An intimate little spectacle?

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Easter Day 2015

Why early in the morning?

If you’re going to rise from the dead, why not a big spectacle such as the raising of Lazarus with large crowds? Surely a big stone being rolled out of the way, coupled with a bang and a flash would convince even the hardest atheist that Our Lord has risen from the tomb.

As we’ve been through Lent examining our temptation, the most pressing temptation is to doubt that it’s all true in the first place. The Devil likes to whisper in our ear things like, “how can a man rise from the dead? It’s silly,” or “it’s all a bit of a joke, isn’t it? A monumental misunderstanding.” You can hear people saying just that, can’t you?

Surely, if the Lord were to rise in full view of Pharisees and Romans and all who hate him, there would be no doubt at all that He is precisely Who He has claimed to be all the time – the Son of God. So why not?

[PAUSE]

Human beings are very good at hardening their hearts. Our Lord Himself warns us that there are those people who “hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” They will always find an excuse not to believe in the Resurrection.

“People don’t rise from the dead.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t. It doesn’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because there are no records of people rising from the dead.”
“Aren’t the Gospels a record of someone rising from the dead?”
“They can’t be trusted.”
“Why not?”
“Because people don’t rise from the dead.”
So the argument repeats itself indefinitely.

[PAUSE]

Yet the fact of the matter is that as many as 500 people saw Jesus after His Death and not as a ghost. It happened! It is an historical fact which is only denied by people whose understanding of the world is limited by the bounds of their own experience.

Yet, only 500 people have seen the Risen Lord, and they went to be with Him a long time ago. So what about us? Don’t we get to see Him?

We do, but not yet. Our Lord reminds us that we must not be faithless, but believe. Human beings are limited in Space and Time, so Jesus Himself is limited by His Humanity. It clearly shouldn’t matter to us that we have to take the word of the Church passed down through two thousand years. It’s the same faith as the apostles receive when they see Our Lord standing in His Risen Glory, the scars on His hands, feet and side as badges of honour. The people of the Church are fallible and frail, but the faith of the Church is strong and infallible.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord doesn’t need to make the Resurrection bigger. It’s already enormous in that through it, the whole World can be saved. Yet, it is something He only wishes to share with those who want to respond to His love. The Resurrection, then, far from being loud and brash and noisy, becomes intimate, just between friends, a precious secret shared between lovers. That surely says more about the Resurrection than any Noisy Spectacle, doesn’t it?

Collects for Easter Even

Prayer book

GRANT, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him : and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection ; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Breviary

Pour forth upon us, O Lord, the spirit of Thy love, that, by Thy loving kindness, Thou mayest make to be of one mind those whom Thou hast satisfied with the Paschal Sacraments. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen

Reflection
Baptism seems to be relegated in the folk memory to a celebration of the life of a newborn baby. A simple splash of water and then the beer and wine can be opened. How many times do we fail to look beyond the outward sign and seek the invisible grace?

When we are baptised, we die. As our Lord sanctified the waters of Baptism by being baptised Himself even though He was without sin, he also sanctified the oil of Holy Unction when St Mary Magdalene anointed Him for His death. It is in His death that we die to sin, that our tendency to sin ceases to draw us inexorably to death, and that in the midst of death we are in life with the water of life welling up within us.

We lie with God in the tomb, waiting for that moment of Resurrection, for the first breath to return to His lifeless body, for the death of death itself as an enemy to be feared but rather the passage to everlasting joy in the punctured hands of the One Who was dead but is no longer so.

Holy Saturday 2015

The powers-that-be got it so wrong.

They thought He wanted to destroy their authority. He wants them to have authority in Him.
They thought He wanted to ruin their lives. He wants them to live more fully.
They thought He would make them look silly. He wants them not to have to worry about trivialities.
They thought He would undermine their teaching. He wants them to continue His teaching but with love and generosity rather than power and arbitrary ruling.
They thought He would denounce the Law. He wants to fulfill the Law and give it the means to bring people to Him.
They thought He would die...

Collects for Good Friday

Prayer book

ALMIGHTY God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

 ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified; Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy holy Church, that every member of the same, in his vocation and ministry may truly and godly serve thee; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 O MERCIFUL God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

Reflection
There are no collects from the Breviary since, for the whole of the Triduum, the drama is continuous and the offices begin on Maundy Thursday and end at None on Easter Even. The Divine Office becomes one long observation in the heart of the Passion and Death of Our Lord.

In these collects we see again the theme of the desire of Love to bring the people of God together. One might feel scandalised at the "political incorrectness" of the third collect, especially with the archaic terminology for the followers of Islam. However, why Jews, Moslems and Heretics?

The fact of the matter is that Jews, Moslems and Heretics are our brothers. They are our brothers in Abraham and they are our brothers in our humanity. We cannot dare forget them and we cannot dare dismiss them. Their salvation matters to us - it MUST matter to us if we are to say that we have any ounce of love within us. Love seeks to bind us in confraternity, not consign the other to Hell. We believe them to be wrong, mistaken, holding to a falsehood or not embracing the fulness of the truth, They will say the same about us. One fact remains, each one of us, no matter what we believe, is a sinner, riddled with evil and in danger of Eternal Death.

Having a belief does separate people, and that seems to go against Love. Love rejoices only in the truth and believing that one is right can only work if we believe in Love and that desire of Love to reach out even to those who do not believe as we do, and remember that we share the same flesh and blood. In believing in the truth of the Catholic Faith, we pray that those who do not hold it may indeed hold it, even as we ourselves seek to grow our faith by serving God in His Church according to the vocations that we have received.

Today, we see the vocation of Our Lord and Saviour fulfilled in agony upon a cross. We see His skin torn, His hands ripped, His feet split, His side pierced, and His precious blood spilled for each and every one of us regardless of who we are and what we believe. However, it is only in Christ that this Death has any point, has any lasting effect. It is only through the death upon the cross that the Church can carry people to Salvation as it plots its course through the wounds of Christ. It is fitting, then, that we pray for all people to join us on the same course.

Holy Week 2015, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries: The Crucifixion

The moment we stand up for something, we are knocked back down again in the hope that we willnot dare get up again. The world seeks to extinguish all light but its own garish, neon flickering in the darkness.

Darkness covers the land. Darkness covers the hearts of the lovers of Jesus. Darkness covers the Holy eyes.

The Mystery here is "Why?" The Answer is "Love."

Holy Week 2015, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries:The Carrying of the Cross

The moment we stand up for something, we are given heavy burdens to bear. Like Pharaoh, the world would seek to prevent the worship of God by giving His children a heavier burden to carry in order to distract their purpose, sap their strength, and crush their resolve.

Our Lord has received His sentence and must carry the instrument of His own death upon his bruised and bloody shoulders. It is here that the powers-that-be seek to demonstrate that the burden of going against their authority is too great a burden for any man to bear. The weight of the world will crush all who dare to oppose its might.

The Mystery is that the yoke of Our Lord is easy and His burden is light. He has made the carrying of our crosses bearable by shouldering them with us. Should we fall, He is there to help us if we allow Him to do so. The sufferings of this world are nothing compared to the glory to be revealed in us. The burden of proof is on those who would say that our existence is empty and doomed to darkness. With God it is light in more senses of the word than one.

Holy Week 2015, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries: The Crowning with Thorns

The moment we stand up for something, we find ourselves mocked and ridiculed. Our arguments are turned into straw men, parodied, and held up for scorn.

Our Lord's Kingship is treated in precisely this fashion. He is not the King of Heaven, He is merely King of the Jews, an empty title for Israel is under Roman rule; an empty title for Herod holds that privilege; an empty title for none of rhe civil authorities would see that in an itinerant preacher; an empty title for this is not the Kingship He claims.

The straw man is decorated with thorns and reeds to demonstrate His lack of substance and credibility to the world. The teaching of  a fool does not need to be refuted, just ignored, and what greater fool than one who would seek to make fools out of the wise men of the world by pointing out their misreading of the Holy Scriptures?

The Mystery here is that the "straw man" has more substance than any who dress Him up and parade Him in His fragility. It is a Mystery in which we partake when we refuse to rest with appearances and seek the love that lies beneath the thorns, purple robe, spittle and bruise. We too must be laughed at for our belief because if the world were to listen, it would stumble and fall exposing its true lack of substance to all.

