St John's Chapel

Fr Martin writes an article each week for the St John's Messenger

September 8, 2002

Holy Communion is one of the two Dominical Sacraments. This means that they come to us by Christ's command. Our English word, "dominical," comes from the Latin word "dominus" meaning "lord, master or ruler." Our Lord commanded that two sacraments be enacted in the regular life of the church. The first is Baptism, and the second is Holy Communion or the Eucharist.

In Baptism, Christians believe that human beings are brought out of death and into new life. Technically, babies and others who come to be baptized are naturally and physically alive. But the church teaches that all men are born into Original Sin. They are not yet spiritually growing and moving. They are born into a state of life that is not naturally united to the spiritual life of God.

In some sense, when Adam fell, the whole race of men went down with him. Human beings are born into a reality that is not at one with Almighty God. By reason of sin, all men are strangers with God.

In the third chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, Jesus tells Nicodemus that "...Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Jesus teaches us that we must be born anew -- from above -- in a way very different from our natural births. Jesus teaches us that we must be lifted up out of sin and death and into righteousness and spiritual life.

To be born again means to be born of the Spirit. Christ who has opened up the kingdom of God to us through Baptism begins the process of leading us out of death and into life. By the Grace of God in Baptism we begin to live in Christ's kingdom -- through participation in the essence of the church.

In Baptism, we take our place in Christ's earthly body -- the church. He, as our heavenly head, grafts us into his wisdom and love. In Holy Communion, heavenly food sustains and nourishes our new life that has now begun. We feed on the spiritual body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion. This is the only food that can make the seeds of Baptismal faith grow and flourish. As the bread and wine feed and nourish the body, so the spiritual body and blood of Christ feed and nourish the soul.

When we come to the Holy Communion, we should remember that we need Jesus' body and blood, and we require the truth and love that animate his perfect life in order to continue on our journey towards His kingdom. Let us remember how essential this sacrament is to our complete well-being.

In heart and mind let us be reborn -- born anew from above -- as we welcome the Lord's truth and power and love into our souls. Then let us know that that same truth must guide and govern our bodies as well. In body and spirit let us be moved and defined by Christ our Saviour. †

September 22, 2002

In today's Collect for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, we ask the Lord to "always prevent and follow us, and [to] make us continually given to all good works…"

Many of you may wonder why the word "prevent" is found in the prayer at all. Our modern definition for the word is "to keep from, to stop, to preclude, to obviate," etc. But this word has changed substantially since these words were taken up into the service of Archbishop Cranmer's prayer.

To the wise old crafter of the first Book of Common Prayer, this word meant "to come before, to precede, to antecede, to lighten the way." The older connotation derived from two Latin words, "pre" and "venio." Pre means "prior to, in advance of, before." Venio is the Latin word for "to come." Thus the old English Prelate was asking the Lord to come before us. We ask the Lord to come or to go before us, because without Him we cannot know the way.

Of course I am not talking about any old way -- like the way from home to the office or back again, or the way from Monterey to San Francisco. Here we are talking about the spiritual way -- the via. "Via" is another Latin word meaning "the passage, road, way," or "the means, the agent, to power."

You and I pray this day that the Lord will come before us to show the way and enable us to stay on it. He comes before us to reveal the road -- the passage or viaduct -- and he comes before us to provide the means and power to stay on it. Another way to put it is that he is "the way and the truth."

He is the road, and he is the knowledge and wisdom that can tread this path that leads into his Heavenly presence. We ask the Lord both to prevent and to follow us on this Sunday. We ask Him to come before us as our destination, as our way to that place, and as the means by which to arrive there.

We beseech God the Father to come before our minds and spirits; we beseech God the Son to come before us as the way and wisdom through which to find the Father; we beseech God the Holy Spirit to come before us with the power and energy to perform the same.

