"Mary is Israel concentrated"

On the feast of the Visitation of our Lady, words from Robert Jenson:

It is of course the heart of Christian faith that God's presence in Israel is gathered up and concentrated in Immanuel, God with us, in this one Israelite's presence in Israel: he is in person the Temple's shekinah, and the Word spoken by all the prophets, and the Torah.  And if that is so, then the space delineated by Israel to accommodate the presence of God is finally reduced and expanded to Mary's womb, the container of Immanuel ...


As the created space for God, Mary is Israel concentrated ... Mary is Israel in one person, as Temple and archprophet and guardian of Torah. To ask her to pray for me is to invoke all God's history with Israel at once, all his place-taking in this people, and all the faithfulness of God to this people, as grounds for his faithfulness to me ...


"Fiat mihi", Mary said, giving her womb as space for God in this world.  After all the Lord's struggle with his beloved Israel, he finally found a place in Israel that unbelief would not destroy like the Temple, or silence like the prophets, or simply lose, like the Book of the Law before Josiah.  This place is a person.  To ask Mary to pray for us is to meet him there.

Special environments and particular charisms

Following on from yesterday's reference to the closing paragraph's of After Virtue and Fr Aidan Nichols' comments on "a special environment ... to preserve orthodoxy and orthopraxis", Benjamin Guyer's article on devotional societies (carried on the Covenant site) is a must-read.

Originally published in the June edition of The Society of King Charles the Martyr News, Benjamin's article invokes Popper's critique of historicism and Butterfield's devastating rebuttal of the Whig interpretation of history.  Historical memory has particular significance for the Church.  A Whig or historicist philosophy of history produces an almost-Gnostic redemption from history:

Redeemed humanity stands thematically opposite of progressive humanity, which exists in ‘a homogeneous, empty time’ in which the past is subsumed to the present.

Expressed in ecclesial life and existence, a Church with such an understanding of historical memory becomes separated from tradition and Tradition:

If a church believes itself to be, in Popper’s words, ‘swept into the future by irresistible forces’, it can only consign its past to the utter oblivion of emptied time, homogeneous because it has abandoned any and all memory. Such a church is unknown to itself and therefore wholly incapable of understanding what true progress in godliness actually entails.

Against this neo-Gnostic approach to historical memory, tradition and Tradition, stands the devotional society - in this case, the Society of King Charles the Martyr:

A devotional society is first and foremost a community of memory – and in our case, a memory that is no longer retained by the majority of Anglicans. We are therefore living witnesses to the fact that history does not develop smoothly or continuously. The present does not preserve the past; things that should not be forgotten have been. But because of this, we have both an evangelical task and an evangelical hope. On the one hand, we must gather the fragments of the Anglican past. On the other hand, perhaps more than many others we have an ardent longing for ‘the redemption of our bodies’ (Rom. 8:23) – a longing which is inseparable from the redemption of our corporate memory. This redemptive passion may prove a great gift to the Church. 

Central to the identity of such devotional societies is their very particularity - and while Benjamin does not explicitly state this, this dynamic reflects the particularity at the very heart of the Incarnation:


Devotional societies such as the Society of King Charles the Martyr are unique witnesses to redemption precisely because the witness is partial; we testify to one historical facet of God’s activity in the life of the Church while recognizing and participating in many others.

SKCM et al can, I think, be understood in the terms offered by Nichols - "a special environment ... to preserve orthodoxy and orthopraxis".  And, of course, Alasdair Macintyre's great words also have application:

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.

Is this, then, a vocation of devotional societies during the present Anglican crisis?  Contra the 'progressive church', are they called to exercise their particular charisms so as to create special environments in which Anglican orthodoxy and orthopraxis can flourish?

Waiting for Benedict?

A new collection of essays edited by Stephen Cavanaugh explores the opportunities and challenges presented by Anglicanorum Coetibus. It should be required reading for all pondering the Ordinariate, not least because of the fact that it particularly considers the experience of the Pastoral Provision for former Anglicans in the United States.

