St John's Chapel

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

February 6, 2005

In the Epistle reading for today, St. Paul teaches us about the true nature of the theological virtue of charity. Modern people tend to think of benevolence or philanthropy when they hear the word. Charity tends to be associated with material giving that is above and beyond what the government does.

But the word charity comes to us from the Latin, caritas, which in the Christian context, means affection, love, and esteem. Prior to the Christianization of the word, charity in Latin meant something a bit different. It referred to that which was dear, costly, expensive, or precious.

To the men and women of Jesus' time, the word referred to something that was hard to come by, and when attained, be treasured and valued above many other things. Caritas was a virtue of supreme importance to early Christians, and its perfect expression was found in the life and mission of Jesus Christ.

Caritas meant love and mercy of God that was embodied in the activity of the Incarnation. Caritas was revealed to men through Jesus as the costly love, the precious mercy, the dear sacrifice that God made for man in order to reveal the Father's desire for all men's salvation.

For St. Paul, caritas or charity was a virtue that was perfectly expressed in the life of Jesus and then promised to men as a habit which ought to move and define each Christian's spiritual journey. Without charity, our conversation is meaningless noise and pointless chatter. Without charity, all gifts of knowledge, prophesy, and understanding fall on deaf ears because they are not communicated to others with love and in love. Without charity, good deeds, alms' giving, and donations are expressions of self-promotion -- or "nothing."

The charity of the Father, expressed through the Son and ours through the Spirit, suffers much and is kind to others. It is not green with envy and jealous. It is not driven by an undeveloped, immature adolescent need to puff itself up or try to convince others that it is knowledgeable or important when it is not. It does not gossip or think evil of others. It does not rejoice in others' sufferings or failings. It bears others' burdens and rejoices in the truth.

Charity is essential for salvation. It is God's to give. He offers to impart it to us through Jesus and by the Spirit. If we will not receive it, we will not enter into his everlasting and satisfying presence. Faith and hope will fade away; they are temporary virtues that will be replaced by knowledge and friendship with God.

Charity is the virtue that moves all worlds from the center of reality, which is God's heart. Charity is a necessary means to our end. If we do not put it on, we shall live in a world bereft of its presence. And that is called Hell. ?

February 13, 2005

When we fast and abstain during the holy season of Lent, we do so in order to open up our minds and bodies to the more regular and habitual presence of Christ in our lives. Lent is a time when we ask the Lord "to give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit" we may obey Him always, follow the movements of His will, and embrace His love.

During Lent we put aside diversions, distractions, and occupations that tend to deplete our spiritual energy and concentration. We pray that holy desire and longing for God's presence increase within us. Fasting is an exercise in cleansing. Before holy desire or spiritual longing grow, we must be emptied of the many vices and bad habits that define our lives.

St. Augustine puts it this way: "The exercise of fasting will be effective only to the extent that we free ourselves from the desires leading to infatuation with this world. Let me return to the example that I have already used, of filling an empty container. God means to fill each of you with what is good; so cast out what is bad! If he wishes to fill you with honey and you are full of sour wine, where is the honey to go? The vessel must be emptied of its contents and then be cleansed."

The problem is that, by nature, we do not tend to want to rely on anyone or anything outside of ourselves. We do not want to be emptied in order to be then filled. The Credo of post-Christian America seems to be that we can make it on our own, by our efforts, pursuing our own desires. We are so "full of ourselves" that we ignore the need for self-emptying and God-filling.

Self-fulfillment and self-maintenance seem to prevail in people's lives. But this is delusional and fatal to the intentions that God has for us. As C.S. Lewis says, "God made us, invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other."

We need God because He is fuel and energy that makes the human machine run at its best. We cannot be filled by the Holy Spirit until we know that relying on our own energy means that we are running on empty. That is the point of the fast. †

February 27, 2005

"Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that thou hast sucked." This salutation offered to Jesus by those listening to His wisdom in today's Gospel lesson has long been a source of puzzlement due to the Lord's response to it. Jesus replies, "Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it."

Some commentators have suggested that Jesus' statement is proof that Christians are not meant to worship or adore the Blessed Virgin Mary. Their criticism would be leveled by the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, who, though technically neither worship nor adore the Blessed Mother, do venerate her and ask for her prayers and intercession. And they use another of Jesus' statements: "Who is mother and who are my brethren?" to arrive at the same conclusion.

