Eucharistic sacrifice and Anglican liturgy: ambiguity or affirmation?

Ambiguity.  That, according to William Oddie in The Catholic Herald, characterises the approach of Anglican liturgies to the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice.  Quoting earlier work he had done while an Anglican in comparing the eucharistic prayers of the Novus Ordo with that of the Church of England's Rite III, Oddie states:

The chief linguistic difference between the rites was that [Roman] Catholic language was, precisely, deliberately unambiguous and Anglican language (because the same Eucharistic prayer had to gain acceptance from Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals alike) was inevitably ambiguous.

What Oddie judges as the weakness of ambiguity, Anglicans can view as a gift to the universal church - acknowledging both the catholic recognition of the eucharistic sacrifice and the Reformation insistence on the uniqueness of Christ's atoning death on the cross.  Thus the BCP's prayer of consecration memorably  proclaims the offering of Christ once made:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.

The very next words, however, state that the eucharist makes the sacrifice of Christ present now:

and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death, until his coming again.

The post-communion prayer of oblation then recognises the explicitly sacrifical nature of the eucharist:

O Lord and heavenly Father, we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant, that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion.

The same rhythm is to be found in contemporary Anglican liturgies.  For example, the Church of Ireland's eucharistic prayer I gives thanks for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross:

he made there the one complete and all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

The prayer continues after the narrative of the institution:

Accept through him, our great high priest, this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

The wording quite deliberately connects the language of eucharistic sacrifice with the ongoing priesthood of Christ.

This rhythm, of acknowledging both the offering of Christ once made and the eucharist of making his sacrifice present in the now, is not ambiguity.  It is holding together key affirmations of Scripture - that the offering of Christ was made once upon the cross and that the sacrament of the eucharist makes Christ's sacrifice present in the Church.  To deny the former obscures the uniqueness of the Cross.  To deny the latter fails to recognise (in the words of Article XXVIII) that the eucharist "is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death".

It is perhaps in Saepius Officio - the response of Canterbury and York to Leo XIII's Apostolica Curae - that we find most clearly summarised how Anglican liturgy and doctrine seeks to recognise both of these key affirmations of Scripture:

We truly teach the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice and do not believe it to be a “nude commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross,” an opinion which seems to be attributed to us by the quotation made from that Council. But we think it sufficient in the Liturgy which we use in celebrating the holy Eucharist,—while lifting up our hearts to the Lord, and when now consecrating the gifts already offered that they may become to us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,—to signify the sacrifice which is offered at that point of the service in such terms as these. We continue a perpetual memory of the precious death of Christ, who is our Advocate with the Father and the propitiation for our sins, according to His precept, until His coming again. For first we offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; then next we plead and represent before the Father the sacrifice of the cross, and by it we confidently entreat remission of sins and all other benefits of the Lord’s Passion for all the whole Church; and lastly we offer the sacrifice of ourselves to the Creator of all things which we have already signified by the oblations of His creatures. This whole action, in which the people has necessarily to take its part with the Priest, we are accustomed to call the Eucharistic sacrifice.

We do teach the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice, but we do so mindful of the necessary Reformation protest against separating the eucharist from the one oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross.  This is not ambiguity.  It is rejoicing in the catholic tradition and respecting Reformation insights. 

Caesar is not Lord

Is the Coalition at Westminster facing the prospect of a Church-State confrontation?  It would seem to be the case according to today's Sunday Telegraph report of a meeting between +Rowan and a cross-party group of MPs.  The MPs were apparently seeking to explore the possibility of Church of England clergy blessing civil partnerships in parish churches.  The Sunday Telegraph provides a summary of +Rowan's views expressed at the meeting:

He told a private meeting of influential politicians that the Church of England would not bow to public pressure to allow its buildings to be used to conduct same-sex civil partnerships.

The comments are the first time he has spoken since the Coalition unveiled plans to allow religious buildings to be used to conduct homosexual partnership ceremonies.

While the Church has been bitterly divided over the role of its homosexual clergy, he said it held a clear position that marriage is between a man and a woman and would not consider changing this stance.

The Conservative MP for Brighton Kempton, Simon Kirby, appeared to speak for a number of MPs present when he said:

I hoped he might be more measured in his response and reflect on the cases for both sides of the argument more evenly, but he was very one sided.

As the Sunday Telegraph notes:

It also disappointed MPs who hoped he would be more sympathetic to proposals from the Government that give greater rights to homosexual couples looking to have their partnership blessed by the Church.

The disappointed MPs will find kindred spirits in those leaving dismissive comments on the story on Thinking Anglicans.  What both appear to overlook (or not understand) is that while +Rowan probably does believe that the Church's teaching on the issue of same-sex relationships can develop and its pastoral practice should be generous, he is very much aware that these are not the issues at stake.  Rather, the opening words in the Sunday Telegraph story point to the real issue:

Dr Rowan Williams has refused to be drawn on the issue publicly, but has broken his silence to tell MPs he is not prepared for the Coalition to tell the Church how to behave.

It is an old controversy.  While Anglicanism had a particular relationship with the English State emerging from the tumult of the Reformation controversies, we also have a history of resisting the encroachments of the State.  Such resistance to the State-imposed rejection of episcopacy and liturgy led, of course, to the martyrdom of Charles I and Archbishop Laud.  Again in the early 18th century, Anglicans - responding to the cry 'Church in Danger' - rejected the notion that Erastian 'comprehension' should be pursued at the behest of the State and at the cost of catholic doctrine. And it was in the midst of the encroachments of the Whig governments of the 1830s that Anglicanism witnessed the clearest articulation of the belief that the Church is no mere department of State.  In the words of the second of the Tracts for the Times:

Are we content to be accounted the mere creation of the State, as schoolmasters and teachers may be, or soldiers, or magistrates, or other public officers? Did the State make us? can it unmake us?

No, the State did not make us.  Nor is Anglicanism accountable to the State for its teaching, doctrine and pastoral practice.  The Church catholic is called to live out the teaching of Scripture and Tradition.  A generous pastoral provision by Anglicanism for gay people is indeed called for in Lambeth 1.10.  But it is for the Church of England and the wider Communion - through the appropriate instruments of unity, authority and communion - to reflect on how this is most appropriately fulfilled in a manner compatible with the teaching of Scripture and Tradition on marriage.  As +Rowan has done, the State should be firmly told that here its writ does not run.