What especially caught my eye, however, was the essay by Fr Aidan Nichols - "A Personal View of Anglican Uniatism".  Nichols writes with a genuine appreciation for the Anglican patrimony.  He also, however, writes with considerable honesty about contemporary Roman Catholicism.  Referring to those Anglicans who will enter into full communion with the See of Peter through Anglicanorum Coetibus, he says:


They know of course that all is not well in the Roman communion they may be entering, that in some places they may need a special environment not just to preserve an Anglican Catholic ethos but to preserve orthodoxy and orthopraxis until the crisis of postconciliar Catholicism in the West has passed - an eventuality considerably aided and abetted, it can be said, by the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

There is much food for thought here.  Nichols' words present a stark assessment of post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism in Europe and North America.  What might particular resonate for communion-minded, orthodox, catholic Anglicans will be that reference to the need for "a special environment ... to preserve orthodoxy and orthopraxis".  This, of course, is what communion-minded, catholic Anglicans have been seeking amidst the current Anglican crisis (e.g. Communion Partners and the Society of St Wilfred and St Hilda).  Ironically, then, a particular gift carried by Anglicans into the Ordinariate - creating a "special environment" which nurtures orthodoxy and orthopraxis in an inhospitable environment - may, if Nichols is correct, actually aid the renewal of  the Roman Communion in the Great Tradition.

While it is no doubt not Nichols' intention, his summary of the state of contemporary Roman Catholicism in the West might also give pause for thought to those of us who, frustrated at the ongoing Anglican crisis, believe that communion with the See of Rome solves all ecclesiological dilemmas.  Clearly this is not the case.  In fact, Nichols' language could easily apply to contemporary Anglicanism: our crisis is also a crisis of orthodoxy and orthopraxis.

The difference, of course, is that Nichols - with considerable justification - believes that Benedict XVI is tracing for Roman Catholicism a path beyond the post-conciliar crisis.  The questions this raises for Anglicanism are profound.  Is there a means for Anglicans to emerge from our crisis with a renewal of orthodoxy and orthodpraxis?  Is it the Covenant?  If not the Covenant (which Philip Turner thinks is the likely outcome), then what?  Will ARCIC III provide any answers? (Peter Carrell thinks not - unfortunately, he is probably correct.)

Are we left with the very After Virtue-like approach described by Nichols - "a special environment ... to preserve orthodoxy and orthodpraxis"? Or, to continue the After Virtue references, has our wait for a Benedict been answered?

Martyrs, the Eucharist, Beauty and re-evangelisation

In Bede's account of the mission of St Augustine of Canterbury, we are told that Augustine and his companions restored "an old church, built in honour of St Martin during the Roman occupation of Britain ... Here the monks first assembled to sing psalms, to pray, to celebrate the Eucharist, to preach, and to baptise".  This detail perhaps speaks of the calling of the churches in contemporary, de-Christianised Europe - the re-evangelisation which Benedict XVI has so eloquently urged. 

There are signs that the re-evangelisation is taking shape  in ways that will speak to the flattened, disenchanted, 'liquid' public square of post-modernity.  The Living Church has an excellent review of the staggeringly beautiful film Of Gods and Men, a cinematic exploration of the Atlas Martyrs - the 7 Benedictines martyred in 1996 (the icon above commemorates the 7 martyrs).  Reviewing the film, Ephraim Radner notes the counter-cultural way in which it has gained attention:

The film is not likely to make it to local chain cinemas in America, but it is fast gaining audiences through word-of-mouth praise and its winning several award.

The art and beauty of this film stands apart from the values of the market-place.  But it is the beauty of this portrayal of martyrdom which has caught the attention of contemporary culture. As Radner states:

[The film is] tremendously powerful, heartrending in its agonized progress, and deeply hopeful in its evangelical fruit. Realistically framed and acted, populated by well-etched characters, and discreetly willing to crack open images of tremendous cinematographic beauty, this is probably one of the most gracious films being shown in this or any year.

Then there is St Patrick's Roman Catholic parish in the heart of Soho, London.  The account of its renovation in The Catholic Herald is deeply moving and challenging.  Amidst the "apparent spiritual desert" of Soho, St Patrick's lives out the way of grace and truth, beauty and love, hope and reconciliation.  At the heart of St Patrick's mission is the Eucharist:

When you are confronted with a secular society which is very rich, prosperous and sophisticated you have to confront it with Eucharistic love, the life and simplicity of poverty.

Finally, +Rowan today awards the Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing at the Hay Festival.  Alongside the awarding of the Prize at the UK's major literary festival, the Archbishop will be speaking on Shakespeare's relationship with Christian faith and also addressing with other speakers the significance of the Authorised Version on its 400th anniversary.  The events will conclude with evensong in a local parish church.  Here is an example of the cultural apologetics the Church can undertake in a de-Christianised society, exploring the meaning and beauty of the 'lost icons' of our culture.


Martyrdom, the Eucharist, the apologetics of beauty and meaning - here, perhaps, are the ways in which, like St Augustine of Canterbury, the churches in post-Christian Europe can rebuild a culture shaped around the Crucified and Risen One.

