know
but can’t find the answer.

It causes us frustration.

It's the same feeling
we get when we're trying to fill in
the Times Crossword which,
judging by the complexity of the clues,
seems to have been compiled
by someone who's
had fifty-seven Red Bull's and has been picking the clues
from the Oxford English
dictionary at
random with a pin.

Here at school,
there are many mysteries
that we face as both students and staff.

Why is it that the interactive whiteboard
always fails when the teacher wants
to use a PowerPoint Presentation?

Why do we have to learn
to solve simultaneous equations?

Why is it that the French
can't pronounce the last letters
of any of their words?

[PAUSE]

Life is full of mysteries,
some which can be explained.

Why does toast always land butter-side down?

Well it's because of the relative sizes of chairs,
tables and toast which allow only
time for a half spin of toast
before it hits the ground?

Why are ghosts always grey shadows?

Well, a scientist in Coventry
proved that low frequency vibrations
affect the eyes and brain
to produce sensations in
the peripheral vision
making grey shapes
in the corner of the eye.

How can we find out how old Sir Patrick Moore is?

Well, there's always radio-carbon dating.

[PAUSE]

On a more serious note,
Science and Religion always appear
to be at loggerheads when it comes
to explaining mysteries:
Evolution versus Creationism,
Life after death –
heaven
or nothing at all?

It’s important to realise that
despite explanations,
the issues of the Beginning of the Universe,
the Dawn of Man,
the Meaning of Life
and Life after Death
can only be nothing more
than theories.

No-one was about
at the Beginning of the Universe
to ask God just how He was going to create it.

Three million years ago,
there was no intrepid journalist
scouring the savannah planes with a microphone
grilling gorillas in the hope that
one would say
“well, actually
I’m evolving into
a human being.”

Science deals with observables,
hypotheses that we can test by experimenting.

Religion deals with unobservables,
things that we cannot even begin
to test empirically- by experiment.

How do you test for Life after Death?

Use an unusually long pair of tweezers
to extract people from Purgatory and ask them?

[PAUSE]

The Christian Faith challenges us
to accept that there will always be things
that we cannot adequately explain.

It challenges us
to live without knowing all the answers.

We have no scientific proof of the existence of God –
we never will have
because we can't stick God into a centrifuge.

We cannot understand the Holy Trinity
because there is nothing like the Holy Trinity
within range of our chemistry set.

We have to live with these mysteries by Faith.
Interestingly,
there is no scientific proof
for the non-existence of God –
nor will there be.

Atheism is just as much a matter of faith
as Theism.

So if there will always be
things we don’t know,
what’s the point of finding anything out?

What’s the point of school
if at the end of it we find ourselves
with more questions than answers?

[PAUSE]

Education exists so that
we can handle mystery
in a responsible and respectful manner.

We can only find out
what we don’t know by looking at
what we do know.

We can only affirm
what we believe by testing
it honestly and rigorously
in the world around us.
In education,
we cannot just say “I don’t know” and leave it there.


We have to say
“well, what do I know?”
and go from there.

That’s a good exam tip, by the way.

The major causes of
religious intolerance occur between folk
who cannot handle mystery in a responsible way.

It’s one thing to believe that you’re right –
it’s fine to believe that you are right –
so long as you are honest
about your reasons for believing
what you do,
and are also honest
about what you don’t know.

You have to be responsible in treating those
who don’t share your beliefs
with the dignity that any human being deserves
by virtue of being a human being.

You can only really find out what you do
and don’t know
by talking to people.


An honest debate is good –
debate is necessary! –
even if it does get heated,
as long as, after the debate,
both sides can shake hands and say words of kindness
and appreciation to the other.

What is the greatest mystery in your life?

What are you doing to get to the bottom of it?

Learning for life

Homily preached at Eltham College on 23rd May 2007.

It’s amazing.

By the time you’re ten,
you’ve learned to walk,
talk and communicate,
and deal with a complexity
of emotions,
intellectual demands
and ways of coping
with grown ups.

Ten years
to master an astonishing array of activities
of enormous complexity and intricacy
is an utterly remarkable achievement.

Science has not caught up
with the basic things that a human being can do.

Where is the computer
that can walk
and talk
and think for itself
and engage with human beings
in a meaningful manner?

The answer is not George Bush:
I did say “able to think”.


The human capacity to learn
is a created miracle.

But where does all this learning start?

How does a human being learn?

[PAUSE]

A new-born baby learns who it is
by watching and listening.

In the first year of its life,
when it isn’t eating,
sleeping,
or producing smells that could strip
an Indian restaurant
of its flock wallpaper,
a baby is accumulating,
processing
and utilising a vast quantity of information
from what it sees in the world around,
and it doesn’t stop!

Even as we grow
from being a baby to the people we are now,
we are adapting ourselves
evolving
according to what we see
in the world around us.

Every experience
imprints itself on our minds
and we are changed
according to how we react
to that experience.

We learn to use a lathe
because we see how a skilled professional uses it.

We learn to solve a quadratic equation,
because we see how our maths teacher
solves a quadratic equation.

We learn by what we see happening around us,
and we are changed
by how we perceive them.

“We evolve into the images
that we have inside our head.

We become what we see.”

[Jerry Mander as quoted by Henri Nouwen]

Unfortunately,
most of what we see is television
or lies on the other side
of a computer monitor.

[PAUSE]

We have a brain with
100 thousand million neurons,
which is capable of producing
internal thought pathways
which number 10
to the power of 2.5 billion.

So what is the raw material for its learning?

What is it that is shaping us
as we journey through life?

Baywatch?

Grand Theft Auto?

Pop Idol?

The various and vapid spin-offs
from Big Brother?

Do we honestly expect to learn
what it means to be a human being
through what we watch on television?

It is truly depressing
the number of people
that believe that Coronation Street is real.

What do we hope to learn from soaps?

Perhaps they do provide some useful tips
for the correct way to start a fight in a pub,

or to commit perjury in the hope
of some carnal reciprocation

or deal with that awkward social situation
when your mother’s cousin announces
that he’s been having an affair
with your best friend’s aunt
but that he’s discovered he’s gay
and now wants to get friendly
with the family vet.

[PAUSE]

The only way we learn to live is
by living a real life.

The only way we can become human
is to make those images in our head
as close to the truth as is possible.


[PAUSE]
Some of us have friends on the internet.

We email,
we interact,
we “talk”,
we share information
–perhaps too much information.

But it is still only a half-world.

We miss information
in the way a person communicates
because we fail to hear
the subtle changes of pitch in the voice,
see the slightly worried look
on the face of a friend.
If we live our lives on email,
then we cannot get any more
than a coarse understanding of the people
our friends are.

There isn’t an emoticon
that can adequately express
“I’m glad to hear from you
but I’m slightly annoyed because
the cat has just coughed up a fir-ball
on the rug behind me.”

[PAUSE]

This all sounds harmless.

But...

Consider.

There are many young men
who see nothing but violence
and become both victim
and perpetrator of violent crime.

And this is in London.

They only learn from what they see.

What they see is a disregard for life.

What they see are
ways of getting what they want,
healing a wounded pride
even having fun
by violence.

Their own way is all they seeand getting it at all costs.

The result is a catalogue of names
of lives needlessly snuffed out:

Kodjo Yenga,
Kamilah Peniston,
Adam Regis,
Stephen Lawrence
… the list goes on.


The only hope that they have
is for someone to show them
a different
a better way of living.


They need to see
how respect for other people,
support from other people,
generosity from other people,
actually work.

They need to see this attitude in action
not taught to them in theory.

Who can show them?

[PAUSE]

“We evolve into the images
that we have inside our head.

We become what we see.”

Who are you evolving into?

Vox Populi Aut Vox Serpentis?