This controversy perhaps has the potential to remind Anglicans of our fundamental identity.  As an expression of the Church catholic, Anglicanism is no mere creature of Parliament. No, the state did not make us. We Anglicans are not Erastian. We are catholic.  And Caesar is not Lord.

(The photograph is of the pulpit in St Mary's, Oxford - where Keble delivered his Assize sermon on 14th July 1833.)

Holding together: evangelicals, catholics and Mary

The CoE General Synod speech of Christopher Cocksworth, Bishop of Coventry, on the ARCIC report Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ offers an insightful, balanced assessment of the report from an evangelical Anglican perspective.  +Coventry probably spoke for most Anglicans when he notes:

Evangelical theology would be entitled to say that it has more to give the re-receiving of Mary by others than is – perhaps - allowed by the Report. One, among several such gifts of evangelical theology, is a radical stress on the vicarious humanity of Christ in which our human nature is reshaped by his learning of obedience through suffering (Hebrews 5. 8-10), his saying ‘yes’ to God and ‘yes’ to the cross (Hebrews 10. 5-10), his ascension to heaven as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 2.10; 12.2). Here, surely ARCIC is deficient when it says of Mary that hers is ‘the fullest human example of the life of grace’.

Even catholicity and covenant was slightly unnerved by such wording in the Seattle Statement.  That said, +Coventry does acknowledge that the Statement also challenges those Anglicans in the evangelical tradition:

For those formed in the evangelical tradition of the Church, there is much here to help us to re-receive Mary and to acknowledge that, according to Scripture, she is the first to be called blessed in the gospel story. We should have no hesitation in joining the Reformers to honour her relationship with Jesus and to celebrate her saving faith in God’s work through Christ. It is an evangelical truth that there is no Jesus without Mary.

This is, perhaps, the Seattle Statement's most profound challenge to contemporary Anglicanism, mindful of the strength of the evangelical tradition in the Global South and in most of the renewal movements in the North (e.g. Alpha).  Proclaiming the Incarnation without significant reference to her who all generations call blessed - the one described by Cranmer as "a pure virgin", while the 39 Articles proclaim that the Eternal Word "took Man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance" - falls far short of Scripture, the Creeds and the Augustinian reverence for the Blessed Virgin seen in the magisterial Reformation.

The Anglican vocation to live out the catholic tradition in light of the insights of the Reformation also allows us to contribute meaningfully to the ARCIC call for a "re-reception" of Mary's place in the narrative of salvation:

In terms of re-receiving our understanding of Mary, there is a gift that Anglicanism itself has to offer the Roman Catholic Church that is rather understated in the Report. And that is Anglicanism’s capacity to deal with the endemic tensions between catholic and evangelical theology by identifying the scriptural heart of the matter which unites both traditions, securing agreement on that ‘non-negotiable’, and then allowing informed theological speculation on

its implications, while not requiring belief in any matter which is not itself required by scripture.

Hence, over Mary, as Anglicans we are bound to affirm her as Theotokos - bearer and mother of God incarnate - because this can be demonstrated from Scripture (and that’s because the gospel relies upon it). At the same time we are free to explore the full implications of her being Theotokos and to hold to them personally and devoutly. But we are not permitted to insist on their acceptance by others as articles of faith unless they can be proved by Holy Scripture.  Agreement in essentials, respect and liberty in the rest, is an important principle of Church life that Anglicanism should be confident about contributing to the whole ecumenical endeavour.

Cocksworth has, of course, explored this dynamic more fully in his Holding Together: Gospel, Church and Spirit (one of the titles nominated for this year's Michael Ramsay prize).  It is here that we do see the Anglican vocation at its most glorious, even if the reality often falls painfully short of this.  As the Communion continues to reflect on the Seattle Statement, the evangelical and catholic traditions are surely called to pray and study together in light of the mystery that God has a mother, seeking to share in a common witness to the God who took flesh of Blessed Mary.

The Church's hope-filled lament

A beautiful reflection from Peter Carrell amidst devastation, pain and loss in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake:

How do we sing the Lord's song in a place of terror where over twenty people have died in our cathedral and another three people in Durham St Methodist church?

We may need to improvise in our theology. Dig deep into Scripture, mining Lamentations, Habbakuk and Revelation for words from God which address calamity and crisis. This is a time for faith like that found in Israel and on Patmos. When human sight suggested evil was present and God was absent, faith obstinately refused to let go of the idea that the God of Israel existed and remained committed to fulfilling covenant and promise.

Lament is a foreign language in late-liberal societies in which death has ordinarily been privatised, in which the experience of peace and prosperity has been assumed for generations, in which 'evil' is rejected as an anachronism (despite the historical proximity of the Shoah).  Peter's words powerfully demonstrate how the experience of the Christchurch earthquake shatters all of this and forces the Church to rediscover the discourse of lament.

Lucy Winkett's Our Sound is Our Wound describes "the ancient language of lament" as "a lost language in a society that has made itself too busy".  The devastation, pain and loss experienced in Christchurch cries out for a recovery of the ancient language, an ancient language heard throughout the Biblical witness, from the blood of Abel to the forsaken cry of the Incarnate Word to the prayers of the martyrs in Revelation.

In the face of death, lamenting the loss and grief it brings, the Church has traditionally affirmed its hope, 'obstinately refusing to let go of the idea that God remained committed to fulfilling covenant and promise'.  This has found expression in the opening words of Psalm 65 used at the beginning of the Requiem Eucharist:

Te decet hymnus in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem ... Ad te omnis caro veniet.

This invocation of Zion, in the midst of loss and grief, proclaims - in the words of Oliver O'Donovan - "the civic character" of the Church's destiny, even as we lament the shaking of the earthly city and death within it.  In societies which are without a discourse allowing us to lament and grieve without abandoning ourselves to despair, the Church is called to speak the language of hope-filled lament.

Communion and relationships are important ... or are they?

