Tag Archives: Grace

“Believe It and You Have It”

01 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by in Lutheranism

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If you were to ask Martin Luther, the most famous question in American Evangelicalism, “Are you born again?” He would say, “Of course I am a born-again Christian, I am baptized.” As do many of us to this day. We are Christians, we have always been (as far as we can remember). What is this tosh about born again?

What this is all about is why Lutherans (and I suspect in some ways it applies to all of the older churches), at least those who use the phrase, “One Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church” as we do. we tend to be not wholly Protestant.

That is why there is no revivalism in Lutheranism, or indeed in the Orthodox or Catholic traditions, where we teach baptismal regeneration and practice infant baptism. Let’s look at some differences, shall we?

For Luther, justification isn’t tied to any single event but happens as often as we repent and return to the power of baptism. Justification by faith alone happens in the Catholic context of the Catholic sacrament of penance. Sorry, it’s not a once in a lifetime deal. This doesn’t eliminate choice (one can always refuse to believe).

Luther’s beliefs parallel the Catholic belief in sacramental efficacy, which places salvific power in external things. Without this, we must rely on faith as well, in other words, the fact that I believe.

Luther often says, “Believe it and you have it”, in many variations. This is not because faith earns it or achieves anything, it is simply because God keeps his word.

This is certainly not because of the perception of the mind, this is purely rigorously objective truth, God does not lie. Our certainty is based upon that, not on our faith. In Why Luther Is Not Quite Protestant,¹ Phillip Cary writes.

Whoever believes and is baptized is saved” (Mark 16:16) Luther teaches that the baptismal formula, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” is the word of Christ.  Luther is emphatic on this point: the words spoken in the act of baptizing are Christ’s own, so it is Christ who really performs the baptism.  Most importantly for the logic of faith, the first-person pronoun in the baptismal formula refers to Christ, so that it is Christ himself who says to me, “I baptize you….”  Ministers are merely the mouthpiece for this word of Christ, just as when they say, “This is my body, given for you.”

Making that decision for Christ or a conversion experience actually detracts from, the point about faith alone. We are justified by believing what Christ says is true. In short, God does not lie.

In brief, it is all based on the truthfulness of God, and we (and Luther did as well) like Paul’s saying in Romans 3:4 “Let God be true and every man a liar.”

And that every man includes us. We can put no faith in our own words, not even in our confession of faith. That is one reason for infant baptism, it’s pretty shaky ground to baptize on the basis of a believer’s confession of faith because we never really know what we believe. Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone means that Christians can’t rely on faith. Faith itself doesn’t rely on itself but only Christ’s promise,

This is the well known Lutheran pro me. The emphasis is not on our experience but on what God said. It’s quite unreflective.

More to come in this series, as I get it sorted myself.

¹Pro Ecclesia 14/4 ((Fall 2005)

Christianity without Christ?

25 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by in Church/State, Early Church

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Gene Veith at Cranach had an interesting post yesterday on whether the Christian virtues can survive without Christianity. I think this ties in well to mine on NEO today on the immorality of Christian clergy supporting BLM, instead of continuing our own mission, the most successful in helping the disadvantaged in history, by far. Here’s part of Gene’s article.

The secular British historian Tom Holland has published a new book entitled Dominion:  How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Basic Books).  Here is the summary from Amazon.com:

Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.
His book shows just how different Christian values and ethics were from those of the Greeks and the Romans and how the Christian mindset has prevailed in Western Civilization even among his fellow secularists.  (Holland is an atheist.)  The Greeks, for example, considered compassion, for example to be a weakness, not one of the highest virtues as Christianity made it.  The principle from Christianity that all human beings have equal value was incomprehensible to the hierarchies of ancient Rome.  Today we assume that peace is better than war, a legacy of Christianity utterly foreign to the ancient Greeks, Romans, and European tribes.

It’s something that is easy to forget, and mostly we have.