However, I think that Jesus is trying to convey a far deeper meaning without offending His mother. His mother, after all, is the only human being who has ever lent her humanity to God's divinity in the womb. Think about it. The Blessed Virgin Mary gives birth to that Being who is both God and man and the Saviour of the world. Her role is essential to salvation, and her place must be revered above all others.

Her humility, obedience, faith, and charity enabled her to be the holy conduit through which our Lord came to this world. She is definitely not "just any other woman" as some have suggested. Jesus derives His human nature from her just as His divinity is begotten of God the Father. She is unique and worthy of our deepest respect and honour.

But Jesus wants us to take this historical reality a step further. For just as Mary "heard God's word and kept it" literally in her womb for nine months, and then in her heart through anguish, suffering, and sadness, we are to do the same spiritually. The Blessed Virgin is a model for our spirituality both individually and as a church. Like her, we are to put on humility, obedience, faith, and charity.

As God's word grew in her soul and body, it must also grow in ours. As she suffered through the unfair death of her only and very young Son, so too must we. The "sword" that pierced through her Son's body, cut through her soul, must slice through ours also. She gave birth to beauty, love, and truth, and that Being died for her and for us.

"Who are my mother and my brethren?" Jesus asks. His Blessed Mother, His disciples, you and I. Anyone who puts on Mary's spirit must suffer to give birth to a love that rises up out of death and breathes new joy and hope into human life. Let us look to Mary and offer the salutation of the angel: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." Let us imitate her holy example. If we do, we, like her, shall be with Jesus forever. †

March 13, 2005

We are fast approaching the end of the Lenten season. This Sunday marks the commencement of Passiontide, a time in which we begin to draw nearer to the meaning of the Cross. Throughout Lent we have been striving to open our hearts and souls to the powerful love that comes to us in the life and witness of Jesus.

At the beginning of Lent we saw how perfectly united Christ is to His Father's will and way. We witnessed His refusal to be deterred by the devil from His preordained vocation. His love for His Father was so intense that nothing could shake Him from its liberating grip.

Later we saw that Christ's vocation opened His healing heart to the alien Canaanite woman and also to curs and dogs like us. We learned that Christ mercifully responds to persistent prayer and supplication, no matter how far down into the hell of separation from God a person sinks.

Christ desires to confront man's lowliness with His Father's elevating strength. Christ likens His love and power to that of a mighty warrior who desires to overcome man's trust in himself and his confidence in human effort. Christ offers the freeing power of His love to us, not that just one familiar demon might be exorcised, but also many others that try gain entry into a man's life might find the door closed.

Christ's love, if accepted, is sufficiently strong to cast out Satan and his assistants. Last week we learned that when the love of Christ is welcomed, it is found to be surprisingly adequate to feed the souls of many who must collectively derive nourishment from Christ's strength and wisdom.

Today Christ brings our experience of His love back to its source and origin. What He gives to us, He receives. He is nothing but what the Father makes Him. Like a vessel which has been drained of its own contents, Christ is what is poured into Him from the Father. He is the container of God's love, power, and strength.

He did not come into the world to honour himself. He is what His Father does in and through Him. If honour is present, it is the Father who honours and blesses His Son by interring into Him and issuing forth to others through the activities of His life.

Christ shows us that true love and its extension to others comes to us from God the Father. Love is not a kind of self-derived energy. Love in its pristine form is pure gift. God the Father gives it to His Son. His Son, in turn, gives it to us. It is received, and then it is passed on. Only the selfless can truly conduct it into the world. As we move to the Cross we shall see, I hope, just how sacrificial it really is. It is not just about Christ's "in-

Godding," but is also about His "in-manning."

April 24, 2005

Habemus Papam are the Latin words uttered by Chilean Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez, the most senior Cardinal eligible to vote, and they mean "We have a Pope." The "we" he was talking about was the body of the Roman Catholic Church. But more significantly, I think that all Christians have a Pope, perhaps in a way that has never before been acknowledged. The election of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger to be Pope Benedict XVI may affect us more deeply than might be imagined.

Pope Benedict XVI spent years as a professor, scholar and servant of Christ. He is German, Bavarian, and was the Archbishop of Munich before being called to Rome to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. (This particular body within the Roman Church used to be the Office of the Inquisition.) In this role, Cardinal Ratzinger was the guardian and custodian of the orthodox faith and teaching of the Church.