Jim Naughton on The Lead quite rightly reminds us about the nature of communion:

The Communion consists not in committees but in relationships, we need to worry less about the composition of the former and more about the depth and breadth of the latter.

Indeed.

And we all know that relationships within the Communion have been severely strained in recent years.  That should mean, following Jim's wise counsel, that we take particular care to rebuild strained relationships.

Jim, however, ignores his own wise counsel when discussing the appointment of Rev. Julian Linnell to the Communion's Evangelism and Church Growth Initiative.  Linnell, in Jim's words, "is a priest in Bob Duncan's schismatic Anglican Church in North America".  'Schismatic' is not a word chosen to rebuild strained relationships.  And yet Jim appears to enjoy using it about fellow Anglicans:

the Communion bureaucracy has cut the schismatics and their international allies more slack than they have cut the Episcopal Church ...

Schism cheerleader Drexel Gomez served as chair of the covenant design group.

Anglicanism is at least partly defined by communion with the See of Canterbury.  As the Windsor Report stated:

From the beginning, the Archbishop of Canterbury, both in his person and his office, has been the pivotal instrument and focus of unity; and relationship to him became a touchstone of what it was to be Anglican.

+Canterbury has, of course, been caught up in these strained relationships.  One might have thought that as we consider the "depth and breadth of our relationships" in the Communion, this would have included our relationship with +Canterbury.  Jim clearly thinks otherwise:

at some point, if we can't just roll our eyes and get on with the work of the church, we participate in the self-trivializing behavior that will be Rowan Williams' legacy when he steps down as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Such words are a sad reflection on the quality of relationships within the Communion.  Even strained relationships in a Christian context surely demand the exercise of patient love and generous speech.  It is, perhaps, an indication of the mind of some in TEC that the relationships inherent in koinonia are perceived as extending only to the likeminded - the 'others' are 'schismatics' or the 'cheerleaders of schism'.  Koinonia, perhaps, becomes a privilege for 'us', rather than a call to wait upon the others, a call not to hurt the unity of the Body of Christ.

"Communion consists not in committees but in relationships."

The KJV and the Anglican settlement

Amidst the deluge of articles marking the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version, playwright David Egdar in today's Guardian reminds us of the thorough-going theological conservatism behind the KJV, particularly when contrasted with the Puritans' Geneva Bible:

Despite Puritan support, the impetus of the translation was and remained deeply conservative, its aim to declare the English reformation complete. The Bishops' Bible was the default text, there were to be no marginal notes, and the translators were instructed to defer to "the ancient fathers", "the analogy of the faith" and the "old ecclesiastical words". Thus, as Thomas More had insisted in the 1520s, Tyndale's "elder", "congregation" and "love" were to be rendered as "priest", "church" and "charity". The Bible's divine authority was implied by an imposed uniformity of format and literary style (so poems such as the psalms and Mary's Magnificat in Luke are rendered in prose). For the 1611 reader, the Bible was overlaid with an antique patina: the increasingly outmoded "thou" as the singular of "you", the "-eth" ending to verbs as opposed to the current move to "s" ("hath" for "has", "doeth" for "does"), "thereof" for the contemporary "its". The consistent – you could say persistent – use of conjunctive phrases such as "And it came to pass" (on which Tyndale rings the changes) gives the work a ritualised, almost plainsong feel. Following Bishops', colloquialisms were frowned on: Tyndale's serpent tells Mary "Tush, ye shall not die"; King James's insists "Ye shall not surely die". As contemporary critics pointed out, the Bible is surprisingly indebted to the Catholic Douai-Rheims version, both stylistically and doctrinally: so, the Protestant "acknowledge" becomes the Catholic "confess", "ordinance" is rendered as "tradition", and, in John's gospel, Tyndale's "flock" (a congregation of sheep) becomes Douai-Rheims's "fold" (a means of containing them).

It is a remarkably persuasive account, indicating the extent to which the KJV incarnated central values of the Anglican settlement.  The absence of the Geneva Bible's footnotes is, of course, particularly significant.  Such absence ensures that the KJV reflects Anglicanism's communitarian - rather than individualistic - ethic of reading.  It reminds us that it is the Church as the reading community, rather than the individual believer reading, which determines the interpretation of Scripture. 

Edgar's description of the "ritualised, almost plainsong feel" of the KJV also points to Hooker's insistence on the near sacramental quality of the Church's reading of Scripture against the Puritan insistence that it is the sermon only that God's voice is heard:

St Augustine speakinge of devoute men noteth how they daylie frequented the Church, how attentive eare they gave unto the lessons and chapters readd, how carefull they were to remember the same and to muse thereupon by them selves.  St Cyprian observeth that readinge was not without effect in the hartes of men.  Theyre joye and alacritie was to him an argument, that there is in this ordinance a blessinge, such as ordinarilie doth accompanie the administration of the worde of life (LEP Fifth Book, 22.13).

Hooker contrasts this with the Puritan view that "the profit of readinge [Scripture] is singular, in that is serveth for a preparative unto sermons" (22.7).  This view he holds to be "poore ... cold ... hungrie" alongside the Church's tradition of the ordered reading of Scripture:

It hath bene a commendable order, a custome verie expedient, or an ordinance most profitable ... to reade the word of God at large in the Church (22.18).

Much as it may come as a surprise to some, in celebrating the 400th anniversary of the KJV, we are celebrating the conservatism of the Anglican settlement.  We are celebrating the similarities between the theological mindsets of the KJV and Douai-Rheims.  We are celebrating the Church as the reading community over the individualism of the Geneva Bible. 

The Anglican-Methodist journey to communion

This week's communique from the Anglican-Methodist International Commission for Unity in Mission (AMICUM) reaffirms the significant progress made in Anglican-Methodist dialogue and recommits to the search for deeper communion:

The Commission recognises that, if the goal of fuller communion is to be realised, in the course of the next two years significant work will need to be undertaken on some specific areas. These include issues relating to the interchangeability of ordained ministries and the ministry of oversight (episkope). Our hope is to find ways in which, in every place, the churches of our two world families may work as one in the urgent task of mission.