Holy Week 2015, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries:The Scourging at the Pillar

The moment we stand up for something, we feel the first blows of disapproval. Those in the know round on us to tell us that we're wrong and beat us for it. Our Lord is beaten up for daring to challenge the assumed authority of the powers-that-be, powers who forget whence they receive power. They forget that they have no authority save that which is given them from above.

Our Lord's beating is to demonstrate the power of others over Him as they seek to reassert themselves over a preacher who makes wild claims about being the Son of God, that He can and does forgive sins that He can rebuild in three days a temple of God. Such arrogance must surely be stamped out and be seen to be stamped out lest the order of society be destroyed by such nonsense!

The Mystery here is that one man Who has the command of legions of angels, bows His back to the smiters and His cheeks to them that pluck off the hair, in order for that authority to be seen by men who love Him. Likewise, we too must bear the blows of a world who would have us reject the True King and Creator for a vague shadow of true reality with no real existence apart from Him.

Holy Week 2015, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries: The Agony in the Garden

The moment we stand up for something, we are faced with the temptation to forget it. We realise that our stance may not be popular, that it will cost us, that it will set people against us, that it will hurt. It is in this place that we see Our Lord fighting with the same bedevilment that each one of us faces. He knows the full extent of what He must go through and here, the night before it happens, He must face the agony of knowing that He can still run and hide, that if He chooses not to, He will suffer indescribable pain and degradation, and that if He does not do so, then humanity will have no other hope to be saved from evil by being crucified in Him.

Could Our Lord have succumbed to temptation? No, for the Lord's human nature is inextricably bound with His divine nature, the human will with the divine will. Yet His human nature must suffer the same instincts for self-preservation, and so for Our Lord the agony is doubled as Satan himself tries to tear Our Lord apart from within. Of course, he fails for Our Lord wills not that the cup be taken from Him without His Father's will.

The Agony in the Garden is indeed a Mystery of the Personhood of Our Lord. It is a Mystery in which we partake every time we are tempted to fall away into apostasy, apathy and complacency. Our temptation frequently leads us into sin, but it is because of Our Lord's rejection of these miserable demons that we too may find escape from them.

Collects for Palm Sunday

Prayer book
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility; Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Breviary (Sarum)
Almighty and everlasting God, who hast sent our Saviour to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that mankind should follow the example of his humility ; mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection. Through etc.

Reflection
Archbishop Cranmer wants to emphasise the love that Our Lord has for us. The deliberate choice of the Son of God to be incarnate was, above all, an act of love. Love seeks to close the gap as we saw in last week's reflection, and clearly Our Lord wishes to show beyond all shadow of a doubt that no-one is exempt from this. This is how God can indeed be humble.

Humility is a painstaking honesty, an acknowledgement about what is true. Pride emphasises difference and is always based on a false premise, usually that "I am better than you." God is Love and no-one is better than Love. If pain and suffering are needed in order to close the gap, then Love will embrace that pain and suffering. That does not mean that temptation is never an issue, for Love will be tempted to shrink back. However, shrinking back is precisely a dishonesty about Love's own being and, with a human struggle, Love prevails showing that we human beings have the capacity to overcome temptation if only we will be humble and embrace Love. This is what Holy Week is all about.

Liturgical Eclipses

It's one of those wonderful liturgical clashes as the Lunar season dances with the Solar Kalendar. Here in Passiontide, we celebrate the news of the Christ Child to be born, the very Child who, next week will be crucified. All the statues and paintings of Our Lady are shrouded in our Churches as befits this season of austerity. Our minds, while focused upon the incipient suffering of Our Lord are surprised by joy.

Of course, this gives us conflicting emotions. Should we celebrate this feast, or should we transfer it out of the fasting season?

I'll leave that to the liturgists, content that my Breviary reminds me that the Annunciation is a Double of the first class and thus I commemorate Wednesday in Passion week at Lauds and Vespers.

Yet we have a really, truly wonderful fact that our two Kalendars dance from year to year. I've reflected on this before, but it's worth noting the relationship between the moveable feasts - those bound by the lunar Kalendar - and those that are bound by the solar Kalendar. Saints' days are Solar in nature, but so are Christmas, the Circumcision, Epiphany, the Annunciation, and the Transfiguration. The Triduum, Ascension Day, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi are Lunar in their occurrence. We human beings, in the West at least, usually live and work in the Solar Kalendar. Those of us who celebrate birthdays have them on a fixed date; our diaries work on a January to December basis; our tax year goes from April to April. Yet, Jan 1st is a rather arbitrary day to start a year. It doesn't correspond to any specific event on Earth, or in the Heavens. It just is. Thus the Solar Kalendar is a human Kalendar, born out of human nature.

However, there is a solar event that seems to pass by unnoticed. This is the Vernal Equinox, when the Sun crosses the plane formed by projecting the Equator of the Earth out into space. The days and nights are of equal length, and the date usually signifies the beginning of spring. It is an inconspicuous little day, either March 20th or 21st, which doesn't really relate much to the Solar year. It is how this even corresponds with the Moon that determines the Lunar Kalendar. Easter Day is the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This is purely celestial in origin and comes about from the interacting of Lunar and Solar Kalendars. The other moveable feasts align themselves with Easter.

For me, this is a reflection of the inseparability of the Human and Divine Natures of Our Lord. The days of His incarnation are in the Solar Kalendar; the days of His Resurrection are Lunar. Both interact to determine the Triduum and the fulfillment of the Divine mission.

Last Friday (20th March) we would have been treated to an 80% total eclipse of the Sun had the British weather not eclipsed everything else! The Moon passes in front of the Sun causing that wonderful effect that seems to come practically once in a lifetime, yet there are three eclipses each year, both lunar and solar. Liturgically, eclipses happen frequently, but possess the potential for wonder if one takes the trouble to think carefully upon them.

Today is a case in point - a lunar eclipse - in which the Solar Kalendar eclipses the Lunar. We reflect on Our Lord's human nature in which He is conceived by the Holy Ghost and His Mother given the tidings of great joy by the Angel Gabriel. He is conceived in order to redeem us by his blood, to suffer as human beings suffer, and to die as humans die. His humanity is that of His mother taken without change into the Divinity of His Father. The light of God always shines through liturgical eclipses to our enlightenment. We just have to be prepared to use our liturgy for the purpose it was designed for - to bring our consciousness closer to God - and to enjoy any liturgical conflicts that the resulting eclipses engender.

Collect for Passion Sunday, being the fifth Sunday in Lent

Prayer book and Breviary
WE beseech thee, Almighty God, mercifully to look upon thy people; that by thy great goodness they may be governed and preserved evermore, both in body and soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection
Christianity is not a religion of individuals, and many people forget that. It's usually the "you don't have to go to Church to be a Christian." Yet, if we do not go to Church, how can we possibly obey Our Lord's commandment to celebrate Holy Communion together? How can we possibly see ourselves as being one Body of Christ if we don't take the pains to be part of it? How can we possibly love one another as Christ loved us if we see our faith as being completely separated from other people?

There is nothing wrong with cultivating a private devotion, indeed piety is a bit of an outdated notion at the moment. However, we are one Body in Christ and we cannot forget that. It stands to reason that if Christianity is a genuinely communal religion, then that community must seek to be governed by one single King, namely Our Lord Jesus. The Hebrews cried out for a king and got Saul who, while he did well at first, fell by not ruling Himself after the word of God.

Likewise, we must cry out for a King and, as a community, seek to subject ourselves to the rule of Christ. It is only in His governance that we will find peace and goodness.

Convinced of sin?

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Passion Sunday 2015

Who tells you that you have sinned? More often than not, we already have some idea in our heads when we’ve done something wrong. Our conscience pricks us and makes us a bit tetchy until we do something about the wrong we have done. This will mean saying sorry to God and seeking to make full amends for any wrong done. We could feel sorry because we honestly love God and have gone against His wishes. We could also feel sorry because we’ve been caught out. If we’re honestly sorry and seeking to make amends and want to do better, then God does forgive us. He desires not the death of a sinner but rather that the sinner turn to Him and live.

However, for this to happen, you do need to know that you’ve sinned. Apart from your conscience, who tells you that you have sinned? Your parents? Your family? A teacher? A priest? A policeman? A High Court Judge? Each of these folk certainly influence your understanding of what sin is, but can they really tell you that you have sinned? It seems clear that if your deeds fit a crime, then you have sinned. If your deeds do not fit a crime then you have not sinned. If only life were this easy!