Due to his steadfast commitment to that tradition, he was hated and derided by many post-modern "a la carte" Catholics and Christians who wanted the faith altered to affirm their lifestyles. The Church must never alter its received wisdom and truth for the sake of man's comfort. The new Pope knows this and has suffered for it. He is passionately committed to the unique incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and to all the truth and love that flow from it into the lives of men.

Benedict XVI knows that once the faith is diluted to accommodate the feelings and fads of human beings, then God disappears, and the relationship is one between the self and the self. The self that needs saving becomes a sterile being that is bent merely on its own conservation and comfort. The faith becomes "what works for me."

Benedict's trials as preserver of the Church's doctrine place him in good company with traditionalists like us. He is fighting to preserve the Church's teaching of the truth in order that men might be opened to its vast beauty, its liberating power, and its gracious invitation to redemption. He is not an innovator or a creator, but a receiver and conduit of what God the Holy Trinity imparts to his human creation.

Pope Benedict knows that all of the separated churches have elements of faithfulness that strive to live, breathe, and grow in the face of much opposition from the enemy. I believe that he will try to bring us all together in order to live in closer unity and cooperation for the Good Lord. Faithful Christians in all churches are being attacked by anarchic relativism. We have a friend in Benedict, and also a mind that will challenge the enemy! †

May 1, 2005

"Being incapable of acknowledging guilt is the most dangerous form of spiritually arrested development one can imagine, because this in particular makes people incapable of improvement." -- Benedict XVI

I was asked recently if there were any modern Anglicans, clerical or other, who might lend us aid in our journey forward spiritually. The question is a good one because we do seek to find strength from our own tradition as we acknowledge the fact that the Anglican Communion has lost its center of spiritual gravity and stability.

I answered that there were a few shining lights and bright beacons, but they were largely laymen and not clergy. One only has to think of T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, and Charles Williams. On the side of the clergy, however, we are hard pressed to find those who have not in some way contributed to the modern demise and disintegration of Anglicanism.

In England there was Austin Farrer -- a friend and fellow traveler of the laymen I mentioned. Sadly, he had few disciples and did not make much of a dent on the theology and spirituality of the Church of England. Other than Austin Farrer in England, there was not a single priestly intellect or theologian who amounted to anything on this side of the pond. Oh yes, there were "conservatives," but their children did not go to church and largely imbibed the draft of cultural relativism.

So I have been introducing some of the thoughts of a living, orthodox bishop, namely the former Cardinal Ratzinger, in order to inspire us in our present troubles. The quote at the beginning of this article could have come directly from the meditations and prayers of Lancelot Andrewes, the 17th century old saintly Bishop of Winchester and one of Anglicanism's unsung heroes. But I have included the quote because we need to hear it from a living bishop or shepherd of Christ's flock.

The fact that we are separated brethren -- Benedict leading the Church of Rome and we as a part of whatever we might call ourselves now -- is not pertinent. Spiritually, we are united to those who walk by our side and guide us towards the Kingdom of the Saviour. We need to be inspired by living elders as well as the dead in our journey. We need to have Christ mature in the flesh because we are weak.

Today Benedict teaches us that we must be willing to acknowledge our guilt, our sins, and our failure to follow God. Only then can we hope to be filled with God's forgiveness and love. Benedict said it recently; Andrewes said it long ago. They are part of the same project and cut from the same cloth. The cloth is the rent and torn garment of humanity.

The cloth is sullied and dirtied by pretension, pride, and vain-glory. Andrewes knew it in the 17th century, and Benedict knows it today. Andrewes prayed for forgiveness and redemption as Benedict does today. One was an Anglican, and the other is a Roman Catholic. Both have taken on the burden of truth and offer of salvation in order to help us know and experience the presence of Jesus. With them, we all must "acknowledge our guilt" in order to be "capable of improvement." †

May 8, 2005

The other evening I encountered an Episcopalian, who like most members of this ecclesial body, asserted that the church really was meant to be nothing more than the coming together of individuals for the purpose of community and fellowship. The idea is not a new one, and probably a frightening number of churchgoers share this view.

It is usual for people to congregate together to be with old friends in familiar places that have marked the milestones of their lives. According to this view, the church is one of many social centers that bring people together to produce happiness.

As most of you know, this view cannot be deduced from Holy Scripture as the Church's primary meaning or purpose. The historical Church that issues forth out of the Apostolic community was not created as an ancient precursor to the Ladies' Bridge Club or the Kiwanis. Rather the body or ecclesia that was spiritually generated by the descending dove at Pentecost was called to be the new body or earthly essence of Jesus Christ.

