Catholicity and communion or autonomy and gnosis?

The Anglican Communion has reason to be grateful to the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons (SCCC)  of TEC.  Its recently released report on the implications of the Covenant, contrary to the curious stance of the Church of Ireland General Synod, makes it very clear that the Covenant changes things for Anglicanism.  Indeed, to that extent the SCCC echoes the Preamble to the Letter of Accession of South-East Asia - the purpose of the Covenant is to address Anglicanism's "ecclesial deficit" (not, of course, language that the SCCC would endorse).

The opening words of the report rightly indicate that the communion ecclesiology of the Covenant will change Anglicanism:

The SCCC is of the view that adoption of the current draft Anglican Covenant has the potential to change the constitutional and canonical framework of TEC, particularly with respect to the autonomy of our Church, and the constitutional authority of our General Convention, bishops and dioceses.

If the communion ecclesiology developed through ARCIC and The Windsor Report is to have any authentic meaning for Anglicanism, this needs to be a reality.

The SCCC, however, articulates the contrary vision for Anglican ecclesiology:

This provision may challenge the autonomy of each church and the uniqueness by which some believe that the Church has received and understands the Scriptures and understands the Divine (in ways beyond the descriptions of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer). Arguably, Provincial conformity to this promise within the Covenant may proscribe or limit any doctrinal actions of the General Convention or changes to the Book of Common Prayer, a constitutional prerogative.

The above is an incredibly significant paragraph.  Here we see 'autonomy' defined.  The reference to "the Church" in this paragraph is given meaning by the previous description of TEC as "our Church".  This paragraph, then, is quite explicitly referring to TEC's General Convention.  And it is claimed that the General Convention has a 'unique' insight into the understanding of "the Scriptures and ... the Divine".  TEC, it seems, has access to a 'unique' gnosis unknown to the rest of the Communion or the Church Catholic.  What is more, this 'unique' insight should not be tested against the insights of the rest of the Communion:

The thrust of the Covenant, that, under certain circumstances, new expression by a constituent member of its understanding of faith and order may be subject to the judgment (and assent) of other members of the Communion, may challenge the authority of the General Convention, under the provisions of our Constitution and Canons, in identifying and articulating new understandings of our faith and doctrine.

Here we see the nature of the current Anglican crisis.  It is clash between the creedal affirmation in unam, sanctam, cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam, and a new, alternative creed of 'autonomy'.  This new creed rejects the call to catholicity and communion, a call which the Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement reminds us requires a "continual reciprocity" and "permanent conciliarity".

The debate over the Covenant has, therefore, immense significance for Anglicanism.  It is not a debate about New Hampshire or Los Angeles.  It is not about Lambeth 1.10.  It is about our ability to confess unam, sanctam, cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam.  We have a choice to make.  That choice is between catholicity and communion or autonomy and gnosis.

"A gift to be received": the Petrine primacy

On this Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, those of us who are Anglicans can celebrate the ARCIC agreement on the universal primacy of the See of Peter and, as ARCIC urges, continue that "recovery and re-reception" of the "universal primacy by the Bishop of Rome" (The Gift of Authority: Authority in the Church III, 62):

ARCIC has also previously explored the transmission of the primatial ministry exercised by the Bishop of Rome (see Authority in the Church II, 6-9). Historically, the Bishop of Rome has exercised such a ministry either for the benefit of the whole Church, as when Leo contributed to the Council of Chalcedon, or for the benefit of a local church, as when Gregory the Great supported Augustine of Canterbury's mission and ordering of the English church. This gift has been welcomed and the ministry of these Bishops of Rome continues to be celebrated liturgically by Anglicans as well as Roman Catholics.

Within his wider ministry, the Bishop of Rome offers a specific ministry concerning the discernment of truth, as an expression of universal primacy. This particular service has been the source of difficulties and misunderstandings among the churches. Every solemn definition pronounced from the chair of Peter in the church of Peter and Paul may, however, express only the faith of the Church. Any such definition is pronounced within the college of those who exercise episcope and not outside that college. Such authoritative teaching is a particular exercise of the calling and responsibility of the body of bishops to teach and affirm the faith. When the faith is articulated in this way, the Bishop of Rome proclaims the faith of the local churches. It is thus the wholly reliable teaching of the whole Church that is operative in the judgement of the universal primate. In solemnly formulating such teaching, the universal primate must discern and declare, with the assured assistance and guidance of the Holy Spirit, in fidelity to Scripture and Tradition, the authentic faith of the whole Church, that is, the faith proclaimed from the beginning. It is this faith, the faith of all the baptised in communion, and this only, that each bishop utters with the body of bishops in council. It is this faith which the Bishop of Rome in certain circumstances has a duty to discern and make explicit. This form of authoritative teaching has no stronger guarantee from the Spirit than have the solemn definitions of ecumenical councils. The reception of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome entails the recognition of this specific ministry of the universal primate. We believe that this is a gift to be received by all the churches (46-47).

Irenaeus and "the decisive criterion of salvation"

In the introduction to his selection of readings from St Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses, Hans Urs von Balthasar lets us know why the Bishop of Lyon has a particular significance for the Church amidst the virtual spiritualities of post-modernity:

From this very general description we can see that Gnosticism is radically anti-Christian.  Irenaeus, with great perspicacity, understood this, and showed it up for what it was. For him, Christianity is about the divine and spiritual Word becoming flesh and body.  The redemption depends on the real Incarnation, the real suffering on the Cross, and the real resurrection of the flesh.  All three of these are a scandal for Gnosticism.  On their view, Mary is not really Mother of God, and Christ did not really suffer ... And so the main object of Irenaeus' anti-Gnostic polemic is the salvific character of the Incarnation of God's Son and Word ... Caro cardo salutis, the flesh is the hinge, the decisive criterion, of salvation: this well-known saying of Tertullian, upon whom Irenaeus had a lasting influence, can in fact be regarded as the very centre of Irenaeus' theology.

TEC and Anglicanism's ecclesiological crisis

In quite a stark demonstration of the ecclesiological crisis facing Anglicanism, Preludium tells us why he does not support the Covenant:

Experience suggests, as far as I can tell, that we ought to be careful about subjecting our decisions to a collective process of discernment, one involving finding the "mind of the Communion."