It is, of course, the most challenging aspect of Anglican-Methodist dialogue.  As +Rowan stated in his sermon to last year's Conference of the Methodist Church of Great Britain:

Sooner or later you have to talk about this, you know. You can't just get away ... with the glorious, Christ-focused, generous mess. Because even the most generous of messes left to stew for too long, turns a bit ungenerous and unsatisfying.  I suspect we're at exactly that point in the Covenant relationship. We've taken a big step, we've taken some risks in expressing where we want to be, who we want to be for each other. And having expressed those admirable, incontrovertible sentiments we're now treading water and thinking, 'How do we solve what's left? Because it's not going away.' How do we settle in for the long haul, the detailed work; because that too is apostolic.

The present "generous mess" is perhaps best outlined in the provisions of the Church of Ireland-Methodist Covenant:

We acknowledge each other's ordained ministries as given by God and as instruments of his grace by which our churches are served and built up. As pilgrims together, we look forward to the time when our ministries can be fully interchangeable and our churches visibly united ... [we agree] to learn more about the practice of oversight in each other's churches in order to achieve a fuller sharing of ministries at a later stage of our relationship.

Where AMICUM could seek to address this "fuller sharing of ministries" is in building on the 1996 Anglican-Methodist statement Sharing in the Apostolic Communion:

In the present context of this Methodist Anglican Dialogue, it has to be admitted that the Methodists have not always seen episcopal consecration as the Porvoo Common Statement describes it, or experienced the historic episcopate as a sign of the unity, continuity or apostolicity of the church.   To the extent that they have in their history experienced it otherwise, the effectiveness of the sign has been de facto called in question. A sign, even when it is given by God, can become in the fallenness of human life, even life within the Church, an occasion of disunity rather than unity. By the same token, in the mercy and calling of God, it can become again a gift of grace. Anglicans who treasure the historic episcopate within the polity they believe God has given them, seek to offer it to Methodists in the hope that it become again for all of us a gracious sign of the unity and continuity Christ wills for his Church (78) ... For the sake of the unity of the Church, it is open to Methodists to reclaim the historic episcopate as a rich sign of the continuity and faithfulness of the church which within their own life they have solemnly sought to maintain (84).

The significance of Anglican-Methodist dialogue and deepening communion is in demonstrating how the churches of the Reformation can live out the vocation to catholicity and communion, reconciling the historic episcopate and sacramental life of the catholic tradition with the insights of the Reformation protest.  That call to communion is, as Sharing in the Apostolic Communion recognised, at the heart of the church's identity:

Recognising our common Baptism, we now hear the Holy Spirit calling us to fuller communion. We yearn to respond to this divine call which prompts us to reclaim one another. We recognise that we are called to fuller communion not only by practical considerations, but also by the very nature of our Gospel Faith, which calls us into communion with the Triune God and with one another (koinonia). The Scriptures portray the unity of the Church as a joyful communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, as well as communion among its members (Jn 1:1-10; cf. 2 Cor 13:14). Jesus prays that the disciples may be one as the Father is in him and he is in the Father, so that the world may believe (Jn 17: 21). Our quest is to share more fully life in the Triune God (7).

"A shared life, not simply a shared set of beliefs"

Today's publication by the Anglican Communion Office of the Study Guide marks another stage in the Communion's progress towards adoption of the Covenant.  The Study Guide, complied by the Inter-Anglican Standing Committee on Unity Faith and Order, begins by drawing attention to the Covenant's affirmation of the Church as Communion:

The first paragraph of the Introduction makes it clear that the church is not just a human institution that can be managed like a social or political institution. Its origin is in God, and its communal life is shaped by the very life of God who, as Father Son and Holy Spirit, lives in perfect communion.

Similarly, the accompanying Q&A restates the ecclesiology of the Windsor Report:

The Anglican Communion is more than a federation of churches. It is a ‘Communion’ with a shared life, not simply a shared set of beliefs ... The Covenant will deepen our Communion by providing a constant reminder of our shared life and mutual responsibilities while renewing our commitment to the mission of the Church in the world ... The Anglican Communion Covenant seeks to provide an order to our Communion by describing how our disputes are to be dealt with, patiently, prayerfully and collectively, thereby deepening our shared life and mutual commitment.

As the Anglican-Orthodox Cyprus Agreed Statement so emphatically declared, the Church's call to and experience of communion is grounded in the life of the Holy Trinity:

The fellowship or communion (koinonia) of life in the Church reflects the communion that is the divine life itself, the life of the Trinity. This is not the revelation of a reality remote from us, for in the communion of the Church we share in the divine life. The communion manifested in the life of the Church has the trinitarian fellowship as its basis, model and ultimate goal. Conversely, the communion of the Persons of the Holy Trinity creates, structures and expounds the mystery of the communion experienced in the Church.

The IASCUFO Study Guide rightly emphasises the extent to which the Covenant sets before Anglicanism this call and experience.  All of this, of course, also draws attention to Jim Naughton's recent, disapproving analysis that, despite the recent Primates' Meeting in Dublin, "Rowan Williams is making slow but significant progress toward" the Covenant being adopted.

So what about Dublin?  Despite the pain it has caused to those of us committed to Anglicanism growing as a communion rather than conforming to the conventions of the polities of this world, perhaps Dublin was little more than a distraction, a final attempt by those hostile to Windsor ecclesiology to flex their muscles.  The words of the Scottish Primus, after all, are refuted by the Covenant.  The Primus (employing an oxymoron) described Anglicanism as "a communion of independent churches".  The Covenant, however, describes Anglicanism in quite different terms: "the Communion continues to develop into a worldwide family of interdependent churches" (2.1.4).  It goes on to state that "ecclesial communion and interdependence ... is foundational to the Churches of the Anglican Communion" (4.1.1).