Sermon preached at St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Swanscombe on 20th May 2007, the Sunday after Ascension, based on Acts xvi.16-34.

Can you hear her voice?

There, at the back,
the slave girl in the grubby tunic,
can you hear what she’s saying?

Amid the toil and bustle of Philippi,
all the noises of the street,
all the crowd pressing and milling,
can you hear what she is calling out to you?

This is the girl
who is following St Paul and St Silas
as they preach the wonderful news
about the love of God for human beings.

Listen as she adds her voice to those of the apostles:

"These men are the servants
of the Most High God,
who proclaim to us
the way of salvation."

[PAUSE]
This girl is a marvel.

This girl is gifted with a voice of foretelling.

She can speak with the voice of the future,
and she is responsible
for the well-being
of many of the citizens of Philippi
because of what she says.

Last year, Hermas
the wine-seller
sought her advice over the grape harvest.

She told him it would be a bad year for grapes,
so he prepared himself. In fact not only did he survive the year,
but he also made a tidy profit.

That is why Hermas is richer now,
and happier,
all because of this girl and what she has to say.

He is not the only citizen of Philippi
to have benefited in this way.

So now, what is the slave-girl telling us?

"These men are the servants
of the Most High God,
who proclaim to us
the way of salvation."

St. Paul looks at her in that odd way.
Clearl he is angry.

A prayer to Christ,
a word from him,
and the spirit is cast out.


What’s so wrong with what she’s saying?

[PAUSE]

"These men are the servants
of the Most High God,
who proclaim to us
the way of salvation."

Isn’t this true?

Why is it that St Paul gets his dander up and casts the spirit out?

Surely the spirit was on the side of God – it was telling the truth wasn’t it?

Perhaps St Paul is jealous
that she is stealing his thunder.


After all, he is just a sexist who doesn’t allow women to teach.

What has he got to fear
from a little slave-girl
who has special powers and is using them
to agree with what he’s saying?

Can’t St Paul hear what this girl is saying?

Can't we?

[PAUSE]

No!

It’s not the girl who’s speaking.

Listen carefully.

We cannot hear the girl at all!

We have not once heard her voice.

It is not the girl who’s talking,
it’s this spirit of divination,
a spirit that sees the future.

A spirit that has a name.

In Greek,
the spirit of divination is called Python.

In the Greek speaking world,
Pythonian spirits speak through people
using them like ventriloquists’ dummies.

For us less familiar with the beliefs of the Greeks, t
he word Python has only one meaning
– a large snake or serpent.

What images does that conjure up in your mind?

[PAUSE]

The girl is not speaking
through her own volition,
through her own belief.

She is being controlled by this spirit,
and this is what disturbs Paul.

God has created us to be free to worship Him.

For our lives to be controlled by others,
our choices made by someone else,
our mouths to speak someone else's words
is contrary to the will of God.

St Paul has a choice.

Does he believe the spirit,
or does he cast it out?

And what is Python saying?
"These men are the servants
of the Most High God,
who proclaim to us the way of salvation."

Can’t St Paul use this?

[PAUSE]

What Python says is perfectly true,
but that’s spirits all over.

If you want a false message to be believed
then you have to wrap it up tightly in what is true.

All spirits are aware of God.

Any spirit can speak of God,
whether they are good or evil.

An evil spirit will use the truth
to win people over
before slowly poisoning them
by twisting the truth very carefully.

These men are the servants
of the Most High God,
who proclaim to us the way of salvation."

It sounds okay,
but listen to the wider context.

The girl is not speaking with her voice.
Why should a good spirit prevent
someone speaking from their own will?

The girl earns a fortune for her masters.

The word of God is freely given to anyone who will listen.

The salvation that God gives
comes to us through Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Why then would a good spirit fail
to mention Him
but rather speak only of Paul and Silas
in the hope of making them seem more important
than the message they have to share.

The spirit has sought only
to tempt Paul and Silas with self-importance
to corrupt the message that Paul and Silas bear.

The spirit is removed.

The girl is free.

[PAUSE]

Last Thursday
we saw Our Lord ascend into Heaven,
leaving us without a physical presence
of God on the Earth.

How then do we continue
to live without Him telling us the truth?

How do we hear the voice of God
if there are Pythons snaking around us,
hissing half-truths into our ears,
telling us things which sound okay,
but are not?

There are even voices speaking
in the churches which sound okay,
but are not,
really not!

How do we cut through
the voice of the snake
to hear the voice of love?

[PAUSE]

The only way is to get to know the voice of Love.

The more time we spend listening to God
will we recognise His voice in our lives.

The more we pray,
the more we study,
the more we walk in the Faith,
the more we come together in Church
seeking Our Lord Jesus Christ in truth,
the more easily will we the Holy Voice of God.

So whose voice are you hearing now?

I’m right, you’re wrong.

Well, that’s the inevitable content of the phrase “I believe”: unless you believe what I believe, then you are wrong. Of course, this begs many of those wonderful logical paradoxes such as “I believe I am always wrong.” However, our beliefs in whatever religion/spirituality & c, involve us making a statement of fact which contains some integral premise that we cannot justify with empirical or logical evidence.

Even science is founded upon belief, that what we encounter with our senses, or can make some measurement to determine quantities, or can infer through the use of reason is in someway an accurate impression of Reality. It is possible for a scientist to hold to a religious belief since this requires making statements about some quantity that has an unobservable aspect which may or may not affect the observable universe. A Christian who happens to be a scientist may conclude that the existence of an unobservable God whose empirically observable effects are beyond the scope of scientific exploration, such as the Beginning of the Universe, or in the keeping track of the behaviour of countless billions of fundamental particles pinging about the universe like a colossally frenetic game of table-tennis – if indeed we can understand particles in that manner. It is impossible to observe the beginning of the universe: it is impossible for us to keep track of each and every particle in the Universe. There is therefore the necessity of belief, even among scientists.

And then of course there are people who disagree with your beliefs. Now, either they can convince you that there is an error in your belief, or not. If they cannot convince you of error, then quite clearly their belief is either wrong or at best incomplete. So now it is your duty to convince them of an error in your belief. Can you do so? If you can, then nothing changes for you and everything changes for the other; if you can’t then there is some form of stalemate. Worse, if your belief is diametrically opposed to the other, then only one of you can be right. But of course, your belief is still intact, isn’t it? If you really believe what you believe then you must believe that you are right, otherwise your belief makes no sense. Thus your belief has to be right, and the other’s wrong.

So what do you do now? Keep trying to convince the other person of your rectitude, or give ’em up as a lost cause?

So here is the dilemma facing Christians. How far can we tolerate other’s beliefs?

Now the word tolerate seems to have gained some rather interesting baggage, particularly among the Liberal wing of the Church. “Tolerate” really means “to bear”, “to put up with”, “to carry something which you regard as wrong in respect of another”. However, this last statement seems to suggest some form of capitulation to that which you tolerate.

Do we allow Moslems into our pulpits? Well, what’s the pulpit for but to spread the truth about Jesus Christ? How does a Moslem preach about Jesus Christ? Well, he doesn’t because he doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ as being the Son of God. It is debatable that the prophet Isa in the Islamic religion is the same person as the Lord. Certainly He isn’t believed in in the same manner in which we Christians believe in Him. Yet some parishes permit an Islamic person to explain their faith from their pulpits? Why?

It is important to engage in dialogue with others; that’s how beliefs are explored, tested and probed. But should this dialogue occur in the pulpit? What if one sits in the congregation in a flurry of doubt and hears the Islamic faith being preached and thus renounces Christianity for Islam? What service has that parish afforded to that one weak in the faith? It’s all done for the sake of tolerance. I say that the Islamic religion is incorrect, and Islamic person would say that the Christian religion is incorrect. Where we will agree is that our beliefs cannot allow us to do anything but disagree about the veracity of the other’s religion.