If such a view is representative of majority 'progressive' opinion in TEC, it is difficult to see where the Communion goes.  ARCIC-Windsor-Covenant has been a process of maturing and discernment in Anglican ecclesiology.  We have increasingly discerned the significance of koinonia to the calling to be the Church.  As ARCIC II stated:

It is rooted in the confession of the one apostolic faith, revealed in the Scriptures, and set forth in the Creeds. It is founded upon one baptism. The one celebration of the eucharist is its pre-eminent expression and focus. It necessarily finds expression in shared commitment to the mission entrusted by Christ to his Church. It is a life of shared concern for one another in mutual forbearance, submission, gentleness and love; in the placing of the interests of others above the interests of self; in making room for each other in the body of Christ; in solidarity with the poor and the powerless; and in the sharing of gifts both material and spiritual. Also constitutive of life in communion is acceptance of the same basic moral values, the sharing of the same vision of humanity created in the image of God and recreated in Christ and the common confession of the one hope in the final consummation of the Kingdom of God (The Church as Communion, 45).

"A life of shared concern for one another in mutual forbearance, submission, gentleness and love".  It is to this which a process of mutual discernment testifies.  It is an outworking of the Church's call to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.  It proclaims that one national or cultural context does not have unique, salvific insights unavailable to other national or cultural contexts.  It tells us what it is for the Church to be catholic.

The fact that significant opinion, and almost certainly a majority, within TEC explicitly rejects such communion ecclesiology - the fruit of theological reflection via ARCIC and Windsor - is the determining factor in the crisis of contemporary Anglicanism.  Put simply, if Anglicanism is to be an authentically catholic communion it is time to let TEC have its wish and experience the isolation of autonomy rather than live out the call to communion.

In communion with Bernard Mizeki, martyr

The persecution of Anglicans by the Mugabe regime and the schismatic bishop Kunonga continues.  According to the Anglican Communion News Service, for the second year running Anglicans have been prohibited from worshipping at the shrine of the martyr Bernard Mizeki. 

Bishop of Harare, the Rt Revd Dr. Chad N. Gandiya, has urged the Communion to pray for Anglicans in Zimbabwe mindful of the example and fellowship of Bernard Mizeki:

The love, courage and commitment of Bernard Mizeki to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Gospel he preached among the Mangwende people is an inspiration to us all as we suffer persecution.

Like him our people continue to witness to God's love and grace regardless of arrests, ridicule and harassments. Celebrations this year are particularly meaningful because of what we are going through.

Feast of the birth of St John the Baptist - friend of God

St John,
you that are that John who baptized God;
you were praised by an archangel
before you were begotten by your father;
you were full of God
before you were born of your mother;
you showed your mother the mother bearing God
before the mother who bore you within her
showed you the day ...

You, God, take away the sin of the world,
and you, his friend, say,
'Here is he who takes away the sin of the world.
Behold, before you,
him who is burdened with the sin of the world.'
You bear the sin - and you proclaim that he bears it.
Behold me, whose sin you bear as John proclaims.
Behold, healer, and the healer's witness, here I am -
behold the sick servant of the healer and his work
petitions here the healer and his witness.
True healer, I pray you heal me;
true witness, I beg you to pray for me.
Reconcile me to myself,
you by your actions, you by your words ...

You are the high and good God,
and you are the very good friend
of him who is in eternity the merciful and blessed God.
Amen.

St Anslem's Prayer to St John the Baptist.

Corpus Christi

They are totally foolish, these people who despise the whole saving plan of God, who deny the salvation of the flesh, and scorn its regeneration, claiming it is not capable of incorruptibility.  If the flesh is not saved, the Lord did not redeem us by His Blood, the cup of the Eucharist is not communion in His Blood, and the bread we break is not communion in His Body.  For blood can only come from veins, flesh, and whatever else makes up the substance of man.  All this the Word of God really and truly became, in order to redeem us by His Blood ...

How can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the Body and Blood of the Lord, falls into corruption and does not partake of life? They should either change their opinions or stop offering what we have just mentioned! Our opinion, however, is in harmony with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist confirms our opinion.

St Irenaeus Adversus Haereses V 2, 2-3 & IV 18, 4-5

Hooker, Benedict and the Holy Eucharist

On the eve of the feast of Corpus Christi, Richard Hooker's (in)famous words on the Eucharist will perhaps not be to the forefront of the minds of many catholic Anglicans:

The reall presence of Christes most blessed bodie and bloode is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthie receiver of the sacrament (LEP V 67, 6).

Hooker was, as has often been pointed out, seeking to recapture a 'dynamic' patristic understanding of the eucharistic presence as opposed to a perceived overly-'static' understanding which had accompanied late medieval practice and devotion. 

Mindful of the patristic insistence on the relationship between the Incarnation and the Eucharist, Hooker - pointing to Tertullian, Irenaeus and Theodoret (LEP V 67, 11) - was also capable of a vigorous affirmation of 'realist' eucharistic language:

The verie letter of the worde of Christ giveth plaine securitie that these mysteries doe as nailes fasten us to his verie crosse, that by them wee draw out, as touchinge efficacie force and vertue, even the blood of his goared sid, in the woundes of our redemer wee there dip our tongues, wee are died redd both withine and without ... this bread hath in it more then the substance which our eyes behold ... It is enough that to me which take them [the eucharistic elements] they are the bodie and blood of Christ (LEP V 67, 12).

This concern to ensure that eucharistic doctrine and practice affirms the presence of Christ in both the eucharistic elements and in the ecclesial community was, of course, caught up in the debates and controversies of the Reformation era.  But the concern to affirm both remains an enduring theme of a catholic eucharistic doctrine faithful to scriptural and patristic insights.  Consider Benedict XVI's following comments:

Bread and wine become his Body and Blood.  But it must not stop there; on the contrary, the process of transformation must now gather momentum.  The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn.  We are to become the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood.

No, Hooker and Benedict are not saying the same thing.  Yes, there are significant differences.  But the similarities are worth reflecting upon on Corpus Christi.  Both Hooker and Benedict emphasise the same dynamic central to the traditional collect for the feast:

O Lord, who in a wonderful sacrament hast left us a memorial of thy passion; Grant us so to reverence the holy mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that we may ever know within ourselves the fruits of thy redemption; who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God world without end. Amen

Anglicanism's original sin?

