Palm Sunday at Saint Barnabas 2010

Holy Week and Easter Week 2010

Saint Barnabas Anglican Church
4795 North Peachtree Road
Dunwoody, Georgia 30338
770.
457.
1103







Saturday 27th March
Workshop for Making Palm Crosses, 10am

Palm Sunday, 28th March
Holy Communion with the Blessing and Distribution of Palms, 9am and 11am

Monday in Holy Week, 29th March, Tuesday in Holy Week, 30th March and Spy Wednesday, 31st March
Holy Communion, Noon

Maundy Thursday, 1st April
Holy Communion at Noon
Holy Communion with the Stripping of the Altar and Watch before the Altar of Repose, 7pm (Incense)

Good Friday, 2nd April
Morning Prayer, Litany and Holy Communion from the Reserved Sacrament, 9.30am (Incense)
The Three Hours' Devotion, Noon to 3pm
Stations of the Cross, 3pm
Sacramental Confessions, 4pm to 6pm
Tenebrae Service, 7pm

Holy Saturday, 3rd April
Easter Egg Hunt, 11am
Easter Flower Ministry, 9am to 3pm
Sacramental Confessions, 1pm to 2pm
Holy Communion of the Easter Vigil, 8pm (Incense)

Easter Day, 4th April
Holy Communion, 9am and 11am

Easter Monday, 5th April, Easter Tuesday, 6th April and Easter Wednesday, 7th April
Holy Communion, Noon

Easter Thursday, 8th April
Holy Communion, 7pm

Easter Friday, 9th April and Easter Saturday, 10th April
Holy Communion, Noon

Kosher for Lent?

On a totally unrelated subject to the Lenten season... or is it? We today obtained one of my favourite things from the grocery store, not exactly a good Lenten discipline, Kosher Coca-Cola, made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. I have been drinking Coke practically since birth (I am a Southerner after all) and I especially love the old formula consisting of real sugar, which today is found only in Kosher Coke and Mexican Coke (available in the international food section of local stores here in Atlanta). So if you love Coke, real Coke, find the Passover section at your local store and indulge - Kosher Coke is only available for a limited time right now before and during Passover, and is identified by the yellow cap with Hebrew printing on it.

And because my boys are currently fascinated with the story of Holy Week and Easter, and of the Old Testament types of Moses, Passover and the Exodus, we picked up matzos as well. We have discovered matzo is a wonderful teaching tool for instructing little children about the Passover, and its fulfilment in Our Blessed Lord and the Holy Eucharist.

Artificial Contraception

Dear N.,

Thank you so very much for the article on artificial contraception and its reference to the infamous 1930 Lambeth Conference, which was the first ecclesiastical congress or body in modern history to authorise the use of artificial contraception - within the bonds of Holy Matrimony of course. But nevertheless, the Lambeth declaration was the first statement of any Church, and certainly of any branch of the Apostolic Catholic Church, which at that time the entire Anglican Communion certainly was, to permit the use of 'birth control.' The controversy of that decision is still felt acutely today, and the moral and social consequences have been manifest for all to see, as the statement eventually, directly or indirectly, gave rise to the widespread use of artificial contraception (and abortion) throughout Western societies, causing populations to plummet and unleashing a new era of selective sex and reproductive technologies. Some even draw a connexion between 'birth control' and the modern eugenics movement promulgated by certain well-known abortion and contraception advocacy groups.

Your question about the Continuing Churches and artificial contraception is a profound and delicate one, and certainly complex. I would state as a matter of fact that the Continuing Anglican Churches have no official doctrine or moral teaching on the liceity or impermissibility of the use of artificial contraception, and are very much like the Eastern Orthodox Churches, which do not expressly forbid the use of 'birth control,' but allow the use of it to married couples under the direction, guidance and counsel of a spiritual father and confessor. Only rarely would our own people seek spiritual direction on this subject. The closest statement we have to anything directly related to artificial contraception is the Affirmation of Saint Louis (1977), which does affirm the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death, and which explicitly condemns abortion: Every human being, from the time of his conception, is a creature and child of God, made in His image and likeness, an infinitely precious soul; the unjustifiable or inexcusable taking of life is always sinful. and this - The God-given sacramental bond in marriage between one man and one woman is God's loving provision for procreation and family life, and sexual activity is to be practiced only within the bonds of Holy Matrimony. These teachings are dogmatic and binding for orthodox Anglicanism, and I believe we should use them to draw from them the proper moral inferences regarding such questions as artificial contraception and modern fertilisation technologies.

My personal view, and it is my view representing my own understanding of and formation in the Catholic Faith, is that artificial contraception has been generally destructive to family life and marital relationships, has enabled and promoted fornication and adultery, and has given rise to the 'culture of death' described by the Bishop of Rome John Paul II, in which abortion and euthanasia are now all but universal. There seems to be, to my mind at least, a direct philosophical and moral line and correlation between artificial contraception and abortion. The one has, I think it is fair to say, given rise to the other, as the demand for the one has originated the other - when artificial contraception inevitably fails, abortion is the next step to eliminating the 'problem' of pregnancy. In this respect, I believe another Bishop of Rome, Paul VI, is utterly prophetic in his magisterial encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), in which he projected and prophesied that the unrestrained availability and use of artificial contraception would inescapably generate an 'abortive mentality,' and thus create a world in which procured abortion would be used as 'birth control.' In this prophecy, he was absolutely right, and so I affirm personally my greatest respect and affinity for the position of the Latin Church on this subject. Again, orthodox Anglo-Catholics are not morally bound to the dogmatic teaching of the Roman Communion on artificial contraception, but they are, of course, bound to the Sixth and Seventh Commandments. The hedge around those Commandments erected by Humanae Vitae safeguards the faithful from falling into a potentially devastating trap.