Surely, if we wish to engage in dialogue with an Islamic person, then it must be done on neutral territory, not in one another’s place of worship.

This is our basis for tolerance. As Christians, we have a duty to engage people in the Gospel of Christ. Realistically, we will preach better if we say nothing and live our beliefs to the best of our abilities. However, we are called to dare to find that neutral ground, walk into its centre and invite others to come into dialogue with us with the utter assurance that our faith gives us that the Christian Faith is the true Faith. We need to dare to enter into conversation, utterly respectful for the other’s freedom to be wrong, utterly mindful of the presence of God within any human being whatever the belief, but utterly prepared for heated discussion (if there is no heat then the discussion will be palliative and platitudinous). Then, at each adjournment of the discussion, we bring all that we gain from this discussion back to our Church and offer it up to God.

This is what the Church is for. The ministry of the Laity is precisely to bring Christ to the coal face of life and to bring that coal-face to Christ. How can we offer this ministry if we accept other viewpoints as possibly being right? Other views may be valid –possible logical alternatives – but if we sincerely believe what we believe, those views are incorrect, inconsistent, or incomplete.

Either we believe, or we don’t. What do you believe? Am I right?

What is a liturgy for?

I answer this question cognisant of my lack of education on the matter. Do correct me!

Liturgies are a good source of division between Christians, and this is natural. The old formula lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivandi, is perfectly true; we will only live and believe what we sincerely pray. In a world where individualism is rife, we are presented with a multitude of liturgies that we are expected to follow. Each liturgy has the purpose to present us with a passage to God Most High in a way that is meaningful i.e. didactic, unifying, humbling and transcendent.

We have to expect a liturgy to teach us about God because that is the One Whom we are aiming to meet at the culmination of the Mass. We cannot meet Whom we do not know, and while we cannot know Him entirely, we can be brought to know Him better. We should be equipped by the liturgy with all that we need to prepare ourselves for the Truth Inerrant.

We have to expect a liturgy to be unifying. The words of St Paul “though we are many, we are one body because we all share in one bread” demonstrate the purpose of the Mass in the light of St John xvii. We come to Mass to become one with God and to be united in Him. Thus, although we may be individuals and indeed created to be individuals, we need to submit ourselves to the liturgy in order to say and mean that, in the words of Olivier Clément, we are all “one human being in the multiplicity of persons”. We bring to Mass with us the complex welter of emotions and memories of our daily experience in the World. We bring with us the imperfections and limitations of our selves. While we seek unity, the potential obstacles to this unity are precisely our persons altered by the disparity of engaging with life which we have to reconcile when we come home to God in the Mass. True unity is something that can only be achieved by God, which is why a liturgy should be one that can be prayed despite who we are. The contents of our hearts and minds must be brought to bear on the task in hand – the worship and adoration (a wonderful word effectively meaning a divine kiss) of the One Who Is.

We have to expect a liturgy to be humbling. The point is that we come to God as we are, as imperfect folk. A liturgy should be something with which we can become familiar so that we can expect to be guided into recognising not only our shortcomings in the Kyrie but also the indelible dignity of love that we have been created to possess in that are permitted to offer Christ as Sacrifice to God through Christ the High Priest upon Christ the Altar. We have to be honest and real with ourselves in our relationship with God. He does not pretend with us, and that’s one of the many reasons that He has instituted the Mass so that we encounter God as He really is in the Consecrated Host. We do not understand that reality, but we understand that He is real. Likewise we have to understand ourselves as being real, not the strange beings that we create in our heads –humility is the key to that and liturgies must force us to realise our true position in the Universe.

We have to expect a liturgy to be transcendent, after all God is infinitely transcendental. (He certainly does not satisfy a polynomial equation – maths joke.) Not for nothing is the word Sacrament translated from mysterium. If a liturgy tries to explain what is going on in simple terms then it cannot be a liturgy. Part of our humiliation in the eyes of God is that we be confronted with the fact that something is happening that cannot be understood. There must be something in the liturgy that will make our minds boggle and wrestle, that will disturb our souls, that will bring a tremor to our knees as we try –and fail – to comprehend the truth that we are in the Presence of God Almighty. In the Western Mass Christ deigns to descend to us, in the East we are lifted up to Christ. The direction of movement we cannot understand for it is beyond the paucity of our dimensions, but nonetheless it happens.

The Liturgy must also transcend history, for we are all part of an Eternal Church where Time is meaningless because God has made it meaningless for us. Now has no meaning different from Then at Mass. We are presented with a different unity, one that spans the ages. As we offer the pax to the brethren whom we can touch, so must we offer our pax to the ones whom we cannot, those before us and those after us. As Christ Himself says, “the first shall be last, and the last first” thus rendering temporal positions and comparisons meaningless in the context of our Humanity.

In the Church of England, it’s easy to worship in a parish in which the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, and Collect for Purity, are habitually replaced with words that have been chosen to make the meaning of the Mass clear to the congregation. The language is basic and uncomplicated - but it does not inspire, it removes the necessity to engage the brain, it prevents people coming up to receive God with furrowed brow as they struggle with what this reality means for them. When the congregation speaks, it is to utter words of submission to love – “have mercy,” “glory!” “I believe,” “cleanse me.” A congregation responds to the love of God, not to utter a magic spell by going through the motions, a liturgy should not inspire automated responses.

However, that’s what we do – automated responses, wandering minds, grudges borne, selfishnesses acted on. I said below that our Masses are all imperfectly presented, but that they are all perfected. Indeed the perfection comes when all the millions of Masses that have ever happened are seen in the context of a single Mass which has taken place in the ages and outside all ages in the Mass in Heaven. For there the Perfect is always present.

I wait with interest for the expected motu proprio of the Holy Father on the Latin Mass will appear, for it seeks to present the Holy See with a better contact with those who are temporally before us. There is very little as humbling as the realisation that one is saying exactly the same words as millions who have gone before, and presenting oneself with them to God Who feeds us with the same food – Our Saviour, Jesus Christ. May the Church never lose this Truth.

Filling the void.

I've rediscovered something about my situation, and indeed the situation about the Church. It's clear that the Church is not complete without Christ, so surely the inherent disunity of the Church is the frantic search to find its completion. Perhaps the Catholic Church is united right now as I write these words, but this unity is only something that can be clearly seen from the eschatological point of view.

Are we too close to the problem to see its solution? After all, the solution won't come from us; it will come from God. Being an INTJ, I am designed to seek solutions to problems. Yet the real problem, the ultimate problem is that I am separated from Christ, just like any other Christian.

"For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread."

We pray these words at Mass, so if we believe that what we receive is indeed the Body of Christ, then surely we have some degree of unity whether the altar rails of the Holy See are closed or not. The obstacle of course is the contentious issue of the validity of Anglican Orders to the Holy See, which I have discovered is no longer as clear cut as Leo XIII wanted to make it in Apostolae Curae. If the Continuum can unite sufficiently and say categorically "we believe in the Real Presence of Christ" then there is some chance that the validity issue can be re-examined.

I can't see that happening until the Continuum demonstrates that it has a presence which can be regarded as significant to the Holy See. In Britain, the Continuum is seen as a tiny fragment of "crack-pots and intransigents playing at being church on their own" despite the fact that her priests really are priests &c and that they have a message of great validity and hope.

In a few years the Apostolicity of the Church of England will be actually lost, rather than just spiritually lost when the first female puts on a mitre. What preparations is the Continuum making for this happening? What will they do to attract those who will first try to seek solace in the Holy See? What will they do to entice the disaffected from just becoming "stay at home" Christians? What will they say to those who object but nevertheless will stay within the Church of England and just spiritually moulder away?