Fr. Jonathan at The Conciliar Anglican has explored the concept of the "organic episcopate" as a distinguishing aspect of the Anglican way.  He rightly notes that the Anglican practice of episcope has its roots in the Reformation era:

The political reality that made the Reformation possible was the pope’s refusal to annul the marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon, an annulment that had been ruled valid by the bishops of the local church. However, the theological issue at play was the right of the local church to be in charge of its own affairs, in so much as the local church does not seek to change the content of the faith once delivered to the saints. Whether or not the local bishops made the right call in allowing for Henry’s annulment, allowing such an annulment to take place certainly does not rise to the level of a serious departure from the faith in which outside bishops would be compelled to act.

From these contingent circumstances arose the distinctive Anglican concept of 'national churches':

As the original version of Article XXXVII states, “The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.” Thus, the Anglican Reformers opted for a view of the Church in which each people, secure within their own borders and having their own ecclesiastical hierarchy, may govern their own church as they see fit. In England, this led to a particularly strong ecclesiastical role for the monarchy ... But once Anglicanism spread outside of England, the reference back to the crown was severed and other national churches emerged. It is in the DNA of Anglicanism that particular, national churches will have their own structures, their own governance, and their own approach to sharing the gospel with their own people.

Herein, however, is what I think to be Anglicanism's 'original sin' - the concept of the 'national church'.  Whatever the political, dynastic and theological controversies of the Reformation era, the emergence within Anglicanism of a discourse which privileged the 'national church' over koinonia has had damaging consequences for Anglicanism's ability to live out catholicity.  This is perhaps illustrated by reflecting on The Conciliar Anglican's summary of Anglicanism's understanding of episcope:

We can be conciliar, just as the early Church was, without losing our characteristic adaptability. We can be the Body of Christ through rich, deep sacramental bonds that are rooted in the biblical witness and the shared norms of our tradition rather than through some sort of institutional alchemy.

Recent decades have witnessed the shattering of those "deep sacramental bonds" and "shared norms".  Beginning with the ordination of women to the ministerial priesthood, and intensifying with the ordination of women to the episcopate and then the New Hampshire situation, Anglicanism has experienced quite significant degrees of impaired communion.  The absence of large numbers of bishops from Lambeth 2008 and primates from Dublin 2010 illustrated the extent to which "deep sacramental bonds" and "shared norms" have become neither deep nor shared.

At the heart of this process has been the concept of the autonomy of the 'national church' - Philadelphia in 1974 and New Hampshire in 2003 were both defended on the basis that TEC had a legitimate autonomy precisely as a 'national church'.  The Windsor Report, however, indicated that Anglicanism was increasingly discerning that the 'national church' discourse required to be reformed by the discourse of catholicity and communion (the ARCIC process also made a crucial contribution to this discernment).  Windsor's discussion of subsidarity included a quite stark reminder that the autonomy of national churches had definitive boundaries:

Subsidiarity and adiaphora belong together: the more something is regarded as 'indifferent', the more locally the decision can be made. It does not take an Ecumenical Council to decide what colour flowers might be displayed in church; nor does a local congregation presume to add or subtract clauses from the Nicene Creed (38).

Windsor went on to remind provinces that the 'doctrine of reception' could not be misinterpreted to support an exalted view of the autonomy of national churches:

The doctrine of reception only makes sense if the proposals concern matters on which the Church has not so far made up its mind. It cannot be applied in the case of actions which are explicitly against the current teaching of the Anglican Communion as a whole, and/or of individual provinces. No province, diocese or parish has the right to introduce a novelty which goes against such teaching and excuse it on the grounds that it has simply been put forward for reception (69).

It is against this background that the Anglican Covenant commits the churches to a high degree of interdependence as a balance to the idea of the 'national church':

(3.2.1)  to have regard for the common good of the Communion in the exercise of its autonomy, to support the work of the Instruments of Communion with the spiritual and material resources available to it, and to receive their work with a readiness to undertake reflection upon their counsels, and to endeavour to accommodate their recommendations.
(3.2.2)  to respect the constitutional autonomy of all of the Churches of the Anglican Communion, while upholding our mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ, and the responsibility of each to the Communion as a whole.

Anglicanism is, therefore, seeking to address its 'original sin', rediscovering the call to catholicity and communion.  This assumes, of course, that the Covenant is capable of leading the Communion beyond the discourse of autonomy and the 'national church' into an ecclesial life authentically displaying the characteristics of communion and catholicity.  If not - or, indeed, if the Covenant process fails - Anglicanism will be confronted with the painful reality that its original sin will have prevailed.

God in flesh and blood

Recently attending a eucharist celebrated by a 'Prayer Book Catholic' priest friend, I was struck by his practice of concluding the 1662 rite with the Last Gospel.  As the Vatican liturgy website notes, the Last Gospel has its origins in quite mundane circumstances:

The Prologue of John's Gospel was already appreciated since the 13th century as a formula of blessing, in particular to obtain good weather, for which it was inserted by St. Pius V in his missal. This reading, therefore, must be understood as part of the blessing.

Hence, the site concludes:

The suppression of the last Gospel does not represent a grave harm, given the character of blessing that it had.

That said, reflection on the relationship between the Incarnation and the eucharist is a very ancient Christian theme - and a theme worth reflecting upon during the week of Corpus Christi.  Consider the following from St Justin Martyr's First Apology:

We do not consume the eucharistic bread and wine as if it were ordinary food and drink.  We have also been taught that just as Jesus Christ became a human being of flesh and blood by the power of the Word of God for our salvation, so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilate for their nourishment becomes the flesh and blood of this Jesus who became flesh by the power of his word in the prayer of thanksgiving.

While the practice of the Last Gospel is not easily compatible with the revised eucharistic rites' pattern of blessing and dismissal at major Sunday and feast-day celebrations, there is perhaps a case for re-introducing it at 'low mass'/said celebrations of contemporary and traditional rites as a final, prayerful meditation on the profound relationship between the Incarnation and the holy eucharist.  We who are flesh and blood are saved by the Son who became flesh and blood and who gives His flesh and blood to us that we too might be children of God.

On the feast of the Most Holy Trinity

The Son of God came and he caused the hidden rivers to gush forth, making known the name of the Trinity.

St Thomas Aquinas

Liturgy, Cranmer and predestination

The Trinity 2011 edition of the Prayer Book Society Journal carries an article entitled "The Formative Role of the Book of Common Prayer", examining the role of the BCP in liturgical formation.  While noting the pastoral resonances of the BCP liturgy, the article goes on to suggest that a key theological emphasis in the BCP should make us distinctly uncomfortable:

A dispassionate reading of [the BCP] hardly provides a comfortable theology.  What do people take from from the Prayer Book about the meaning of 'the elect', for example, when at Prayer Book Baptism they hear God entreated that the child may remain 'in the company of thy faithful and elect children'.

