The Last Supper and Eucharistic Sacrifice: Thinking Out loud

The issue here that I am thinking about is the moment when Jesus offered himself to the Father as a propitiatory sacrifice. Was this inaugurated at the Last Supper when Jesus instituted the Sacrament transforming the bread and wine as the Body and Blood that would be ultimately be offered on Good Friday?

It is interesting to note that the disciples received the Body and Blood before Jesus actually goes to the cross via the Sacramental efficacy of His divine will. Could it be that the covenantal Jesus morally dies at the institution of the Eucharist and begins the three days of the Triduum. It is at the moment of the institution narrative that Jesus offers himself to the Father as a propitiatory offering for the sins of the world. Therefore, the first sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus is at that moment if this question is answered in the affirmative. Though his soul remained within his body, the suffering and death of Christ began at that point of offering. The disciples partake of Christ as food and therefore in effect was Jesus offered for the forgiveness of sins to the Father at that moment? It is within this context that the disciples actually feed upon the Body and Blood of Jesus unto the forgiveness of their sins. (Note the grammatical use of the participles within the texts of the narrative.)

How are the disciples receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus prior to His death unto the forgiveness of sins? Does not the Eucharistic institution make the death of Christ irrevocably effected? The disciples ate him, and he was dead whilst living. So, when we memorialise Christ we participate in His offering of Himself and eat him as if he were dead whilst knowing he is alive. This perhaps may be linked to the Fathers' language of recapitulation.

What do the readers think? Was the Last Supper a Sacrificial Offering of our Lord? Trent did not address this issue and perhaps intentionally but it is an important question as we think about what it means that the Mass is a REAL sacrifice. But we should make sure that we remember that sacrifice does not necessarily include a holocaust but it is ALWAYS propitiatory if it is a true sacrifice.

Issues as an Anglican; Challenges as a Catholic

As an Anglican priest I recall some of the times when I was wrestling with what it meant to be a Catholic. Being a Catholic-minded Anglican who prayed for the unity of Christ's Church I am able to look back now and see how God led me through some tough experiences at times and good ones as well. But I see now that there were real obstacles in the way of what it meant to be Catholic that are a result of what Anglicanism is. Much of this latter statement that I have written has to do with the influences of our secularised culture that has hindered a more faithful catholicity that only is now being fully discovered as a Catholic. I believe I am coming to better understand what it means to be a Catholic Christian. What do I mean?

In our multi-cultured and multi-religious society, we are living in-and sadly too- confusion and relativism. The maturation called for by Christ of his faithful community is stunted in its growth as a result of not taking advantage of the opportunity to evangelise our culture that is presently in search of meaning. This stunted maturation hinders the individual and the ecclesial community's ability to evangelise the faithful in order for the faithful to evangelise the culture.

As an Anglican priest who was Catholic-minded, I often struggled with the question of what it meant to be Catholic. This was a result of what I felt was linked to the growth of individualism and subjectivism with regards to matters of the faith. I often experienced a very cafeteria-styled approach to being Catholic that liked the external beauty of the Catholic faith but found the discipline more of an obstacle and hindrince to what correspondently appealed to each individual desire. That is not the case of every individual, but generally I felt the implications of it as I saw it manifested in different ways. Most recently, I have been reading Pope John Paul II's work Pastores Dabo Vobis. He addresses this issue straight on with wonderful clarity. Added to the factors of confusion and radical individualism he explains that

linked with the growth of individualism, is the phenomenon of subjectivism in matters of faith. An increasing number of Christians seem to have a reduced sensitivity to the universality and objectivity of the doctrine of the faith because they are subjectively attached to what pleases them; to what corresponds to their own experience; and to what does not impinge on their own habits. In such a context, even the appeal to the inviolability of the individual conscience-in itself a legitimate appeal-may be dangerously, marked by ambiguity.

