Various Theological Q&A

1. How does one discern the Body of Christ? Discerning the Body in I Corinthians 11 has a twofold meaning: to believe in the Objective Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ under the form of bread and wine, that is, to profess a living faith in the real and substantial Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and, to believe in the mystical communion and fellowship of Christ's ecclesial Body, the Church, where the Presence of the Lord is also to be found in a real and supernatural way. The Eucharist makes the Church and the Church makes Eucharist, and so the two realities are inseparable. To fail to discern the Lord's Body in the Sacrament and in the Church is to be guilty of the Lord's Body and Blood. We are called to receive the Eucharist in faith, hope, love and repentance, in charity with our fellow Christians.

2. Does the Eucharist remit sin? In the Eucharist we literally eat and drink our salvation, for the Eucharist is nothing less than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in His true Body and Blood. If we receive the Blessed Sacrament in a state of grace, the state of salvation in which we are repentant and deliberately seek forgiveness from God and our neighbour, we beneficially receive the Eucharist to the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. 'Verily I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.' The Eucharist is in itself salvific; it saves by virtue of what It is and Who it is. In the Eucharist is not only contained grace, the life of God, but in it is contained under mystic signs and forms God Himself. Therefore the Eucharist, when received faithfully, is the very gift of salvation: 'whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him.' The Blessed Sacrament forgives sins and heals our human nature wounded by sin by uniting us to the deified flesh and blood of Our Lord. The Eucharist is generally necessary to salvation, like Baptism. 'This is my Blood of the New Testament, which is given for you and for many, for the remission of sins...'

3. How is one saved? We describe salvation in such a way that we affirm both the necessity of God's grace for salvation and of our own cooperation and correspondence with grace. God will not save man in spite of man's perpetual resistance, nor will He force anyone to be saved or to be coerced by His divine will. God freely saves those who will freely receive His gift of salvation. We must cooperate with grace in order to be saved, hence, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We must persevere in the state of salvation unto our life's end in order for us to have the reward of eternal life. Salvation is the mysterious relationship and synergy of God's love and human freedom, of God's mercy and man's response to the divine initiative. In this mystery God presciently knows all and directs all and yet honours and respects the imago Dei, the image of God, in man's free will. Salvation is a beautiful symphony of God and man in communion and love.

4. Does Baptism forgive sins? Baptism grants at its administration the total remission of all sins original and actual and applies the meritorious death and resurrection of Christ to the soul. Without Baptism there is no assurance of the gift of justification and spiritual regeneration. Baptism is the Sacrament which infuses the Life of the Holy Trinity into the soul and enters the soul into the life of grace. The Sacrament of Holy Baptism is generally necessary to salvation, necessary for all men where it is available, and confers on the recipient a mystical union and participation in Jesus Christ, in His Incarnation, life, death, resurrection and glorification. In Baptism we die to sin and rise to newness of life, we die to self and rise to God as we are joined by sacramental identification to Christ in His paschal mystery. Without Baptism there is no sacramental assurance of the forgiveness of sins or of what Our Lord calls the New Birth, the renovation and regeneration of the soul by Christ in the Holy Spirit. We are justified and saved from sin, in a foundational and formal sense, by the grace of our Baptism. 'Repent and be baptised all of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the grace of the Holy Spirit.' I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins.

5. Should Anglicans venerate Icons? The Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicea II does not merely request or suggest the veneration of the Holy Icons, it commands veneration as a necessary and fundamental aspect of orthodox Christian worship. The deliberate refusal to construct, honour and venerate the sacred Images is a denial of the Incarnation of the Word and a rejection of the humanity of Our Lord, according to the teaching of the Second Nicene Council. The honour given to the Icon passes to its prototype, to quote Saint Basil the Great. The Icons are in essence sacramental, and convey what they represent. More to the point, the refusal to have and display an Icon would be a more direct act of iconoclasm than simply refusing to kiss one. Anglicans may be uncomfortable with certain physical acts of piety, which feelings should be respected as a matter of culture and conscience, but they should at least be willing prominently to enshrine Images for the purpose of public veneration. Anglo-Catholics do not have to follow the exact devotional expressions and outward gestures of the Eastern Rite, but they should be willing to display sacred Images in church and home and to offer them the corresponding reverence. We traditionally only kiss the Altar and the Gospel Book at Mass, and the Cross on Good Friday, in the Western Rite in a liturgical context - but the principle is the same as that for the East. We do kiss icons and relics as a more personal form of devotion apart from the sacred Liturgy. By tradition and ethos, Western Catholics are far more restrained, reserved and conservative in their outward acts of devotion to Images than their Eastern Rite cousins, but they maintain the same dogmatic and doctrinal teaching on the Icons as Orthodoxy....