This approach, of course, echoes much recent work on Cranmer.  Indeed, the article quotes Dairmaid MacCulloch:

MacCulloch suggests that Cranmer's private writings expressed an understanding of God's grace that 'pointed inexorably to the doctrine of predestination'.

Gordon P. Jeanes' excellent study of Cranmer's sacramental theology also emphasises Cranmer's doctrine of predestination:

In both the communion and baptism services Cranmer uses the most fulsome and confident language about the grace received by the recipients of the sacrament.  He knew that he was exercising the unspoken caveat that this only applies to the elect, but would the clergy and congregations of the Church of England also have known this?

MacCulloch and Jeanes are entirely correct - understanding the BCP liturgy apart from the doctrine of predestination is impossible.  However, it could be argued that many Anglican clergy and congregations received the doctrine of predestination in a more catholic manner than did Archbishop Cranmer.  Prayer Book references to 'the elect' can be read in that catholic manner, summarised by Thomas Hibbs in his introduction to Augustine's Enchiridion:

The providential orchestration of human salvation is decidely communal.  Augustine speaks, not of individuals, but of the church as redeemed through the blood of Christ.

This reading of the Prayer Book liturgy is, at the very least, compatible with Article XVII's insistence regarding the doctrine of predestination:

We must receive God's promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture.

The Prayer Book's expression of the communal nature of the identity of the elect - the Church - is to be found in its rites for Baptism and Eucharist, in the collects and in the Burial of the Dead.  In the eyes of those whose reading of the doctrine of predestination was shaped by Geneva, Eamon Duffy's critique of the BCP burial rite is understandable:

The burial rite of 1552 spoke only of the elect ... This was to make the most universal of all popular rituals, burial, into a rite not of inclusion, but of separation ... the logical working out of this drastic redrawing and limiting of the Christian community.

This, however, was not the lived experience of Anglican communities in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, as Judith Maltby's excellent study has demonstrated.  It was "the preciser sort of protestant" who objected to the use of the BCP burial rite.  And it was "conformists [who] wanted their dead buried properly, reverently and with the rites authorised by the established church". 

16th and 17th century Anglican communities, therefore, consistently read the Prayer Book references to 'the elect' in the context of the catholic tradition's understanding of the communal nature of predestination and salvation rather than in the radically individualist sense of some strands of Reformed thought.  This is, perhaps, another example of Cranmer's genuis as a liturgist excelling his fidelity as a theologian to the patristic catholicity his liturgies sought to express.  The first generations of Anglicans who prayed the liturgies of the BCP are a better guide to its meaning.

'Shared' is not 'interchangeable'

Today's announcement by the Church of England-Methodist Joint Implementation Commission that English Anglicans and Methodists should "join forces on the ground in a more far-reaching way than ever before" should be noted for what it does not urge.  Amongst the "notes" provided in the CofE press release, but not in the Methodist version, is the following:

The report distinguishes between 'shared' ministry and 'interchangeable' ministry. For the Church of England, an interchangeable ordained ministry is only possible on the basis of episcopal ordination and oversight. The JIC has addressed this issue in its previous report Embracing the Covenant (2008), but an interchangeable ministry has not yet been achieved through the Anglican-Methodist Covenant.

The main obstacle in Anglican-Methodist relationships, therefore, remains - Methodism's continued rejection of the historic episcopate.  This is despite the agreement in the 1996 Anglican-Methodist statement Sharing in the Apostolic Communion:

We believe the recognition of each other's apostolicity as churches should include the recognition of the apostolicity of each other's ministry and allow us to work towards the establishment of that ministry in its traditional three-fold form, including, in ways which still need to be worked out, the historic episcopate (69).

Working to end the Methodist schism is a legitimate expression of ecumenism.  Healing the rupture, however, is dependent on the key principle explicitly endorsed by Sharing in the Apostolic Communion - a re-reception by Methodism of the historic episcopate.  The significance of the historic episcopate to communion and apostolicity was also articulated in the 1996 statement:

We see the historic episcopate as one sign of the continuity, unity, and catholicity of the church. We look forward to entering into fuller communion with one another in faith, mission and sacramental life and to the historic episcopate becoming again, for all of us, one element in the way by which the ordained ministry is transmitted with due order (70).

Reconciling Methodism to the historic episcopate and apostolic communion would be something of an achievement for Anglican ecumenical endeavours after the profound set-backs experienced by ARCIC and Anglican-Orthodox dialogue as a result of the current Anglican crisis.  It would be a small sign that, despite the dynamics of that crisis, Anglicans retain a commitment to communion and apostolicity as the Church has always understood these.

1549 and Latin Catholicity

Mea culpa from catholicity and covenant - I overlooked the fact that it was on Whitsunday 1549 that the First Book of Common Prayer came into use.  For All the Saints admirably sets out both the circumstances which gave rise to the 1549 BCP and the liturgical influences at work, reminding us - in the words of one liturgist - that 1549 was "a reverent adaptation of the Latin rite".  This is, of course, particularly the case with regards to Cranmer's translation of the ancient collects of the Latin tradition.

Commemorating the 1549 BCP, therefore, is a celebration of Anglicanism's place within the wider patrimony of the Latin tradition.  There is a sense in which we are Latin Catholics.  Despite everything else - Henry VIII separation from the See of Peter, Cranmer's relationship with the continental Reformers, the painful iconoclasm,  the abolition of the elevation of the Host - the foundational liturgy of Anglicanism is dependent on the Latin rite.  Reforms of medieval practices were also often an attempt to recover an earlier patristic Latin Catholicity seen in St Augustine.

Forgetting - or seeking to obscure - Anglicanism's fundamental identity as an expression of Latin Catholicity has contributed to the present crisis facing Anglicans.  We are not autonomous, 'free' to create a new identity for our Communion, centred on an agenda defined by late modernity.  We are an expression of Latin Catholicity.

The commemoration also recalls contemporary Anglicanism to another essential aspect of the 1549 BCP.  The Rector's Corner summarises this as follows:

My sense is that we will eventually find out that, while we don’t need royal warrants or the use of violence to impose the BCP on congregations (things which did accompany the BCP’s birth in 1549), we all need a fairly well-defined (though not anxiously so) “still center” around which to move ... in a practical sense, that “still center” in our common life is, and needs to remain, the agreed-upon access to the Holy Mysteries and catholic Faith found in the Book of Common Prayer.