Holland appears to think that it’s possible to have the fruits without the faith, to have Christian influence without the Christianity.  Strand, however, disagrees:
Christian ethics cannot be about merely upholding and claiming certain values that flow from the Christian faith. That would be to mistake the fruit from the tree. The very center of the Christian life is not what the cross teaches us morally but what the cross did for us in atoning for our sins and bringing us from life to death in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The transformation of the person from death to life and the ultimate union with the Triune God in the City of God is the goal of all Christians. Their works of mercy and sacrifice for neighbor and their culture-building over millennia are a testament of this transforming power. We make a mistake if we think the fruit is the goal or that we can separate the fruit from the tree that produced it.

I would say that although principles such as love, equality, compassion and the like are still dominant, even among the secularists, they are starting to fade.  Certainly those who no longer believe in the key Christian teachings of atonement and redemption will have difficulty with the concept of forgiveness, and we are seeing that.  Secularists today say they believe in equality, but they are also demonizing and deriding the worth of those with whom they disagree.  And the strange embrace of abortion on the part of so many secularists, even liberals and progressives, undercuts their claim to be compassionate and supportive of the powerless.  It is, in fact, a reversion to the Greco-Roman practice of infanticide, with everything else that implied about the value of human life.

I should at this point go on and add examples of my own, but two things, I think this is perfectly lucid, clear, and self-evidently correct. Our morality will never stand on its own, its foundation is in our hope of redemption, not in earthly values. To claim otherwise is sophistry and sophistry which history has shown to be false. Without the hope of redemption, we return to the dog eat dog world of Greece and Rome, where the only reason for doing anything is self-aggrandizement. We see that happening already in our so-called elites, who are mostly post-Christian, for not believing in God, they seem to only believe in earthly acquisition and what may be even worse, they seem to think this is a zero-sum game.

Well, Christ taught us better, as they will find out one day. After all, the Lord did say, “Vengeance is mine”. And as I’ve said a few times, without hell there can be no heaven.

Thanksgiving

22 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by in Faith

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As most know, today is Thanksgiving in the United States. The only truly religious holiday we have, although yes, we do know why we celebrate Christmas and Easter. It was first proclaimed in the United States in 1789 by President Washington and regularized in 1863 by President Lincoln. And so we, each November, pause to give thanks to our God for what we have received, including the bounty of our fields, and out liberty itself.

Gene Veith at Cranach this year, reminds of how the words all link back

Thankfulness is an acknowledgment of dependence.  In that, it is like faith.

The English word “thank” is related to the word for “think.”  Part of the observance of Thanksgiving should be thinking about our blessings, which leads naturally to thanking.

Our word “gratitude” comes from the Latin word for thanks, “gratus,” from which is also derived the word “gratia,” meaning grace.

The Greek word used in the New Testament for “to thank” or “to be thankful” consists of the word for “good” and the word for “grace” or “favor.”

St. Paul enjoins us to “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”  (1 Thessalonians 5:18).  The word is εὐχαριστεῖτε:  eucharist!

And so do take some time to remember the source of all our many blessings on this day when America pauses to eat and drink, not so much bread and wine (although we do that in copious quantities) as turkey and dressing and yes pumpkin pie. We might also be grateful that we are halfway through the pumpkin spice season.

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go. Washington

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

He is Risen

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by in Easter, Faith, St Luke's Gospel, St Mark's Gospel, St Peter

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Well after Nicholas’s kind words yesterday, maybe I should share this. This is my traditional Easter Sunday post, although I edited it for today, it remains very much as it was.

That’s the importance of the day. Jesus the Christ is risen from the dead. This is the most important day for Christians.

Let’s speak a bit on the history. You may know that Easter is an Anglophone term for what nearly everybody else calls some form of Pasch. There’s a myth about that, which The Clerk of Oxford does a fine job of debunking.