Another grave difficulty is that most modern oral contraceptives often can and do function, intentionally or not, as abortifacients, which permit a human embryo to be fertilised but prevent implantation of the embryo in the uterine wall: although it is impossible to determine exactly when and if such procured abortions occur with the use of conventional contraceptives, there is always the risk that artificial contraception of any kind can cause an abortion of a fertilised human embryo, which the Church teaches is a human being, ensouled and potentially capable of full human life if permitted to grow in the womb.

So, as you see, this is a serious and sensitive issue indeed. Were a couple to ask for my pastoral direction on this subject, I would counsel them to find natural alternative means to artificial contraception if possible and to avoid the moral quagmire artificial contraception creates. Historically, the Anglican Communion up until 1930 had always strenuously opposed artificial contraception, and in particular Anglo-Catholics, loyal sons of the Anglican Tradition, were most intensely opposed, long before the issue became prevalent in popular discourse and behaviour.

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda

Please visit the excellent new blog of Father Jay Scott Newman!

Father Newman is my first cousin, a Latin Rite priest and Pastor of Saint Mary's Church, Greenville, South Carolina. He is also an expert liturgiologist and a leader at the forefront of the 'Reform of the Reform' liturgical movement in the RC Church.

More Reaffirmation of Apostolicae Curae

From Cardinal William Levada:

'...Nevertheless, a strict comparison between the Anglicans and the Eastern Church and Catholic Churches would not be correct, I hasten to add. The Eastern Churches, like the Ukrainian Catholic Church so numerous in Canada, are in the fullest sense of the term “Churches” since they have valid apostolic succession and thus valid Eucharist. They are therefore called Churches sui juris because they have their own legal structures of governance, all while maintaining bonds of hierarchical communion with the Bishop of Rome. The term Church is applied differently to the Anglican Communion for reasons rehearsed over a century ago by Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae curae. So the legal framework for Anglican communities seeking full communion precisely as communities would be different from that of Eastern Churches. They remain a part of the Western Latin Church tradition. That is why the Holy Father has decided to erect personal ordinarities in order to provide pastoral care for such groups who wish to share their gifts corporately with their Catholic sisters and brothers and with whom they have shared a long history before the Reformation in the 16th century.'

Since the Cardinal is stating, in reiteration of Apostolicae Curae and Dominus Jesus, that Anglican Churches are not 'Churches' in the fullest sense and lack apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, is he opening the door for the creation of ordinariates for reformation bodies that actually do lack apostolic succession and the catholic Eucharist? Could we soon see Lutheran ordinariates, Methodist ordinariates or even Baptist ordinariates? If Anglicanism is merely only a sect, the refusal to create ordinariates for other sectarian bodies would seem unjust and inconsistent...

Eucharistic Notes for Lent

1. The Church of the medieval period, of the later Middle Ages, espoused the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Thomistic doctrine, that the Eucharistic Consecration caused the substances of bread and wine to be destroyed and replaced by the substances of the Body and Blood of Christ, hence the corrective offered by the Church of England in Article of Religion XXVIII in which it is said that Transubstantiation 'overthrows the nature of a sacrament.' The immediate reason: unfortunately, the late medieval Church had ceased properly to understand Saint Thomas's meaning of substance as a non-material essence and saw 'substance' as materiality. If the material substances of bread and wine (which is what is specifically targeted in the Article) cease to exist, the outward and visible sign of the Blessed Sacrament is vitiated and the Sacrament does not exist.

2. The Eucharistic Change, or transformation of the bread and wine into Our Lord's Body and Blood by the Word of Christ and the Invocation of the Holy Ghost, is a true and literal Change, for one objective thing (the elements) becomes another objective Thing (Our Lord), but it is not a material change - the Change occurs on the supernatural and metaphysical, the supramaterial, level, inaccessible to our understanding and perception.

3. In Saint John 6, Our Lord uses a reference to the 'gnawing' and 'chewing' of His Flesh and Blood - and He is unwilling to reduce His teaching to a metaphor or analogy. Our Lord intended the Bread of Life discourse to be taken literally, which indeed it was, as was demonstrated by the reaction of the crowd.

4. There is also the quintessential point of presenting Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Church Fathers in their proper context, and we are called to exegesis, to bring out the actual meaning of the text, rather than eisigesis, the attempt to infuse a preconceived notion into the text. The contextual reading of the Scriptures itself provides the fullest warrant for belief in the Real Objective Presence. As one has brilliantly pointed out, affirming the sacramental principle in opposition to gnosticism, 'Our Lord would not instruct us to do this and then not give us a way of accomplishing it.' Contextual reading of the Bible is the key to all of Catholic doctrine.

5. The examination of the Old Testament is all-important: the divine institution by YHWH in ancient Israel of covenant sacrifice, priesthood, liturgical worship, the use of bread and wine sacramentally and the centrality of the Lamb. The Todah sacrifice, the Eucharistic or Thank Offering of bread and wine in the Old Covenant, is an absolutely essential reference - and it is vital to recognise it. References to Melchizedek, the showbread, the manna and the Passover all prove the continuity of the Eucharist with the Old Testament.