The liturgical chaos which is to be found in contemporary Anglicanism - in which Creed and Eucharistic prayer can be replaced by our own compositions, in which the Holy Eucharist can be given to those who have not received the Sacrament of Baptism - is both a symptom of and a contributor to our present crisis.  We have lost our catholic centre, a catholic centre previously secured through the Prayer Book tradition. 

Celebrating our patrimony as Anglicans, as seen in the 1549 BCP, is a statement both of the richness of the patrimony but also a call to renew our Communion beyond the present crisis of orthodoxy and orthopraxis through a re-engagement with the Latin tradition of patristic catholicity.

Tears in Sudan

Ahead of the 9th July - the official date for the emergence of South Sudan as an independent nation - government forces from the North are engaged in an escalating campaign of terror and intimidation against the North's Christian minority.  +Nick Baines (Bradford) drew attention to the worsening situation on his blog some days ago.

Today +Rowan has issued a statement urging the international community - distracted by events elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East - to attend to the violence and injustice in North Sudan:

Along with the Christian leaders represented in the Sudan Ecumenical Forum and Council of Churches and many more throughout the world, we deplore the mounting level of aggression and bloodshed in South Kordofan State and the indiscriminate violence on the part of government troops against civilians.  Numerous villages have been bombed.  More than 53,000 people have been driven from their homes.  The new Anglican cathedral in Kadugli has been burned down.  UN personnel in the capital, Kadugli, are confined to their compound and are unable to protect civilians; the city has been overrun by the army, and heavy force is being used by government troops to subdue militias in the area, with dire results for local people.  Many brutal killings are being reported.

This violence is a major threat to the stability of Sudan just as the new state of South Sudan is coming into being.  The humanitarian challenge is already great, and the risk of another Darfur situation, with civilian populations at the mercy of government-supported terror, is a real one.

International awareness of this situation is essential.  The UN Security Council, the EU, the Arab League and the African Union need to co-operate in guaranteeing humanitarian access and safety for citizens, and we hope that our own government, which has declared its commitment to a peaceful future for Sudan, will play an important part in this.

Amidst worrying signs that the position of the Christian community is becoming increasingly fraught in post-revolution Egypt (see John Pontifex's report in The Catholic Herald), +Rowan is rightly urging the international community to exercise its responsibilities with regards to Sudan.  Christian communities are an important and historic part of the fabric of society in North Africa and if the countries of the region are to have a future as vibrant democracies they must secure the rights and freedoms of their Christian minorities.

For those of us in de-Christianised Europe, however, once again the African Church is challenging our witness as it relives Tertullian's description of the most compelling apologetic: "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church".

Quicunque vult and Anglicanism's Latin patrimony

Of all of the unfortunate decisions taken by the Church of Ireland when revising the Book of Common Prayer in 1878, the deletion of the 1662 rubric directing the use of the Athanasian Creed on certain days is close to being the most lamentable.  (The most lamentable was the removal of the form of the absolution in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick.)

Latitudinarians and evangelicals co-operated in many of the changes made to 1662, not the least of which was rubric on the Athanasian Creed.   While the rubric was indeed removed, the victory was not complete.  The Preface to the revision of 1878 stated:

We imply no censure upon the former Book [1662],as containing anything contrary to the Scriptures.

The Church of Ireland's 1870 Preamble and Declaration solemnly declared that it "doth receive and approve" the 1662 BCP - which includes the rubric directing the use of the Athanasian Creed.  And, of course, the Articles of Religion (also "receive[d] and approve[d]" by the Preamble and Declaration) joined the Athanasian Creed with the Apostles' and Nicene as "thoroughly to be received and believed".

Nor, importantly, did the removal of the rubric prevent the inclusion of the text of the Athanasian Creed in the 1878 BCP and those of 1926 and 2004.

All of which would suggest that despite the best efforts of the low church alliance of Latitudinarians and Evangelicals in 1878, the continued liturgical use of the Athanasian Creed in the Church of Ireland is not prohibited. 

Against this background, Irish Anglicans can profitably read the notes on the Athanasian Creed provided by Fr. Paul A. Sterne,SSC (courtesy of the PBUSA site).  As Fr. Sterne notes, Quincunque  vult "is an ancient profession of faith used in the Western Church since the fifth century".  Probably originating in southern Gaul as a summary of Augustinian Trinitarian and Christological belief, the liturgical use of this creed testifies to Anglicanism's Augustinian and Latin patrimony.

Particular attention can be drawn to Fr. Sterne's notes on Quincunque vult's critique of Nestorianism, mindful of John Milbank's reassertion of the presence of a Nestorian tendency in much Reformed Christology:

He receives all of his divinity from his Father, and he receives all of his humanity from his Mother.  In the Incarnation, God so humbles himself and goes through all that we do as men that it can even be said that he went through birth and had a human mother, just as it can be said that he suffered and died.  This application of the attributes of one of the natures in Christ to the other is known as the Communicatio idiomatum ... The Nestorian heresy denied a perfect union between the divine and human natures in Christ.  Thus, they refused to use the term Theotokos (“Birth-giver of God”) in reference to the Blessed Virgin, denying that the one Person born of her is indeed true God as well as true Man.

As a liturgical act, the Athanasian Creed is both doxological and interpretative - flowing from the community's reading of Scripture and shaping that reading.  Retaining the 1662 practice, therefore, could contribute to contemporary Anglicanism re-engaging with the fullness of the Trinitarian and Christological confessions, rather than employing these as vague motifs to further the ideological convictions and social practices of late modernity.

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The 1662 rubric is as follows: Upon these Feasts; Christmas Day, the Epiphany, Saint Matthias, Easter Day, Ascension Day, Whitsunday, Saint John Baptist, Saint James, Saint Bartholomew, Saint Matthew, Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Saint Andrew, and upon Trinity Sunday, shall be sung or said at Morning Prayer, instead of the Apostles' Creed, this Confession of our Christian Faith, commonly called the Creed of Saint Athanasius, by the Minister and people standing.

The Prayer Book Proposed in 1928 offered another model for the liturgical use of the Athanasian Creed.  Included in 1928's Office of Prime is the rubric, according to the ancient use of Prime, may be said the Confession of our Christian Faith, commonly called the Creed of Saint Athanasius.

(The illustration is of the Athanasian Creed in a 15th century Book of Hours.) 