[PAUSE]

Our Lord asks this question of the Pharisees. “Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.” The fact of the matter is that the Scribes and Pharisees want to get rid of Our Lord but can’t find the crime to fit his deeds. That’s the crucial point here. We know we have sinned when our deeds fit the crime. That’s not the same as fitting the crime to the deeds!

We are probably used most not to see the evil in our own actions, and to seeing evil in what others do. Alternatively, some people are all too ready to see evil in everything that they do and become sad and depressed. We can be usually very judgmental if we’re not careful. We are tempted to judge beyond our abilities.

[PAUSE]

We do have to remember that God’s judgment is not like ours and if we want to be like God, then we should strive to see how justice works. God is in the unique position to see perfectly what is right and what is wrong, after all, whatever is good is from Him. When you consider that even calling someone a fool puts us in danger of Hellfire, or even looking at a woman with lust in one’s eye is adultery, the Law of God seems beyond our reach.

The temptation here is to see human beings as evil things that are incapable of being good. We forget that God has created us, and God looks at His creation and sees that it is good. We have fallen from Him, but still we must be worth something to Him for Him to want us to come back to Him. We cannot therefore be completely evil, because where God is, no evil can be and vice versa.

It is actually a sin to despise oneself, because if we did, we would be despising something good, something that God actually loves.

Yes, we need to be careful not to sin, but this is so that we allow ourselves to be nearer to God. Yet, if we do sin, we need to make sure we know it and then remember that “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.”

The route out of temptation is the route of Love which is also the route out of sin. It is a difficult path which is why Our Lord treads it with us. Yes, we sin, but with God, yes we can be forgiven if we seek Him with our whole heart.

Collect for the fourth Sunday in Lent

Prayer book
GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Breviary (Sarum)
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may be relieved. Through etc.

Reflection
 These days, many folk seem to be rather hung up on getting what they deserve as part of the "entitlement culture". Of course, these folk are always concerned that they are missing out on something good and will find ways of doing so. If there is some benefit that comes from the government, there are folk who will do anything to try and receive it.

Loosely speaking, as we know, grace is receiving what one does not deserve and mercy is not receiving that which one deserves. Members of the "entitlement culture" would certainly find difficulty with the idea that they might be more entitled to a stiff penalty rather than trying to obtain a government handout. The fact of the matter is that by virtue of the corruption of our nature, the natural end of our lives is Eternal Death also called Hell,  a complete separation from God that comes from rejecting His love and transformation into what He would have us be.

Separation from God is what we deserve. If that's what we want, then that is what God will give, but not before He has shown us His mercy precisely by not giving us that separation immediately. He gives us ample opportunity for reconciliation with Him through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, an effort that comes solely from Him even though we do not deserve it. The more that we choose to turn towards God, the more we understand just how merciful and gracious He can be. Only by being humble and accepting what He gives us rather than demanding that which we believe to be entitled will we draw any benefit from His love.

Mothers, mountains and molehills

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the fourth Sunday in Lent

Today is Laetare Sunday. As you know Laetare means “Rejoice!” The odd thing is that it always falls I Lent, which is hardly the most joyful season, yet we find ourselves being told to rejoice. Doesn’t that sound like a contradiction?

[PAUSE]

Today is also Mothering Sunday which always coincides with Mothers’ Day, though the two are different. It’s a day when we remember our mothers. That’s all well and good, but it’s hard to do when you’ve lost your mother. How can people who have no mothers, or have difficult family relationships rejoice in Mothering Sunday or Mothers’ day? It’s the same problem when we get to Fathers’ Day. How can we celebrate if our family is not a happy place, or if we have lost people we love?

It all sounds a bit glib, a bit of lip-service.

How can we rejoice?

[PAUSE]

Our walk through Lent brings us into the examination of what tempts us. Remember, the Devil like to tempt us to break as many of the Ten Commandments that we can. This includes the fifth commandment “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Again, this is hard to do if our families are difficult people to be with. Yet, certainly we would see the fifth commandment to be a struggle which we would strive at, but surely celebrating it in these circumstances would be impossible.

The fifth commandment is essentially to ensure that we provide for our parents in their old age and to look after them when they fall ill. That way we can expect to be treated the same by our children. For some people this is not an issue, and looking after an aged parent is difficult at times, but not unpleasant. For other people, though, relationships with parents can be very hard, and the temptation is to leave them to their own devices by cutting the family tie. For many such people, that solves the problem.

However, God presents us with a bit of a challenge. Even if we have the worst possible relationship with our parents as we possibly can, the fifth commandment still applies. How can we honour our parents then? That’s too hard!

[PAUSE]

We are presented with the feeding of the Five Thousand. Jesus Himself asks, “Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” And poor Philip has not a clue! “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.” Yet from the tiny, tiny offering of a boy’s meal, God makes so much. All that needed to happen was for that tiny meal to be offered to God for the five thousand to be fed.

Notice that we do not know how Our Lord fed the five thousand: that is hidden from our view. Yet, they were fed. If we struggle with relationships with our parents, or even with someone else, we have to offer what little we can and then pray to God to take what we offer and let it grow. Even if it is only a little kindness that we can offer in situations of great difficulty, that kindness is out there for God to take and grow. If we don’t offer anything, then nothing can grow.

Lent teaches us to find little things to rejoice in and that joy is always there for us to find. The temptation we face is to do nothing at all to make rejoicing or healing possible. If we resist this temptation, God can make a mountain out of a molehill in the best way possible!

Collect for the third Sunday in Lent

Prayer Book and Breviary

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection

A hearty meal - can that be a hearty desire? To be hale and hearty - can that be a hearty desire? Anything hearty must indeed come from the heart, that is clearly the point. A heart meal gives substance so that one can be substantial, i.e. hearty. Our desire is to be substantial, knowing that in our present form we are like ghosts compared with the saints. But do we really know what we're asking for?

This substance is only achieved through our suffering in this life. Our Lord reminds us that the way back to God is the way of the Cross. Our enemies will be the vehicle for that suffering, and there are any that would want us to remain insubstantial and wraith-like. These spectres tempt us with the notion that lack of substance is itself a substance and delight us with the joys of the vapid.

Yet these ruses work all too well, even when we think we know better. Our failure to succumb to this charade is a symptom of our blindness and our own familiarity with the insubstantial. Thus we pray our collect so that our brushes with the Great Insubstance - Evil itself - will have no effect.

Dividing the biccy

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the third Sunday in Lent 2015

Have your withdrawal symptoms set in yet? Are you now beginning to struggle with having given things up?

It’s a struggle because, on the whole, we’ve given up things that aren’t actually spiritually bad for us. It’s not often that someone gets sent to Hell for eating a chocolate biccy – that’s only the case if you eat the Bishop’s chocolate biccy! What is actually dangerous is a desire for chocolate biccies that consumes us to the exclusion of doing good things. As soon as it begins to take God’s place in our lives, then we are in trouble.

That does raise a good question. How far do things need to go before they start taking God’s place in our lives?

[PAUSE]

Our Lord talks to us about kingdoms divided among themselves. In this situation, He is explaining to an ever more strident and unpleasant group of Pharisees that He is not driving out demons by the power of Beelzebub but rather with the power of God His Father. It’s interesting to look at the Pharisees here. What amount of hatred they have for a man doing something good for another! Jesus is performing an act of kindness, of charity, of love, and yet this is being dismissed as diabolical. How much hate do you need to have in your life to think a good act is evil?

You see, the Pharisees have their own teaching in their hearts. It is supposed to be based on the law of God given to them by Moses. Yet these scribes and Pharisees have become tempted and actually consumed by the desire to control other people’s lives. God gave the Law of Moses to help people, to give structure to their lives and to point them towards God, but the Pharisees have put that law in the place of God. Even when God is standing before them, curing the sick before their very eyes, they still hold on to what their reading of the Law says.

This shows us how something other than God can take His place in our lives.

[PAUSE]

If we truly want to ensure that we have nothing in our lives that takes God’s place, we should ask ourselves, “are we willing to give this up should God Himself ask us?” “CAN we give this up should God ask us?”

That puts choccy biccies in perspective, doesn’t it? But could you say the same thing for your job, your house, your family? Our Lord tells us that we should not put even our very lives before God.

Now that’s hard, isn’t it?