How was Easter celebrated in Anglo-Saxon England? There’s a popular answer to that question, which goes like this: ‘the Anglo-Saxons worshipped a goddess called Eostre, who was associated with spring and fertility, and whose symbols were eggs and hares. Around this time of year they had a festival in her honour, which the Christians came over and stole to use for their own feast, and that’s why we now have Easter’.

Yeah, not so much, Eostre was mentioned in two sentences by St Bede, the rest is mostly 19th-century fabrication.

The women and the angel at the tomb, from the Benedictional of St Æthelwold
(BL Additional 49598, f. 51v)

The reenactment of this scene – the women and the angel at the empty tomb – forms one of the best-known elements of the early medieval Easter liturgy, famous because it is often said to be one of the oldest examples of liturgical drama. To quote from Regularis Concordia, as translated in this excellent blogpost at For the Wynn:

When the third reading [of Nocturns] is being read, let four brothers clothe themselves, one of whom, clothed in white and as if about to do something else, should go in and secretly be at the burial place, with his hand holding a palm, and let him sit quietly.  And while the third responsory is being sung, let the remaining three follow: all clothed with cloaks, carrying censers with incense in their hands, and with footsteps in the likeness of someone seeking something, let them come before the burial place. And let these things be done in imitation of the angel sitting on the tomb and of the women coming with spices, so that they might anoint the body of Jesus.

And when the one remaining has seen the three, wandering and seeking something, approach him, let him begin, with a moderate voice, to sing sweetly: ‘Whom are you seeking?’ When this has been sung to the end, let the three respond with one voice: ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. To whom he should say: ‘He is not here.  He has risen, as he said before.  Go, announce it, because he has risen from the dead.’ With this command, let those three turn around to the choir, saying, “Alleluia, the Lord has risen.’ When this has been said, let the one sitting turned back, as if calling them back, say this antiphon: ‘Come and see the place’.

Saying these things, let him rise and lift up the veil and show them the place devoid of the cross, but with the linens placed there which with the cross had been wrapped. When they have seen this, let them set down the censers which they were carrying in the same tomb, and let them take the linen and spread it out in front of the clergy, and, as if showing that the Lord has risen and is not wrapped in it, let them sing this antiphon, ‘The Lord has risen from the tomb’, and let them lay the linen upon the altar.

This is a dramatic replaying of the crucial moment in the Easter story, bringing it to life through the voices and bodies of the monks. Although presumably the primary audience for this liturgical play was the monastic community itself, it may also have been witnessed by lay people. That appears to be the implication of a miracle-story told by Eadmer, describing something which he saw take place as the ritual was being performed in Canterbury Cathedral in c.1066:

There is quite a lot more at her post which is linked above and recommended highly.

We have often spoken about Jesus the leader, and his unflinching dedication to the death to his mission. On Easter, this mission is revealed. It finally becomes obvious that His mission (at this time, anyway) is not of the Earth and it’s princelings. It is instead a Kingdom of souls.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And so we come to the crux of the matter. The triumph over original sin and death itself. For if you believe in the Christ and his message you will have eternal life. This is what sets Christianity apart, the doctrine of grace. For if you truly repent of your sins, and attempt to live properly, you will be saved. Not by your works, especially not by your wars and killing on behalf of your faith, valid  and just though they may be,  but by your faith and your faith alone. For you serve the King of Kings.

And as we know, the Christ is still leading the mission to save the souls of all God‘s children. It is up to us to follow the greatest leader in history or not as we choose. We would do well to remember that our God is a fearsome God but, he is also a just God. We shall be judged entirely on our merits as earthly things fall away from us. But our God is also a merciful God. So be of good cheer for the Father never burdens his people with burdens they cannot, with his help, bear.

As we celebrate the first sunrise after the defeat of darkness, Hail the King Triumphant for this is the day of His victory.

 

He is Risen indeed!

And hath appeared unto Simon!

Even Simon, the coward disciple who denied him thrice

“Christ is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon!”

to Simon Peter the favoured Apostle, on whom the Church is built

Crossposted from Nebraska Energy Observer.