6. The axiom for the proper Catholic interpretation of Scripture: the Mass and Catholic Priesthood are the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacramental and sacrificial system, as Our Lord Jesus Christ is the unique embodiment, personification and fulfilment of Israel and the Old Covenant. The Eucharist is the perfection and accomplishment, the full manifestation, of that to which the old sacrifices and sacraments gave symbolism, sign and foretaste. There is a hermeneutic of continuity, not rupture, between the Old and New Testaments, or as Saint Augustine saith, 'The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.' Christ is the final and full revelation of what was conveyed in the Old Covenant in prefigure and shadow. Jesus Christ is the true Priest, Victim, Sacrifice and Altar, the Lamb, truly made present in the celebration of the Mass, and under the form of bread and wine.

7. There is an inseparable link between Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition; we invoke the magisterial Church Fathers of the first millennium to demonstrate the unchanging and perennial teaching of the Church on the Real Presence, a doctrine indisputable when consulting the faith and practice of the Church in the patristic era: true Catholicism is inherently patristic and liturgical, and looks to the sources, ad fontes, ressourcement, when seeking to present the substance of that Faith Once Delivered to the Saints and faithfully transmitted by the Church of the Apostles and Fathers.

On the Reception of Holy Communion

Q: Is there a 'cut off' time for late arrivals when you are not supposed to receive the Blessed Sacrament? I had always heard if you arrive after the General Confession and Absolution you were not supposed to receive, but to come to the Altar for a blessing, but I do not know where it is written. Is that true and is it written in Canon Law, the 1928 BCP, the Articles of Religion, or some 'rule book?'

A: Thank you so very much for your excellent question regarding the reception of the Blessed Sacrament at the celebration of the Mass! Different Rites within the Catholic and Apostolic Church have different disciplines regarding this matter, and the Anglican discipline is based principally on the theology and praxis of the Book of Common Prayer.

For example, in the Roman Rite, the laws surrounding the Mass prohibit anyone from receiving Holy Communion who has not be present at the reading of the Holy Gospel; our discipline is not nearly that strict. In the Eastern Churches, the practice varies, as most Eastern practices vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and one or more of the following are required: one is not usually permitted to receive the Blessed Sacrament unless one has indicated one's intention to communicate to the parish priest in advance, and/or has made a sacramental Confession, and/or has said prerequisite prayers in Church before the beginning of the Eucharist - and we are definitely not that strict! So what is the traditional Anglican discipline on when one should absent oneself from receiving Holy Communion if one arrives late during the celebration of the Eucharist?

The answer is located on page 75 of the 1928 American Prayer Book. In the Invitation to the General Confession the rubric states: Then shall the Priest say to those who come to receive the Holy Communion, Ye who do... After the Invitation to Confession, the Prayer Book rubric before the General Confession states: Then shall this General Confession be made, by the Priest and all those who are minded to receive the Holy Communion, humbly kneeling.

Our answer to this particular liturgical question is found in the text of the Liturgy - if one has not heard the Invitation to Confession and has not recited the General Confession, the Prayer Book, by intention, stipulates that one should not then proceed to receive Holy Communion, as the Prayer Book clearly intends that those who desire to approach the Blessed Sacrament should be present in Church, make the General Confession with the Celebrant and receive the Absolution from the Priest. The Prayer Book anticipates and expects that those who approach to receive Our Lord under the form of bread and wine in the Eucharist have made their Confession and received Absolution in the Liturgy itself.

Those who do not arrive at the celebration of the Mass in time to make the General Confession and receive the Absolution should approach the Altar at the Communion and receive a blessing from the Celebrant. In this vein, it is important also to note that reception of the Precious Body and Blood of Christ is not mandatory at every celebration of the Eucharist; it is permissible and occasionally, given one's personal and spiritual state at any given time, even desirable, that one not make one's Holy Communion at a particular celebration of Mass. Attendance at the celebration of the Mass is of moral obligation for all Catholic Christians on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, in fulfillment of the Fourth Commandment, but reception of the Holy Sacrament, Sacramental Communion, is not mandatory. One fulfils one's obligation for Eucharistic worship by faithfully and prayerfully attending the Eucharistic Celebration in Church. If one refrains from receiving the Eucharist at a particular Mass, one can always approach to receive at the next celebration, as self-examination and preparedness warrant. The important thing is that we should always strive to make a good Communion, with a proper preparation, including self-examination, beforehand, and a proper thanksgiving afterward. A good and worthy Communion, made in faith, love and repentance, is supremely important in the Christian life.

The Holy Baptism of Mailli Katherine Lillian Jones, Quinquagesima, 14th February 2010

On Thomas Cranmer

...Archbishop Cranmer was a literary and liturgical genius, but theologically a convinced protestant, more in the mould, I think, of a high virtualist-Calvinist than a Zwinglian. Good scholarship in the last two decades seems finally to have debunked Dom Gregory Dix's claim that Cranmer was a disciple of Huldrich Zwingli, although the modern scholars admit that Archbishop Cranmer was definitely a continentally-minded protestant who denied the Objective Real Presence and Eucharistic Sacrifice, at least as those truths were defined by the Western Church in the late medieval period.