That last phrase touches the tender spot of the exact difficulties I personally struggled with as a Catholic-minded Anglican. It was not so much the issue of women priests and bishops; though I did find that issue to actually be another manifestation of what JPII refered to in Pastores. I actually came to see, with more clarity, the truthfulness of what is written within the above quotation and how turning that question on myself required a response. I was forced to ask myself where I was subjectively attached to what pleased me about being Catholic-minded but not necessarily attached to the universality of what it meant to be Catholic. Perhaps this question should go deeper too and be applied to the question of what it means to be a Christian. But, I digress. In fact I did hear on numerous occasions the claim to individual conscience on matters of morality and discipline with different standards for clergy and laity. I honestly struggled to make sense of this argument when raised issues of morality and discipline were clearly against the Magisterial teaching of the Catholic faith. Eventually, I had to apply that struggle to my own life and answer the question for myself too.

This phenomenon of subjectivism is a direct result of the lack of maturation in the faithful that discipleship requires. These issues are not only to be found within Anglicanism but are issues facing Catholic Christians in the West too. Somehow, all of us need to get rooted in the basics of the faith once again and feed that foundation so that the process of maturation may continue afresh within the community as a whole. I imagine this is something that every generation is going to have to face with new issues and problems but something I feel needs to begin in each individual now, including me.

Wishlist Widget

Well, the reader can see that I have added the Wishlist widget from Amazon on the right column of the blog. Not having much of a book budget these days, I thought I might offer the family readers and friends ideas for building the library when they ask. If you're feeling generous and like to shop for books, take a look at the wishlist! ;-)

A Catholic England: Creating Catholic Culture by Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP

First, a Catholic culture is a moral culture. The lives of the saints, and of other really good people in the history of the Church, are filled with examples of the moral virtues, as lived, as put into practice in action. If morality is more caught than taught, then familiarity with the lives of the saints, in all their human vividness, is a good way to catch it. For this one needs something like one of the versions of Butler’s Lives of the Saints though perhaps not the most recent version where virtues out of favour with our secular contemporaries are, in some cases, played down.

Secondly, a Catholic culture is a devotional culture. It encourages, that is to say, the personal love of God, God the Trinity who in his philanthropy, his loving-kindness to man,became man and suffered for us. Daily prayers, and special prayers for the great liturgical seasons, build up such a devotional culture in our homes. So do holy images, whether one does this in a Latin way, by making a little no official altar, perhaps, with a crucifix and images of our Lady and the saints, or in a Byzantine way, by having an icon corner and a lamp or even an incense-burner in front of it. Cheaply produced icons are readily available, or one could make one’s own out of postcard reproductions or from digital photographs of icons in books. As in the Eastern church, one could alter the arrangement of such icons to highlight the major seasons and festivals as they come along. Whether images are verbal or visual, they all help to re-direct the heart and the imagination towards God and his saving work.

Thirdly, a Catholic culture is an intellectual culture. As someone once remarked, an unintellectual salvation means an unsaved intellect. A culture that is moral and devotional but abstains from the intellectual may well be left behind by an adolescent in middle school or preparing to go to University. That means that the present (1992) Catechism of the Catholic Church should be a reference work to hand when some point of doctrine or discipline comes up,and someone asks, Why do we believe this, or Why do we do that. The 2005 Compendium of the Catechism is easier to use, if one is not accustomed to thumbing through indexes in a bigbook. It won’t necessarily explain why we believe what we believe but at least it will say what it is we believe when we are believing it –and that is a good start. So also will the excellent little book Credo, even shorter than the Compendium and equally lavishly illustrated from the sacred images.

The Faith the Family, the Future of East and West. Produced by two young English secular priests in 2007 it is published by the Catholic Truth Society. In general, though regrettably they are nowhere near as cheap as once they were, the new run of CTS pamphlets are highly to be recommended. When complete they will cover almost every issue an enquiring youngster is likely to come up with. So that is my second counsel - after the one about the Catholic history of England. It runs, seek to develop a Catholic culture in your home: morally, devotionally, and intellectually. In so doing, you willtake further the conversion of England, almost without realizing it.

Read it all here.