[PAUSE]

It’s only hard if we look at this without God, if we try to separate our desires from God. Yes, we must be willing to give it all up for God, but God gives us grace, and if we co-operate with that grace then we will be able to do it. Love endures all things, and God is Love, so with God we can endure all things, all temptation and stand against evil. When we are with God, we stand. A house divided against itself cannot.

We don’t need to give everything up at once, but we must remember that we must be able to do so, should God ask. The fact is that He may not ever ask us, but when He does, we can be sure that He will be there to catch us should we comply with His will.

Remember, that nothing in this life can be compared with the life that God offers us. If things get tough, remember how much better they will be when we see God face to face.

Convincing conviction

Religious education in schools has gone through many names. Some of us received an O-Level in Scripture, others in Religious Instruction. Some of us sat through periods of Religious Education and then got a GCSE in Religious Studies. Notice that, already in the simple case of nomenclature, there has been a radical shift in what is being taught.

To receive an O-Level in Scripture, one needed to study the Bible, to remember key texts, to understand what a passage was saying with reference to supporting texts. One received Religious Instruction which explained the Established Church and ensured that all schoolchildren understood the doctrine of the State Religion.

Of course, we now live in a society in which there are people of "all faiths and none" and thus we must study other religions and be educated in their practices; this includes those who claim they have no religious faith. What is religiously objective is now religiously subjective. At school, religions are studied as subjective quantities ("some people believe this, others believe that") often to the exclusion of allowing children to think about the implication of their beliefs or lack of them.

However, do we not all have religious belief? Is not-belief is the same as belief-not? Is "I do not believe in X" logically the same as "I believe in not-X"? For then one would have to work out one's religion in the pattern of "I believe not-X". X could be in one of two possible states, either true or false. By saying that one believes that X is not true means that they cannot believe that X is true. If they say that they do not believe that X is true, then they must either believe that X is not true, or ruling out the law of the excluded middle (i.e. believing that X is neither true nor false). Thus, in the situations in which the law of the excluded middle holds, not believing is the same as believing not.

I will admit two things, however. First, from the point of view of expression, to say that one believes there is no God does present a stronger statement of faith than to say that one does not believe that God exists. Second, that believing something to be neither true nor false is possible, but then this produces its own faith system and concomitant religion. Can God exist AND not exist simultaneously? What a lovely question. Perhaps I'll pursue that further in a later post!

What we moderns understand by "free" is that one be allowed to think what one wishes to think, and to believe what one wishes. There are, of course, restrictions on practice. One is free to believe that mass murder is compulsory, but one may not practise that belief in society. Thus "freedom to believe" is not the same as "freedom to practise belief". Society must function as far as possible for the good of everyone, but in practise must realize that it falls short of this. Society believes that to be happy, a person must be alive, and so murder is an obvious no-no. However, this does not bode well for the one facing a slow, agonizing death who believes that he has the right to end it all to prevent that suffering and to die with dignity.

I've just said, "Society must function as far as possible for the good of everyone." Now is that a subjective statement or is it objective? Is it something that must be held by everyone, or is it merely my own point of view? We have two things to bear in mind: first that we all want to be as happy as we possibly can; second, that we have to live with other people and their desires to be happy. Surely it is logical for Society to seek to maximize the happiness of all of its members.

Of course, this is going to be impossible. There are those who wish to have Halal meat, and others who believe that the production of Halal meat is cruel. Does Society opt for Halal meat due to a religious conviction, or does it ban it in regard to those who believe that animals should be treated with dignity as well? There is a third option in that Society allows those who want Halal meat to slaughter their own animals, but to disallow Halal meat for general consumption. This, of course has the danger of marginalizing Halal meat eaters within society and making it seem that the beliefs of non-Halal meat eaters seem more preferable. What does one do?

Quite frankly there is only one thing that Society can do. There must be preferred beliefs ranging from the obvious ("You shall do no murder") to the more disputable ("All meat must be Halal"). Society has to have core beliefs, but it must also have the courage of its convictions in those beliefs. If Society believes that murder is wrong, then it must have the courage to state what murder is and to stick with it. In turn, one should not blame Society from holding that position for the common good, though one should be perfectly free to influence Society in one's own belief. Yet Society can only ever be convinced of its own belief if its members understand the consequences of believing in something.

Too few people actually consider the consequences of their beliefs. They lack a coherent belief system other than beliefs presented as a smorgasbord of possibilities. This is a consequence of our pluralistic society, many faiths claiming "I have the truth! I'm right! Everyone else is wrong!" Indeed, it seems that we are being discouraged from having a religious faith. Society frowns on the one who says "I'm right! Everyone else is wrong!" because it goes against its pluralistic nature. Like Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, in trying to keep the peace, it is better that one man suffer for his belief than for people to go into uproar from being offended by his utterances. Thus people are discouraged from being convinced, or at least from expressing their convictions. To say that one believes oneself to be right is considered arrogant, close-minded, even fundamentalist. Fundamentalism is now a word that has unpleasant images attached to it, thanks to those whose belief is that anyone who does not adhere to their appalling branch of religion must be beheaded.

The fact of the matter is that British society is founded upon Christian principles and these colour the rules that society follows. Yet, there are signs that those Christian principles are struggling against a new secular law. The Sacrament of Confession relies heavily upon the seal of the confessional whereby no-one may reveal the content of a confession on pain of excommunication. There is an increasing voice that, for example on issues of child-abuse, the seal of the confessional must be broken by law. We now have Christian law against secular law, and secular law will win because Christianity is now on equal footing with other religions and may not take precedence despite the foundation of the secular law upon Christian law. The Christian, of course, has only one course of action that is morally the best in his belief. He must break the secular law and suffer the consequences on the strength of his conviction that the Christian truth is indeed the truth.

Yet we are then faced with a further problem in that, for example of that awful murder of Lee Rigby, those who claim that killing for their religion is justified come up against the weight of the law that killing in such circumstances is unlawful and therefore murder. Lee Rigby's murderers (there's my conviction!) go to prison believing in the righteousness of their actions and suffering for those beliefs.

Now, some of us will find ourselves feeling a little uncomfortable at the equivalence of a Catholic priest going to prison unrepentantly for not breaking the seal of the confession in a case of child-abuse and the killers of Lee Rigby going to prison unrepentantly for murdering a young and innocent soldier. Both go to prison convinced that they are right. Yet, one is hypothetical - the law has not yet been passed to force the breaking of the seal of confession, though the State Church is considering it - the other is real. Are both morally identical imprisonments?

I'm not pretending for one moment that there is going to be a clear answer to this question, but it does raise the question as to how committed one should be for one's beliefs. Is prison worth risking because we hold to the seal of the confessional? The alternative would be for the Sacrament of Confession to be discontinued, and that would be more than a Catholic priest could bear with regard to the spiritual damage it would do to his flock. A good confessor will of course make the absolution of a child-abuser conditional precisely on his giving himself up to the secular law courts and receiving the due punishment. That is a sensible and reasonable attempt for a spiritual situation being reconciled with the spirit of the law in which those who abuse children must receive due and proportionate punishment. If the confessor is then punished because the abuser did not fulfill the satisfaction given to him in confession, then the moral guilt for that lies squarely on the abuser who does not receive absolution but accrues a further list of sins of great gravity.

What we are faced with here is the question of the locus of true justice. The secular law courts deal with temporal justice. Other religions hold to the locus of true justice lying beyond the temporal. For the Christian, the only true judge is God. For the Moslem too, the true judge is God. For the IS militant, the true judge is God. If one's locus of true justice lies beyond the secular, then one must be prepared for miscarriages of justice which will be resolved beyond the secular sphere.

Abortion is a great evil in that it mortally damages two people, mother and baby. It is still perfectly possible for an innocent baby to be aborted just because they are the wrong sex, not to mention the use of abortifacients as a means of casual contraception due to an "inconvenient" pregnancy conceived by consenting adults! However, I think it a general case that many people in the United Kingdom find the whole idea abhorrent and would actively seek to avoid such a situation as far as they humanly could. Most people, I am sure, would be horrified to consider it as a soft option. However, it may be that, by legalizing it, such a number of people who would be so horrified is falling.

However, rape is also a great evil which affects not only the person being raped but the family and any child conceived as a result of that violation. If a nine-year old conceives from rape and is not physically able to carry the child and so is taken to an abortion clinic by her mother to save her life, how evil is the abortion and who is to blame? If anyone thinks this is an easy question to answer, then I would kindly invite them to put themselves in the positions of each person in this scenario and then consider. The Catholic, while pleading in anguish that such an act be not committed, would believe that this situation would eventually be judged perfectly and precisely by God. A secular society which permits Abortion would clearly permit this regardless of loci of true justice that would not, much to the frustration and horror of all Catholics.