Pentecost

St Irenaeus on the Christological basis of the Pentecost experience:

The Holy Spirit therefore descended on the Son of God made the Son of Man.  With Him He became accustomed to dwell among the human race, to rest upon men, to inhabit the handiwork of God, accomplishing the Father's will in them, renewing them, taking them from the oldness into the newness of Christ ... The Lord therefore promised to send the Comforter, who would join us to God.

Adversus Haereses III 17, 1-2

The repentant community

At yesterday's ordination of five priests for the Ordinariate, Archbishop Nichols of Westminster in his homily pointed to the priest's vocation as a the minister of sacramental reconciliation - and that this is dependent on priests themselves experiencing the Father's forgiveness in the confessional:

Each one of us knows that this [bearing the fruit of the priestly ministry] will not be so unless there is, within our lives, a constant recognition of our own shortcomings and the practice of repentance. This was the experience of Peter. His proclamation of love for the Lord, his leading role in the Church, was all utterly dependent on his own experience of forgiveness for his betrayals.

Every time I hear the words of St Paul, from the opening sentence of our First Reading, a little dread enters my heart. He tells us: ‘Lead a life worthy of your vocation.’ So often I fall short, preoccupied with my own thoughts, with my own plans, with my own self-importance. Only with forgiveness, through confession and reconciliation, can we grow into such a way of life. The triple confession of our love for the Lord has to be matched with a constant confession of our own faults. It is in the confessional that we are, in St Paul’s words, formed into maturity, into the fullness of Christ.

His words brought to mind +Rowan's thoughts in Tokens of Trust:

The miracle is that a repentant community, a community of people who are daily aware of their untruthfulness and lack of love and are not afraid to face their failures, is a community that speaks profoundly of hope.  The Church does not communicate the good news by consistent success and virtue ... but in its willingness to point to God; and repentance, which says that you don't have to be paralysed by failure, is thus one of the most effective signs of the Church's appeal to something more than human competence and resource.

In the words of both Archbishops we see how the practice of sacramental confession allows the Church to live as the repentant community.

(Addition: this sermon by +Geoffrey Rowell on the commemoration of Edward King explores King's role in the Oxford Movement's recovery for Anglicanism of sacramental confession - One of the treasures of Catholic spiritual life and discipline recovered by the Oxford Movement was personal confession of one’s sins to a priest and personal absolution ... Part of Edward King’s ministry – and close to the heart of it – was his pastoral gift as a confessor ... He believed it to be important, telling his clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln in 1898 that they had a duty to explain to their people ‘what the teaching of the Church of England with regard to Private Confession really is, making clear to them both the reality of the blessing and what she is commissioned to give, and the perfect liberty of her children.’)

"A plan of surpassing beauty" - Incarnation and Pentecost

The reading from the Fathers provided in Celebrating the Seasons for today's daily office, offers St Cyril of Alexander's reflection on the relationship between the Incarnation and Pentecost.  St Cyril describes this relationship as "a plan of surpassing beauty":

To restore human nature to its original condition, the Creator promised the out-pouring of the Spirit.  We receive this out-pouring because the Word assumed our nature and in our nature first received the Spirit:


When the time came for this great act of unforced generosity, which revealed in our midst the only-begotten Son, clothed with flesh on this earth, born of woman, in accordance with holy Scripture,  God the Father gave the Spirit once again.  Christ as the first-fruits of our restored nature, was the first to receive the Spirit ...


The whole of our nature is present in Christ, insofar as he is human.  So the Father can be said to give the Spirit again to the Son, though the Son possesses the Spirit as his own, in order that we may receive the Spirit in Christ ...


The only-begotten Son receives the Spirit, but not for his own advantage, for the Spirit is his, and is given in him and through him, as we have already said.  He receives it to renew our nature in its entirety and to make it whole again, for in becoming human he took our entire nature to himself.  If we reason correctly, we can see that Christ did not receive the Spirit for himself, but rather for us in him.

As we prepare for the Feast of Pentecost, St Cyril's reflections draw us into this "plan of surpassing beauty", the intimate relationship between the Word becoming flesh and flesh receiving the Spirit.  We receive the Spirit because he, restoring our nature by his Incarnation, first received the Spirit for us.  In celebrating Pentecost, we are celebrating the "surpassing beauty" of the Eternal Word restoring his creation through his Incarnation.

Given to be priests

On this Feast of St Columba, when four new priests will be ordained in our diocese, words from from the 1897 response to Apostolicae Curae by +Canterbury and +York, Saepius Officio: 

We make provision with the greatest reverence for the consecration of the holy Eucharist and commit it only to properly ordained Priests and to no other ministers of the Church ... 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 ...

Nor indeed do we avoid the term Sacerdos and its correlatives either in the Latin edition of the “Book of Common Prayer or of the Ministry of the Sacraments as administered in the Church,” published in 1560 in the reign of Elizabeth, nor in other public documents written in Latin ...

The succession and continuance of these offices from the Lord through the Apostles and the other ministers of the primitive Church is also clearly implied in the “Eucharistical” prayers which precede the words Receive the Holy Ghost. Thus the intention of our Fathers was to keep and continue these offices which come down from the earliest times ... 

For the Priest, to whom the dispensing of the Sacraments and especially the consecration of the Eucharist is entrusted, must always do the service of the altar with the people standing by and sharing it with him. Thus the prophecy of Malachi (i 11) is fulfilled, and the name of God is great among the gentiles through the pure offering of the Church.

Given to be creedal

When this is done, the Nicene Creed shall be sung or said.

The first act of newly-ordained priests in the 1662 Ordinal is to join with the bishop and the church in proclaiming the Symbolum Nicaenum.  It is a powerful statement of the calling given to the presbyter to ensure their ministry of teaching, proclamation and catechesis conforms to and flows from the Church's Trinitarian and Christological confession.

In a singular way, of course, the calling to safeguard the deposit of faith is given to the episcopate.  (No better contemporary exposition of this can be found than Blessed John Paul II's Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum.)  That said, presbyters have a share in this ministry with their bishop.  It is presbyters, after all, who preach, teach, catechise, absolve, counsel and pastor in a local context.  And the shape of preaching, teaching, catechesis, absolution and counsel, and pastoring is fundamentally determined by the Church's Trinitarian and Christological confession.

St Irenaeus' reflection on the "succession of bishops" stressed the public nature of the apostolic succession over and against the 'secret' wisdom of the Gnostics:

By showing that the tradition ... received from the apostles ... has come down to us through the succession of bishops, we confute all those who, in whatever manner ... set up conventicles.