We ask God to follow us. Here we ask Him to be behind us, moving us towards Him, propelling us onto the road, supporting and strengthening us from behind. We need God before us and behind us -- drawing us into Him and heaving up the rear so that the whole man might be saved. This is what the good Archbishop had in mind when he wrote the prayer many years ago. †

September 29, 2002

"Orthodoxy" means "right opinion." The word comes to us from the Greek roots "ortho" and "doxa." The former word means "right, straight or upright." The latter word means "opinion, judgment or view." Louis Bouyer, a well known (now deceased) French Oratorian monk- theologian tells us that the word "orthodoxy" is "traditionally used in the Church for the profession of the authentic Christian faith as defined and taught by the Church, in contradistinction to heretical or erroneous opinions."

The word "heretical" comes to us from the Greek word "hairesis" which came to mean a personal opinion or choice that varies from the received wisdom and collective truth of the church. A heresy is a willful separation from or opposition to the right-thinking or othodoxy of the church. So a heretical opinion is one at variance with the traditional belief the church.

These days the churches do not tend to use the words "orthodoxy" or "heresy" very much. If we hear the word "orthodoxy" used at all, it refers to the ancient churches or the East. We use the term "Eastern Orthodox" and point to those churches that do not look to Rome for their authority. Instead, we look to the ancient councils and traditional Sees of the Apostolic world for their authority. They claim to be more right-thinking than Rome because they measure their tradition by the collective mind of the Ancient Church -- prior to the emergence of Papal power.

Lately you may have heard the term "orthodox" being used to describe traditionalists or conservatives in our own Anglican Communion. When we say that someone is an "orthodox Anglican," we mean that he is dedicated to the traditional faith as enshrined in the old Books of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of Religion. What we mean is that this kind of Anglican tends to look with suspicion and doubt on those innovations which the Episcopal Churches have embraced in the last twenty-five odd years.

Orthodox Anglicans -- or traditionalists -- tend to regard changes to the doctrine and discipline of the church with doubt. In recent years they have suspected that extreme innovations threaten the church's faithfulness to right-thinking or orthodoxy. Traditionalists fear that certain changes reflect an obedience more to the world than to God's revelation of Himself. They call such innovations not only potentially heretical but also possibly "heterodox."

"Heterodoxy" comes to us, again, from Greek roots. "Hetero" means "other." And so this word, unlike the word "orthodoxy," means other-thinking or deviant-thinking. Traditional Anglicans say that new doctrine may deviate from the Bible and from the traditional interpretation of it. Why is this so wrong?

Well, Orthodox Anglicans believe that we must humbly receive the wisdom of the church, which she has received from God in Scripture. That wisdom has been passed on for centuries and has remained largely unchanged. For two thousand years it has made sinners into saints. Its mode of expression may have changed, but its inherent content has remained the same and has yielded the same effect.

The orthodox fear is that change may send the church into "heresy" and "heterodoxy," and that these conditions may lead into Hell. Hell is life without God or life with a god who is not worth knowing -- one who remarkably resembles man in our own degenerate age. †

October 6, 2002

Many of the ancient classical texts were passed on to posterity orally or by word of mouth. Their authors did not originally write down epic tales, poems, plays and philosophical texts. They became part of the collective imagination by individuals or societies that heard the work, remembered it, and imparted it to others.

For example, a poet (or poets) first told Homer's Iliad and his Odyssey to others, and they in turn passed it on to their children. The epic poems were recited, heard by others, and repeated. Hearing was the sense through which the religious story or epic tale was passed on. Much later in Greek history these epics were written and preserved for reading.

Later in Greek history, the same tradition continued. Plato, for example, wrote nothing, but imparted much to his students and interlocutors who in turn recorded it for others. Aristotle never wrote anything, but his students transcribed his masterful works on nature and God. So most of the works from the "pen" of Aristotle were his thoughts that were "penned" by his students who took notes in his seminar sessions.