Some very clever Anglican historians have attempted to cast Thomas Cranmer as an orthodox Augustinian when it comes to Eucharistic doctrine, and to oppose his Augustinian 'symbolistic' or symbolical theology to the stronger sacramental realism of Saint Ambrose, a view I would dearly love to hold but one which probably does not bear the weight of historical fact. Mercifully, Anglicanism is not a protestant system dependent on one figure or theological school, not a Lutheranism or Calvinism, and certainly not the 'Cranmerianism' some opponents of Anglicanism intend to construct. The official formularies and liturgies of the Church of England from the days of her orthodoxy commit us to a Catholic and Orthodox doctrinal system, one which Archbishop Cranmer himself personally would likely not have held. Because we are a living branch of the Catholic Church and not a sect, we are not bound to Thomas Cranmer's personal views, but only to the official formularies that constitute Anglicanism's magisterium, in particular the Book of Common Prayer, which is more a compendium of ancient and patristic teaching than the work of one writer or theologian.

Archbishop Cranmer's contributions to the Common Prayer Book were purposely imprecise and flexible enough concerning the specific dogmas of the Real Objective Presence and the objectively-anamnetic Sacrifice of the Mass as to allow to spring up over time a variety of 'Eucharistologies' within the national Church, a result one could anticipate given those confused times and especially in the light of the remarkable diversity of views on the Eucharist that emerged throughout the reformation era. For the orthodox Catholic Anglicans of today, those engineered 'ambiguities' are corrected and remedied by the use of our additional authorised liturgical texts. Lord Halifax, of blessed memory, deeply desired to replace the 1662 English BCP permanently with the 1549 English BCP, which book he viewed as a vastly more Catholic liturgy in spite of its origin and theological provenance - there is a part of me that has always agreed with him, as the 1549, for the Mass and other Sacraments, is so much closer to Sarum and the ancient liturgies than any subsequent revision. But the Continuing Church has solved any theological ambiguities which may yet inhere in Cranmer's works by the introduction of such supplemental liturgical materials as the Missals and the Priest's Manual, which are now commonplace and undoubtedly part of the lex orandi of Continuing Anglicanism. The Book of Common Prayer is thoroughly orthodox and contains an unparalleled expression of ancient Catholic orthodoxy in that language which was normative in the early Church, language in mysterio, language which expresses necessary truths without over-elaboration or dogmatisation; but where questions of theology arise, the supplemental texts answer those questions in accordance with the Tradition, and with more precision...

Saint Charles Stuart I, King and Martyr

On Saturday 30th January 2010, we commemorate the 361st Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Saint Charles the First of England, King and Martyr, who died for the preservation of the Apostolic Ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons in the Ecclesia Anglicana and of the Liturgy of the Church of England, ensuring by the witness of his virtuous life and the shedding of his blood the perpetuation of the Anglican expression of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Because Saint Charles was willing to die for the sake of the Anglican Church, the Church retained her Catholic constitution and her Apostolic Succession and did not lapse into protestant sectarianism.

Next year, 26th April 2011 marks the 350th Anniversary of the official Canonisation of Saint Charles, King and Martyr, by the Church of England. On 26th April 1661, the Convocations of Canterbury and York, meeting in joint session, adopted the State Service in honour of the Royal Martyr, which Service was henceforth incorporated into the 1662 Book of Common Prayer: in the Liturgy of 30th January, Charles I is declared 'Saint' and 'Martyr.' Saint Charles Stuart is thus the only Saint canonised by the Church of England after the Reformation.

May Traditional Anglicans forever remain grateful for the earthly witness and fidelity unto death, as well as for the heavenly patronage and intercession, of that blessed sovereign who gave the ultimate witness for the catholicity of Anglicanism and now wears a crown of glory that fadeth not away.

Saint Charles indeed died to save the English Church - REMEMBER!

The Catholicity of Anglicanism

That this Prayer Book was not regarded as abolishing the old religion is shown by the fact that, of 9400 Marian clergy, only about 200 refused to take the oath of supremacy and accept the new Prayer Book. Elizabeth indignantly refused to send a representative to the Council of Trent because England was summoned as a Protestant, and not as a Catholic, country. She said, in her letter to the Roman Catholic princes, 'that there was no new faith propagated in England; no new rerligion set up but that which was commended by our Savior, practised by the primitive Church, and approved by the Fathers of the best antiquity.'

Percy Dearmer, The Parson's Handbook (1899), Introduction, n. 20

The Journey Rome

I eagerly commend to your reading this excellent post by Christian Campbell regarding last evening's episode of The Journey Home on the Eternal Word Television Network. Mr Campbell adeptly corrects and discomfits two critical errors which were proffered as established fact on the programme, to wit:

1. Valid Apostolic Orders from undoubtedly valid Bishops in Apostolic Succession are invalid if they are conferred outside of communion with the See of Rome.

2. The Words of Our Lord, the Dominical Words of Institution and Consecration, do not validly consecrate the Blessed Sacrament if used in the Book of Common Prayer Canon of the Mass.

And I would add a third that needs roundly to be dispelled:

3. The reason for the offer of Anglicanorum Coetibus from Rome is merely because groups of Anglicans asked for it; there is no intrinsic catholicity or historical continuity in the Anglican Tradition as regarding the Liturgy, the Threefold Apostolic Ministry, of the substance of the sacramental system.

Theologically incorrect assertions such as these do not promote authentic Christian unity and ecumenism.