On the other hand, as is the case in secular societies that forbid abortion by law, it is the case that women whose baby dies in utero are not permitted to receive an abortion in order to save her life from the incipient infections. Similarly, things can and have gone so far that women who miscarry are found guilty of abortion and duly punished. Is this morally right?

Let us be clear, Human Justice is never perfect and the Catholic Church should, and in most cases I believe does, agonise over all these situations. They are not clear cut, nor can they be clear cut. There will be innocent found guilty and guilty allowed to be free. If we believe then we will have to suffer injustice regardless. No Secular Law Court will get things right in difficult cases and, indeed, set precedents which make future judgments less certain. To my mind, this gives a very good reason to believe in God who will judge things according to true righteousness that only He possesses and we only possess by imperfect reflection. If the Secular Authority is all, then Timothy Evans and John Christie both lost their lives, one justly the other unjustly but there is no way that Evans can be compensated. If there is only Human Law, then there is no true justice, but only that which is arbitrary. If there is God's Law then we can expect true justice.

I started this waffle thinking about how we are teaching children about religion. It seems that we teach them that there are no absolutes and that everything is relative and subjective. If everything is relative, then there are no miscarriages of justice just differences of opinion, and therefore no true justice. The Secular Law would then exist to preserve order only by promoting one legitimate opinion over another equally legitimate opinion. Do we teach children about how to have a conviction about a belief to the extent that they would be willing to lose their liberty for it? If not, then perhaps we see why our Churches are emptying as just one opinion in a million. If we believe in absolutes, then do we pass them on to our children?

Of course, people do not believe in the same absolute, but that is no reason for Society to fall apart. If all parties are willing to allow people to be wrong, and give them space to be wrong, even to the extent of choosing their own damnation (after all, God allows us to choose our own damnation by rejecting Him!) then there will be some order for society. True secularism does not destroy belief but provides an arena in which all beliefs can vie for the common good - but then, is the common good an objective moral value?

Collect for the second Sunday in Lent

Prayer Book and Breviary

ALMIGHTY God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection

The trouble is that human beings are so tiny. Between body and soul, there seems to be nothing much of us. We exist with Free-Will and yet are unable to free ourselves from the mire of sin. We can desire to be free of our sin, but without God we cannot in act be free of our sin. We find salvation only in the arms of Christ.

Our salvation is never complete before we die. Yeshua - the Hebrew form of Jesus - means "God is saving." It is a present and continuous tense, meaning that, all the time we are in time, we are being saved through that one perfect sacrifice with its promise of atonement. Thus we are still beset with adversity from the outside and evil thoughts from within which can still threaten to drag us away from that Salvation, if we allow this to happen.

Our recourse is simple. We need to keep in conversation with God, just as one who is being pulled out of the mire keeps conversation with his saviours to ensure that he is en route to safety. As we purify our intentions during Lent, so shall we find that conversation becoming clearer as our ears are opened from the mirey clogs of sin and Death.

Tempting the Paternoster

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the second Sunday in Lent 2015

It’s probably the most prayed prayer in the world. You pray it about six times when you say the rosary. According to the Church Fathers, you should be praying it at least three times a day – morning, noon and night. It’s the prayer that Our Lord teaches us. It seems quite simple in its form, but is it?

[PAUSE]

Our Father who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name,
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy Will be done
on Earth as it is in Heaven.

There are big ideas there, but at the very least in our prayer we recognise the sovereignty and familiarity of God the Father. We should spend more time unpacking these ideas, but let’s move on for now.

Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive them that trespass against us.
Still so far so good. We recognise that we are in need of God to provide all that is necessary to live. We also recognise the need to be forgiven and that our forgiveness depends on how much we are willing to forgive. Again, we should think about this a bit more. It’s the next statements that cause us some trouble.

Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Does God really lead us into temptation? Does He really want us to suffer Evil?

[PAUSE]

The fact of the matter is that we are tempted. Even Jesus, Our God is tempted! If that’s the case, why do we pray not to be led into temptation? If it’s going to happen, why not put a brave face on it and just let it happen? We have to remember that Our Lord Jesus suffers an agony in the garden over precisely this issue. Hear Him as He says, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” He is talking of His impending crucifixion where He will be subjected to torture and to pain and death. This is what has to happen for human beings to be reconciled with God. The human nature in Jesus is frightened, as each and every one of us would be, and yet He recognises the Will of His Father as being supreme.

He is praying for strength, and He is given strength.

[PAUSE]

When we pray “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” we are recognising that we cannot stand up against sin, the world and the devil without the assistance of Almighty God. We may want to do the will of God, but we also know that we shall fall. We pray for the strength to avoid temptation, to flee from those near occasions of sin, and, when tempted, to look honestly and earnestly for the will of God in that situation.

We pray that we may be delivered from evil, not that we won’t feel the side-effects, but that we won’t succumb to it. We are praying for the strength to trust God, even in the darkest, most wretched and miserable hour as we wrestle with the Evils that beset us. Our deliverance from Evil IS our salvation which is being worked out now with God. That working out of our salvation comes with fear and trembling, but, recognising that God is there for us, anything against us will fall.

May God the Father, indeed, lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil, and may we find in Him greater strength and trust, so that we come to that wonderful promise of Eternal Life that God has prepared for all who truly love Him.

Anglo-Protestantism and me

Over the past few months, I have been trying to put to bed old controversies in which I have found myself constantly inveigled, and it is my intention to say my piece and move on to whatever faces me in the future without any further need to keep defending myself against those who "urge" me to accept their theology. I hope that the following explains my relationship with Protestantism: why I accept myself to be Protestant in one sense of the word, but not in another sense.
There are many who would say that the term Anglo-Protestantism is utterly tautological: to be an Anglican is to be a Protestant and that is that.

In an obvious sense this must be true. If, by "Protestant", one means "not Roman Catholic", then Anglicans are indeed Protestants and that is indeed that. However, does "Protestant" mean "not Roman Catholic"?

Rev Alister McGrath suggests from his article "Anglicanism and Protestantism" that this is precisely what "Protestant" means, and thus any attempt to paint Anglicanism as a non-Protestant movement is futile, unhistorical and just a little bit ridiculous.

As Fr. McGrath points out, Henry VIII did not want to identify the Church of England with the continental reformers - after all, he'd just got rid of one foreign potentate muscling in on his territory so there was no way he was going to give way to any other. Thus there was a political reason for distancing Anglicanism from the Continental Reform. In Edward VI, we see that, in order to strengthen the political situation, it becomes expedient for a closer identification of Anglicanism with the original German Protestants against Papal Supremacy. Archbishop Cranmer is clearly influenced by Melancthon and Bucer and this shows up most obviously in the 1552 Book of Common Prayer and in the subsequent Thirty-Nine Articles.

Fr. McGrath then demonstrates that, although there were members of the Anglican Church in the first three generations following the Reformation who emphasized the old Sacramental system of effective grace, they still regarded themselves as Protestant. Thus, argues Fr. McGrath, it is pure revisionism on the part of the Tractarians to suggest that the Church of England has never seen itself as anything other than Protestant.

That's fair if, by Protestant, we mean "not Roman Catholic". The question as to whether Anglicanism is doctrinally Protestant is another and much more difficult matter.

It is clear that belief that Roman Catholicism actually defines Catholicism is disputed in history and theologically. Popes did not always call Oecumenical Councils, but at least one was called by a Roman Emperor! The place of the Pope as Bishop of Bishops cannot be supported conclusively by the Vincentian Canon, nor by the Councils which do see the Bishop of Rome having a primacy, but not a supremacy. I have not yet seen a good argument based on patristic texts which states that the Pope rules the Church, defines doctrine, defines catholicity, or speaks infallibly. All seem to be based on eisegesis of Patristic texts and Holy Scripture. Thus, rejecting the political supremacy of one privileged Bishop is a perfectly Anglican and Catholic doctrine. Catholicism is not about politics, it is about Salvation. There is only one Monarch of the Church of Christ and it's blindingly obvious Who that is; any other political system is earthly and will vanish away.