Our Lady of Ransom

Lord, we have long been the dowry of Mary
and subjects of Peter, prince of the apostles.
Let us hold to the Catholic faith and remain
devoted to the blessed Virgin and obedient to Peter.

We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Reformational churches and the Fathers: An Unhistorical Perspective

Of late I have been in a discussion concerning Lancelot Andrewes of whose Eucharistic theology I have been studying for a number of years. That discussion (if you can call it that) triggered some thoughts about how the reformational churches and their fathers approached the Church Fathers. Recently at one of the blogs where part of this debate took place, the owner of the blog published a portion of the introduction of Calvin's Institutes describing his use of the Fathers. Calvin's approach to the Fathers, as well as many of his children, wrongly viewed the Fathers approach to Scripture from a perspective that the Fathers themselves did not share.

The Fathers did not approach the Scriptures distinguishable from their ecclesial approach which when done ends up creating a false dichotomy of ecclesiology and scriptural theology. This is where Luther, Calvin and their children miss the mark on the use of the Fathers as they place their own reformational grid into the Fathers where everyone has the absolute freedom to approach Scripture by the freedom of the Spirit within. This erroneous approach creates an unwarranted dichotomy between Scripture and the Church and the Fathers who described their scriptural theology within an ecclesial way.

How do we solve the problem of the relationship between patristic theology and modern theology? Pope Benedict XVI in his book Principles of Catholic Theology describes the above problem in the following way:

Whereas the theology of the Eastern Churches has never aspired to be anything but a patristic theology, the attitude of the Reformation toward the Fathers was, from the beginning--and still is--ambiguous. Melanchthon strove emphatically to prove that the heritage of the ancient Church, which had been abandoned by medieval Catholicism, was restored in the Confessio Augustana; Flaccius Illyricus, the first great historian of the Reformation, following in his footsteps, and the work of Calvin, with his radical reliance on Augustine, takes the same direction. By contrast, Luther's attitude to the Fathers, including Augustine, was always more critical. The conviction seemed to grow ever stronger in him that the defection from the Gospels occurred at a very early date. It will suffice to quote one typical text: 'I say this because I myself wasted and lost much time on Gregory, Cyprian, Augustine, Origen. For the Fathers, in their time, had a remarkable attraction to and liking for allegories; they used them constantly, and their books are full of them....The reason is this, that they all followed their own conceit, mind and opinion, as they thought right, and not St. Paul, who wanted to let the Holy Spirit act there from within.' Even here, the Fathers seem to be discredited for their use of allegory, and the study of them seems to be regarded as a waste of time by comparison with a direct attention to the word of Scripture.

The dichotomy just discovered within reformational thinking exists, indeed, even to the present time. Nor is it removed when Benoit following the direction indicated by Melanchthon, seeks to define the Fathers no longer--in the manner of Catholic theology--as ecclesial, because of their significance for the Church, but rather as scriptural, because of their position with regard to Scripture, and describes them as those Christian authors 'who, conciously or not, sought to express and interpret the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as it is retold in the Scriptures.' But this does not solve the basic problem of whether the Fathers are a way, a byway or a false way to the Scriptures, except that, for the Fathers themselves, their scriptural way was not distinguishable from their ecclesial way, and to separate them is to open an unhistorical perspective.

What the result of this creates is a new set of 'Fathers' that are not the same Fathers as the Catholic Church, which continues to create an inability to understand one another. This problem was clearly exemplified in the Andrewes debate. The TRUTH seen in that debate on Andrewes shows that the reformational children do not have their source in the New Testament but from the FACT that the New Testament is read under the tutelage of different Fathers. Andrewes gave this an attempt but obviously didn't take it to its right end. Andrewes wrote,

Walk about Zion and reflect upon her. One Canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the succession of Fathers in that period—the centuries, that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.