We need Augustine's successor to speak

On the Feast of St Augustine of Canterbury, it is edifying to read the Anglican Communion Institute's latest reflection on the Covenant - The Covenant: What is it all about?  Anglican Down Under rightly describes the essay as "a superb apologetic for the whole Covenant". While Philip Turner is pessimistic about the prospects for ratification of the Covenant, he provides a persuasive summary of how the Covenant provides a "thick form of communion" for Anglicanism:

It seems to me that the understanding of communion that has shaped the proposed covenant is vastly superior to the theologically vacuous one favored by many with progressive views and to the impractical confessional one favored by many with more traditional convictions. It provides a way to sustain a thick form of communion within the changes and chances of history and within the conflicts occasioned by differences in culture. It provides a way through history that does not reduce communion (as in the progressive case) to the chance overlap of moral commitments or (as in the traditionalist case) to a fixed point in the history of the church that can serve as a theological north star. The ship that is the church is best guided by common immersion in Holy Scripture and mutual recognition born of a grace filled struggle in the light of scripture’s witness to arrive at truth. That is what the covenant is all about.

Turner also notes that even if the Covenant is not ratified by the Communion, Anglicanism will still be required to address the issue of living as a communion.  In such an eventuality, the Covenant will be dead - but long live the Covenant.  Those Anglicans committed to communion, orthodoxy and unity will then be required to discern means to live and witness as a communion:

The covenant may indeed fail, but its failure, though a terrible loss, need not mean the end of Anglicanism as a catholic and evangelical expression of Christian belief and practice. Though it may take time, there are other ways to achieve this end. However, even if the covenant does fail it nonetheless charts the way Anglicans must take if the gift they have to offer is to be preserved. For Anglicanism to remain Anglicanism, some way must be found for mutual accountability and recognition to govern relations between self-governing provinces.

One aspect of Turner's essay does, however, give us pause for thought on this Feast of St Augustine of Canterbury.  He points to "the virtual disappearance of the Archbishop of Canterbury from the [Covenant] process", going on to describe this as "silence from the center".  +Canterbury has previously quite robustly recommended the Covenant to the Communion.  But, yes, of late there has been silence.

Perhaps we are right to expect more from +Canterbury at a time such as this.  The Windsor Report described the See of Canterbury as the Communion's "pivotal instrument and focus of unity" (WR, 99).  The Covenant itself states that the Archbishop of Canterbury has "a primacy of honour and respect among the college of bishops in the Anglican Communion". 

As such, the one who sits on Augustine's Chair does have a responsibility not to be silent at this time.  If the See of Canterbury is indeed to be an instrument of unity and communion, the false ecclesiology (as in New Jersey's rejection of the Covenant) and the communion-breaking actions of some Anglicans (most recently, the Diocese of Chicago) cannot go unnoticed.  We need Augustine's successor to speak.

New Jersey - the theological wing of the Tea Party?

It is difficult to pass by the Diocese of New Jersey invoking the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in the context of its rejection of the Covenant.  Perhaps nothing so clearly indicates that a significant section of opinion within TEC is employing a discourse derived from the polities of this world and applying it to the ecclesia.  

Also in evidence is the rejection of Anglicanism's theological discernment, through the ARCIC and Orthodox dialogues and in the Windsor Report, that the Church is communion:

From its inception the Anglican Communion has consisted of a fellowship of confederated regional autonomous churches bound by a common worship tradition stemming from the Elizabethan Settlement and a shared articulated theology in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.

In fact, the rejection of Windsor is couched in quite explicit political terms:

Having passed on the Windsor report, there is a need to be affirmatively responsive to the continuing challenge of TEC polity by much of the Anglican Communion.

Rejecting Windsor, rejecting the insights of ARCIC and the Orthodox dialogue, rejecting the Covenant, New Jersey issues its own manifesto - one might call it a theological equivalent of the Tea Party:

We believe that The Episcopal Church should continue to be free to respond to its own discernment, through its own established polity, of God's will. There are those among us that feel the adoption of the proposed Anglican Covenant by General Convention would seriously hinder this freedom.

It is a staggering statement - TEC should "be free to respond to its own discernment ... of God's will".  Compare that declaration of independence with Windsor's understanding of the intimate relationship between discernment and communion:

As the whole Church, corporately and individually, gives attention to the reading and pondering of scripture, we are called to the specific unifying task of a common discernment in communion. We come from a rich variety of cultures, and each of us is called to read scripture within, and apply it to, our own particular setting - and to respect the fact that other churches face the same demands within their own contexts. We cannot, therefore, confine our readings of scripture to our own setting alone (as scholarship, sometimes claimed as the preserve of the western academy, has often done). On the contrary, one of the ways in which we discern the limits of appropriate inculturation is by our rendering account to one another, across traditional boundaries, for the gospel we proclaim and live and the teaching we offer. One of the hallmarks of healthy worldwide communion will be precisely our readiness to learn from one another (which by no means indicates an unquestioning acceptance of one another's readings, but rather a rich mutual accountability) as we read scripture together (WR 67).