Perhaps the last word should be given to the closing words of the Q&A issued by the Anglican Communion Office:

The Covenant describes and clarifies the nature of our mutual commitments and the form of life required to begin the process of discernment towards deeper communion and a more intense participation in the life of God made known in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Remembered at the sacrament of our redemption

As I prepare to celebrate the Holy Eucharist on the 23rd anniversary of my father's death, words from St Augustine's Confessions on the death of his mother, St Monica:

As the day of her deliverance approached, she did not think of having her body sumptuously wrapped or embalmed with perfumes or given a choice monument.  Nor did she care if she had a tomb in her homeland.  On that she gave us no instruction; she desired only that she might be remembered at your altar which she had attended every day without fail, where she knew that what is distributed is the holy victim who 'abolished the account of debts which was reckoned against us' ... By the chain of faith, your handmaid bound her soul to the sacrament of our redemption ... With her husband may she rest in peace ... My Lord, my God, inspire your servants, my brothers, your sons, my masters, to whose service I dedicate my heart, voice, and writings, that all who read this book may remember at your altar Monica your servant and Patrick her late husband, through whose physical bond you brought me into this life without my knowing how.  May they remember with devout affection my parents in this transient light, my kith and kin under you, our Father, in our mother the Catholic Church, and my fellow citizens in the eternal Jerusalem.  For this city your pilgrim people yearn, from their leaving it to their return.  So as a result of these confessions of mine may my mother's request receive a richer response through the prayers which many offer and not only those from me.

Confessions Book IX, xiii (36-37)

(The painting is The Death of Saint Monica by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1464.)

Valentine and the wonder of the Incarnation

From a sermon by Eamon Duffy on St Valentine's Day:

The likeness of the sexual relationship to the love between Christ and the Church does not mean its disembodying, but recalls us to the wonder of the Incarnation.  God drew near to us not by evaporating flesh into Spirit, but by lodging his Word and his wisdom in the flesh ...

There is a fitting and instructive paradox, then, in celebrating the marriage of the flesh on a martyr's day, the paradox at the heart of the Gospel, proclaimed in the cross, that life can come only out of a willingness to die, that the self lives only in God's eye when it is surrendered to his will.

A different sort of Ordinariate

The Church Times carries the news that the Diocese of Peru in the Province of the Southern Cone has created an 'Ordinariate of Postulants' to provide for the "growing number of Roman Catholic priests who are keen to join the Anglican Church".  Requests from Roman Catholic priests to join the body have come not just from Peru - they have also come from Uruguay, Ecuador, and Ar­gentina.

William Godfrey, the Bishop of Peru, has described the purpose of the Ordinariate:

[To be a] body where these people can draw close to the An­glican Church and experience its liturgical and pastoral tradition and theology, before taking the final step of being received. It provides a buffer zone in which we can prepare to receive them.

Such an Ordinariate does point to the reality that Anglicanism is a different way of being catholic to the Roman Communion.  Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop of Europe, neatly summarised these differences in a recent article for the Times:

The Anglican patrimony is not just a matter of hymn books and liturgy, of evensong and the English choral tradition, important as those things are. It is a sacramental way of living out a catholic identity, expressed in relation to the community and in a wise application of moral ideals to personal and pastoral realities ... Above all it is about a faithfulness in a way of Christian living that expresses the beauty of holiness, which is about transfiguration into the likeness of Christ, living out... [Peter Meiderlin's] maxim: “In essentials unity, in doubtful things liberty, and in all things charity.”

It is, in other words, a way of being catholic apart from the juridicial form of Canon Law practised in the Roman Communion, its understanding of priestly ministry being inherently related to celibacy, and the exercise of magisterium by the See of Rome apart from episcopacy and the wider church.  An Ordinariate for Postulants, such as devised by the Diocese of Peru, could therefore have significance in many parts of the Anglican Communion.

What is also interesting, however, is Bishop Godfrey's assessment that this development is at least partly a consequence of Benedict XVI's creation of an Ordinariate for former Anglicans:

Bishop Godfrey believes that some priests may have been en­couraged by Pope Benedict XVI’s positive words about Anglicanism when setting up the Or­dinar­iate, when he was “extra­ordinarily pos­itive” about the An­glican tradition.

Catholicity and covenant has previously referred to the potential of a "surprising work of the Spirit" emerging from Benedict's Ordinariate.  Anglicanorum Coetibus did, after all, refer to "the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion" as "a precious gift [and] ... a treasure to be shared".  Could the development in the Diocese of Peru be part of the surprising work of the Spirit? 

One last point - all this is happening in the Province of the Southern Cone, hardly a hotbed of revisionism.  And the Diocese of Peru lists as amongst the "characteristics of our common life" the following:

The teaching of the catholic faith, based in the Holy Scriptures, shaped by the early Church Fathers, and held and proclaimed by the Church, under the guidance of its bishops in the apostolic succession, for 2,000 years.

Peru and the Southern Cone have a lot of lessons for the rest of us in the Communion.

The strange, new world of the liturgy

The Ekklesia site - hardly a focus for reactionary sentiment - carries an excellent critique of the CofE's plan to introduce a baptismal liturgy with "more culturally relevant references" than those Scriptural images (Red Sea/water and Spirit) which have traditionally shaped the liturgy and theology of Baptism.

Savi Hensman reminds us that the Sacrament of Holy Baptism is inherently counter-cultural:

It is vital to make it clear that what is taking place is more than a comforting ritual ... Baptism can and should be a deeply joyful occasion, but there is a cost too.

She goes on to quote the rich symbolism noted in the WCC's Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry:

Baptism is participation in Christ's death and resurrection (Rom. 6:3-5; Col. 2:12); a washing away of sin (I Cor. 6:11); a new birth (John3:5); an enlightenment by Christ (Eph. 5:14); a re-clothing in Christ (Gal. 3:27); a renewal by the Spirit(Titus 3:5); the experience of salvation from the flood (I Peter 3:20-21); an exodus from bondage (I Cor. 10:1-2) and a liberation into a new humanity in which barriers of division whether of sex or race or social status are transcended (Gal. 3:27-28; I Cor. 12:13). The images are many but the reality is one...

This imagery is not incidental to Baptism.  It is, rather, the very means by which Scripture and the liturgy convey the grace of Baptism.  To quote Davison and Milbank in For the Parish, "those who separate form and content usually do not appreciate the significance of form".  Hence Hensman urges that it is precisely the strangeness of the liturgy that should not be lost:

Worship should not gloss over the more uncomfortable aspects of reality, or the strangeness of the living God who is at the same time closer than the air which surrounds us ... While simplicity can be valuable, those taking part should if possible get a sense of the beauty, wonder and challenge of new life in Christ.