Irenaeus also, however, invoked the "succession of presbyters":

When we appeal to the tradition that comes from the apostles, the tradition preserved in the Churches thanks to the succession of presbyters, they [the Gnostics] oppose tradition.  They claim to be wiser than not only the presbyters but the apostles themselves.

Here we see another aspect of the 'given-ness' of the ministerial priesthood.  The content of the presbyter's ministry of proclamation in Word and Sacrament - "the tradition that comes from the apostles" - is given to and received by the presbyter.  In joining with the bishop and the church in reciting the Creed of Nicaea, a presbyter affirms their calling to be creedal in teaching, proclamation and catechesis.

Given as icon

Despite the grave difficulties faced in recent years by Anglican-Orthodox dialogue, the 2006 Cyprus Agreed Statement - The Church of the Triune God - notably enriches the Anglican understanding of the ministerial priesthood and answers contemporary Anglican confusions.

In the various debates afflicting Anglicanism in recent decades - ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate, 1.10 and New Hampshire, Sydney/Fresh Expressions and lay presidency - a common theme has been an inability to articulate what the ministerial priesthood actually is.  Instead, a "baptism ecclesiology" has inspired both the progressive and the puritan, Philadelphia, New Hampshire and Sydney.  In such an ecclesiology, the ministerial priesthood does no more than represent the eucharistic community.  It is the projection of the community. 

The Church of the Triune God - which, as ACC14 noted received a "favourable response" at Lambeth 2008 - reminds us that the presbyter is more than the representative of the community.  Quoting both the Moscow (1976) and Dublin (1984) Agreed Statements, it says:

In the Eucharist the eternal priesthood of Christ is constantly manifested in time. The celebrant, in his liturgical action, has a twofold ministry: as an icon of Christ, acting in the name of Christ, towards the community and also as a representative of the community expressing the priesthood of the faithful (VI, 19).

Commenting on the presbyter's role as an icon of Christ, Cyprus stresses this particular ministry of the presbyter: 

The priestly president of the eucharistic assembly exercises an iconic ministry ... In the context of the Eucharist, the bishop or presbyter stands for Christ in a particular way. In taking bread and wine, giving thanks, breaking, and giving, the priest is configured to Christ at the Last Supper (VI, 19).

This calling to be an icon of Christ, given particular expression in the celebration of the eucharist, ensures that "Christ’s own priesthood ... remains alive and effectual within the ecclesial body" (VI, 21).

That the presbyter is given to the Church to be an icon of Christ's priesthood means that the ministerial priesthood is not our projection.  The presbyter as icon recalls the community to the truth and reality of revelation and grace. Standing within and as part of the community of the baptised, the presbyter's ministry and vocation as icon proclaims to the community that we are dependent on the prior action of the Triune God in the Incarnate Word.

Given as gift

This week witnesses the ordination of four new priests in our diocese.  In a large diocese such as ours, the yearly event of presbyteral ordinations offers a valuable opportunity for a diocese to engage in catechesis on the nature of ordination and the ministerial priesthood.

Amidst the contemporary Anglican confusions over the ministerial priesthood - manifest in the debates over the ordination of women, Sydney's advocacy of lay presidency, and the (at best) imprecise role of the ordained ministry in 'Fresh Expressions' - it is all too easy to forget that Lambeth 1988 accepted the ARCIC statement on Ministry and Ordination "as consonant in substance with the faith of Anglicans".

Despite, therefore, the new impediments to communion between the Sees of Rome and Canterbury that have arisen since ARCIC I, the most significant instrument of communion within Anglicanism - the Lambeth Conference - has accepted that the ARCIC I statement provides an account of a shared faith and understanding regarding the gift of the ministerial priesthood.

One way of Anglicans giving expression to this is through a re-discovery of the practice of anointing at ordinations to the presbyterate.  Against some medieval Latin commentators who regarded anointing as the 'form' of the Sacrament of Orders, the Anglican Reformation sought to recover the patristic emphasis that Orders were conferred through prayer and the laying on of hands.  It is this very patristic emphasis which is now also given expression in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The laying on of hands by the bishop, with the consecratory prayer, constitutes the visible sign of ... ordination (1538).

This being accepted by both communions, a re-discovery by Anglicans of the anointing of the hands of the newly-ordained presbyter would - in conformity with Lambeth 1988 - demonstrate the shared understanding of ministerial priesthood expressed in ARCIC I.

Such a re-discovery of anointing at presbyteral ordinations has indeed been witnessed within Anglicanism.  The 2001 Berkeley Statement by the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation noted that "in some parts of the Communion, anointing the hands of a newly-ordained presbyter with chrism ... [has] been introduced into ordination practice".  The Statement did, however, imply criticism of this as being "opposed to a baptism ecclesiology".  (A similar view unfortunately found expression in the guidelines published by the Church of Ireland's Liturgical Advisory Committee.)  At which point it is necessary to point back to ARCIC I and the 'given-ness' of the ministerial priesthood:

Christian ministers are members of this redeemed community. Not only do they share through baptism in the priesthood of the people of God, but they are ‘particularly in presiding at the eucharist’ representative of the whole Church in the fulfilment of its priestly vocation of self-offering to God as a living sacrifice (Rm 12:1). Nevertheless their ministry is not an extension of the common Christian priesthood but belongs to another realm of the gifts of the Spirit.

It is to this which anointing the hands of the newly-ordained presbyter witnesses - that the presbyterate is a gift to the Church, not the Church's creation.

As an example of what can be done, we can turn to the Church of England's Common Worship ordinal.  Provision is made for the option of anointing the hands of newly-ordained presbyters, with the bishop saying the following:

May God,
who anointed the Christ with the Holy Spirit at his baptism,
anoint and empower you to reconcile and bless his people.

Amidst present Anglican confusions and controversies, we need to take what perhaps can be seen as small steps to recover some of what has been lost.  Re-discovering the practice of anointing the hands of newly-ordained presbyters could contribute to Anglicans re-discovering the importance of the ARCIC statement on Ministry and Ordination - and the truth that the Church is about what is given to us as gift from the Triune God, not what we create.

Strengthened by Africa's spirit of martyrdom

Friday past was the commemoration of the martyrs of Uganda, the 45 Anglican and Roman Catholic Ugandans martyred in 1885-7.  When Pope Paul VI canonised the Roman Catholic martyrs in 1964, he recognised the shared witness of the martyrs of both traditions:

Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and – the greatest of all – Augustine, that we would one day add names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their 20 companions? Nor must we forget those members of the Anglican Church who also died for the name of Christ.