Coasting to the Well

20 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Early Church, Faith

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I get the feeling that AATW is coasting lately. Yes, Jessica has retired, Chalcedon is overbusy, I too am busy with diverse things, one of which is rebuilding my own blog, Philip Augustine has been carrying us, and as fascinating as his articles are, there is a spark missing.

Perhaps, as we’ve said before it is the touch of a woman. Our longtime commenter and friend Annie reblogged an article the other day that moved me, as so many here have over the years. Here is a bit of it.

First, I didn’t know what to write in this blog, so I remained silent for a time and asked the Spirit to lead me. This is the title that came out, and I had to ponder why. And this blog is filled with whys. But the Spirit answers them all by revealing the intention of Jesus in this story.

Whenever I’m in confusion or doubt, I always look to Jesus’ words and actions to inform me and enlighten me. I opened my Bible to review the familiar red-letter words in order to read them again and digest them in light of the leading I received. Since I believe the Bible is the living word – the Living Water and Nourishment – of God, it always has a different meaning depending on where you might be at the moment you read it.

As I read the words of the woman at the well (John 4:4-42), it came to me slowly and certainly. I think as I explain it, the meaning will come to you too.

The first thing Jesus says to the woman is in the form of a request: “Please give me a drink of water.”

The Samarian woman is shocked he is talking to her. After all, she has been treated as unworthy all her life by her kinsmen and her Hebrew neighbors, and she now believes it. Why does he ask the woman for a drink? Does he want something from her? Yes, he does. He wants her to ask him for a drink. He wants her to open her heart and receive.

Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you Living Water.”

All he wants is for her to see she has immeasurable value, for her to attain what she thinks is unattainable, for her to accept the unconditional love and grace he offers. Yet she does not understand the gift. She looks at life literally, and measures what she can see and touch.

THE WOMAN AT THE WELL IS ME

It’s very very good, do read the whole thing.

It’s also something we have spoken of here, Philip here, Jessica here, but the memory that was triggered for me by Susan’s lovely article was also one from Jessica, one which moved me deeply when she wrote it, and moves me still. It is here. Here is a little bit of that.

I am the woman at the well.

I see someone I fear to approach; what would one like him have to do with one like me? But he speaks to me. I do not want to speak back. I am a sinner, I am an outsider; who am I that he should speak to me? When I do, I do not know what to say that will not condemn me. I am working. The man needs the water from the well, and my job, among many, is to get it for him; he will be waiting; he may be angry with me if I am late. Yet this man insists on engaging me in conversation. He wants water from me too; another man who wants something from me?

But as I talk to him it is not what I think. I cannot take in all his words. What is this water he has? How can he offer it to me when he wants something from me? What is it he really wants? He seems to be offering me something; he wants something from me, but it is something good for me. I don’t understand. Then he asks me what I had feared.

Jessica ended with this, and there is no answer to it, for we are all the woman at the well. But it is true, and for me, part of it has been AATW.

It was all long ago now, and I tell my grandchildren of him. We worshipped him before he was crucified; we worshipped him after the Resurrection. He is God. His Spirit is with me. That moment at the well changed my life; it changed the world. Though I was a sinner He loved me; that opened my heart to something which bubbles up in it even this day.

He is Risen Indeed!

16 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in Bible, Catholic Tradition, Easter, Faith

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The Exsultet, with which we begin the Easter Vigil, ends with the words:

May this flame be found still burning
by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who never sets,
Christ your Son,
who, coming back from death’s domain,
has shed his peaceful light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

R. Amen.

The Latin reads:

Flammas eius lúcifer matutínus invéniat:
ille, inquam, lúcifer, qui nescit occásum.
Christus Fílius tuus,
qui, regréssus ab ínferis, humáno géneri serénus illúxit,
et tecum vivit et regnat in sæcula sæculórum.