To lose the strange, new world of the liturgy for "culturally relevant references" - derived from a profoundly secularised culture - would undermine the Church's witness in that culture.  And it would turn into a mere "comforting ritual" the means whereby we are "regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's Church" (1662 Rite of Baptism).

The liturgical imagination and cultural captivity

While our Roman friends continue to robustly debate the introduction of the new English translation of Missale Romanum (how is it possible not to regard the new translation as more faithful and reverent?), Anglicanism is experiencing good and bad liturgical news.  The bad news first - the CofE General Synod passed the following motion:

That this Synod request the House of Bishops to ask the Liturgical Commission to prepare material to supplement the Common Worship Initiation provision, including additional forms of the Decision, the Prayer over the Water and the Commission, expressed in accessible language.

And just to be clear what "accessible language" means, the proposer of the motion made it clear, according to the Guardian:

The Rev Tim Stratford, who proposed the idea, said the pictures and metaphors in the baptism service – "slavery in Egypt" or "brought to birth by water and the Spirit" – did not resonate with the experience and knowledge of lapsed Anglican parents.  He told the synod: "It sounds as if the church wants an entirely religious response – removed from our behaviour, actions and conversation."  It was not a request for "christenings without Christianity" but making "culturally relevant references readily understood by the majority of Britons", he explained.

It is, of course, liturgical revision at its worst - removing key Scriptural concepts from the baptismal liturgy to replace them with (as yet undefined) "culturally relevant references readily understood by the majority of [secular] Britons".  Good liturgical catechesis would use the baptismal liturgy to introduce parents, godparents and parishes to the significance of the Biblical narrative of redemption from Egypt and the meaningful symbolism of water in Scripture.

Instead, symbolism drawn from a secularised, de-Christianised culture is to shape the liturgy of baptism in the CofE.

The good news?  Last Sunday, in another small sign of an Anglican 'reform of the reform', the Archbishop of Canterbury administered Confirmation to 85 young people in Canterbury Cathedral according to the 1662 Rite.  +Rowan is quoted on the Prayer Book Society website:

The Book of Common Prayer remains a deeply valuable spiritual resource for people of all ages. It offers a wealth of words and images to deepen prayer and enrich imagination, and I am delighted to see younger people having the opportunity of experiencing this richness.

The message sits somewhat uneasily, to say the least, beside the view of the CofE General Synod. Should we have liturgy that employs "images to ... enrich imagination", embedded in Scripture and Tradition, or liturgy making "culturally relevant references", derived from the flattened, disenchanted world of postmodernity?

Review - William Marshall's "Scripture, Tradition and Reason: A view of Anglican theology through the Centuries"

(My review of William Marshall's Scripture, Tradition and Reason: A view of Anglican theology through the Centuries in this week's Church of Ireland Gazette.)

Those of us who experienced William Marshall’s Anglicanism lectures in the Church of Ireland Theological College will recall a quiet, determined conviction to communicate the riches of the Anglican tradition.  Scripture, Tradition and Reason is an exploration of those riches at a time when Anglicanism is experiencing divisions which raise questions over the very future of the Communion.  We can welcome the fact that Marshall makes no reference to these contemporary travails.  He encourages us to step back and consider the traditions of theological reflection that have shaped Anglicanism since the Reformation.

Marshall cautions against the triumphalist narrative that Anglicanism’s supposed reliance on the triad of Scripture, Tradition and Reason is unique to our tradition.  Often accompanying this narrative is the condescending approach to other Christian traditions, regarded as less suited for witness in modernity because of a failure to give due regard to Reason.  Marshall is right to repeatedly urge that the triad “is not peculiar to Anglicanism”.

The significance to Anglicanism of the creative interplay between Reformation protest and Catholic tradition is captured by Marshall in his exploration of Cranmer and Hooker, Taylor and Ussher, Evangelicals and Tractarians.  Here, perhaps, Marshall gives us insight into the distinctiveness of Anglican identity – catholic and reformed. 

If this reviewer had one criticism of the book it would be highlighted in the following words from Marshall: “Since the Enlightenment, the authority of scripture and tradition cannot be taken for granted but must be justified”.  The Enlightenment’s exaltation of reason, of course, also requires justification.  The church’s reliance on Scripture and Tradition finds its justification in the Incarnate Word.

Seattle Statement "a genuine ecumenical advance"

As the Church of England General Synod debates ARCIC's Seattle Statement Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ, the Faith and Order Advisory Group's briefing paper makes interesting reading.  The FAOG rightly welcomes key aspects of the statement:

The helpful exposition of the theological significance of the Church’s traditional belief in the virginal conception of Christ (paragraph 18) and the affirmation of the teaching of the Third Ecumenical Council, at Ephesus in AD 431, that Mary is rightly to be called Theotókos, the God-bearer or Mother of God.

The endorsement by the report of the normative role of Scripture in Christian theology and its acknowledgement by the report that ‘doctrines and devotions which are contrary to Scripture cannot be said to be revealed by God nor to be the teaching of the Church.’

The report’s methodology of seeking to understand Mary within the wider biblical pattern of grace and hope, its exploration of the biblical texts specifically concerned with the Virgin Mary and its clear biblical emphasis on the prevenient grace of God.

The fact that the report’s discussion of the saints and of forms of devotion to the Virgin Mary emphasises the unique role of Christ as the one mediator between God and humanity, its recognition that any idea of seeking the help of the saints in prayer must not obscure the direct access of believers to God our heavenly Father; and its insistence that doctrinal statements and devotional practices which focus on Mary must not obscure the unique and central place of Jesus Christ in the life of the Church. ‘Mary points always to her Son.’

The report’s useful summary of aspects of the Anglican liturgical and devotional tradition relating to Mary from the Reformation to the present day.

The recognition in the report that Mary’s obedience to God has been abused in order to ‘encourage passivity and impose servitude on women,’ whereas Mary should be an inspiration to those working for: ‘justice for women and the empowerment of the oppressed’.