On Thursday past, the Anglican Communion News Service drew attention to Mugabe's ongoing persecution of priests and people in the Diocese of Harare.  16 Anglicans have been arrested, part of the regime's attempt to prop up the schismatic, nationalistic diocese set up by Mugabe supporters.  +Rowan has previously pointed to the Anglican witness in Zimbabwe:

Anglican churches and congregations have been targeted by government-sponsored thugs while parishioners have been harassed, beaten and arrested. But the important thing that the Anglican Church, along with others, has done is to remind a battered and violated population that their dignity still matters and that change is possible. The response to their witness has been remarkable: thousands gather to worship despite attacks and death threats.

Of all the gifts that African Anglicanism offers the rest of the Communion at this time, perhaps nothing is greater than this determination to continue the witness of the Ugandan martyrs, confessing human dignity in light of the Trinity and Incarnation and against the tyranny of corrupt regimes and the agony of poverty and disease.

Strengthened by the prayers of the Ugandan martyrs and by the example of the bishop, priests, deacons and laity of the Diocese of Harare, may Anglicans in the West's de-Christianised societies gain strength to live out and promote the culture of life and human dignity.

Ordinariate, ARCIC and Covenant

From Crisis Magazine (h/t Ordinariate Portal) a fascinating exploration of possible futures for the Ordinariate.  Before coming to one such possible future, however, it is necessary to address one unfortunate side-effect of the creation of the Ordinariate - the belief and hope, shared by liberal Anglicans (see the comments on TEC's The Lead site) and uber-trad Roman Catholics (see the comments on The Catholic Herald site), that it has killed the ARCIC process.  According the Crisis Magazine article, those of us who are Catholic Anglicans but who do not enter the Ordinariate are bearers of a fake tradition:

Many Anglo-Catholics also do not really want to be Catholic: They want to be Anglican. They honestly do not see the importance of being in full visible communion with the Catholic Church.

From the Malines Conversations of 1921-27, to the initiation of ARCIC I in 1967, to the declaration of the 1988 Lambeth Conference that the ARCIC I statements on the Eucharist and Ordination as "consonant in substance with the faith of Anglicans", to the commitment of the recently established Society of Saint Wilfrid and Saint Hilda to "work with urgency for the unity of the Church consistent with the prayer and purpose of Jesus, and as reflected in the ARCIC process", the commitment of Catholic Anglicans to restore full visible communion with the See of Peter has been explicit and heartfelt.  The fact that Catholic Anglicans continue with this commitment amidst the present Anglican crisis is, indeed, evidence of the importance which they attach to the Anglican tradition being in communion with the See of Peter.

So what, then, of the Ordinariate?  Needless to say, it is not one of the scenarios considered by Crisis Magazine that the Ordinariate actually makes a positive contribution to the ARCIC process by demonstrating the significance of the contribution of the Anglican theological, spiritual and pastoral tradition to the Church Catholic.  To quote Anglicanorum Coetibus, "the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion [are] a precious gift ... and a treasure to be shared".  The Ordinariate can be viewed, therefore, as a kind of firstfruits of the ARCIC process - this is what the fulfillment of ARCIC could look like.

Back to the Crisis Magazine article.  One scenario it considers is the continuance of the current Anglican crisis:

The Anglican Church herself will eventually disintegrate or morph into something unrecognizably Anglican, and the ordinariate will be all that is left of historic Anglicanism. In this scenario, an increasing number of Anglicans worldwide will see that, if they want to be historic Christians within the Anglican tradition, the only place to do that will be within the ordinariate, and they will flee the sinking ship of Anglicanism to join it.

Despite the fact that the article does not see this as likely - because of the significance of the evangelical Anglican tradition - it is a scenario that could come to pass for many Anglicans in the Catholic tradition if the Covenant process collapses, ARCIC III is undermined by further innovations in faith and order, and the Communion's life ceases to bear any signs of communion ecclesiology.  Such are the dynamics of the Anglican crisis and the Covenant debate.  The Covenant and its communion ecclesiology offer a means to renew Anglicanism's experience of catholicity and to meaningfully continue the ARCIC process.  A rejection of the Covenant, however, is an explicit rejection of both.

Cranmer's Ascension collect

So we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell.  

An article by the late Peter Toon (edited by J.S. Patterson and carried on the Prayer Book Society USA website) notes how this central petition from Cranmer's collect for the Ascension is his major revision of the Sarum rite's collect for the feast.  Sarum's wording was much less explicit concerning the Church's participation in the Ascension:

so we may also in mind dwell in heavenly places.

Compare this with Augustine's declaration in his sermon for the Ascension:

We also ascend ... because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.

The collect composed by Cranmer ensures that this Augustinian insight shapes the prayer of the faithful during the celebration of the Ascension.

Cranmer's revision of Sarum also, as Toon and Patterson note, draws on the collect of the Gelasian Sacramentary.  The addition of "and with him continually dwell" echoes the language of Gelasius' Ascension collect.  As with Augustine's emphasis, it conveys the significance of the Ascension to the life of the Church.  We are not mere observers of the Ascension.  Our  earthly pilgrimage is caught up in it with Him.

The BCP Ascension collect, therefore, shows us Cranmer the liturgist at his best: drawing on the ancient liturgies of the Latin tradition, re-capturing patristic insights concerning our participation in the salvific acts of the Incarnate Word, and rendering these in an enduring liturgical prose.

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.  

Concede, quæsumus, omnipotens Deus, ut qui Unigenitum tuum, Redemptorem nostrum, ad cœlos ascendisse credimus, ipsi quoque mente in cœlestibus habitemus. Per eundem Dominum nostrum. &c. (Latin BCP 1560.)

Ascension

Were it not a question of saving the flesh, the Word of God would not have been made flesh ... He saved in Himself what in the beginning had perished in Adam.

St Irenaeus Adversus Haereses V 14,1

Cross-shaped apologia

On the memorial of the martyrdom of St Justin Martyr and his companions at Rome c. 165 AD, words from Justin's First Apology reminding us that the Church's chief apologia is to be conformed to the Crucified One:

Our detractors proclaim our madness because we honour a crucified man alongside the unchangeable and eternal God, the creator of all.  They do not discern the mystery in this, and it is to this mystery that we beg you to attend.