In his book The Protestant's Dilemma, Devin Rose seems to see the umbrella of Protestantism as one doctrinal system and seems to believe that refuting one particular doctrine of Protestantism at a time will refute the lot. I found no trouble reading the book as an Anglican Catholic and found absolutely no refutation of Anglican Catholicism largely because Anglican Catholicism has its roots in the pre-schismatic Church on which Devin Rose's church also stands. You cannot refute Protestantism by saying, "because they are not all one, they must all be in error." Seeing that there seem to be two "One True Churches" which are not one, the same argument would show that both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches must also be in error! One cannot prove the error of other Churches by assuming the lack of error of one's own. It is, after all, in Christ that we are all truly united and indeed, when it comes down to it, there is always the possibility that we might ALL be in error - though I don't for one minute believe that this is true. The burden for the Roman Catholic is to show that EVERY member under the Protestant umbrella is in error.

One might say that the whole of Protestant doctrine is embodied in the Five Sola statements -  knock these down and you've killed all of Protestantism - and yet each of these Sola statements have nuances in each Protestant Church some of which can be justly held by Roman Catholics, so Roman Catholic apologists are going to have to do a LOT better than they have hitherto. I'm sure that sola scriptura can be interpreted in a Roman Catholic sense - indeed, I believe St Thomas Aquinas did before Luther was even a twinkle of a twinkle of a twinkle...

Thus, in that Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism are in schism and certainly in that sense of the word, Anglicanism is indeed Protestant and there needs to be no apology for that. In that sense of the word, I will admit to being a Protestant and quite content with that particular understanding. I feel confident that other members of the ACC will feel the same way.

However, there is a well-defined sense in which Anglicanism is not Protestant, and this is really why I dislike the term due to its ambiguity and that it leads people to the conclusion that because it is not Roman Catholic, it is an innovation rather than a continuation of Christ's doctrine. It is this sense of Protestantism that the Tractarians would properly be battling while still preserving their distance from Rome. The beliefs of the early, pre-schismatic Church are surely not Protestant because they predate the whole ideas of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. As I said earlier, the doctrine of the Early Church is held by Anglican Catholics. However, all Protestants would surely say that they do the same, after all the Holy Scripture is pre-schismatic par excellence. Yet, in Protestantism, we have that diversity of belief ranging from acceptance of Bishops to almost anarchic (in the literal sense) structures. As an Anglican Catholic, I do not identify with Protestants but with Catholics. I pray for the dead, and say my rosary, Angelus and Marian Antiphons; I believe in the sacramental priesthood, Transubstantiation, the visibility of the Church, the apostolic succession of Bishops, the primacy and patriarchy of the Pope, et c.

Yet, what people take to be most doctrinal of Protestantism are those famous Solas designed principally to provide discrimination between what is Roman and what is Protestant. I have reservations with the Five Sola statements. I believe that Holy Scripture is indeed the supreme revelation but only when it is interpreted correctly through the faith of the Christians living before the Biblical Canon, expanded through the Fathers seeking to preserve that teaching, and with the use of reasoning to draw the correct analogies and arrive at the correct conclusions to answer the questions being asked. I presume that many Protestants would agree with that. I also suspect that many do not.

I do believe that I am justified by faith as that is spelled out unequivocally in Holy Scripture, but I see nowhere in scripture or tradition where this justification occurs explicitly by faith alone. Indeed, from what I understand of I Cor xiii, faith is never alone! Some will throw biblical verses at me to show that sola fide is true, but yet there are biblical verses which show that it is not. One can also throw patristic texts at me to show that it is true, and yet there are patristic texts which counter that. Seeing that I am incompetent of myself to make the decision, I trust what the pre-schismatic Church taught and this seems very much not to be sola fide. Seeing that one can indeed argue both ways about the requirement of sola fide, it really cannot be a sound requirement for belief. One can indeed define it as an article for belief, but if Anglicanism does seek to be patristic and if patristic texts are at best inconclusive, then an article that specifically requires it acts against that patristic inconclusiveness. The same, of course, goes for articles that actively dismiss it. Here perhaps, we can begin to see truly Elizabethan Settlement in its generosity by allowing both understandings. Here also you might begin to appreciate why I do not subscribe to the XXXIX Articles - their patristic statements are disputed. Yet, perhaps you may also begin to see why I also identify with being Anglican. I have Anglican Orders, use an Anglican prayer book in public, a breviary which is conformed with that prayer book in private, the English Missal, and the English Ritual; I see my leadership under a synod of bishops each with Anglican Orders, and am guided by a constitution and canons which are derived from the Oecumenical Councils through those inherited from the Anglican Church when the latter could be said to be orthodox.

Perhaps, one might be appalled at my lack of conviction when it comes to the question of justification - it is an important issue. As I say, faith is never alone and any true faith coming from the heart needs to be expressed naturally by action and tried by how we endure the suffering which Our Lord warned would happen to us - that to me is obvious in real life and it is obvious to me in the Holy Scriptures. I am also convinced that justification itself is a process, not a once and for all event distinct from sanctification and glorification.

I am quite convinced that sola fide is wrong, but I don't require brother and sister Anglicans to repudiate it. I am Anglican and, like my erstwhile political monarch, I am not going to make windows on men's souls.  However, I am an Anglican Catholic and that means I look to the Early Church rather than to Articles for definition. Where they agree, there is no problem. Where they do not agree, I take the Early Church first. I do not identify with Calvinist, nor Lutheran, nor Roman, but I firmly believe myself to be Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican. As a priest, I am responsible primarily for dispensing the grace of God and any judgments that I may have to make, I am required to make them for the maximizing of that dispensing, not for the condemnation of people, but rather for the excision of sin and evil, and the assistance of every single person in their process of justification, sanctification and glorification. If other Christians wish to judge me on this, then let them do so. I know God will, and it is His judgment that matters to me and will have much more important ramifications. Should my Bishop tell me that I am wrong, it is my duty to listen and be taught. Those who believe that I'm preaching the wrong Gospel, I will gladly discuss it with them quietly, but I intend to leave the screaming bloggers to their own devices.

Collects for the first Sunday in Lent

Prayer Book

O LORD, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights; Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness, and true holiness, to thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

Breviary (Sarum)

O God, who purifiest thy church by the annual observation of Lent, grant unto thy family that what they endeavour to obtain of thee by fasting they may follow up by good works. Through etc.

Reflection

Our Lord set us a pattern of fasting and abstinence with good reason. He needed no purifying, but He did need to keep His body well and fit for living. His Body, of course is the vehicle by which humanity can be reconciled to God, and so we see here the need for that body to be maintained well. Our Lord shows us that fasting and abstinence have a cleansing effect. Our Lord, of course, was sinless, but this does not mean that His body did not need to be washed when it got dirty.

If we are to be members of the Body of Christ, to gain resurrection with this Body and find true life with this Body, then we need to keep this Body in good nick even as the Head has taught us. Our fast is that of a purification of our intentions, a cutting out of the seeds of selfishness and lack of charity. Our fast is to be practical, for the good of humanity and the spreading of God's grace of which the Body has been given charge.

Obedience comes from the intention to obey. Good works come from the intention to do good works. Holiness is given by God only to those with the honest intention and desire to be Holy for the love of God. It is through this love.that we must face the discomfort of fasting so that we may intend to be with God for the love of Him.

Collects for Ash Wednesday

Prayer book

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Breviary (Sarum)
Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord, unto thy faithful people, that they may both enter upon the holy solemnities of the fast with befitting piety, and pass through them with undisturbed devotion. Through etc.

Reflection
On Ash Wednesday, we find ourselves marked with the symbol of our finitude, remembering that we are but dust and unto dust we shall return. Archbishop Cranmer's famous collect said every day in Lent is a plea for absolution and for restoration. Ezekiel reminds us with Cranmer that we must possess hearts of flesh, not of stone. It is only when our hearts are broken into contrition that we benefit from the exercise of piety and fasting.

Collects for Quinquagesima

Prayer book

O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

Breviary (Sarum)
O Lord, we beseech thee, mercifully hear our prayers, and loose us from the chains of our sins, and keep us from all adversity. Through etc.

Reflection

The Sarum collect for Quinquagesima is quite stark in simplicity as we move into Lent. Our sins cry out against us, holding us back from the work of love that the image of God in us would bid us do.

Archbishop Cranmer focuses on the love that we need to have in our hearts as we begin our self-examination and ascetic discipline of Lent. It is Love that will indeed loose the chains of our sins, yet also fetter us with the bond of peace and all virtues.