With schism will come the void and the Church groans because it is separate from her Master. Will we try to fill the void with intellectualisms and distractions, or will we seek to cross the void on the Pontificate of Christ? Just how do we cut the cackle, roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty to beckon those for whom the pain of just living is overwhelming? What is our unity worth if the debate it generates prevents us from tackling the disorders of society? Sure, get one's house in order first, but aren't the churches starting to say the same thing to society?

We must pray St John xvii with Our Lord beside us. We have to live out John xvii. Being in the world we are divided, yet being in Christ we are united. How can we make this utterly real and apparent in this wintry world in which the flames of passion are being doused by a false reason?

Only through faith, hope and love.

It's a start, if nothing else.

Reading through the Catechism of the Catholic Church I found paragraph 818.

"However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers. . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."

I find this somewhat comforting because it does some justice to my view of my separation from the Holy See as being an accident of history. Of course it still denies me the epithet of Catholic in the eyes of Rome; it still denies me access to receiving the Sacrament with those in Communion with the Pope; it still requires me to have my confirmation repeated whether or not it regards it as sub conditione, but there is a start, a point of recognition.

I look at the Benedictine Order both those of the Anglican and Roman Catholic branches and I see the statement of the Catechism lived out. It is in places like Elmore and Prinknash that the schism, although present is thin. I for one pray for more to embrace the monastic orders because through their prayers and through their working of the Opus Dei, they are making some petition towards Unity. These Religious folk like Dom Kenneth Newing and Abbot Christopher Jamison are making a difference.

Please pray with me for more men and women to hear the call of God and take up the cross of Religious Orders.

Another Seriously Confused Anglo-Papalist.

Perhaps it's inevitable that Anglo-Papalists should be confused. Fr. Vervoorst, before he went to Rome was the definitively Seriously Confused Anglo-Papalist.

I've been considering my position in the C of E for a long time, and my intention was to make my final decision as to whether to stay or go when the first woman "bishop" was brought into a very dubious idea of being. My thoughts there were that I would be joining a host of others who would be leaving at the same time. So have I changed my mind?

Well, it's difficult to say because my own position is more murky than ever. In the space of a year or so I have become a part of the Continuum, yet without being part of the Continuum, i.e. remaining as a Reader in a Church of England Parish yet not really regarding myself as a full member of the Church of England. Now quite reasonably my friends in the Continuum are desirous that I shake the dust off of my feet at the Church of England. But I don't just have friends in the Continuum, I also have some very good friends in the Church of England.

So do I move to the Continuum just to appease one bunch of friends, or do I remain where I am to appease the others?

Well, clearly neither. I don't stay or go just to satisfy the concerns of friends but I stay or move according to the will of God and I stay or move to the places where the Truth is being taught and they know and appreciate that fact because they love me unconditionally, a fact that I cherish dearly. Personally I'm amazed at how long I've managed to stick out my present parish.

But you see I'm an Anglo-Papalist.

I'm not a Romanizer, though I do love the Tridentine way of doing things, but the Anglican Tradition, as it has always stood, is rich and deeply spiritual. For me Anglo-Papalism is a refusal to take the idea of the schism of the Church lying down. Yes, there is a schism between Canterbury and Rome, and the Catholicism of the Anglican Church is not complete without communion with the Holy See.

So I watch as the Anglican Church schisms again. The effects of this schism has seen the appearance of the Continuing Anglican Parishes which seek to continue the Anglican Tradition. However many of these are not in Communion with each other which seems to suggest the presence of some schismatic influence which may or may not be a feature of the history of these Parishes. Personally, I feel that if there are schismatic issues here in the Continuum, then they result from the way that the Anglican Communion has moved away from the Anglican Continuum.

As an Anglo-Papalist, schism worries me.

My main worry about the Continuum is a fear that I have that the reasons for the separation are an intellectualisation which covers the and underlying "do it my way or I sha'n't play" attitude. That's quite a horrid thing to say on my part, and I'm sure that it is not the case since there is much integrity within these parishes. However, by and large there is a marked convergence between what the larger of these Jurisdictions teach and believe. The fact that there seems to be little desire for the Continuing Jurisdictions to talk and seek ways of unification, or at least conversation, does seem to lend weight to the argument that my fear could be true.

For me, the attraction of the Continuum is a stability of doctrine. That doesn't mean an atrophy of doctrine, but rather I see in each of my Continuum friends a desire to seek the truth within the confines of a system of dogmas, something that I hold very dear. Unlike mathematics which is based on axioms, our faith is based on dogmas. Mathematics builds on axioms whose truth cannot be disputed and results in theorems. Our faith is built on dogmas whose truth can be disputed and the act of dispute has a hand in unpacking those dogmas and revealing deeper, more intricate and beautiful truths. Thus heresy has a vital role to play in Christianity provided that the heresy is a means of sharpening our picture of the Truth. I wrote recently about the ACC and its guarantees that her priests are priests and that her Sacraments valid. That is something that cannot be said about the C of E.

What I do appreciate about the Church of England has been its historical struggle to hold together opposing viewpoints in some coherent way. Where it has failed has been in revising the Prayerbook in such a way as to diversify Common Prayer to the extent that the different wings of the Church started to pray differently from the others and subsequently lost touch. I blame the issues of condoning abortion, the "priesthood" of women and all the other divergences in doctrine on this revision. But still, in this, the province of my upbringing, there are signs of Christian love and charity, there are still validly ordained clergy who do uphold the Christian Faith, and there are still folk who inspire in me a deep admiration and reverence. In my conscience, the light of the Catholic Faith still burns in the C of E.

I am an Anglo-Papalist.

This means that I have no option but to try to hold the Holy See, the Continuum and the Church of England together in my heart and offer them all my love and support. What do I foresee? The only thing that I can foresee is that I end up ripped to shreds. I think I would rather that happen than for me to accept a quick-fix solution and denying the possibility that there is Truth outside that solution. I will be accused of trying to serve two masters. I don't see how since my only master is Christ. I'm trying to be Catholic, and since Catholic means "according to the whole" I am trying to be just that. I don't see why I should have to choose between Catholic Christians. One day I may take my rear from the fence: it will not be without thought, regret and tears.

Making the Most of Mass

Is there such thing as a perfect Mass? What would it look like? Would it be a Pontifical High Mass with Bishop, Deacon and Subdeacon and a swathe of incense obscuring the altar while the eternal dialogue follows the Tridentine Rite, or the Liturgy of St James? Well, not necessarily. There is no ostensible difference between a Mass that’s acted out on television as part of a play and one that’s done for real. The difference is necessarily that of intention.

Is there such thing as an imperfect Mass? Again, what would constitute such a thing? Clearly the sinfulness of the priest and the congregation don’t play a part, and as long as the priest is validly ordained, the Sacrament is present and thus perfection is literally within our grasp as the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. If there is imperfection at Mass, then surely it’s the imperfection that comes from within us that mars the sacrament. It’s how we receive it that determines what its effect is for us. We are capable of refusing grace! Christ our God to Earth descendeth, will we recognise Him if we don't seek to find Him? Or in the Eastern Orthodox vein, at Mass we are lifted to God, but how will we know if we don't seek to be transported?

So why is it then that we get so uppity about how the Mass is done, which liturgy is used, which songs are sung, if at the end of it all the effect is the same and we are fed with the Body and Blood of Christ? Are we too bound by distractions from the norm? Yet if Mass is deliberately constructed to be precisely the same week after week, what difference would there be from reciting a magic spell, or pressing a button on a vending machine – a Host-O-Matic? Say the right words and ping! out pops God. Now surely that is a blasphemy worthy of Jack Chick! But how much do we treat our Masses like that?