Ad Orientem: A Bishop Explains, You Vote

I would like to put forward two questions to hear an opinion from the readers on the Bishop's theological explanation of Mass and hence his posture ad orientem. Feel free to say more than yes or no but that is all that is being asked:
(Story at Catholic Family News)
1) Does the reader understand that his explanation of what the Mass is to be your own understanding?
2) Does the explanation of the theology of the Mass justify the liturgical posture ad orientem?

Cast your vote!

The September 2009 issue of Eastern Oklahoma Catholic featured a brief article by Bishop Edward J. Slattery, Ordinary of the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Bishop explains why he has ceased the practice of Mass facing the people, and now celebrates Mass facing the altar (ad orientem).

Though the article does not specify whether the Bishop will celebrate Old Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo ad orientem, it is said Bishop Slattery is well disposed toward the Tridentine Mass. The fact that a United States Bishop displays a clear understanding of why Mass should be celebrated ad orientem is one of the few rays of hope in the Church in America. His words deserve to be widely known.

Bishop Slattery opens by explaining the Mass as “Christ’s sacrifice under the sacramental signs of bread and wine”, and goes on to explain that the people share in this offering, which is done through the priest.

“From ancient times, the position of the priest and the people reflected this understanding of the Mass,” writes Bishop Slattery, “since the people prayed, standing or kneeling, in the place that visibly corresponded to Our Lord’s Body, while the priest at the altar stood at the head as the Head, We formed the whole Christ – Head and members – both sacramentally by Baptism and visibly by our position and posture. Just as importantly, everyone – celebrant and congregation – faced the same direction, since they were united with Christ in offering to the Father Christ’s unique, unrepeatable and acceptable sacrifice.”

He points out that when we study the most ancient liturgical practices of the Church, “we find that the priest and the people faced in the same direction, toward the east, in the expectation that when Christ returns, He will return ‘from the East’. At Mass, the Church keeps vigil, waiting for that return. This single position is called ad orientem, which simply means ‘toward the East’.”

He then speaks of the multiple advantages of Mass ad orientem

The Bisho s says, “Having the priest and people celebrate Mass ad orientem was the liturgical norm for nearly 18 centuries. There must have been solid reasons for the Church to have held on to this posture for so long. And there were! First of all, the Catholic liturgy has always maintained a marvelous adherence to the Apostolic Tradition. We see the Mass, indeed the whole liturgical expression of the Church’s life, as something which we have received from the Apostles and which we, in turn, are expected to hand on intact. (1 Corinthians 11:23).”

Secondly, the Bishop continues, “the Church held on to this single eastward position because of the sublime way it reveals the nature of the Mass. Even someone unfamiliar with the Mass who reflected upon the celebrant and the faithful being oriented in the same direction would recognize that the priest stands at the head of the people, sharing in one and the same action, which was – he would note with a moment’s longer reflection – an act of worship.”

He then makes the point: “In the last 40 years, however, this shared orientation was lost; now the priest and the people have become accustomed to facing in opposite directions. The priest faces the people while the people face the priest, even though the Eucharistic Prayer is directed to the Father and not to the people.”

Bishop Slattery never refers to Mass facing the people as some sort of recovery of an ancient tradition, but clearly speaks of it as an “innovation” that took place after Vatican II – an innovation with negative consequences.

The introduction of this novelty, he says, was ”partly to help the people understand the liturgical action of the Mass by allowing them to see what was going on, and partly as an accommodation to contemporary culture where people who exercise authority are expected to face directly the people they serve, like a teacher sitting behind her desk.”

He then sums up in three quick points the negative consequences of this innovation: “First of all, it was a serious rupture with the Church’s ancient tradition. Secondly, it can give the appearance that the priest and the people were engaged in a conversation about God, rather than the worship of God. Thirdly, it places an inordinate importance on the personality of the celebrant by placing him on a kind of liturgical stage.”

The Bishop goes on to note that Pope Benedict, even as Cardinal Ratzinger, urged a recovery of more authentic Catholic worship based on the ancient liturgical practice, “For that reason,” says Bishop Slattery, “I have restored the venerable ad orientem position when I celebrate Mass at the Cathedral. This change ought not to be misconstrued as the Bishop ‘turning his back on the faithful,’ as if I am being inconsiderate or hostile. Such an interpretation misses the point that, by facing in the same direction, the posture of the celebrant and the congregation make explicit the fact that we journey together to God.”