New Jersey's reflection on the Covenant  makes it very clear that  the portion of opinion in TEC which it represents is far removed from how Anglicanism has increasingly discerned the Church to be communion.  This understanding of the Church as communion, as Windsor has stated, is "rooted in the trinitarian life and purposes of the one God" (WR 3).  Invoking 'freedom', 'autonomy', 'confederation' and the Vienna Convention of the Law on Treaties represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Church.  It forgets that the Church is given its nature as communion by the Triune God.  In the words of Hans Ur von Balthasar:

The structures of the visible Church are at their deepest roots devised by the love of God.  (Therefore they cannot be a suitable subject for investigation by the sociologists of religion.)  They are crystallizations, so to speak, of the divine love, which love itself has been bestowed upon the Church, in order that she may not have to depend on the contingency of personal relationships that do not last.

1552 and Hippolytus - a shared eucharistic discourse?

Recently I have been reading some of the blogs from the Continuing Anglican community.  There is much to appreciate in the Continuum, not least its thoughtful reflection on the Prayer Book tradition.  Via the Continuum blog, I came to the Prayer Book Anglican's posting on the similarities between the ancient eucharistic prayer of Hippolytus and the 1552 rite:

What struck me ... was that it was as direct as the canon of the 1552 prayer book, a tradition which continued in the English books through that of 1662. It gives thanks, it offers and it invokes the Holy Spirit and that in almost the sparest language possible.

There is something of value in this view.  The language of 1552-1559-1662 is indeed "short, direct and sober".  Unlike the traditional Roman Canon and 1549, 1552-1662 is, like Hippolytus, a much shorter eucharistic prayer.  It does, therefore, speak of that attempt by the Reformation to recapture elements of patristic eucharistic discourse lost in the later development of eucharistic devotion and doctrine. 

Other features of the eucharistic prayer of Hippolytus are also worth considering.  The absence of a preface and sanctus perhaps finds an echo in 1552-1559-662 separating the sanctus from the rest of the canon with the Prayer of Humble Access.  The reserve evident in Hippolytus surrounding the language of eucharistic sacrifice is also obviously present in 1552-1559-1662.

It is, however, also important to recall that 1552 - while it broke with 1549 and introduced a "short[er], direct and sober" eucharistic prayer - was significantly revised in 1559 and 1662.  1559 (thankfully) removed the Black Rubric - when it was restored in 1662, this was only in a very different form.  1662 also overturned Cranmer's 'advanced' eucharistic thought by restoring the concept of 'consecration' via the rubric "the Priest shall say ... the Prayer of Consecration".  1559 also, of course, secured for later Anglicans the possibility of a more realist understanding of the eucharistic presence by reintroducing the 1549 words of administration.  All of this suggests that if we are to make a comparision between Hippolytus and the Prayer Book tradition, we should do so through reference to 1662.

There are, of course, also obvious differences between Hippolytus and 1552-1559-1662, above all the language of oblation:

We offer to you the bread and the chalice ... And we pray that you would send your Holy Spirit to the oblation of your Holy Church.

It was the quite different tradition of the Non-Jurors and Scotland which retained such language for Anglicanism, even if the prayer of oblation in 1552-1559-1662 had some elements of the language.

One other aspect of Hippolytus, however, is worth considering:

We give thanks to you God,
through your beloved son Jesus Christ,
whom you sent to us in former times
as Savior, Redeemer, and Messenger of your Will,
who is your inseparable Word,
through whom you made all,
and in whom you were well-pleased,
whom you sent from heaven into the womb of a virgin,
who, being conceived within her, was made flesh,
and appeared as your Son,
born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin.

In giving thanks for the Incarnate Word, Hippolytus proclaims that He was born of the Blessed Virgin.  The profound Christological significance of this reference to the Virgin cannot be understated.  As the Lutheran theologian David Yeago has robustly stated:

A Christ without Mary, a Christ in whose presence Mary is not also present, would be some other Christ than the scriptural Christ, the construct of some variety of [quoting Irenaeus] "gnosis falsely so-called".