Faithful students and conscientious devotees of the masters preserved the philosophical, literary, and religious works of great men like Homer, Plato, and Aristotle for us. The works of these luminaries of Western Thought depend almost wholly on groups of intermediaries who received the teaching from the thinkers themselves or from a tradition that emerged from them. Since the great thinkers did not write for posterity, students interested in their works must trust in or rely upon the efforts of those who heard them and remembered their words.

The same situation holds true for the readers of Holy Scripture. Those who heard the words of the priests, prophets, and kings transcribed much of what is written in the Bible. What is preserved in the sacred texts of our religion is what has been heard, remembered, and recorded by eyewitnesses and followers of great religious men. The life of Moses, his words, and the teachings that he was divinely inspired to communicate to his people were heard and written down for the benefit of others.

The teachings of other prophets, having become a part of a collective religious consciousness, were eventually transcribed and preserved on scrolls. What we call the Bible was first heard, experienced, and then recorded for posterity.

The same holds true for the New Testament. Jesus Christ -- whom we believe to be the Saviour of the world -- did not write anything down. He preached and taught; he lived and died. We know of his life and his works through the observations and memories of others. What the Apostles and Disciples of Christ heard from him and what they observed they committed to memory and then communicated to others.

In some cases the Apostles themselves had the content of their remembrance of Christ written down. In other cases the followers of the Apostles recorded what they had heard of them. At any rate, what we know of Christ and his life comes to us from those who had heard him and seen him and passed on their knowledge to others.

I tell you all of this in order to show that you and I rely upon a kind of faith of which we seldom think. You and I must have a faith in those who followed the priests and prophets and kings. You and I must have confidence in the Apostles and in the church -- which collected their writings -- in order to know Jesus at all.

Between Jesus and us, there is the mediation of those who recorded what they heard and saw. Just as we cannot know Homer, Plato, or Aristotle without their students who passed on what they received, so neither can we know Jesus save through the ears and eyes of the Apostles and Disciples who knew him, retained what they had experienced, and passed it on to us through the church.

As St. Augustine reminds us, "...The truth is that Jesus' followers have accomplished and passed on only what they became acquainted with by the repeated statements of their Head. For all that he was minded to give for our perusal on the subject of His own doings and sayings, He commanded to be written down by his disciples." †

October 13, 2002

Many people in our church use the word "Catholic" when they really mean to say "Roman Catholic." The word "Catholic" comes to us, like so many of our words, from the Greek word "katholicos," and it means "general" or "universal." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church tells us that the word "was first met with in Christian literature in St. Ignatius of Antioch" and "that it has several meanings."

Perhaps the most important meaning of "Catholic" is "universal" as it applies to the faith of the whole church. "Catholic" means that universal faith has been believed "everywhere, always and by all," as the Vicentian Canon defines it.

Anglicans have traditionally used this word to define the articles of belief that were held by the whole church prior to the great split between the East and West in the year 1054. (The first great split in the church came in 1054 when the Pope of Rome excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the latter responded in kind. The next real split came with Martin Luther and was followed by the reforms of Calvin and then those of the Church of England.)

You will remember that the word "Catholic" is used in the Creeds when, for example, we say, "I believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church." "Catholic" refers to the mark of a true church or an ecclesiastical body that embraces the orthodox doctrines that have been handed down since before the great split of 1054. Thus "Catholic" means the "orthodox faith" as opposed to heterodox or heretical beliefs that have been embraced by some churches in opposition to ancient custom.

For our purposes, I think that it is useful to use the word "Catholic" to define our faith and practice. Our faith and practice are embodied in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. That book faithfully passes on the ancient beliefs and doctrines of the church in thought, word and deed. In the liturgy we pass on the historical and continuous tradition of the Catholic Church. So though we are denominationally Episcopalians, we are really first Christians and then Catholics.

Our faith is found in the person of Jesus Christ, who unites us to the Father through the workings of the Holy Ghost. The implications of all that has been recorded about Jesus are worked out in a history of doctrine and discipline that we call the Catholic Religion. The mind of the Church has studied Scripture, formulated doctrine, and passed on a tradition to us.