Alongside this, however, FAOG highlights aspects of the Seattle Statement requiring "clarification".  The first of these is the recommendation of the need for "further study of the relationship between doctrine and the reading of Scripture in shaping thinking about Mary".  The FAOG commentary at this point is particularly disappointing in view of the Seattle Statement's profound reading of Mary's role in the Scriptural narrative "within the pattern of grace and hope" (para. 52ff).  Another requested clarification leaving much to be desired concerns Marian theology and practice in Anglicanism:

It has been said that the liturgy of the Church of England has been very restrained in its references to Mary and that the recital of the Magnificat at Evensong has generally been understood not particularly as Marian devotion, but primarily as the proclamation of the gospel.

Anglican liturgy has indeed demonstrated an Augustinian reserve with regards to the Blessed Virgin.  This is seen, for example, in the Christocentric emphasis in the BCP Marian feasts.  That, however, demonstrates the false dichotomy in the FAOG commentary - Marian devotion v. proclamation of the gospel.  An Anglican and Augustinian approach recognises that Marian devotion is inherent in our proclamation of the gospel.  Thus, when we recite the Magnificat praising the God of Israel for his covenant faithfulness fulfilled in the Incarnate Word, we similarly rejoice in her who 'all generations call blessed'.

Despite the requested clarifications, FAOG ends by stating "despite the points for further discussion discussed above, FOAG believes that this report represents a genuine ecumenical advance".  It can only be hoped that the CofE General Synod affirms the Seattle Statement in the same spirit.  This would allow Anglicanism, in continuity with the Great Tradition, to more fully rejoice in the woman from Nazareth whose "harte armes and verie bowels embraced" God (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Fifth Book, 40.2).

Update: The motion below was accepted by the General Synod (h/t Thinking Anglicans).  It is less than an explicit endorsement of the Seattle Statement, but nevertheless can be read as an affirmation insofar as the particular outstanding issues identified for ongoing discussion are "the authority and status ... for Anglicans" of the papal definitions of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption:

That this Synod, affirming the aim of Anglican - Roman Catholic theological dialogue “to discover each other’s faith as it is today and to appeal to history only for enlightenment, not as a way of perpetuating past controversy” (Preface to The Final Report, 1982), and in the light of recent steps towards setting up ARCIC III:
(i) note the theological assessment of the ARCIC report Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ in the FOAG briefing paper GS 1818 as a contribution to further dialogue;
(ii) welcome exploration of how far Anglicans and Roman Catholics share a common faith and spirituality, based on the Scriptures and the early Ecumenical Councils, with regard to the Blessed Virgin Mary;
(iii) request that, in the context of the quest for closer unity between our two communions, further joint study of the issues identified in GS 1818 be undertaken - in particular, the question of the authority and status of the Roman Catholic dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary for Anglicans; and
(iv) encourage Anglicans to study the report with ecumenicalcolleagues and in particular, wherever possible, with their Roman Catholic neighbours.

William Oddie, ARCIC and the funny farm

Amidst current Anglican difficulties, it has been refreshing to read The Catholic Herald.  Refreshing, that is, in a somewhat humorous way. The Herald's columnist and former Anglican William Oddie has been pontificating (forgive the pun) on ARCIC under the headline "And now, ARCIC III: isn’t it time to bring this ecumenical farce to an end?".  He describes ARCIC as "utterly futile, an absolute and total waste of time".  It is merely an "an expensive freebie for those involved".  He goes on to ask a series of rhetorical questions:

Can anybody explain to me why we carry on with ARCIC? Is there any real intention, as 30 years ago there undoubtedly was, of actually acheiving something? Is it a continuing self-delusion on the part of those participating? Or is ARCIC III just a PR exercise, designed to avert attention from the fact that we have now, inevitably but finally, come to the bitter end of the ecumenical road?

Mr. Oddie, of course, is a mere columnist - not the Pontiff.  And the Pontiff has a somewhat different view of ARCIC to the Herald's columnist.  During his visit to Great Britain, Benedict XVI declared of ARCIC:

I wish to join you in giving thanks for the deep friendship that has grown between us and for the remarkable progress that has been made in so many areas of dialogue during the forty years that have elapsed since the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission began its work. Let us entrust the fruits of that work to the Lord of the harvest, confident that he will bless our friendship with further significant growth (emphasis added).

The Common Declaration of Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury, signed on 23rd November 2006, similarly indicates that Benedict's view of ARCIC is somewhat more exalted than that of Mr. Oddie:

Since that meeting [in 1966], the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion have entered into a process of fruitful dialogue, which has been marked by the discovery of significant elements of shared faith and a desire to give expression, through joint prayer, witness and service, to that which we hold in common. Over thirty-five years, the Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) has produced a number of important documents which seek to articulate the faith we share.  In the ten years since the most recent Common Declaration was signed by the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the second phase of ARCIC has completed its mandate, with the publication of the documents The Gift of Authority (1999) and Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ (2005).  We are grateful to the theologians who have prayed and worked together in the preparation of these texts, which await further study and reflection (emphasis added).

Perhaps Mr. Oddie should show a little more loyalty to the Magisterium and approach ARCIC in the spirit of Benedict XVI.  Or, to quote Mr. Oddie's own words:

Being a Catholic means believing many things, some of them more important than others. But one core principle is surely indispensable. Quite simply, you trust the pope. For, once you start thinking you are a better and more faithful Catholic than he is, you are well on your way to the funny farm.

From the perspective of the funny farm, ARCIC may be an "ecumenical farce".  For many of us, however, ARCIC - with all its difficulties and challenges - is following in the way of the cross and resurrection as the Anglican and Roman communions strive to be one in obedience to the Lord of the Church.

Rejecting Windsor

George Conger has quoted the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, speaking at the press conference concluding the Primates' Meeting in Dublin.  The Primus described Anglicanism as a "communion of independent churches".

The Primus' words constitute nothing less than an explicit rejection of the Windsor Report:

Communion obliges each church to foster, respect and maintain all those marks of common identity, and all those instruments of unity and communion, which it shares with fellow churches, seeking a common mind in essential matters of common concern: in short, to act interdependently, not independently (51).