Saint Joseph

A splendid meditation from 'The Reverend Father-in-Law,' the Reverend Father Richard Price Baskwill of Saint Alban's Church, Joppa, Maryland. This beautiful piece makes an ideal reflection for this holy season, in which Saint Joseph is not always sufficiently considered. It is an utterly true perspective on the real vocation and ministry of the Patriarch of the Universal Church and the Guardian of the Holy Family.

When I was in seminary, we few Traditionalists used to joke that Jaroslav Pelikan's 'Joseph Through The Centuries' could have been written on a 3X5 index card! The Church in every age could use more 'Josephology' and certainly more devotion to the Foster-Father of Our Blessed Lord. We should be grateful to Pope John XXIII, who added Saint Joseph's name to the list of canonised saints commemorated in the Latin Gregorian Canon in 1962, which gesture goes some way in making remedy for the absence of proper devotion to Saint Joseph in previous centuries at different times. Sancte Joseph, ora pro nobis.

Saint Matthew 2. 13-15
13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”
14 When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, 15 and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”

It struck me that we have not always given due attention to the crucial role that Joseph played in the drama of our salvation. Specifically, his example can serve as a model for men who are called to the ministry of marriage and fatherhood. For example, the brief descriptions given in Matthew’s Gospel of the flight to Egypt call up images of a man who is dutifully and faithfully carrying out tasks which were absolutely essential to the survival of the Holy Family, but were so natural and routine as to go unmentioned. Some things which I imagine that Joseph would have done might have been these:

Planned the route.
Arranged for food and drink to be available for Mary.
Obtained the donkey.
Planned water and forage for the donkey.
Observed the condition of the road, the donkey’s footing and Mary’s balance.
Monitored Mary and the Child’s condition and arranged for rest stops when needed.
Provided security against thieves.
Made a plan for inclement weather.
Found suitable shelter for overnight.
And, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Joseph had to clean up after the donkey – somebody had to do it!

These are all examples of paternal duty, responsibly fulfilled. They show Joseph as an example for all married men, as well as revealing the role of the most mundane tasks in our journey of faith.

May Joseph be our model as we fulfill our ministries to our families.

The Anglican Communion Succession of the Anglican Province of America

The Anglican Succession from the Iglesia Filipina Independiente

Norman Spencer Binstead, 3rd Bishop of the Missionary District of the Philippines of the Protestant Episcopal Church and 357th Bishop of the American Succession,

Robert Franklin Wilner, Bishop Suffragan of the Missionary District of the Philippines of the Protestant Episcopal Church and 403rd Bishop of the American Succession, and

Harry Sherbourne Kennedy, 4th American Missionary Bishop of Honolulu and 444th Bishop of the American Succession, on 7th April 1948 consecrated according to the Anglican rite

Isabelo de los Reyes, Junior as Supreme Bishop (Obispo Maximo) of the Philippine Independent Church, who on 8th September 1957 consecrated

Francisco J. Pagtakhan de Jesus, Bishop Secretary for Missions and Ecumenical Affairs and sometime Bishop of Oriental and Occidental Negros Island, an official representative of the Philippine Independent Church,

who, with Sergio Mondala and Lope Rosete, Bishops of the IFI, on 26th September 1981 at the Church of Jesus the Nazarene in San Diego, California
consecrated sub conditione according to the Anglican rite,

Walter Howard Grundorf to the Sacred Order of Bishops.

The Iglesia Filipina Independiente is a body with Anglican Orders considered a sister Church of the Anglican Communion. Organised on 3rd August 1902, the Philippine Independent Church officially separated from the Roman Catholic Church in protest of both the Vatican and the Spanish government. Gregorio Aglipay was elected the first Pontifex Maximus of the Church shortly after its organisation. This Church initially lacked the Historic Episcopate, although it maintained the title and administrative office of Bishop for its chief ministers, and lapsed into unitarianism at a stage before its renewal and resulting alliance with Anglicanism. In 1946, led by the reforming Supreme Bishop Isabelo de los Reyes, Junior, the IFI renounced unitarianism, declared its acceptance of the theology of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and issued its Declaration of the Faith and Articles of Religion, which are Trinitarian, orthodox, and Anglican. The Philippine Church received Anglican Orders from the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1948 and consequently entered into full sacramental communion with the Episcopal Church in the USA in 1961, the Church of England in 1963, and the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht in 1965. The 1981 San Diego consecrations were, simultaneously, the elevation of Bishops Robert Q. Kennaugh, F. Ogden Miller, and G. Wayne Craig to the newly-formed Episcopate of the Holy Catholic Church, Anglican Rite Jurisdiction of the Americas, sponsored by the IFI, and the regularisation of the Episcopate of the American Episcopal Church and the Anglican Episcopal Church of North America. The Bishops conditionally consecrated were: Anthony FM Clavier, Walter H. Grundorf, G. Raymond Hanlan, Walter Hollis Adams, Frank H. Benning, and John M. Hamers.

The Anglican Succession from the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Provinces of Central and Southern Africa

On 3rd October 1991, at the Conference on Anglican Unity held at Deerfield Beach, Florida,

Robert William Stanley Mercer, CR, sometime 4th Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of Matabeleland in the Province of Central Africa and 3rd Bishop Ordinary of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada,

Robert Herbert Mize, Junior, sometime 6th Bishop Ordinary of Damaraland (now the Diocese of Namibia) in the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, sometime Assistant Bishop of Matabeleland and Assistant Bishop of San Joaquin,

and Charles Francis Boynton, sometime Bishop Suffragan of New York and 3rd Missionary Bishop of Puerto Rico, the 442nd Bishop of the American Succession,

consecrated sub conditione the Most Reverend Walter Howard Grundorf to the Sacred Order of Bishops.