God expects us to remain faithful to the Catholic Religion and to avoid the temptations to heterodoxy and heresy. Before we call ourselves members of a particular denomination, let us think about what it means to be Catholic Christians. If we think about the Catholic Faith more deeply we might even begin to appreciate the old Prayer Book as something more than a monument to dead Shintos or ancestor worshipers. The Prayer Book gives us the Catholic Religion in prayer and practice. Let us use it thoughtfully and thankfully. †

October 20, 2002

"I believe in…the Holy Catholic Church."

The Divinity that was at work within the humanity of Christ in His earthly mission, is the same Divinity that wishes to enliven and transform the humanity of His new body -- the church. In the Holy Ghost, Christ descends to us in "spirit and in truth." The Holy Ghost descends into visible, tangible, earthly reality and promises to quicken and convert it to God's higher purposes.

The Spirit descends into the heart of each individual who earnestly desires the saving truth of Christ Jesus. Yet Christ descends into a larger body. He comes into a body large enough to reflect and image the multifarious powers and virtues that He receives from the Father. In His descent He desires to pass this on to His church.

Christ who has won the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil takes His place in Heaven as the Mind and Mover of a new entity. And He promises to do infinitely more through a new body that He considers to be of greater spiritual potency than the flesh that He took on during his earthly visitation.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father." (St. John xiv. 12) This body through which Christ wishes to do infinitely more than He has already done is the Holy Catholic Church. That holy church knows and can say "the Lord hath done great things for us already." Yet inspired by His truth, the church knows that He will do even greater things also.

The Holy Catholic Church was founded on Pentecost and lives on today. It has undergone many alterations, is divided into denominations, and does not appear to be a single entity.

As Anglicans, it is best to locate those characteristics that define the church and unite Christians under Christ as their head. In our own day, when we too often despair of the church's departure from the teaching of Christ, we can do no better than to remember what the church is meant to be. Once again we -- here and there in our own little places -- can begin to re-embrace those truths that will reinvigorate the Body of Christ in many ways.

If we -- those who seek to remain faithful to Christ -- do not begin again to contemplate what the Lord expects of us as individuals in our local Christian communities, we shall not be able to re-convert the larger church and the nations of the world to God's truth. After all, the Holy Catholic Church began in an upper room with eleven men. The first church was truly small, but by reason of its steadfast faith and witness, it grew as the mind of Christ and followed the blessed steps of His most holy life. †

October 27, 2002

Following His Ascension, Christ intended to infuse His new body -- the church -- with the love, wisdom and power that He had received from the Father. What He received from the Father enabled Christ to conquer sin, death and Satan.

He likened His newly founded church to a plant: He said to his Apostles, "I am the vine and ye are the branches. He that abideth in men, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."

Christ created the new organism to be a community of individuals, whose faith would shoot out, bud, flower and yield fruit from Christ -- the spiritual source of its vitality. The church was called to abide in Christ, and He abiding in it would implant Divine knowledge -- generating all manner of spiritual virtue and moving it into deeper dependence and intimacy with the life of God the Father.

The church was called to "continue in [Christ's] word," that its members would be "his disciples indeed," His truth making "them free" forever. (St. John viii. 31) Members who loved one another reciprocally would make up the church. "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples." (St. John xiii. 34)

The love bestowed upon the church by Christ through the Holy Ghost was meant to be sacrificial -- with each member of the church upholding and strengthening the other in prayerful burden- bearing. The source and wellspring of the love was Christ -- who was now present in His church by the Holy Ghost. As the head of this new body, Christ promised that the Spirit would animate and govern His members.