Unbelievably, there are sad sacks such as Bosco here, who, being monoglot and poorly-educated, see the word ‘lucifer’ and imagine that here we are worshipping Lucifer – and if you find that as impossible to believe as I did, here’s a link.

The reference is, of course, to 2 Peter 1:19. The day has dawned, the Morning Star has risen in our hearts, because the Light which ligtheth the world has banished death, and our hearts rejoice, being freed from the burden of sin. Like St Peter and the Holy Women, we could not have discovered the joy of the Resurrection had we stayed imprisoned in our fears and selfishness. On this first Easter night, the angels moved the stone away, and so, too, does Christ move away the stone which imprisons us in the tomb of our sense of sin. We are not without hope. We who were lost are found, we who we hopeless are redeemed, not by anything we deserve, but by His love, freely offered for us on the Cross at Calvary. Hope is the gift of Christ to us.

On that first Maundy Thursday two of the Apostles betrayed the Lord. Judas was the one who brought the troops to arrest Jesus, but Peter, who had promised to support Him no matter what, betrayed him thrice before the cock crew. Those who mock and say how can such a man be the foundation of the Church of Jesus need more of a sense of self; when they look within do they see a sinless being? The Gospel story is all the more convincing for this detail. Who, making up a narrative, would include such a detail about the leader of the Apostles? But where Judas, in in his pride, despaired of forgiveness and hanged himself, Peter lived his shame and was forgiven and redeemed; in that, Peter is the model for us all.

Jesus knew that Peter would fail; he told him as much. But that did not mean that Jesus reproached Peter; he knew that Peter’s conscience would do that work for him. Peter spoke with confidence, a confidence which reminds us of what St Paul told the Corinthians: ‘Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.’ Peter did not watch; he fell. We, often, do not watch, and we fall. If we have been told that we ‘are saved’, then when we fall, we either despair, like Judas, or, in this modern world, think it a sign that such assurance was wrong; either way we turn from the Lord. But if we read the story of Peter aright, we know that Jesus does not turn from us. He did not suffer on the Cross, He did not break the bonds of death in order that we should be lost. Unlike Satan, who comes to kill and destroy, and whose strongest weapon is our despair and pride, Jesus came that we should have life, and have it abundantly. The hope and the joy of the Resurrection are His strongest weapons, for they are the product of His love.

St Thomas needed to put his finger in the holes made by the nails before he believed, but as Jesus has told us, it is even more blessed to believe without seeing. So, my dear friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, may the joy of the Resurrection be with us all, ever more.

Christ is risen from the dead,
by death trampling down upon death,
and to those in the tombs He has granted life.

Ash Wednesday

01 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Lent, Lutheranism, Saints

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dewi-sant-3It is, of course, Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Many of us will end the day with a cross on our foreheads in oil and ashes from burning the palm fronds. It’s a good tradition, in my tradition, it is not required, but I think it serves to remind us of the humility that goes with following Christ.

Here, yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, in the UK and much of the Commonwealth it was Pancake day. Both hark back to medieval days when it was time to use up food stock which would not keep through the penitential season of Lent. Remember, refrigeration is something of the last half of the twentieth century. Besides, the flour and foodstuffs from the last harvest would have by now begun to go rancid. In those days, there wasn’t food to waste, and so it was much better to eat it, than throw it away.

In fact, Carneval also comes from this point, meaning the end of meat, as we enter the fast days of Lent. And in Medieval Christianity, fast days were never a shortage item, although food often was. Our forebears were much tougher stock than we are.

But today is Ash Wednesday, and there are plenty of others to tell you about it. I’ll just add this, which I sent it to several of my friends who are facing tough going in their lives for various reasons, this morning by email. It is one of the readings in the Lutheran Historic Lectionary for today.

Wisdom 11:24-26 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
24 For you love all things that exist,
and detest none of the things that you have made,
for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.
25 How would anything have endured if you had not willed it?
Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?
26 You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.
Oh, and for you few, you happy few, that claim Welsh ancestry:

Bendigedig Ddydd Gŵyl Dewi!