On 1st and 2nd October 1991, successively, Bishop CF Boynton, in anticipation of conditional consecration, ordained sub conditione Bishop Grundorf to the Sacred Order of Deacons and to the Sacred Order of Priests according to the Anglican rite.

Bishop Boynton was consecrated 2nd January 1944 as Missionary Bishop Coadjutor of Puerto Rico by Charles Blaney Colmore, 2nd Missionary Bishop of Puerto Rico and 266th Bishop of the American Succession, Benjamin Franklin Price Ivins, 7th Bishop of Milwaukee and 343rd Bishop of the American Succession, Wallace John Gardner, 6th Bishop of New Jersey and 395th Bishop of the American Succession, and Spence Burton, SSJE, Bishop Suffragan of Haiti and the Dominican Republic and later Bishop Ordinary of Nassau, 416th Bishop of the American Succession.

Bishop Mize was consecrated in 1960 by Joost de Blank, sometime Bishop Suffragan of Stepney and Archbishop of Cape Town of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Archbishop De Blank was consecrated to the Episcopate by His Grace The Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop Geoffrey Francis Fisher, 99th Archbishop of Canterbury in the line of Saint Augustine and Primate of All England.

Bishop Mercer, chief consecrator for the 1991 Deerfield Beach conditional rite, was consecrated to the Sacred Order of Bishops in 1978 by Donald Seymour Arden, Archbishop of Central Africa and Bishop Ordinary of Southern Malawi, John Paul Burrough, Bishop Ordinary of Masonaland (Harare), Shannon Mallory, Bishop Ordinary of Botswana, Patrick Murindagomo, Bishop Suffragan of Harare, and George Swartz, Bishop Suffragan of Cape Town and later Bishop Ordinary of Kimberley and Kuruman. Bishop Mercer served as the Bishop Ordinary of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada.

On Thursday 3rd October 1991, eleven Bishops of the uniting Anglican Church in America were given conditional consecration to the Episcopate by three prelates whose Orders stem from the Anglican Communion, and therefore are unquestioned. The consecrations were supplied in order to effect the merger of the American Episcopal Church (organised in 1968) and the majority of the Anglican Catholic Church (organised in 1979) into one orthodox traditional Anglican jurisdiction for the United States of America. The chief consecrator was Robert WS Mercer, CR of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, former Bishop of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe of the Anglican Province of Central Africa. Assisting him were Robert Mize, formerly Bishop of Damaraland of the Province of Southern Africa, and Charles Boynton, former ECUSA Bishop of Puerto Rico and Bishop Suffragan of New York. Bishop Mize participated with the approval of the traditionalist Episcopal Synod of America, of which he was a member. Bishop Boynton participated as a Bishop of the Anglican Catholic Church. The three Bishops, who were all consecrated by Bishops of Provinces of the Anglican Communion, and none of whom had ever been acted against or placed under discipline by his Church, were asked to confer conditional consecration when it became apparent that external questions about the regularity of the Orders of the American Episcopal Church (the original name of the Anglican Province of America) – and doubts of some within the Anglican Communion about Continuing Church Orders generally – called for further action. Bishops Mercer, Mize, and Boynton presided over a service attended by 300 Unity Conference participants, who witnessed the questions, laying-on-of-hands and other ceremonies as directed by the 1928 American Prayer Book Ordinal.

The Bishops who received conditional consecration were: Anthony FM Clavier, Bishop Primus of the American Episcopal Church and Bishop Ordinary of the Eastern United States, Mark G. Holliday, Bishop Ordinary of the Western United States, William Millsaps, Bishop Ordinary of the Southwestern United States, Walter H. Grundorf, Bishop Suffragan of the Eastern United States, G. Raymond Hanlan, Bishop Suffragan of the Eastern United States, and Norman Stewart, Assistant Bishop of the Eastern United States, Louis Wahl Falk, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Anglican Catholic Church and Bishop Ordinary of the Missouri Valley, Bruce Chamberlain, Bishop Ordinary of New England, Robin Connors, Assistant Bishop to the Metropolitan, and Robert Wilkes, Bishop Suffragan of the Pacific Southwest. Samuel Prakash, Junior, Commissary to the Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of India, also received consecration.

Before receiving conditional consecration to the Episcopate, three of the Bishops of the American Episcopal Church, Bishops Clavier, Grundorf, and Hanlan, who had not received ordination as Deacons and Priests in the regular Anglican succession, received conditional ordination to the Diaconate and Priesthood. These services, which took place on Tuesday 1st October and Wednesday 2nd October at Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Deerfield Beach, Florida, were celebrated by Bishop Boynton. It was considered prudent, for the sake of Anglicans worldwide, in order to assure the whole Anglican Communion of regularity in the proceedings, to have the three Bishops submit to conditional ordination to the Holy Orders of Deacon and Priest on the two successive days previous to their conditional episcopal consecration.