It’s clear then that Mass is done with people as they are at the present time. Thus by embracing the fact that we are not the same people as those who attended Mass last time do we avoid the falseness of the vending machine Mass. Thus a necessary requirement is that we attend Divine Worship in the light of the Truth about who we really are. This truth is borne out in our acceptance of our sinfulness and physical frailty, and yet that, in possessing the image of God Himself, we are permitted to receive into ourselves what is truly the Body and Blood of our God.

Yet in recognising this truth, we come to Mass with another view – to give of our best in worship. The whole point of worship is that we focus on how much worth we put on our relationship with God. The word “worship” does have its roots in the idea of worth-ship. We therefore come to Mass with a view to considering how much value we place on God being present in our lives. I’ve worshipped in a parish in the Church of England where the Ciborium holding the Reserve Sacrament has been carried about like a mug of cocoa – what does that say about the worth of Christ in that parish? Of course, some parishes (probably most, theoretically all) in the C of E don’t hold to Transubstantiation, so one wonders about the level of consistency of belief and the resulting quality of worship. Lex orandi, lex credendi!

I’m struck mainly about the lack of thought that goes into Mass. With a lack of thought comes a deficiency in intention, and thus for many the effects of the Sacrament are compromised. Too many parishes seem to be engaged in an attempt to lure people into church with the right “ethos”, with the right music, or liturgy that explains everything, or a brilliant preacher. In so doing they have changed the object of worth into a bottom on a pew. The only way that the Church will grow is if people engage in a relationship with Christ that demonstrates the reverence and love we have for Him.

The Mass is the centre of our worship. It is where we encounter God physically. If we allow ourselves to be distracted from this central fact, if we allow dumbing-down of our admittedly and necessarily limited understanding of the Sacrament by the winds of false teaching, or by the insipid babble of prattled pious platitudes, if we do nothing to make some kind of preparation to come before God, then what’s the point of Mass, what’s the point of grace and what’s the point of faith?

Making a Sincere Apology

Services at Swanscombe were rather sparsely populated this Paschal-tide, leading me to question the commitment that people have to the faith. With this in mind, I wrote the following article for the Church magazine.

Did I come on too strong?

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Making a Sincere Apology

Reading the Ecumenical Research Committee’s report on how people from all denominations (and none) view their local Church, there is an interesting statement from someone in the Midlands: “It is a myth to say that the people of this country have rejected Christianity, they simply haven’t been told enough about it to either accept it or reject it.”

If this is the case then it is a sad indictment about the missions of Christians in this country. If you think that it is just the job of the Rector to call people into church, then, quite frankly, it is that attitude as to why there are fewer people in church today and why the understanding of the Christian Faith is so poor. It is not the job of the priest to go around preaching the good news about Christ Jesus – it is the job of each and every Christian to go out and help the world see the truth of the Light of Jesus Christ. We have to become apologists – people who can say what they believe and why, and live that Faith responsibly and truly.

It is the job of the priest to serve those who are “called out of darkness into [God’s] marvellous light”. The Greek word for “called out” is “ekklesia” from which we get the word ecclesiastical. We are the ones who are served by the deacons, priests, bishops, and ultimately the Pope (who is titled “the servant of the servants of God”), and their service is so that we, the ones who are to go out, are well equipped to work at the coal-face of life bringing our Christian Faith with us. While it is good that our ministers go into schools and hospitals, these are not the only opportunities for getting people into church. In fact, the best way of getting people into church is for us to invite them!

What is not being suggested here is that we all go out and become soap-box preachers shouting “Repent for the End of the World is Nigh”. That approach in fact drives more people away. The best way for us to bear witness to our Christian faith is to live it, and live it well. This means a lot of discipline on our part and requires us to develop a growing and healthy relationship with Christ.

The Benedictine Rule has three aspects to it – commitment, obedience and self-examination, and it is these three aspects that can help us develop as good and fruitful Christians. It isn’t just for Benedictines!

First we need to make a firm commitment to the Church, both financially (since the Church is a non-profit organisation) and corporately. We do need to attend Church regularly. We cannot be armchair Christians. We cannot be those selfish folk who say “I’m spiritual but not religious”. If we’re expecting the priest to serve us on a Sunday Morning and are prepared to do nothing with the benefits from that service, then what is to stop God at the Day of Judgment saying “in truth, I never knew you”? Our relationship with Christ can only develop if we’re willing to help it develop. We’re not “once saved, always saved”, i.e., believing in God at one point in our lives and living terribly for the rest of it. We may be in the process of salvation by Faith, but that means co-operating with God. The Church needs members who are willing to help it in its mission to bring the light of Christ to a darkened world. This can only happen if its members are committed to the Church and engaged in praying to God with that Church.

This leads into obedience. We serve one God, and if we are to serve Him then we must hear His word through prayer and reading. The Holy Scripture is indeed the word of God, and it needs to be read frequently by every Christian – no exceptions. It needs to be read prayerfully and under the authority of the Church. Too many people (some important clergymen) have read their own interpretations into the Bible and have fallen into disobedience. In so doing, they have clouded the minds of their parishioners. It is important therefore to become obedient to the teachings of the Church. It is not a democracy, but governed by people who have been entrusted to work faithfully with the Sacred Tradition and who are themselves obedient to the Church. This puts a great deal of responsibility on our priests, that they should carefully and sincerely follow the Traditions of the Church so that they teach only what the Church has always taught.

Third, we need to examine ourselves carefully to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to serve God in the examples of Christ Jesus and our Holy Mother Mary. We need to work at finding out how we are sinning, ridding our lives of that sin, confessing it and receiving absolution. We need to examine our commitments to the Church and we need to examine how obedient we are.

A lot of work! Indeed, a lifetime’s work! But this is work that we do out of nothing but love for Christ. In doing His work we find out who He is and we find out more and more just how deeply we are loved by him. This is a job that we should find utterly fulfilling, though it will be tough. It is by living out our Faith that we will draw people to Christ. When people see the kindness that we show to each other, the love that we have for one another, the sincerity of our belief and the joy that we have from serving God, then they’ll want it too. But before we can go out and make a difference to people’s lives, we need to look and see what God needs to do with us.

Think about your faith and what it needs to grow and work for you. How might you go about deepening your understanding of the Christian Faith? How might you find out about what God is asking you to do for Him? How might you make yourself different from a person who comes to Church on Sunday but doesn’t really believe in everything that’s being said?

Lo, the full final sacrifice

Due to computer troubles, I've not been able to post any reflections on the Great Triduum of the Christian year. However, I did have the privilege of singing Finzi's setting of Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice. The words I found terribly rousing before I realised (happily) that they are a translation of words of St Thomas Aquinas by Richard Crashaw. No wonder I was encouraged.

Lo, the full, final, Sacrifice
On which all figures fix’t their eyes.
The ransomed Isaac, and his ram;
The Manna, and the Paschal Lamb.

Jesu Master, just and true!
Our Food, and faithful Shepherd too!
O let that love which thus makes thee
Mix with our low Mortality,
Lift our lean Souls, and set us up
Convictors of thine own full cup,
Coheirs of Saints.

That so all may
Drink the same wine;
and the same way.
Nor change the Pasture, but the Place
To feed of Thee in thine own Face.

O dear Memorial of that Death
Which lives still, and allows us breath!
Rich, Royal food! Bountiful Bread!
Whose use denies us to the dead!
Live ever Bread of loves, and be
My life, my soul, my surer self to me.

Help Lord, my Faith, my Hope increase;
And fill my portion in thy peace.
Give love for life; nor let my days
Grow, but in new powers to thy name and praise.

Rise, Royal Sion! rise and sing
Thy soul’s kind shepherd, thy heart’s King.
Stretch all thy powers; call if you can
Harps of heaven to hands of man.
This sovereign subject sits above
The best ambition of thy love.