If I got it right, it’s cause I’m brilliant, if not, well it’s Google’s fault! 🙂

God Save the Queen?

08 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Anglicanism, Church/State, Faith

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Queen Diamond Jubilee

Neo’s post yesterday was a deserved tribute to a Head of State who, unlike many others, attracts no opprobrium and who has no axes to grind or agenda to pursue. She is Queen by Grace of God, and as a practising Anglican she takes that seriously; this is, for her, a sacred trust and she cannot just hand it over because she feels tired or would like a more restful life. She has, of course, the example of her uncle David before her, the Edward VIII, who found he could not discharge his duty without the woman he loved by his side, and slipped off into gilded exile and a life of pointless hedonism. Ironically, he might be said to represent the modern way of being; what mattered to him were his feelings and his personal fulfilment; that it all ended as it did, on a dying fall, in a life which achieved nothing, with the great gifts he had been given going to waste, might not surprise those such as the Queen who find that duty is a better guide to a life well-lived.

Duty is much out of fashion in our world. It has connotations of the things the world most hates – self-denial and even self-sacrifice, with no thought of reward. What’s the deal, it seems to say? I live this one life I have for others? What about the most important person in the world, ME? Who lives for ME?’ The Christian message tells us this is not the only life, and that we do not live it for ourselves except in what, to the secular mind, seems the oddest way. Here, in this vale of tears, we prepare ourselves for the life of the world to come, and hope, pray and work that we might be fit for it. That does not mean that we can, in any wise, merit our salvation, but it does mean we can witness to the mercy and the grace we have received by following the example of the Lord through whom we are redeemed.

In the case of the Queen, this has meant a life of service to the country. It would be easy, which is why it happens so often, for the cynic to say how nice it must be to have all your wants supplied in return for duties which are often largely ceremonial; but as usual, the cynic misses the point. The Queen is a symbol of national unity, and her very longevity in an age of such rapid change has helped hold together a nation which otherwise might have found itself bewildered by it. That she is a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother enables people far removed from her to find points of identification; being Queen does not mean your children make fairy-tale marriages and live happily ever after.

But through the bad times and the good, through the long journey from Empire, through decolonisation, Europe and now Brexit, there is one constant – Queen Elizabeth II. She is a reminder that our system of government is not merely secular. At her coronation she was anointed with sacred oil, and she consecrated herself in God’s presence to the service of the nation. She does it not for herself, but because she told God she would do it. God’s response we can see daily. We shall not, unless we are very fortunate, look on her like again – so God save the Queen!

Punishing & Healing

02 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in Faith, Salvation

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wrath_of_god-463x620

As human beings we are very familiar with legal codes and penalties; if we are caught transgressing the law, we can expect to be tried and, if found guilty, to pay a penalty of some sort. We see this in the Old Testament in the Deuteronomic Code: I sin, I am punished, I repent, God forgives me and restores me to his love. Te most revolutionary aspect of the Gospel message is that God still loves us though we are far off: Saul of Tarsus was not repentant, and yet God’s love reached him and he repented and followed God even unto death; unearned Grace saved him, and it is the same Grace, similarly undeserved, which will see us home of we repent and follow God’s precepts.

This runs so counter to our experiences as fallen human beings that we have trouble comprehending it. Jesus asked (Luke 7:42) who would love more, one forgiven a small debt, or one forgiven a large one? As the Word Incarnate he knew that true love stemmed from receiving forgiveness rather than from fear of being punished. It is understandable that so often the Christian message gas been spread in terms of the fear of God, but it is hard to see that as the main message coming from Jesus himself. He offers salvation to all who will receive him and his message, and that message is not based on frightening us, but on enlightening us, not on fear, but on love. I know there are those who have a visceral reaction to the word ‘love’ because of its use to effectively obscure the consequences of not turning to God and repenting. It may well be that there are those who have turned to God because of fear, but we are not presented with any examples in the New Testament of Jesus or the Apostles using such methods.