The absence of such a reference to the Virgin in 1552-1559-1662 should give us pause for thought.  A similar absence is to be detected in many contemporary Anglican eucharistic prayers.  None of the 3 eucharistic prayers in Ireland's 2004 Rite II make reference to the fact that the Word was incarnate of the Blessed Virgin.  Of Common Worship's 8 eucharistic prayers, only 2 (prayers B and G - although G does not refer to our Lady's virginity) proclaim that Christ took flesh of Mary. 

1552-1559-1662 has a saving grace in this matter: it requires that the Nicene Creed is recited at each celebration of the eucharist.  This, then, answers Yeago's concern.  Each celebration of the eucharist in the Prayer Book tradition proclaims the Incarnatus.

To return to the Prayer Book Anglican's original suggestion - yes, we can view 1662 as part of the Anglican Reformation's attempt to retreive a patristic eucharistic discourse and practice.  This, perhaps, provides another theological dimension to the need for an Anglican 'reform of the reform' recovering the Prayer Book tradition.

Praying as the church catholic

Now about the Eucharist, this is how we give thanks.

The Didache provides a useful reminder that the earliest Christian communities - in which Eucharistic doctrine and practice was only at the beginning of development - recognised the importance of common texts for the heart of the Eucharistic celebration.  Even the exception to this rule provided for in the Didache, "in the case of prophets, however, you should let them give thanks in their own way", is couched in such a way as to be clear that this is not the norm.

The care taken by the early church with regard to who celebrated the Eucharist likewise implies a recognition of the significance of common words, as seen in Ignatius' words to the Smyrnaeans: 

Let that Eucharist be held valid which is offered by the bishop or by the one to whom the bishop has committed this charge.

We can presume that this concern for who offered the Eucharist at least partly reflected the importance attached to the words employed - in a not dissimilar way to how the apostolic succession functioned in the early Christian communities to ensure that it was the apostolic preaching that was handed on by the bishops.

All of which does raise quite important questions concerning the end of 'common prayer' in parts of the Anglican Communion.  Common Worship, for example, provides 8 Eucharistic prayers.  Alongside this, the CofE also authorised for trial use eucharistic prayers for children.  New Zealand, however, has gone one step further.  In an excellent posting, Bosco Peters describes the New Zealand situation:

Any Eucharistic Prayer authorised anywhere in the Anglican Communion is allowed to be used in our province.

Such latitude may commend itself to catholic-minded Anglicans, seeking to avail of Eucharistic prayers from across the Communion which more fully reflect a catholic understanding of the Eucharistic sacrifice than might be the case with a particular province's liturgy.  As an Irish Anglican, I can certainly empathise with such an approach.

The problem is, however, that this is a distinctly un-catholic approach. The  Eucharistic prayer is indeed the heart of the Liturgy.  It is a solemn proclamation of the Church's shared faith in the Crucified and Risen Lord, giving Himself to His people under the forms of bread and wine.  Being 'free' to choose from a wide range of Eucharistic prayers is the same 'freedom' that is practised when a local Church chooses a creed another than the Apostles' or Nicene creeds: it promotes the individual over the mind of the Church, the local over the catholic, innovation over that which has been handed on.

To be blunt, it  is better for a Christian community to persist with a somewhat flawed Eucharistic prayer (i.e. retaining the essentials of a Eucharistic prayer while not giving the fullest or richest expression to a catholic understanding of the Eucharist) that it shares with other Christian communities under a shared episcope, rather than believe it has the 'freedom' to alter this most solemn of prayers as it sees fit.  Providing a choice of 8 Eucharistic prayers - as does Common Worship - encourages such individualism and congregationalism: New Zealand elevates it to a core liturgical principle.

The Eucharist is not 'our' Eucharist.  It is meant to be a proclamation of the Church Catholic.  This is what a shared, common text of the Eucharistic Prayer expresses.  This is why 'Common Prayer' has ecclesiological as well as liturgical significance.

The AV and the liturgical act

Some of the celebrations surrounding the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version are, not to put too fine a point on it, much too democratic - in fact, much too secular.  Melvyn Bragg's book is, perhaps, a perfect example of this. The title alone is indicative - "the radical impact of the King James Bible".  The AV was anything but radical.  The AV is celebrated by Bragg as a great act of individualism, putting Scripture into the hands of the private reader.  He states that the message of the AV is "of lesser significance" than the AV's literary value.

Barry Spurr's article on ABC's marvellous site on the 400th anniversary provides a definitive answer to the individualist, secular AV narrative.  Spurr reminds us that the AV was intended to be a liturgical work: 

That translation was "appointed" to be read in churches - that is, read out loud in the context of the liturgy.

What is more, the reading of the AV within the liturgy was an act of liturgical formation: 

[People] heard these linguistically striking and memorable texts and, as the result of repetition, week by week, year by year, and on the solemn, repeated occasions of baptism, marriage and death, remembered them and came to cherish them.