Lo the Bread of Life, this day’s
Triumphant Text provokes thy praise.
The living and life-giving bread,
To the great twelve distributed
When Life, himself, at point to die
Of love, was his own Legacy.

O soft self-wounding Pelican!
Whose breast weeps Balm for wounded man.
All this way bend thy benign flood
To’a bleeding Heart that gasps for blood.
That blood, whose least drops sovereign be
To wash my worlds of sins from me.

Come love! Come Lord! and that long day
For which I languish, come away.
When this dry soul those eyes shall see,
And drink the unseal’d source of thee.
When Glory’s sun faith’s shades shall chase,
And for thy veil give me thy Face.
Amen.

Carnis resurrectiónem, vitam ætérnam

Sermon preached at St Peter and St Paul’s Church Swanscombe based on Ezechiel xxxvii.1-10, I John v.4-12, John xx.19-23

Gus struggles to his foot
as the rest of the congregation begins
to recite the Apostles’ Creed.

He lost his foot at Dunkirk
and the rest of that leg is still suffering
the effects of shrapnel.

These 60 years of wandering around
on crutches have given him
terrible arthritis in one hip and knee
as well as various aches and pains
in his shoulders.

It pains him to stand.
It pains him to sit.
It pains him to lie down.

So how do you think he feels
when he reaches in the Creed
the words
“the Resurrection of the Body
and the Life Everlasting”?


The Church says that on the Last Day
we will all be raised,
like the Lord Jesus,
from the dead not as disembodied souls,
but as human beings with physical bodies
able to see, hear, smell,
feel and taste.


Do you think Gus wants to believe that?

Do you think he would want
to spend the Life Everlasting
with the body that he has now?


[PAUSE]

The next day,
Monday,
Gus visits the doctor.

“Gus, we’ve got a new painkiller here.

It’s called Disagonyzin
and it should ease that pain you’re suffering.

Take one three times a day.”

Gus readily receives
the prescription
and makes his way to the Chemist.


It’s really effective.

Gus has the best night’s sleep he’s had in ages.

He’s out of bed easily,
and it’s a good thing.

He’s wanted to be ready
to see his new granddaughter,
Erica, for the first time.

Erica is just five days old
and apparently is a real cutie,
with beautiful pink skin and lots of hair.

He washes and shaves with ease.

He’s especially pleased
because the Disagonyzin
has taken the edge off of shaving.

It isn’t half as uncomfortable
as it was before.


He’s smartens himself up
and gets ready for the bus ride to the hospital.

On the bus,
Mrs Mills’ shopping trolley
runs over Gus’s foot.

It hurts,
but it isn’t the agony that Gus
would have expected.

“This pain-killer is really wonderful,”
thinks Gus,
“even Mrs Mills’ bumper packets of Daz
don’t hurt me that much!”

At the bus stop,
he’s off and away like a three-legged whippet.

He wouldn’t normally be able
to do that without severe pain,
and Gus is glad because
he is really excited about seeing
his little Erica.

Soon he is beside Julie’s bed
gazing at Erica lying across
her mum’s chest.

“Why don’t you hold her, Dad?” asks Julie.

Gus gently picks up the little one
from her mother and cradles her.

“She’s lovely,” he says beaming.

“Isn’t she?” says Julie,
“she’s got the softest skin,
and her hair is so thick and silky,
don’t you think?”

Gus strokes Erica’s hair and cheek, and frowns.

“I don’t know how soft her skin is.
I don’t know how silky her hair is.
I can’t feel them.”

[PAUSE]

Do you believe in the Resurrection of the Body
and the Life Everlasting?

After all, if there is no body,
then there is certainly no pain.

There are no nerves to feel
the aches of the human condition:
arthritis,
rheumatism,
stubbed toes,
indigestion
and the more severe pains
are all meaningless
either in a body that is numbed to pain,
or for a soul without a body.

But, as Gus realises,
the soul without a body
is also numbed to
the more wonderful sensations of life,
the warmth of the sun,
the nursing of a baby,
the taste of home-made chocolate cake.


If there is no Resurrection of the Body,
then our destiny is to become disembodied souls,
clinging onto vague memories
of what it was like
to be given a peck on the cheek
or to drink a cup of tea.

Is that Heaven?


What is the point of God giving us bodies
if we are only destined to lose them,
and all the joys that go with them?

[PAUSE]

Human beings are unique among God’s creation.

Animals are just bodies without souls;
angels are just souls without bodies;
human beings have both.

We are a unique fusion of body and soul.

This is how we are meant to be.

We’re not supposed to be split into two things
– a body and a soul –
but rather we are incomplete
if we are one without the other.

We are neither animal, nor angel.


Look at Ezechiel standing amongst the dry bones.



Watch as, with a rattling louder than
Patrick Moore’s xylophone
after he’s downed a gallon of Red Bull,
they are put back together
and given flesh,
but they are not human until God
breaths their spirits into them.

See that God raises the dead,
body and soul together.

If we cannot accept this,
then we deny the Resurrection of Christ in the flesh,
and if we deny the Resurrection of Christ
then we cannot be Christian,
and if we are not Christian
then we cannot be saved.

[PAUSE]

“Behold, I make all things new,” says God.

The body we have at the last day
will be able to experience
all the wonderful things we can feel now
but not pain.

St John tells us:
“there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow,
nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain:
for the former things
are passed away.”

It won’t be that we are numbed to pain,
but rather there will be nothing in Heaven to hurt us.

As Sam Tyler is told in “Life on Mars”,
it is only when we feel nothing
that we know we are truly dead.

If there is no Resurrection of the Body,
then the pain we suffer now
is meaningless.

We simply will not feel the love of God,
we will not live
– there will have been no Resurrection.

Would you honestly choose
an Eternity of numbness
over all those wonderful sensations
God really does have planned for you?

The Church believes in
the Resurrection of the Body.
Do you?

The shape of things to come?

Sometimes the Internet seems such an impersonal thing - indeed one could easily come to the conclusion that the people who email and comment on message boards are figments of the imagination and/or programmed responses given by the computer like a chinese box.

However, today I can refute this technological solipsism in the shape of Albion Land and the various members of the Anglican Catholic Church with whom I received communion with their gracious permission today. Albion, as you may know runs The Continuum blog and is striving to hear God's vocation for him realised as a priest in the ACC. Certainly my prayers go with him.

Today has been very special as I have witnessed my first ordination, and received the Sacrament with people who actually agree with me (more or less) with what is happening in the Eucharist. I also heard Fr Damien Mead's sermon based upon the sermon of a previous bishop (now at peace) written for ordinations. What struck me was that for once I was receiving a guarantee - a guaranteed Sacrament administered by a guaranteed bishop (The Rt Rev'd Rommie Starks) in a church which has orders guaranteed by the Grace of God. The Church of England cannot guarantee that her own priests believe the orthodox faith judging from the recent comments by Dr Jeffrey John.

While I am, like Fr. Vervoorst was, confused about my role in a confused church, I am beginning to see some where that I may be calling home. Pray for me please that I may hear God's will in this matter.

Roman Reflections III: The Biggie

So far I've made two reflections on the Romans. The previous reflection was somewhat illicit in that I seemed to have got hooked up on one word in amid the bustle of Holy Week. I hope that's forgivable.

Howver, I suppose the big issue that results from Romans is the whole idea of Justification and the ructions that it brings out in Protestants. However I don't seem to be able to find this issue at all in the Epistle to the Romans.

What I principally see is St Paul making a very important observation. As human beings we are bean counters: we count every bean that comes in, and every bean that comes out. Following Newton's third law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If we do work, then we expect a reward, after all Holy Scripture does say that the worker deserves his wages.