The love imparted to the church by Christ was united to the wisdom that He received from the Father. He said to his church "If ye love me, keep my commandments…and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself unto him." (St. John xiv. 15…21)

Jesus is the truth, and if the church truly loved her master she would live in Him. The love of the church for her Master would be shown in the reception of His commandments and teaching. Christ -- the head of the church -- desired to infuse His new body with that same love and passion to do the will of the Father who ecstasized Him. †

November 3, 2002

Christ's new body was called to be set apart and different than the other entities that characterized community life on earth. The church was to be holy, separate and unique by reason of its effective dependence upon the living presence of the Father, received by the Son and passed on to it through the Holy Ghost.

The holy church was to be a sacred community -- an ecclesia or an assembly -- summoned by God to meditate upon the mysteries of unifying Incarnation and to formulate doctrine enacted in rites based upon the same.

As Charles Williams said, "Our Lord [the Messiah] had vanished in the flesh; [yet] our Lord the Spirit expressed himself towards the flesh and spirit of the disciples." The inner and invisible point of the church's timeless adhesion to Christ was to be enacted outwardly and visibly along the lines of successive steps in time.

The church was to be grounded in Christ's changeless wisdom and then to express its knowledge in habits that would reveal the content of her Vision. As Christ's outward and visible life was a manifestation of what He had seen of the Father, so the church's external life was to reflect its deep unity with Christ. Christ was united to the Father, and intended to pass that reality along to His followers in the church.

Such an institution -- if faithful to her head -- could not help but stand apart from all other earthly institutions, for it claimed as its immanent power the infusion of God's direct governance and rule.

In the church and through the Apostles, the one who had been set apart at naught by reason of His unique openness to the Father's will and presence would now generate a new body that was called to imitate His unrivalled and distinct relationship to God. The holiness of Christ was to be imparted to men, that they might be made partakers of the Father's life.

The first church was called not to be of the world, but for it. Its holiness depended upon the continual infusion of Divine Grace; its humble submission to the will of God in Christ would introduce the same holiness to the nations of the earth. †

November 10, 2002

Christ's new body, the Holy Church, was called upon to be holy and sanctified and yet also to be Catholic. A church filled with true holiness and sanctity would be outward facing -- extending the good news of the Incarnation to all men. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (St. Matthew 28: 19, 20)

Christ intended that His love and wisdom should move the soul of the church, and that they should also impel it to outwardly and visibly extend the revealed secrets of God's life to the whole world. What was now believed and embraced invisibly in the spirit of the church was to touch and heal the whole world -- communicated first in the visible world.

Catholic means "universal" or "general." It generally refers to the faith and doctrine of the whole church, or as "what has been believed everywhere, always and by everyone" (Vicentian Canon). Even prior to the realization of those missionary endeavors that spread Christ's truth to the nations, the church began to be Catholic at the time of Pentecost.

Charles Williams reminds us that "the Spirit also had his epiphany to the farther world...Before ever the official missions began, the dispersed thousands who on that day had caught something of the vision and heard something of the doctrine, and had even some of them been convinced by vision and doctrine to submit to the Rite, to baptism, had returned to their own land, if not as missionaries yet as witnesses."

Catholicism is realization of the Divine intention for the universal communication of God's saving Grace to the world. It began to come alive in the witness of Apostles whose ecstatic union with Christ through the Spirit issued forth in diverse tongues and languages.

The reality of God's purposes was affected through those who spoke not only to Jews, but also to Gentiles, Libyans, Medes, Cyrenians and Arabians. God's salvific presence in the world and first offered to the Jews by Christ was meant for the whole of the world. His new body would be Catholic -- universally open to the participation of those who had never heard of Christ, and perhaps not even of God. The hidden mysteries of God -- revealed through Jesus' visitation -- would be offered not only as teaching, but also as true life itself.

"Baptize all nations," the Messiah said. He meant: "Incorporate them into the life that I receive from the Father and give to you in the Holy Ghost." The church was called upon to be Catholic -- opening its body to as many new members as would seek intimate coinherence with God the Father. †

The Saint John's Messenger: 2002, cont.