As such, the AV was an integral part of the BCP liturgy.  And that brings Spurr to consider the art of liturgical composition: 

That language of Bible and Prayer Book was made to be (and was fit to be) known by heart.  This is not only or, ultimately most importantly, an aesthetic matter. Great ideas require great words, and great words are the works of inspired wordsmiths. Their language does justice to what it expresses.

This then leads Spurr to consider what he considers to be the failure of liturgical revision: 

The dismantling of Anglicanism's rich verbal liturgical culture (and all that flowed from that, in glorious music inspired by it, hymnody, religious poetry and learned and eloquent preaching, and as the textual accompaniment of dignified and inspiring ceremonial) was undertaken in the name of a liturgical "renewal" which has been a failure.

The Western Church at large has been for forty years, and continues, mostly, to be, in denial about this colossal flop, having invested untold resources of personnel, time and money in the destruction of its linguistic-liturgical heritage, Latin and Early Modern English.

The comparison of modern texts with the liturgical language of AV and BCP is not just a linguistic issue - it goes to the heart of what liturgy is meant to be: 

Geniuses of English composition like Lancelot Andrewes (who had oversight of the Authorized Version translation) and Thomas Cranmer (of The Book of Common Prayer) knew that the aural appeal of the language of worship was an essential ingredient in lifting men's and women's minds and hearts to worship, as well as teaching them the truths of the faith, and teaching them, indeed, by so lifting them up.

But the emphasis of the modern liturgical movement has been a determination to ensure that liturgical language is simplified and modernised so that it might be both comprehensible and didactic. What has been overlooked has been the need for it to be inspiring too.

Spurr's article should be required reading for all who value Anglicanism's liturgical patrimony.  And it serves as a vital corrective to the individualist narrative surrounding the 400th anniversary.  The AV was not a celebration of Protestant individualism - it was, alongside the BCP and Hooker's Laws, the foundation of Anglicanism's sacramental understanding of the liturgical act.

General Synod and the ghost of Henry VIII

What should have been a time of rejoicing for Anglican orthodoxy in Ireland - the CofI agreeing to the Covenant - is, instead, a time for much soul-searching.  There is something of a Henry VIII-ring to the wording of the CofI press release after last week's synod vote:

The Covenant sits under the Preamble and Declaration of the Church and does not affect the sovereignty of the Church of Ireland or mean any change in doctrine.

That proud proclamation of 'sovereignty' has an echo of Henry VIII's 1533 Statute in Restraint of Appeals, which similarly placed 'sovereignty' over communion:

this realm of England is an empire ... that part of the said body politic called spirituality, now being usually called the English Church, which hath been reputed and also found of that sort that both for knowledge, integrity and sufficiency of number, it hath been always thought and is also at this hour sufficient and meet of itself, without the intermeddling of any exterior person or persons, to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such offices and duties as to their rooms spiritual doth appertain.

It seems that the ghost of Henry VIII was present at the meeting of the CofI's General Synod, with his shouts of "sovereignty! sovereignty! no foreign meddling in my church" echoing throughout its deliberations.  

Anglican ecclesiology has, thankfully, travelled a long distance from the proud boasts of Henry VIII.  (To be fair, the ecclesiologies of other communions - including Rome and Orthodoxy - has also, again thankfully, travelled far from the circumstances of the 16th century.)  Take, for example, the wonderful reflection on the relationship between the Holy Trinity and the Church in the Anglican-Orthodox 2006 statement The Church of the Triune God:

St John makes it clear that 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. It is within and by the Church that we come to know the Trinity and by the Trinity we come to understand the Church because [quoting Origen] ‘the Church is full of Trinity’.

All our theology of the Church presupposes the eternal priority of this mystery of communion in the life of God. If God were not eternally a communion of love, the koinonia of believers would not be what it is, a real participation in the divine life, a theosis (1.3 & 4).

Perhaps such reflection indicates what is at stake when the discourse of 'autonomy' and 'sovereignty' dominates our ecclesiology.  To again quote from The Church of the Triune God:

The Christian understanding of life in the Church requires not only a reflection on the pattern of divine agency in creation and the history of salvation, but also a grounding in our theology of the divine life as it eternally is, the ‘immanent Trinity’. Unless we try to grasp what kind of God it is who acts in this way towards us, our theology of the Church will be impoverished (13).

The unity of the universal Church is the communion in faith, truth, love and common sacramental life of the several local churches. The catholic Church exists in each local church; and each local church is identified with the whole,
expresses the whole and cannot exist apart from the whole (24 - emphasis mine).