Punishment does not heal us. It may make us mindful enough to avoid whatever behaviour got us punished, or it may make us cunning enough not to get caught again, but it will not heal us – it will not make us good. Where Scripture talks of the ‘fear of God’ the Greek word ‘phobos’ is better translated as ‘respect’ or ‘awe’. In encouraging us to call God “Father”, Jesus encourages us to think in a way which can help us. So, though it may run counter to some modern child care theories, fathers do set boundaries, and they do so for the sake of their children; there are some things which are bad for children which they would, nonetheless, embrace if allowed (think child, think sweet-shop, think unlimited access to same). But a father who punished his child for an infraction with the threat that they would burn forever unless they behaved would not command ‘awe’ or ‘respect’, he would be someone to be reported to the authorities for child cruelty.

We have free will from God. He wants us to use it to embrace his love for us and to love him back. If we turn away from that offer, if we refuse that free Grace, then we exile ourselves – and in so doing, thwart his will for us which is that he should be all in all to us. In this Advent Season let us not turn away, but tread the road to Bethlehem.

The end of the liturgical year: reflections

20 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Pope

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Our secularised society has seen Christmas merchandise in the shops for some time, but for Christians, Christmas does not start until the Mass of the Nativity. Before then we have the four weeks of Advent, which start next week, and before that, today, we have the end of the liturgical year and, in the Catholic Church, the Feast of Christ the King. For me, as for many, the end of the Church year is a time for reflection.

The year began, as it ends, with continuing controversy over the position of Pope Francis on the issue of Communion for the divorced and remarried. The attempt by four Cardinals to get him to give a clear ruling has failed, and for all his self-proclaimed desire to have a robust debate, on this issue one is not going to be had. The teaching of the Church remains where it has always been, and all that is likely to happen during this pontificate is that those Bishops who have always allowed it will claim that they have the Pope’s approval, and those who have not, will continue to claim that they have the unbroken tradition of the Church on their side. There will be no judgements, except against the ‘rigid’ and the ‘inflexible’, by which we are meant to understand not those who rigidly and inflexibly believe that the ‘Spirit of Vatican II’ gives carte blanche to an idea of ‘mercy’ close to indifference, but rather those who rigidly and inflexibly stick to what they have always been taught; still, to repeat a much quoted set of words ‘who am I to judge?’

We can, I suspect, concentrate too much on this situation where, as I say, not very much is likely to change. The Pope wishes to take what he considers a more Christ-like attitude to those who have fallen, whilst those who oppose him wish to assert that whatever the change in the context, the rules apply; the division between the two mind sets is as old as Christianity, it did not begin with Francis and it will not end with him. The assumption that there are a host of divorced Catholics busy flouting the rules is just that – an assumption. No one knows if it is true. If there are those who flout the rules, they would no doubt point to the many who do the same with regard to contraception and pre-marital sex. The fact is that on these issues many Catholics defy Church teaching, and will no doubt continue to do so. It’s quite unclear whether anything can be done here. It isn’t really, pace the famous footnotes in Chapter 8 of AL about whether the rules are clear – on contraception and fornication they could not be clearer, it is about whether we are willing to submit ourselves to the teaching of the Church; we only look for ambiguity if we wish to find it – and if we wish to find it, we shall surely do so.

As we reach the end of the liturgical year and prepare for Advent, which is a period where we prepare for the two comings of the Lord – the Incarnation, and His second coming again in glory at the end of time. It is often said that it is a penitential season, but this is not what the Catechism says. It is, though, a time for thoughtful reflection and meditation, and the beginning and the end of Christian wisdom is to prepare for the Second Coming by bearing in mind what we receive from the Incarnation and the Resurrection. We cannot, of course, hope to merit what we have received, but we can show our gratitude.