As human beings, we must expect to be limited in some way. It is better to be limited by love than by sin, for the limitation due to Love gives us life.

Through a rose-tinted darkly

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Quinquagesima Sunday 2015

There was a bit of a fashion in the late 1960s and early 1970s of wearing rose-tinted spectacles. This was the time of “flower power”, “tie dye” and lots and lots of hair. The whole effect of wearing rose-tinted glasses was that it gave everything a warm glow and made everyone feel positive and relaxed. Of course the 1980s happened and everyone started to get more materialistic, and the rose-tinted spectacles had to make way for the shoulder pads and hard-noses of big business which had no time for being so laid back.

The colour of the glasses really does have an effect on how we see things. We wear sunglasses to keep out the glare of the sun. This is a bit awkward if we leave the bright sunny garden and go back into the house! Everything goes dark very quickly! The glasses that we wear affect our vision drastically. We wear them for a better view, but even with a better set of glasses, there are things that become less clear to us.

[PAUSE]

St Paul speaks of love, and reminds us that we see everything through a glass darkly. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we’ve done, everything we see is a shadow of what is really true. There are no binoculars that allow us to see the bigger picture. We can only see that when we see God face to face. We can only understand what is real when we see it with the eyes of one who is perfect.

One of the more common miracles of Our Lord is to heal the blind man. He does that on numerous occasions, even to people born blind. He opens their eyes so they can see, but this is only a symbol of what He is trying to do. Our Lord is trying to show us that there is more to the world that we can see with our defective eyes.

We cannot see into the hearts of other people to understand why they act the way that they do. Are they rude because they are really selfish, or are they rude because they are stressed at work and can’t see beyond the worry of what to do next? Is that boy a bully because he just likes to make other boys miserable, or is it because he feels so powerless and insecure that bullying other children makes him feel better? We do not understand the complexity of living, and so how do we cope with this?

The answer, says Our Lord, is love. We have to learn to love one another by seeing that they are even as we are. We all know that human beings are frail and sinful beings which are capable of the most horrific acts but also of the most beautiful acts of kindness. The challenge that Love gives us is to look beyond the confines of our limited vision and appreciate that there is something there even if we cannot see it. In trying to be patient, kind, generous, humble, modest, selfless and positive, we can develop ways to live with everyone whose lives we cannot see now in truth.

We do not yet have the option of seeing without the eyes we already have. When we have the eyes of God, what will we really see? What will we really see about ourselves?

...these three...

The Problem of Evil is certainly one of the biggest questions that challenge for many the existence of God. For Stephen Fry, it's a stumbling block that reveals God to be a capricious monster in his eyes; for former Archbishop Rowan Williams it reveals a profound mystery.

Stephen Fry finds much common ground with the late Christopher Hitchens in believing that there can't be a God, or further that if God exists then He does not deserve to be worshipped owing to the suffering of so many people. Their point comes from a point of reality, not from the hallowed halls of abstract theology and that is what makes their case more powerful. Suffering is visible, God is not. It stands to this sort of thinking that if God exists then He does not see it, does not care about it, He cannot do anything about it, or potentially all three.

it is clear that both Fry and Hitchens have a deep concern about the sufferings that happen in the world. Why should children get bone cancer? Why is it fair that so many people starve to death each day while a tiny, tiny few wrestle with the problem of not being able to afford the latest variant of the Playstation? Both Fry and Hitchens show something that lies deeply within their humanity, within the humanity that we all share. They care. The suffering of others means much to them. They find it intolerable. Why should they care? Why not just let the whole problem go and get back to living their own lives? As Archbishop Williams points out, that's as much a mystery as why suffering happens in the first place. It is the fact that human beings care about others that often brings us face to face with our Creator seething with passion and anger about His apparent inscrutability and indifference to the plight of others.

The trouble is, without God, what can ever be the answer to this question? At least, with the possibility of God existing, there is the possibility of an answer. We have to remember that the above trichotomy that apparently disproves the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God is false in that it does not allow for other possibilities, namely the possibility that it may be necessary for suffering to exist for hitherto unknown, or even unknowable, morally justifiable reasons: God being all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving transcends humanity and the smallness yet beloved nature of human thought.

Again, we still come back to the fact that we are also having to wrestle between emotional and intellectual responses here: both are valid and both inform the other. Yet, all the best that any of us can do is to face the darkness that reality possesses in sheer ignorance. Truth be told, if we see a person suffering horribly, truly horribly, we suffer too because of our inability to relieve that suffering. Yet these are different sufferings. We cannot  know what the little girl with bone cancer is going through. We can only extrapolate her suffering in the arena of our own experience, and think what it would be like for us to suffer in this way. It is from that basis that we wish to stop the suffering of this little girl simply by following that Golden Rule "do unto others what you would have them do unto you".  And so we share in that suffering, just as Christ would have us do. Yet still we do not know the suffering of that little girl - it is her suffering; these are her scars being etched upon her being. The temptation is for us to lose hope and faith.

As C.S Lewis points out, the true existence of faith is seen most when whatever rational principles we hold dear come under the hardest scrutiny: faith will bear that scrutiny. To hold true to the rational principles that we have received - no matter what - is the true test of faith, and it will be this faith that saves us. In this sense, faith and works cannot be understood without each other. Faith is received when we understand the impact of the revelation that God gives us, then must come the testing and refining, the acceptance or the rejection of one's faith.

In suffering, we also have the issue of hope which can be strengthened or lost. To see another suffer horribly raises the question of "WHY??????" loudly in our minds. Either we believe that nothing can justify the little girl's suffering whatsoever, or we realize that the transcendent existence God promises the faithful will make this suffering worthwhile. We struggle with this because our human thought cannot possibly imagine what could make such misery worthwhile. The after-life is not apparent, the suffering is. Dostoevsky wrestled with this in the Brothers Karamazov. Can Heaven ever be worth the torture of one innocent little child?

To whom is this question addressed? If it is to the academic theoretician, then there can only be abstract theoretical answers - none that can give hope and none that can alleviate suffering, just perpetual debates in public theatres to the entertainment of the intellectual. Is the question addressed to the child? If so, then we cannot answer for her. This is a question between her and her Creator. Is this a question addressed to those around her as she suffers? If there is no Heaven then there is no hope that this horror can ever be transformed and no way that the works of the Devil can ever come to nought. Is this a question for God? If so, then let us ask the poor, innocent man tortured and dying upon the cross. Clearly He knows the answer by personal experience.

Finally, what answer could ever be given? Explain colic to a newborn baby and yet she still screams in pain. Faith, hope and love go beyond argument and  discussion, and strike only at the root of what it means to be real and alive. They provide comfort because they present no intelligible answer and yet hold fast to the suffering as it is. They lie at the heart of our being and the only one we will find there will be God.

Collects for Sexagesima

Prayer book

O LORD God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do; Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


Breviary (Sarum)
O God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do; Mercifully grant that by the protection of the Teacher of the Gentiles, we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


Reflection
This collect again shows the tension between pre- and post-Reformation Anglicanism. Just whose protection should we prefer, St Paul's or God's?


There is a false dichotomy here. We learn of God's protection through the words of St Paul. It is St Paul acting as a clay vessel of the Love of God that we can receive protection from God. St Paul's protection is one that we read:

"Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;  And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;  Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:  Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." (Ephesians vi.14-18)


This is the protection that God gives us. It is the protection that the Teacher of the Gentiles reveals to us through his obedience to God. It will defend us if we use it.

Straw men and empty vessels

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Sexagesima 2015

Have you ever wondered why there are two letters to the Corinthians from St Paul?

You’ll remember that in the first letter, St Paul writes about the divisions within the Church in Corinth. He writes telling them about why it is good to recognise the different gifts that God has given each of us to us and express, but that these gifts can only ever be used in love. We’ll hear that famous extract from his letter next week. What is missing from history is the reply that St Paul receives from Corinth to the first letter. It seems that it went along the lines of:

“Dear Paul, Please don’t lecture us on what we ought to do. We’re suffering a lot for Our Lord, all kinds of persecutions. See how we are oppressed by the Romans! We are noble Hebrews, born of the seed of Abraham, ministers of Christ. We know what we are doing and we’re not going to be told what to do by you. Yours sincerely. Church in Corinth.”

It’s a bit like someone going to the doctor and saying, “I’ve got a heavy cold, please prescribe me some antibiotics.” The doctor will say, “but antibiotics don’t work on viruses.” “I think I know what I’m talking about. I do have three doctorates and a knighthood. Prescribe me some antibiotics!”