So here then is St Paul's beef against the materialistic bean counters. We cannot go through life with the attitude that God owes us something. We cannot assume that we in any way deserve a reward for what we do for the simple reason that we are comparing the finite and coarse effects of our actions against the infinite and exacting specifics of our Divine Master.

Ours is not a worker-employer relationship with God, we cannot talk about earnings and wages. It is a slave-master relationship in which we realise that somehow we've ended up with a master who actually wishes us a great deal of love and respect. We cannot any longer talk of justification in terms of debt or reward or of rights, but only as a grace of God. If we live measuring everything in terms of credit-debit, loss-gain, earnings-owings, then that is precisely how we will be judged. The relationship with God, and with each other, has to be one of love, respect and acceptance.

This means that our justification does not come without our cooperation otherwise there is no such thing as free will and subsequently no love. We are slaves with the interesting position in that we choose our master. This position comes entirely from the desire of God for us to love Him as He is. Our chief sin is putting ourselves in the master position - self-worship. To whomsoever we give our allegience as master, we will be with that master for Eternity - where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

We do have to cooperate for our justification. Romans viii. 1 says "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." We need to be walking, exercising ourselves into the ways and means of Christ, finding Him out for ourselves, seeing Him in the others around us, fixing our heart on Him and allowing them to be opened. If we want to be saved, then we need to know the Saviour. This requires research and effort. In order to receive the Sacrament we need to find out where it is and walk to it, our hands outstretched, our mouths open in the full hope of the love of God. Are we going to be, as it says in Proverbs, so lazy that we do not put the food into our own mouths?

Roman Reflections II: the Ark of the New Covenant

As we approach the awful and yet wonderful Triduum, we recollect the first Eucharist and the Lord proclaiming the New Covenant in His blood. The next day He bleeds on the Cross, and dies, His lifeblood spent.

Catholic Piety places Our Lady cradling the dead Christ in her arms. No doubt His blood smears upon her as she struggles with His limp, lifeless frame. The Litany of Loreto gives one of Our Lady's epithets as "the Ark of the Covenant" and I think that Paul's epistle to the Romans gives us a glimpse of why.

In the twenty-fifth verse of the third chapter, the Lord is described as being the hilasterion. The word does indeed mean the "propitiation" of our sins, but it also refers to the lid, the mercy seat, of the Ark of the Covenant on which the blood of a sacrifice was dripped after being sacrificed on the altar.

Clearly this word hilasterion points us towards the sacrifice of the Mass, in which the Lord's New Covenant in His blood poured for us upon the Ark of His mother after the sacrifice upon Christ as altar. In this horrible scene of a devastated mother holding the body of her son, which only thirty years early she cradled as a baby, do we see this propitiation effected.

Whether or not you believe Our Lady to be Immaculately Conceived, her example is very clear to us. If we are truly going to be justified in the eyes of God then we must allow ourselves to have His lifeblood poured out upon us which effects our reconciliation. In so doing, our hearts will be broken in order to be a part of His life, just as Our Lady's heart was pierced by the lances of men in the body of Our Lord. She is part of His life, and now she has her position as Queen of Heaven.

Roman Reflections I: eritheia - the greatest sin of them all

I've been trying to understand the Letter to the Romans which hitherto I've always found difficult, so I've made a point to study the Greek a little over Holy Week. So far I've finished the first three chapters which are proving amazingly rich. I'm not surprised why this letter has been the inspiration for many.

So far I see very much the heart of our sinfulness is the word eritheia meaning "electioneering or intriguing for office". It conjures up images of those who constantly put themselves first, and in the process making light of God.

It is in making light of God in which we ruin our chances of repentance. By ignoring His kindnesses, we find ourselves unable to return to Him, but if we don't think much of God, what incentive do we have to amend our sinful lives? The whole basis of our Salvation is in the honesty in which we regard God as our ruler and Father. Refusal to see ourselves as His children seems to be one of the driving forces behind eritheia, that we look always to increase our standing, our independence, we look to define ourselves in the way that we want to be defined.

However, if we truly seek God, then we should first seek Him as our Father. Do we really expect to know who we are if we are still children? We only think we know who we are because we try to take control of this knowledge in our sin. It is when we submit to God, our Creator that we find definition. It is in hoping in God that we are purified.

Does this mean that we are justified by faith alone? No. I don't believe it, and perhaps my further readings of Romans will help me to clarify my statements. From what I'm getting at the moment, we are justified by the grace of God that is channeled by Faith, purifies us by Hope and brings us to Him in Love, the three things that will remain. It seems quite reasonable to me that if we are to gain eternal life, then we must become comprised of these three things which remain. We must devote ourselves to building our Faith and Hope and Love, and this does mean work. We are not justified by Faith alone, I think this much seems clear.

And then there was one fewer...

For those of you who move in Anglo-Papalist circles online, you will surely have come across the Confused Anglo-Papalist which subsequently became the Seriously Confused Anglo-Papalist. Well, the prefix Anglo has disappeared (as well as the serious confusion), a sure sign that Fr. Marco Vervoorst has made the decision to swim the Tiber. Certainly I wish him well, and pray that he may be happy in his new Catholic family.

So how do I react to a rare breed becoming one fewer? Well, I have no condemnation for Fr. Vervoorst at all; he will always be one of ours just as Cardinal Newman was always one of ours. There is sadness yes, but there is no real problem with what he's done.

It does make me think about my own position. I am on my own in my physical community, and I find myself surrounded by larger animals telling me which is the correct doctrine. As an individual I have a choice, but with my choice comes the responsibilities of living up to the consequences of that choice. I no longer belong to a church whose teaching is consistent with the Catholic Faith.

So what will it take for me to finally shake the dust of the C of E from my feet?

First: a home to go to. I do not want to run away from the C of E, I want to run to an established home which will receive me in love and keep me in the Catholic Faith.

Second: that I am assured of a smooth period of transition so that I may in some sense get my affairs in order before I make the break. Considering that I have a family and a considerable number of friends whom I only really see in a church context as a member of a choir and a Bible Study group, this will be where the pain of the transition lies.

Third: if there were a definite split in the C of E along the Catholic fault lines then I would move with that split on the proviso that the resulting denomination is perfectly consonant with the Catholic Faith.

These are the big three that readily spring to mind. There may be others.

God bless Fr. Vervoorst!

Suffer the little children...

Sermon preached at St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Swanscombe on the fourth Sunday in Lent (Mothering Sunday), 18th March 2007 based on I Samuel i.20-28 and St John xix.25-27.

In a little house sits a mother,
her little boy at her breast
content and happy.

To him,
her thoughts are irrelevant.

All he seeks is warmth
and love
and milk,
items his mother supplies
as abundantly as she possibly can.

As he sleeps,
he is comforted
by the steady beat of her heart.

Not for him is it to know that
despite all this tranquillity,
his mother is wracked
with pain and worry.


The child does not know
of the preparation that his mother is making,
for when he has stopped needing
the milk and the cuddles,
when he has teeth and is on solid food,
when he is just about to walk,
his mother,
the one who has prayed fervently
for his birth,
will give him to the priests
and walk away.

[PAUSE]

Before Samuel’s birth,
Hannah,
his mother was declared to be barren.

Peninnah,
her husband’s other wife,
has children.

At that time Hannah didn’t,
and she was mocked for it.

Hannah has prayed
to the God she has always prayed to
and Samuel is the result
- a happy and fine baby boy
with fat legs and thick black hair.

So why on earth did she want him born
if she is only going to give him up
while he is still small?


Has Hannah been selfish?

Has she only prayed for Samuel’s birth
just to save face
in the light of mockery from Peninnah
and social disgrace?

Is Samuel just a trophy baby
so that Hannah can say
“see, I can have children”?

Is Hannah like some women of today
whose only thought is to have children
so that she can claim benefits?