In statements read by Bishop Boynton before each ordination, he clearly stated that the rites were conditional, and, like Bishop Mercer, would later explain the conditional ordinations, indicating they were not meant to cast doubt but to ask God to make complete anything which human frailty had left incomplete, and to offer tender consciences the ‘balm of certainty.’ At the 1st October Mass Bishop Boynton said in part: ‘That this Order of Deacons is necessary in the Church, we testify well enough simply by our presence here today and by what we do. It may well be, as the highest Office and Order includes the lower; we have no cause to doubt it. Even so, there is about the diaconate the characteristic that given the focus of its duties upon helping God’s people and assisting His priests, the centrality of service to all Christian Ministry is made all the more clear. Here lies the basis of our esteem for this Office: it shows us Jesus who came not to be served but to serve. Thus it is appropriate that we start the process of unification and healing with this service.’ On 2nd October, Bishop Boynton said before the Mass of conditional ordination to the Priesthood: ‘If it be true, and I think it is, that offering sacrifice is central to the duty and office of a priest, and if it be true, as I know it is, that central to sacrifice is the turning over to God of that which is offered, then what we do today shows forth those truths to the fullest. These men have come to turn over to God that which has been the subject of dispute among men – and themselves with it. That is a priestly act. Such an act of oblation, writ large by the hand of Him who was God and man, lies at the centre of our faith and of our worship. To give us entry into the eternal reality of that oblation is why priesthood was bestowed upon the Church by her Lord, and made essential to her being. Into the offering of this oblation priests are admitted, however unworthy we may be, and for it their Office is to be held in high esteem. A great Martyr of the Church, Thomas Becket, following the same short road as these men now follow, thus gave himself over to the use of his heavenly Master. Like Thomas, they seek to show forth the glory of God. No human pomp or pretension could ever do so as brightly as the act of humility and love which brings them here today.’

Finally, on the morning of 3rd October at the Howard Johnson Resort on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, the Unity Conference’s headquarters, all eleven Bishops listed above received consecration sub conditione to the Episcopate. Bishop Mercer made clear the consecrations were conditional rather than ab initio in his sermon. Complete printed copies of the statements of 1st and 2nd October were given to the press immediately after the conditional consecration service. The 3rd October statement was read verbatim as printed in this report. No conditional sacramental form of words was used at the actual moment of the laying-on-of-hands in the liturgy, the words to which begin, ‘Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Bishop in the Church of God’ as the Ordinal does not provide a conditional form for episcopal consecration as it does for Holy Baptism. Therefore, the whole formula of consecration was used as found in the Book of Common Prayer. Thus, the apostolic hierarchy of the Anglican Church in America and the Anglican Province of America was constituted by the bestowal of the grace of sacramental consecration to the Episcopate by three Anglican Communion Bishops of undoubted and unquestionable validity and succession. Today, the Anglican Province of America, reorganised in 1995 and heir of the Deerfield Beach Unity Conference, enjoys full sacramental communion with the Anglican Church of India, the Anglican Church in the Philippines, the Anglican Church in the Fiji Islands, the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Traditional Anglican Communion, Forward in Faith North America, and all orthodox Dioceses and Provinces of the Anglican Communion. (Adapted from The Christian Challenge, December 1991).

The Affirmation of Saint Louis (1977)

Please visit this new web log and register your reaffirmation of orthodox catholic Anglicanism as expressed by the Affirmation of Saint Louis!

God bless you!

A Blessed Christ-Mass!

A blessed and happy Christ-Mass to all!

Please be assured of my prayers for every soul that reads this web log. Thank you all for making the year of grace 2009 such a delightful year in which to blog.

May the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, our Incarnate God and new-born King, fill you all with joy and pour out His abundant blessings upon you as we celebrate the great Christ-Mass solemnity.

And remember, let us keep the MASS in Christmas...

God bless you!

The Anglican Sacramental System

Dear N.,

You raise an excellent point and one which we Anglo-Catholics always need carefully to consider - which is that we do not have any difference with either the Papal Communion or the Eastern Orthodox regarding the essential nature and substance of the Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church, contrary to what Mr George Will asserts in his article. There has always seemed to be some confusion and misunderstanding about this fact on both the Roman and Anglican sides of the debate. Our differences with Rome regarding the Seven Sacraments are almost entirely disciplinary, and not dogmatic, in origin. You are right - we do not in any essential way disagree with the Tradition of the Undivided Church on the Sacraments, a Tradition that both Catholic Churches, Roman and Anglican, share. Our theological language of expression and elucidation may differ, but we possess in common the supernatural economy of grace that is the sacramental life.

For example, we do not dogmatically impose the medieval scholastic Aristotelian theory of transubstantiation on the revealed mystery of the Real Objective Presence, although Rome does. We do believe in the Real Substantial Presence of Our Lord under the form of bread and wine in the Eucharist without attempting to explain how the Lord is substantially present. We affirm the Eucharistic Sacrifice, again without dogmatising about it, and in the same manner we accept Baptismal Regeneration, the Seal of the Spirit in Confirmation, the grace and ontological character of Ordination, the gift of Absolution, the unction of the Holy Ghost in Anointing of the sick and the indissoluble sacramental bond of Matrimony, all without imposing any more dogmatic teaching on them than that which is required by the Holy Scriptures and the Church of the First Millennium. Our differences with the Roman Communion lie in the disciplinary arena, in the purview of canon law and the administration of the sacraments.