Any ecclesiology which declares that 'autonomy' and 'sovereignty' are defining features of the Church is, therefore, erroneously narrating the relationship between the Holy Trinity  and the Church.  What is more, it may be erroneously narrating the relationship that is the Triune God Himself.

Paul Avis (in another excellent reflection on the Covenant in The Living Church) provides an answer to the CofI General Synod's ecclesiology of autonomy and sovereignty:

“Autonomy” cannot be the first thing that we have to say about ourselves as Anglican churches. I think the attributes of the Church of Christ in the Creed come much higher up: unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity. The very first thing we want to say about our church is that it belongs to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ ... We are called to seek, maintain and extend communion. To do that we are inspired by the Holy Spirit, who is sometimes conceived as the bond of communion between the Father and the Son.  Ultimately, then, the future of the Anglican Communion is not a political matter, but a spiritual issue. I believe we should consider the Covenant in that light.

Autonomy and sovereignty? No.  Unam, sanctam, cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam - thus are we the Church of the Triune God.

Quincy, SE Asia & Ireland: Covenant questions

In the most recent edition of The Living Church, Fr. David Richardson - director of the Anglican Centre in Rome - notes that the Holy See has been strongly supportive of the idea of the Covenant because it has the potential to ensure that Anglicanism "act[s] and decid[es] in ways that are not simply local".  The Covenant is, in other words, a means to deepen and secure Anglicanism's experience of communion and catholicity.

The recent history of Anglicanism has, of course, demonstrated the pressing need for a means to protect communion and catholicity against local decisions which undermine both these defining characteristics of the church catholic.  It is precisely this which South-East Asia emphasised in its Preamble to the Letter of Accession to the Covenant.  Referring to the "ecclesial deficit" (para. 16) in Anglicanism, revealed through the communion-breaking actions of TEC and Canada, South-East Asia provides the rationale for its accession to the Covenant:

The Anglican Communion Covenant offers a concrete platform in ordering the Churches in the Anglican Communion to be a Communion with a clear ecclesial identity (para. 15).

The Covenant, in other words, changes things.  It addresses Anglicanism's "ecclesial deficit".

While it pains me greatly to say it, I wonder if this approach - understanding the Covenant as contributing something new and different to Anglicanism's wounded experience of communion and catholicity - is unfortunately not present in the Church of Ireland's decision to "subscribe" to the Covenant.

Yes, Ireland has assented to the Covenant process.  For that, at  least, we can be grateful.  Note, however, the views expressed by the CofI's Standing Committee regarding the Synod motion:

the Church of Ireland would be saying that in the context of its own clear and unchanged self-understanding, the covenant provides a means, not of altering the character of the Church of Ireland (emphasis added).

The Standing Committee went on to de facto give priority to the CofI's Preamble and Declaration of 1870, which includes a commitment to communion with the Church of England and sister-churches.  Quoting this part of the Preamble and Declaration, the Standing Committee states:

to those who fear the effects of the covenant could be the overconstraining
of individual provinces from doing what they believe to be right, that where
there is mutual attentiveness and respect, differing decisions on a major matter do not always inevitably lead to impaired communion.

Even the impeccably orthodox Bishop of Down and Dromore seemed to similarly emphasise this:

The Covenant sits under the Preamble and Declaration and cannot challenge it. This is vitally important, because it is the Preamble and Declaration which declares our essential and foundational principles for determining those with whom we are in communion.

The  CofI's official press release is even worse:

The Covenant sits under the Preamble and Declaration of the Church and does not affect the sovereignty of the Church of Ireland or mean any change in doctrine (emphasis added).

The contrast with South-East Asia is quite profound.  Rather than addressing the "ecclesial deficit" which allowed local decision-making to impair communion and catholicity, Ireland appears to suggest that the Covenant changes very little - local decision-making retains its priority.  This, of course, is the very "ecclesial deficit" which has led to the painful disorder within the Anglican Communion.

Which brings us to Quincy.  In rejecting the Covenant, the rump TEC Diocese of Quincy quite explicitly endorsed the cornerstone of the "ecclesial deficit" - provincial autonomy:

We have grave reservations about the “instruments of the Communion,” the authority bestowed by the proposed covenant and the hierarchy it creates. The only hierarchy of the Communion has been a spiritual one, bonding all Anglicans to the Archbishop of Canterbury ... We only recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury as our spiritual head, and no other earthly international authority. We see no reason to change this.

Note the wording - "no other earthly international authority". For the rump Diocese of Quincy, therefore, there is no higher earthly authority than TEC's General Convention.  Quincy has declared that acting and deciding in ways that are simply local has priority over catholicity and communion.