[PAUSE]

Samuel stretches a little
in Hannah’s arms and
as she wipes his little mouth,
her heart is heavy
because she loves him
and she must give him up.
Is there anything more difficult
than for a mother
to give away her child?

[PAUSE]

Having to let go of a child
is an inevitable part of motherhood.

There are many tragedies in life
which see a mother having to say goodbye
to her baby prematurely.

Isn’t “goodbye” something
that all mothers have to say at some point?



Is there a mother
who hasn’t shed a quiet tear because
Her baby has left her because
it’s their first day at school,
the first time they sleep
over at someone else’s house,
go on holiday on their own,
go to university,
get married and leave home.

A mother’s heart is filled with worry.

Will they be alright?

Will they get there safely?

Will they eat well?

Have they packed enough clean underwear?

Motherhood is tough, no two ways about it.

[PAUSE]

When Our Lady, Mary,
presents the infant Jesus, Our Lord
at the temple,
the priest Simeon tells her that
because she is the Mother of God,
a sword will pierce her own soul,
just as the Lord’s body
will be pierced
on Good Friday.

Isn’t this a sensation with which
mothers are all too familiar?

Suffer the little children…
and, boy, do we have to suffer them!

[PAUSE]

In presenting Jesus in the temple,
Lady Mary is fulfilling the requirements
of the Jewish law.

Every first-born male must
be presented to the Lord for His possession.

Thankfully for the parents,
God usually charges them
to look after the child for Him.

It’s also a bit of a relief for the priests too.

Just think – wouldn’t the Rectory
be a little inundated with nappies?

But in giving the child back to the parents,
God is telling them that the child
must be brought up in His ways.

[PAUSE]

Hannah is serious in what she wants to do.

She loves God,
and wants a chance to worship Him fully.

This is why she is determined
to offer up Samuel in worship of God.

She’s not saving face
by praying for a baby to be born
and then foisting him on the priests
just because he’s inconvenient.

She’s asking God for a way to worship God
through the hard sacrifice of being a mother
- a sacrifice made harder
by giving Samuel up when he’s still very little.

Samuel will turn out to be a very fine priest.

What does this say about Hannah’s sacrifice?

[PAUSE]

Being a mother is a priesthood unique to women.

It involves a sacrifice of love
to bring a child into the world,
to nourish it,
to love it,
to teach it,
to give it every opportunity
to become the person that it is going to be.

This can only happen
if the mother decreases
so that the child increases.



As a church we all,
men and women,
have a duty in mothering.

When a child is baptised,
the Church becomes a spiritual mother
and has a duty to make sacrifices
in order for that child to grow up in the faith.

We, the Church, have a duty in our mothering
to decrease so that our little ones can increase
knowing the love of God,
and how He provides for them.



In giving us His son,
God also gives us the example
of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
the Mother of God,
to show us how seriously
we must all take our
mothering duties.

Like any Jewish Mother,
Mary is the one who teaches the Jesus the Faith,
so must we teach our children
the same Faith built
on the same precepts.

Mary is the one who has
to accept the person that her son is,
so must we accept the people
who our children are,
and let them have every opportunity
to serve God.

Mary is the one
whose heart is broken
when she sees her son
bleeding on the cross.

So too must we have our hearts broken
in letting our children go
to do what they must do.

Mary— Mother of God.

The Church— mother of Christians.

Have you made your sacrifice of motherhood yet?

The most obscene VIth form assembly ever

I was asked to give my first talk to the assembled sixth form today. I chose to elaborate on a theme I've already covered in "An Obscene Posting" and from the comments made. A little near the knuckle I thought!

Address given at the VIth form assembly at Eltham College on 15th March 2007

Cricket commentators
Don Mosey and Brian Johnston
are in the commentating box
for the BBC World Service
in a test match between
West Indies and England at the Oval.

Batsman Peter Willey is at the stumps,
bowler Michael Holding is at the crease.

As the On Air sign comes on,
Johnston begins his commentary:
We welcome World Service listeners to the Oval,
where the bowler's Holding,
the batsman's Willey.

[PAUSE]

Yes, there's always some laughter about that,
and I suspect that some of you who didn't laugh
are feeling uncomfortable
that one of your teachers
has just mentioned the word "willy"
in assembly.

But have you ever wondered
why we find words like "bum" or "willy" funny?

Still further,
our lexicon of rude words and phrases
is populated solely with
so-called unmentionable parts of the human body,
functions of the human body,
things that one human body
does to another human body,
and suggestions about
what one human body can do to itself.

Why is that?

We all have to use the bathroom,
be we a sixth former, the Queen,
or even Michael Jackson!

Why is the lavatory funny?

Our parents have all engaged
in a certain activity
which has resulted in us being here,
so why does that produce nervous giggles,
and even more horrible thoughts?

[PAUSE]

Well, using the bathroom is a fact of life
- the end process of a complicated
and indeed remarkable
chemical decomposition of food
and the rejection of that
which is unnecessary or harmful.

It's funny because it's unpleasant,
especially after some school dinners,
but it’s something we all have in common.

Sex is an action
which should take place
between married couples
in order to bring forth human life.

That's what it's for!

Sex is traditionally funny
because the Church gets
rather hot under the dog-collar about it
- in more ways than one.

Among others,
we have to thank St Augustine of Hippo for that.

St Augustine is a notorious womaniser
who famously prayed
"Lord make me chaste,
but not yet."

When the Lord eventually made him chaste,
he turned on sex with such a vengeance
that there is still an attitude (a minority)
in the Church today
which hold Augustine’s view
that sex is sinful
and to be ashamed of.

However, the truth is that
the Church properly believes that sex is far
from disgusting.

Indeed sex is held in such a high regard
that Christians believe that it belongs
to the sanctity
- and privacy -
of the marriage bed.

It is not to be shared with anyone else
other than the person to whom you are married.
The pendulum has swung a long way
from St Augustine,
and many people these days,
old and young alike,
tend to be praying
"Lord make me chaste,
and quite easily caught".

The media have blown sex out of proportion.

No longer is it that something people do,
it's something that everyone has to do
everywhere
at anytime
and in any place
as long as you are under 30.

At least that's what our television programmes,
papers and the cult of celebrity tell us.

If sex is so out in the open,
then why do we use sexually explicit language
to swear or curse at someone?

Why tell someone to F-off if,
in telling him so,
you are wishing him a pleasurable experience
with his lover?
Why tell someone to P-off if,
in telling him so, you are wishing him
that unique sense of relief
that comes from getting rid
of three cans of cola?

Does this really make sense to you?

[PAUSE]

If we use sex as the barrel
from which we draw our insults,
then doesn't this say something about
our respect, or lack of it,
for the way in which our species
regenerates itself.

We're not amoebas who go off
and quietly divide
in order to replenish our population.

We are beings who forge
complex and meaningful relationships
which colour our lives.

Our friends and our families are important to us,
but even more so the person
with whom we fall in love
to the extent that we wish to marry
and populate our lives with children.
How can that be a curse
if we find our love?

How can we look at the newborn baby
in its mother's arms and say to it
"your conception was disgusting"?

How can sex be this obscene?

Surely there are greater obscenities in life
than the toilet or the bedroom?

Isn't beating someone up in a pub an obscenity?

Isn't kicking a dog to death
more disgusting to us than bringing a baby
into the world?

Why isn't the greatest obscenity
of them all "I hate you?"

At least our biological waste products
have the potential
for creating and sustaining
the beauty of creation.

[PAUSE]

The human condition is wonderful.

Our bodies are the product
of complex and delicate
mechanical,
hydraulic,
biological
and chemical engineering.

How will you stop yourself
from treating your own humanity
and the humanity of others with anything
less than the greatest respect?

Aren’t you worth it?