In and through this new body of Christ, all men and women are called to transformation, conversion, and new life by the ever-living presence of Jesus Christ in His world. The Church is the entity or organism that calls together human beings who desire to experience crucifixion to sin and resurrection to new life, or who desire truth.

Christ, ascended as ruler and head of His new body, makes this possible through the Holy Sacraments. The eternally victorious Christ infuses His body with power from on high, that it may be ultimately reconciled to God the Father. Christ lives in His new body, animates it, and carries it into Heaven.

The Russian Orthodox Father Georges Florovsky puts it nicely when he says, "In the life and existence of the Church time is mysteriously overcome and mastered, time, so to speak, stands still. It stands still not only because of the power of historical memory, or of imagination, which can 'fly over the double barrier of time and space;' it stands still, because of the power of grace, which gathers together in catholic community of life that which had been separated by walls built in the course of time. The Church is the living image of eternity within time."

The Church is the body of Christ, the essence of His presence in the here and now, migrating back to its center. †

May 15, 2005

Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost or Whitsunday. The latter term is an old English appellation that means White-Sunday -- a designation deriving from the fact that Pentecost was a time for Baptisms in Holy Church. White is the colour of new-birth or new pureness that comes with the descent of the Holy Ghost upon nascent believers.

This might seem a bit confusing, since the Celebrant wears red vestments on Whitsunday. The red signifies the cloven tongues of fire that touch and then infuse the heads and hearts of the Apostles. On Pentecost, the Apostles and all future Christians are made pure by the fire of God's love and the inextinguishable blaze of His wisdom.

Pentecost or Whitsunday is all about what Charles Williams called the "Descent of the Dove." It follows our Lord's body/spirit ascension back to the source of all reality and new life. Christ told His Apostles that it "was expedient that he should go away … so that the Comforter might come."

Christ departs and returns to the Father. Christ and the Father together return and take up residence in their new body, the Church. They revisit the earth in the one Spirit that they share, descending in a spray of cloven tongues of fire, one love dividing and multiplying to ignite the faith of each Apostle.

Our Lord has ascended, and now He descends. He has traversed the vertical plane back to Heaven, and now He travels down and out into and along the lines of time. A new cross defines the contours of the world's knowledge and experience.

In the departure and return of the Lord, finite human nature -- dwelling under severe limitations and fearing separation from God -- is transformed and transfigured. Christ has taken our humanity back to the Father. Christ, in the Holy Spirit, brings the Father's divinity into the human realm. Man is lifted up to God. God comes down to man. Two worlds become one.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar, commenting upon this reality, says this: "God's revelation of himself ... means the transporting of man from his own immanent and finite sphere into the divine, transcendental, and infinite sphere, an experience such as is portrayed, for instance, by the well known Renaissance wood-cut which shows a man piercing the sphere of the world with his head and gaping with astonishment at the mysteries beyond the world."

Christ opens a window into eternity and carries us into the Father's presence. Christ descends into us through the Holy Spirit and enables us to share and communicate this vision of beauty and truth to the world. By the Holy Spirit we impart the vision of God's glory in our thoughts, words and works so that the vertical and horizontal cross of reality might become the center of man's desire and action.

Our Ascension with Christ to the place where true joys are found opens us to the descending fire of God's love that is to be shared in communion through the breaking of bread and the preaching of the Apostles. †

May 22, 2005

In recent years the churches of Christendom have dropped Trinitytide as a liturgical season. It was thought that the largest period of the spiritual year should reflect the festival of Pentecost rather than the Trinity. The argument in the past was the Church focused too much on doctrine rather than sanctification or holiness. Theology or the teaching of the Church had overshadowed the real meaning of life in Christ, which was the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world and in the hearts of men.

There is always a danger that doctrine or dogma can overshadow the need for its real presence in the souls of human beings. Rules and regulations that are not desired and embraced as vehicles of liberty and freedom remain cold and arid formularies that stand on the outside of human life.

Perhaps in the past few hundred years, the Church had focused too much on the exact details of what she believed over and against the process of participation in them. Perhaps doctrine was a kind of authority that was never really conveyed as a means to living in and through God.