The problem for those of us who are Irish Anglicans is that our General Synod, while 'subscribing' to the Covenant, appears to have simultaneously affirmed the very "ecclesial deficit" affirmed by Quincy.  Quincy has explicitly, and Ireland has implicitly, denied a key characteristic of patristic catholicity - what the Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement has described as "continual reciprocity" and "permanent conciliarity".  For the church catholic, the local cannot have priority.

Missal, Prayer book and common texts

It seems that some Anglican liturgists are joining the usual suspects in attacking the new translation of the Roman Missal.  The Anglican liturgist Fr David Holeton, speaking at a conference earlier this month at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, condemned the new translation as creating "an atmosphere of ecumenical distrust".  He particularly highlighted the loss of 'common texts'.  This, he alleged, would result in Anglicans and other Christians feeling that they were strangers rather than friends when sharing in Roman Catholic celebrations of the eucharist.

So what is it that Fr Holeton and the other critics are so concerned about?  The new translation reverts to "and with your spirit" rather than "and also with you".  The Gloria now appears in 'fuller' form.  The Nicene Creed again becomes "I believe".  The Sanctus is no longer "God of power and might" but reverts to "Lord God of hosts".  And, of course, the words of consecration change from "for all" to "for many".

Now, those aware of the Anglican patrimony will be smiling at this point.  Such revisions are not a rejection of 'common texts'.  Rather, they represent a recovery of the shared liturgical tradition of the Latin West, common to both Rome and Anglicanism.  All of the revisions quoted above are, in fact, the texts employed in the classical 1662 Book of Common Prayer.  Here, then, is an example of how the 'reform of the reform' by both Rome and Canterbury draws our Communions closer to a shared source - the language and rhythms of the Latin West's historic liturgy.

Even where there is an obvious divergence in the traditions, profound similarities can be detected.  The confession is a good illustration of this.  The revised translation of the Roman Missal introduces a greater degree of solemnity into the confession - the changes from the current text are in bold: 

I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done
and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault,
through my own fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

The confession in the BCP Eucharist does not, of course, invoke our Lady and the saints.  But that somewhat misses the key point.  As Catherine Pickstock brilliantly demonstrated in an article on the text of the BCP confession, unlike modern rites, the BCP text does not merely refer to penitence - it is penitence. Precisely the same can be said with reference to the new, fuller text of the confession in the Roman revision.

+Rowan, recently commenting on preparations for next year's celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the BCP, has stated, "The Prayer Book is a profoundly valuable inheritance which we neglect at our peril".  Part of the peril - as Fr Holeton has unwittingly emphasised - is undermining an authentic ecumenism, the celebration of the shared traditions of the Anglican and Roman patrimonies.

The heart sings when reading Athanasius

While this year most Anglicans will have celebrated the feast of St Mark on 2nd May - transferred from the Easter octave - the date was also the commemoration of St Athanasius.  I first read a translation of Athanasius' De Incarnatione - a translation by a CSMV Sister with a foreword by C.S. Lewis in 1944 - in the late 1990s.  A few sentences at the opening of the work are perhaps the most significant words of theology I have ever read:

We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning.  There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation (Chapter 1, I).

Each time I read these words, I also hear Lewis' words from the foreword - "the heart sings unbidden" when reading Athanasius.

Easter and the Lamb's high feast

Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week: From the entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection has been a blessing through Holy Week and the beginning of Eastertide.  Benedict reminds us of the nature of the relationship between Easter and each celebration of the Eucharist:

Both Cross and Resurrection are intrinsic to the Eucharist - without them there would be no Eucharist.  Yet because Jesus' gift is essentially rooted in the Resurrection, the celebration of the sacrament had necessarily to be connected with the memorial of the Resurrection ... The "breaking of bread"  was already fixed for the morning of the day of Resurrection in the apostolic age - the Eucharist was already celebrated as an encounter with the Risen Lord.

The Pontiff's words recall the traditional Easter hymn's celebration of the profound relationship between the Church's Eucharist and the Resurrection of the Incarnate and Crucified Lord:

At the Lamb's high feast we sing
praise to our victorious King,
who hath washed us in the tide
flowing from his pierced side;
praise we him, whose love divine
gives his sacred Blood for wine,
gives his Body for the feast,
Christ the victim, Christ the priest.

Where the Paschal blood is poured,
death's dark angel sheathes his sword;
Israel's hosts triumphant go
through the wave that drowns the foe.
Praise we Christ, whose blood was shed,
Paschal victim, Paschal bread;
with sincerity and love
eat we manna from above.