Other examples are: that we allow married men to be ordained priests and bishops, and bishops and priests to marry after ordination. We extend Eucharistic hospitality to all the validly confirmed, not merely to those in communion with a particular apostolic See. We anoint the sick, those may have a serious and recurring illness, or even those with spiritual and emotional illnesses, and we do not restrict Unction to the critically ill or dying. We offer a true and plenary sacramental Absolution at Mass after general confession, not limiting the intention to confer sacramental absolution solely within the forum of auricular confession. We do not allow priests to celebrate Mass alone. We do not have legislated in canon law fasting requirements before Holy Communion. But then, in some ways, we are stricter than Roman Church in our discipline, too, for example, in that we canonically forbid the marriage of a baptised Christian to an unbaptised person. But these rules, important and vital as they are, are all ancillary and disciplinary in nature and do not touch the substance of the Sacramental System. Other Apostolic Churches have yet other systems and organisations of discipline in sacramental administration.

Some ill-informed persons, inside and outside of Anglicanism, claim orthodox Anglicans only believe in two sacraments, reading as they do Article of Religion XXV incorrectly, because the Church makes the necessary distinction between two dominical sacraments whose sacramental form and matter are instituted directly by Our Lord in the Holy Gospel and whose reception is generally necessary to salvation, Baptism and the Eucharist (BCP 581), and the five minor, lesser or ecclesiastical sacraments, which were instituted by God in the Old Covenant or at Creation and have their renewed New Testament sacramental form and matter in the order of divine grace from the Apostles by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These five lesser sacraments are true sacraments and true covenantal means of grace, genuine objective channels and gifts of grace, but are not necessary for the salvation of all people. In truth, formal Roman Cathoic theology makes this indispensable distinction (in specie as opposed in genere) in the sacramental order, but some Roman Catholics are unaware of the bifurcation. Again, in categorising the sacraments in this way, we are simply following Holy and Apostolic Tradition.

II Corinthians 5.21

Our Lord Jesus Christ was 'made sin' or 'became sin' for us, because He assumed our sin in His own soul and body on the Cross for our redemption: 'who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the Tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness' (I St Peter 2.24). On the Cross, there is a divine exchange in which Our Lord willingly takes on Himself our sin in satisfactory and real atonement, offering His life for our sake, that we may be joined to Him and in Him in his perfect and all-sufficient act of obedience, worship and love rendered to the Father: in turn, through Christ our Priest and Mediator, we are given the righteousness of Christ as real gift, which is not merely imputed to us for Christ's sake, but is imparted and infused in us by divine grace, especially through the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.

Christ, the immaculate and all-sinless One (Hebrews 4.15), the Lamb without spot or blemish (I St Peter 1.19), offers Himself for us and offers us in Himself to His Father in self-oblation, the unique self-donation of His perfect will united in love to the Father's will. Through Christ we have access to the Father through the one Spirit (Ephesians 2.18).

We 'put on Christ' as God's own purchased possession, His children, in Baptism (Galatians 3) and Holy Communion (I Corinthians 10.16-17) and made one with Him, that He may dwell in us and we in Him (St John 6.53-58). The Person and Work, and the merits and atonement, of Our Lord are conveyed and applied to us through the Sacramental System of the Church. In Christ, we become the righteousness of God, that is, we are made right with and acceptable to God through the merits and perfect righteousness of Our Lord. Our justification in Christ is a free gift of unearned and undeserved grace, the infused energy of the Spirit, whereby we become partakers of the divine nature (II St Peter 1.4), partakers of the life and communion of the Holy Trinity, and are adopted as children of God and sons of grace through the Holy Spirit and the divine sonship of Jesus Christ (Romans 8.1-17). We become filii in Filio, sons in the Son. We become the Body of Christ (I Corinthians 12) through union with Christ's Body - offered on the Cross, glorified in the Resurrection and Ascension, present in the Sacraments, and extended in the Church.

The Orthodox Study Bible puts it this way:

How was Christ made to be sin for us? He, the incarnate Son of God, voluntarily assumed the consequences of our sin — corruption and death — without sinning Himself. And He submitted to unjust suffering because of the sinful passions of men and of angels. This means salvation is far more than forgiveness of sins. It is new life: our reconciliation to God (vv. 18-20) and our becoming new creatures (v. 17), participants in the very righteousness of God (v. 21). This means our salvation is not just juridical, (the static, legal pronouncement of a judge), but personal and relational (the dynamic, sacrificial love of a father for his child).

Consecration of Archbishop Matthew Parker

Today is exactly the 450th Anniversary of the consecration of His Grace Matthew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury, at 6am on Sunday 17th December 1559 in the chapel of Lambeth Palace in London. This consecration gave rise to the post-reformation Anglican hierarchy, and every Anglican bishop, priest and deacon alive today traces his Holy Orders to this act in which the Apostolic Succession was secured, preserved and transmitted for the Anglican part of Christ's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. The consecrating bishops were William Barlow, Bishop of Bath and Wells, John Scory, Bishop of Chichester, Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, and John Hodgkins, Bishop Suffragan of Bedford. Bishop Barlow and Bishop Hodgkins had been consecrated according to the Latin Sarum Pontifical; Bishop Scory and Bishop Coverdale had been consecrated according to the Edwardine Anglican Ordinal of 1550. All four recited the ancient form of consecration, Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, at the laying on hands. Through them and their sacramental action, the Apostolic Ministry was assured for the Church of England and her daughter Churches for posterity.

Let us thank Our Blessed Lord for the inestimable benefit of our Anglican heritage and for the divine gift of Apostolic Orders in the Anglican succession!