You see the problem.

Doctorates and knighthoods are only pieces of paper which say that you have successfully undertaken work in particular areas. They are nothing in themselves and they don’t really possess any authority.

This is why St Paul replies in the way he does. It’s as if he thinks, “right, if that’s the game you want to play, I can play it too AND I’ll show you how silly it is.”

And so we get from St Paul:

“Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also. Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?”

But, says St Paul, “I speak as a fool!” This is how silly people speak trying to evade the issue by pretending to be too big or clever for it. Yet these big and clever people miss the very vital message that they need to hear in order to know God.

The fact of the matter is, when our lives end, our credentials, our education, our work will lose any relevance or meaning.

On the Day of Judgment, we will stand quite naked before God. We will be able to hide behind nothing. The only thing that we will rely on then is how much love there is in us. How much love we have for Our Lord and God and can boast honestly in what He has done in our lives. To God and God alone belongs the glory, but we are allowed to bask in it.

My last word on the matter?

Okay, so I've broken a promise to myself not to get back into the ordination of women arena. I've stated my case, and have little more to say. I do note that people have tried to suggest that the frescoes of the catacombs of Priscilla show the female celebrant of a Eucharist. Yet, there is a counter suggestion that it is a funeral feast. There is also Episcopa Theodora claimed by some to be a bishop in her own right, and yet this is also argued to be the honorary title of a particularly pious wife of a bishop! The evidence is certainly not conclusive and a case for women's ordination cannot really be built from this.

In an attempt to be more charitable, I am trying to be as attentive as I can to people who support the ordination of women with such passion. I know that I am as guilty as many other bloggers who raise their voices in debate and forget the human element and really I do need to address this. If I have made mistakes, and if this post makes mistakes, then I offer my humble apologies and hope that the reader will look upon it charitably. The question I am trying to understand is: what are proponents of the cause trying to do?

Well, clearly in the 20th century, we have had great upheavals in society and many of those upheavals have had consequences that have freed human beings from shackles of true oppression. We now have racial equality, an abhorrence of slavery and the movement for the equality of women. These have had very far-reaching consequences, great challenges, and the opportunities for people to become who God intends them to be.

It's not hard to see that in this context, the ordination of women appears intrinsically linked with women's liberation. Liberation from what? Well, this is where there has been a fundamental link between all three of those issues: racial equality, sexual equality and slavery.

It is true to say that women and those of African heritage have suffered the indignity of being owned by the white man. They have been the possessions of another, and such possession is a diminution of one's humanity. We see spiritual possession when some demonic force takes control of the body of an unfortunate from the inside, likewise we have possession of an unfortunate from the outside.

It is quite clear that the Church should indeed oppose slavery even if it has not been clear on this point in its history. That so many people are so passionate to stop all forms of slavery and to fight for the rights of each human being to live a life free from being owned by another is to be encouraged. It is easy to see why racial and sexual inequality are so interlinked.

It does stand to reason why the matter of the ordination of women has arisen. It is right and fair that race is not an obstacle to the vocation to be a priest. We have here the equality of ethnicity. No longer should anyone of African descent be barred from sharing the priesthood of Christ just because they are indeed of Afican descent. People with African heritage are as equally human as those of Norse, Celt, Angle, Frankish, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Asian, et c. heritage. One's genealogy is not a bar!

Of course, with this, the women's rights movement has grown. Praise God that no longer can a wife be legally raped by her husband: she has the right to say, "No!" even to the one she has married. No longer is she chattel. She can lead a country, she can lead a company, she can do anything that she puts her mind to! Women can now become the people under God whom He created them to be.

Thus, it is clear how, when seeing the priest of African descent, that a woman sees this as another barrier between her equality with man. It doesn't matter what the argument is, this great passion, this weight of historical oppression is bigger. Any government worth its weight will throw that weight behind projects which maximise the freedom of its subjects. Thus, any established church with its government tied intrinsically with the state must also be under that pressure to break down that final barrier. It stands to reason that there is no way that a state church can deny its priesthood to women. The CofE has to have women priests and bishops: that is the only logical consequence of its existence. It's one reason why perhaps now is the time for the Catholic and Continuing Anglican Churches to let the issue lie.

For us Continuing Anglicans, the issue is also clear. Two wrongs cannot make a right. We cannot change rules about respecting one's intrinsic being in order to undo centuries of oppression. A woman can be anything she wants to be, except she cannot be a man. Even after surgical augmentation she is still genetically a woman and God intended her to be such. The Catholic Faith is quite clear that to be a priest, one must be male in order to be an ikon of Christ the Bridegroom of the Church, and to continue the priesthood that God set up ab initio.

It is my firmest wish that there should be something new in the Church to discern God's true vocation for women. One cannot change that which is established by God, but the Church has the ability to consecrate that which already exists for the purposes of preaching the Gospel. I believe that there is room for something new in the Church that works alongside that which is built on firm foundations. Choirs sprang out of the Church's Divine Office and thus the Anglican Choral tradition was once something new that worked alongside the ancient duty of the Church.

It would be a good idea for traditional Catholics (me included) to put our thinking caps on and remember that we can pull out of our resources that which is old and new. Perhaps then we can go some way to righting the wrongs done against good Christian women. May Our Father in Heaven be our guide to better and greater levels of Charity.

Collect for Septuagesima

Prayer book
O LORD, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people; that we, who are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness, for the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Breviary (Sarum)
O Lord, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people, that we who are justly punished for our offences may be mercifully delivered for the glory of thy name. Through etc.

Reflection
In this universe of cause and effect, we have no choice but to accept the consequences for our choices, both bad and good. We often suffer for both of them, regardless and oft, like Job, we sit puzzled in our sadness trying to work out what we could have possibly done to deserve the punishment we receive.

We cry out to God and ask, "for what reason am I being punished?" and God's silence comes back to us. If we are wise, we listen in that silence, examining our own conscience to see where we are presently falling short in our actions, desires, intentions and words since in each sin we distance ourselves from God.

Yet, we know that our own scrutiny of our conscience is also flawed. We could fall into despair at the rottenness of our own being, but there is a better way. With God we can be good, for God defines goodness through His own self. Our Creation is Good. We are not totally depraved, but bear the goodness of God's creation by being part of God's creation. We turn to God and see in ourselves where we lack Him by His benevolence.

Septuagesima calls attention that soon Lent is coming and we must prepare ourselves for that self-scrutiny. With God holding our hand we will see the truth and survive it!

Labourers of Love?

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Septuagesima Sunday 2015

So the Kingdom of heaven is like this householder who pays everyone the same amount regardless of when he calls them. That seems straightforward. It looks like Our Lord is telling us that we should look at what we’ve been given, rather than what other people have been given. But He ends this parable with rather a surprising line: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.”

We can see when people get called to the work, but where in this parable do people get chosen? Surely, the only people who are being chosen are the people who answer the call and yet everyone seems to be called! Does that mean we are all chosen to be the kingdom of Heaven?

If this is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, then what are we really being told?

[PAUSE]

What is the work that God wants us to do? We know that it is hard work otherwise it would not be described as labour. We know that we can receive a fair reward for our labours and we know that everyone gets the same reward for this labour no matter when they take it up. There can only be one labour that is appropriate for God and that is the labour of Love.

We know that love is hard work, especially when people sometimes go out of their way to make themselves unloveable, yet we still have to work at loving our neighbours as ourselves. Now we can do things for appearances, or we can do things for real.

[PAUSE]

Those that start early in the day believe that they are entitled to more because they have worked more than the others, but we know that this is not how Love works. St Paul tells us quite clearly that “Charity suffereth long , and is kind ; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself , is not puffed up.” It is not the work of love to quibble about receiving an agreed wage. The people come first are actively envying the pay of those who come last.

There are those who make a show of appearing to love, but do not really do so in their hearts. St Paul reminds us,” though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned , and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”

This is the key thing. The ones who grumble at the fair wage of the other do not understand the reward of their labours. They miss the point. They have no love and so all their labour means absolutely nothing. Clearly God will only choose those who really do the work of love in their hearts for the Kingdom of God. Those who only feign love rule themselves out of the Kingdom of Heaven, because they have no real love.

God is love, and the reward of the labour of love is God Himself. You can’t expect more than God. Yet some people do, and that is why they will never know Who He is and will never see His Kingdom.