But if this is true, it is now equally true that the churches have gone a good distance away from doctrine and discipline. The Holy Spirit of Pentecost, who descended upon the Apostles and desires to do the same at all times and in all places, seems to have been replaced with a kind of generic spirit that suffered separation from the Father and the Son -- or from the Holy Trinity.

The spirit that has been at work in the churches of the West seems more often than not to be indistinguishable from the spirit of the age. In the past thirty years a new wind or breeze has blown about and into the doors of the Lord's sanctuaries.

It has been characterized by a kind of relaxation vis a vis moral teaching and spiritual instruction. It has been called freedom or emancipation. It has remained unaccountable to the communicated wisdom of God as found in Scripture and tradition. It has smacked of feeling rather than reason, emotion rather than studied prudence. As a result, the new season of Pentecost has introduced a spirit into the Church that is neither holy nor related to the Father and the Son.

For many of us this is a very dangerous development. Our lives as Christians depend upon the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as those relational persons of one essence that alone can save and transform our fallen human condition. The spirit of the age is precisely that from which our Lord the Trinity desires to save us! We don't need that spirit blowing about the Church and mistaken for what God calls holy. †

May 29, 2005

Here are some reflections on today's Epistle given to us by St. Augustine of Hippo, Father of the Holy Church (354-430): For it is even this Holy Spirit, whom the bad cannot receive, even He is that Fountain of which the Scripture saith, "Let the fountain of thy water be thine own, and let no stranger partake with thee."

For all who love not God, are strangers, are antichrists. And though they come to the churches, they cannot be numbered among the children of God; not to them belongeth that Fountain of life. To have baptism is possible even for a bad man; to have prophecy is possible even for a bad man. We find that king Saul had prophecy: he was persecuting holy David, yet was he filled with the spirit of prophecy, and began to prophesy.

To receive the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord is possible even for a bad man: for of such it is said, "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself." To have the name of Christ is possible even for a bad man; i.e. even a bad man can be called a Christian: as they of whom it is said, "They polluted the name of their God."

I say, to have all these sacraments is possible even for a bad man; but to have charity, and to be a bad man, is not possible. This then is the peculiar gift, this the "Fountain" that is singly one's "own." To drink of this the Spirit of God exhorteth you, to drink of Himself the Spirit of God exhorteth you.

As the blessed Saint reminds us, it is possible to come to church, call oneself a Christian, eat the Lord's Body and drink his Blood, and yet not to have charity or love. Charity is a gift that comes to us through the Holy Spirit. We can have it only if we first receive it, in humility, from God.

We are able to love God (and others) only because He first loved us. Love is from God. Indeed it is synonymous with His being and essence. The nature of God is love in addition to wisdom and power. He desires to give it to all human beings. Why? Because it is what He is. Through it, He creates, forgives, and redeems. God is love.

As in St. Augustine's day, in our own time there are nominal Christians who betray no sense of an encounter with God's converting love. They come to church, they tell you that they have been saved, they profess to know Jesus. But have they ever attempted to receive the love of God into their hearts? They talk about others, judge others, and then have the nerve to take from them.

If and when they give anything, they do talk about it and themselves. They can offer nothing of any real spiritual value because they have not taken the time to see God's eternally approaching and salvific love.

People like this are, as St. Augustine reminds us, bad. Like Satan they know God but clearly have never been touched by the dynamism of His charity. To be sure, everyone is bad or fallen as a sinful creature. But clearly these individuals have not even tried to accept God's love. As Eliot said, "It's all in the trying." †

June 5, 2005

What is it all about? The explanations in response to the question about what happens when the Holy Communion is celebrated in various Christian churches have historically been a divisive issue. The answers provided by various theologians over the centuries have sparked hot debates. Perhaps the fieriest disputes about this topic were found at the time of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, a period extending from 1500-1600.

At that time, various European communities began to take issue with the Western Church's (later to be known as the Roman Catholic Church) view on the Eucharist. Men like Martin Luther in Germany, John Calvin in Geneva, Ulrich Zwingi in Zurich, and Thomas Cranmer in England all challenged the dominant Western Church's teaching regarding the mechanics of the Holy Communion.

The view that they challenged was known as "transubstantiation." In a nutshell, this teaching maintained that when the Celebrant said the words "this is my Body ... this is my Blood," the bread and the wine were literally changed into the body and blood of Christ. The teaching was most fully expounded by Thomas Aquinas and soon became the Church's explanation for what the Eucharist was all about.