Post-Dublin, this is now the Anglican crisis. Are we churches prioritising autonomy and independence or communion and interdependence?  The latter is the ecclesiology proclaimed by the Anglican Covenant, the Windsor Report and successive Lambeth Conferences.  The former represents a determined rejection of this ecclesiology.  It is perhaps worth pondering if the absent Primates had been present in Dublin, would such a rejection of Communion ecclesiology have gone unchallenged?

Update: Peter Carrell also highlights how Windsor quite explicitly states "autonomy, therefore, is not the same thing as sovereignty or independence" (71). 

"A repudiation of ... Communion ecclesiology"

A sobering but accurate assessment of the fall-out from the Primates' Meeting in Dublin is provided by the Anglican Communion Institute.  The Communion's discernment of the role of the Primates' Meeting as an Instrument of Communion "played no role at all in the deliberations at Dublin".  As a result, the Communion has been grievously weakened by Dublin:

The group of Primates who met in Dublin cannot be recognized as acting in accord with the accepted Communion understanding of the Primates’ Meeting as an Instrument of Communion. This Instrument thus joins the others as now being dysfunctional and lacking in communion credibility.

Most sobering of all, however, is the ACI's judgment that Dublin represented a rejection of Anglicanism's discernment of the church as communion:

Sadly, the Dublin meeting constituted a repudiation of this well developed Communion ecclesiology.

So what now?  The ACI urges the mainstream of Anglicanism to "reconstitute" the Instruments of Communion:

The first task for those who share a Communion ecclesiology is to begin to re-constitute working Instruments of Communion. These will necessarily be provisional at first, but if the Communion is to survive they must evolve into Instruments that actually work to unite the member churches of the Communion. If church history, including our own recent experience, teaches anything it is that neither confessions without instruments nor instruments without common faith and order are sufficient to preserve unity. As recently noted by the Secretary General, the vast majority of the Communion continues to share Anglicanism’s historic faith and order notwithstanding its rejection by two provinces. What is needed as a matter of urgency are Instruments that express that common faith.

The ACI has set out the goal and the means.  The goal is to restore Communion ecclesiology.  The means is by reconstituting the Instruments of Communion.  This is the vision that those who believe in the catholic vocation of Anglicanism must now pursue.

European civilisation, Enlightenment and Revelation

From +Rowan's sermon at the Catholic University of Leuven on the Feast of the Presentation, a profound reflection on how European civilisation is the product of the Christian revelation.  It is when the Enlightenment and our understanding of reason is cast adrift from the Incarnate Word - who is Grace and Truth - that it becomes "an idol and a danger to the truth":

Universities like this have the responsibility to say to our culture that the light which enlightens the human world is not the product of European civilisation – indeed, the opposite is more true, that European civilisation, with its high valuation of dialogue and critique and its suspicion of absolutism, is the product of the light that Symeon speaks of in the Nunc Dimittis.  Our specific European legacy is precious, but precious as a gift among others.  Freeze it into a self-image of finality and decisive authority for the rest of human culture, and it becomes an idol and a danger to the truth.

The paradox of Europe's intellectual history at its best is the belief that a relentless self-questioning can be sustained by the human spirit as an essential dimension of travelling into fuller life and light, and that this questioning is not ultimately destructive.  But such confidence rests not on a self-evident secular rationality, but on the message of the gospel itself.  The awareness of the gospel is often deeply buried in the European psyche, yet it is still profoundly active; it remains alive in the intuition that the truth is indeed light and joy, that the truth is somehow already flowing towards us for our life and fulfilment.

+Rowan has outlined the mission of the churches in a post-Christian and, in places, de-Christianised Europe: to restore a vision of Truth as the light and joy revealed in the Incarnate Word rather than through the cold, abstract propositions of Enlightenment rationalism.  And it is, says +Rowan, in the light and joy of Truth Incarnate that the cultural and intellectual life discovers its authentic foundation and purpose.

The Presentation and the scandal of particularity

For the Feast of the Presentation, when the Christ Child was lauded as "the glory of ... Israel" - Karl Barth's reflections on the scandal of the Incarnate Word's particularity:

The Word did not simply become any 'flesh,' any man humbled and suffering. It became Jewish flesh. The Church's whole doctrine of the incarnation and the atonement becomes abstract and valueless and meaningless to the extent that this comes to be regarded as something accidental and incidental. The New Testament witness to Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, stands on the soil of the Old Testament and cannot be separated from it...The Christian kerygma as it is addressed to the world has this statement about an Israelite at its very heart. This means nothing more or less than the bringing of the world into the sphere of the divine dealings with the people Israel. It does not speak generally of the existence of a Son of Man who became man for many (with many in view), but of the fact that the Jesus who has come as the Messiah of Israel has come into the world as the Saviour of the world...His universality is revealed in this particularity.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1, 166-7.

Saint Brigid and the church after empire

The feast of St Brigid is a not inappropriate time to remind ourselves of what historians have debunked as 'the myth of the Celtic church'.  The myth now finds adherents in some strange quarters of Anglicanism.  The Presiding Bishop has, for example, invoked the spirit of "Celtic Christianity pushing up against Roman Christianity" in her pastoral letter of June 2010.

No reputable historian would make such a claim.  Whatever the distinctive practices of Christian communities on the edge of Europe during the first millennium, their place within the broader context of Latin Christendom cannot be disputed.  Patrick, of course, exemplifies this: a Romano-Briton, consecrated to the episcopate in Gaul, evangelising in Hibernia.

What St Brigid - as a companion of St Patrick - similarly testifies to is the way in which such communities were indeed part of the wider narrative of European Christianity as the continent entered the 'Dark Ages'.  No less than St Benedict, Brigid points to Alasdair Macintyre's "crucial turning point":

Men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve – often not recognizing fully what they were doing – was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness.

The Celtic lands were not untouched by the realities of life 'After Rome'.  In St Brigid, abbess of Kildare, we see how "new forms of community" to sustain the moral life emerged in a post-imperial age - even at the edge of the world.  For the church in North Atlantic societies in an early 21st century marked by crisis and the narrative of decline, here is the real lesson we can learn from Brigid.