The Reformers, for a variety of reasons, challenged the logic and saw an over-definition of the matter at hand. They were mostly concerned that there was too much focus on material mechanics and not enough attention paid to the spiritual purpose of the Eucharist. They were reacting to popular superstitions that had arisen surrounding it, one of which tended to regard the Holy Communion as a kind of magic show in which human beings would be miraculously transformed.

There is good reason to believe that many of the Reformers did not really understand Thomas Aquinas' theory. (Who does?) But they were right in recalling their congregations to the real meaning and purpose of the Holy Communion. What they insisted upon was the idea that Christ instituted the Eucharist in order to convert or change people, not the bread and wine.

They affirmed the belief that Christ is truly present in the Holy Communion in a spiritual manner. The bread and wine are like the earthly or human nature of Christ. His spiritual body and blood are conjoined to them as His divine and human nature when He walked the face of the earth.

The important point is that by ingesting the Holy Communion we become one with Christ, in spirit and in truth. The true conversion that is meant to take place is within us. We are meant to change from sinners into saints by partaking of Christ's divine essence, His body and His blood. His real presence is offered to us in order to change us. †

June 12, 2005

Last week we began to examine the nature and meaning of Holy Communion. We learned that the Reformers sought to awaken the collective spiritual consciousness of the Christian Church to the real point of the Eucharist. They fought against an overly mechanical definition of what happens and sought to convey the mysterious movement of God to the human soul through the Sacrament. Their point was to show that through the real activity of God's presence through the Eucharist, human beings are continually sanctified or made holy.

There is always a tension that must be admitted in the relationship between God and man in the Sacraments. On the one hand, Christ Jesus promises to be with us and in us when we break bread and share the common cup. He intends to move into our souls and establish His presence in our lives. God desires always and in many ways to unite Himself to us. In the Sacrament, He does so in a particular way. He does so through Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son and our Lord.

Jesus Christ is the unity of heaven and earth, of God and man. He is "very God and very Man." In Christ and through Him, we find our unity with God the Father. The sure way to be joined to Him is through the means that He established at the Last Supper. The Last Supper became the first mystical meal of a new reality that Christ would offer to the world.

The other side of our unity with God through the Holy Communion involves our response to His offer to be with us and in us. The logical enactment of this response and desire is found in the service itself. The Holy Communion service is the verbalization of the church's inner process of conversion that leads to receiving Christ in the Eucharist. Through the unfolding drama of the liturgy, the Church humbly prepares to know and to receive the Lord Jesus. †

June 19, 2005

The nature of the Holy Communion or Eucharist is also called "Mass." This term derives from the Latin word, "missa," which means "dismissal" and relates to the Church's mission to convert the world. Whatever term is used, the Holy Communion was instituted by Christ in order to ensure that the members of His new body, the Church, would be nourished and fed by His wisdom, love, and power. These three divine attributes comprise the essence of His being. He desires to impart His being into us that alone can pilot us into heaven.

In his "Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," Richard Hooker says, "The grace which we have by the Holy Eucharist does not begin but continues life. No man receives the Sacrament before Baptism, because no dead thing is capable of nourishment." Prior to Holy Baptism, human beings are spiritually dead. They are in need of being born again and born from above.

Remember Christ's words to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," and "Except a man be born of water and the Sprit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Prior to Holy Baptism, man tends only towards death and lifeless possibilities. With Baptism, man is made regenerate and capable of new being in Jesus Christ.

This new life, conferred upon souls through Baptism, is in need of sustenance and nourishment. As Hooker says, "Our spiritual being is daily so much hindered and impaired after Baptism," that we need to "eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood." Otherwise our new life is not strengthened, augmented in grace, and carried away from the devil's determination to extinguish the effects of Holy Baptism.

True and new life is the end of man. The foundation of new life is laid in the administration of Holy Baptism. The continuance and perpetuation of that new life is ensured through the Lord's offering of His body and blood and our faithful reception of it. Without the regular diet of the Lord's body and blood, we will be left hungry and will tend towards spiritual death.

Richard Hooker writes, "In the Eucharist we so receive the gift of God, that we know by grace what the grace is that God gives us. We know the degrees of our own increase in holiness and virtue, and we see and can judge of them. We understand that the strength of our new life in Christ is Christ, and that his flesh is meat and his blood is drink, not by surmised imagination, but truly, even so truly, that through faith we perceive in the body and blood sacramentally presented the very taste of eternal life." †

The Saint John's Messenger: 2005