We may hope the Bishop’s words and example help to lead not simply to a “ reform of the reform” of the Novus Ordo, but ultimately to greater numbers of priests abandoning the New Rite, and celebrating exclusively the Latin Tridentine Mass. May more priests and prelates come to realize what Cardinal Ottaviani recognized, and what he wrote to Pope Paul VI on September 25, 1969: “The Novus Ordo Missae … represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session 22 of the Council of Trent.”

By John Vennari

Andrewes on Anamnesis and Recapitulation: A Response to Mr. Wedgeworth

There was, as Mr. Wedgeworth stated on his blog a lot of hoopla over the Andrewes debate recently. I appreciate Mr. Wedgeworth's interest in Andrewes. Let me clearly state that I do not believe Andrewes was a closet 'Romanist' in his day in terms of his political commitments to the papacy and that there were indeed issues surrounding the theological contraversies that would have him placed in the family with broad 'Reformed' positions on certain liturgical and ritual acts such as Eucharistic adoration and corpus Christi. Fundamentally, Andrewes was not a philosopher and I am not convinced that he understood the Tridentine understanding of real presence described in terminology of substance and accidents. What Mr. Wedgeworth does wrongly in my opinion is to create a strawman argument that describes the Eucharistic sacrifice as an altogether different sacrifice than that of Calvary. Trent rejected such inferences by the Reformed party and to this day the Catholic Church denies that the Eucharistic sacrifice is anything other than the recapitulation of making that ONE offering of Christ present on our Altars for the forgiveness of sins.

Mr. Wedgeworth takes this quotation from Andrewes' Resurrection sermon that reads,

By the same rules that the Passover was, by the same may ours be termed a sacrifice. In rigour of speech, neither of them; for to speak after the exact manner of divinity, there is but one only sacrifice, veri nominis, that is Christ’s death. And that sacrifice but once actually performed at His death, but ever before represented in figure, from the beginning; and ever since repeated in memory to the world’s end. That only absolute, all else relative to it, representative of it, operative by it … Hence it is that what names theirs carried, ours do the like, and the Fathers make no scruple at it—no more need we.(Sermons, vol. ii. p. 300)

But the clarity that Mr. Wedgeworth sees is in my humble opinion a reading in of reformed categories of memorial and remembrance that is not how Andrewes understood the Fathers on this issue which I hope is clearly shown below. Now, one of the things that the reformers clearly objected to was the use of the Eucharist as a sacrifice to take away sins actually committed. That is clearly said by those in Mr. Wedgeworth's camp quite emphatically. But, Andrewes in his unique ability to not run from the teaching of the Fathers and his theological understanding of how sacrifice works in the Christian faith writes even more clearly in this sermon on Isaiah 6.

The sinnes of Commission came by reason of the force of concupiscence, and from the lusts that boyle out of our corrupt nature, and the grace that takes them away is the grace of water in Baptisme; but the sinnes of omission proceede of the coldnesse and negligence of our nature to doe good, such as was in the church of Laodicea, Rev. the third chapter and fifteenth verse, and therefore such sinnes must be taken away with the fiery Grace of God.

The fiery Grace of God reference is to the actual elements touching the lips of the recipient. I don't think we can just assume one strand of interpretation with a theologian whose mind is like Andrewes'. Simply to assume is to often get him wrong. He needs a careful reading. Andrewes will clearly state what I mean here,

here we have not something that hath touched the Sacrifice, but the Sacrifice itself to take away our sins.

His understanding of memorial cannot fully be interpreted in the categories of Mr. Wedgeworth which is what I want to show. But, before I do so, I want us to look at the specific language of Trent's Council XXII.1 Mr. Wedgeworth cannot possibly claim that Trent's use of the terms memorial, commemoration, etc are the same as he is purporting yet this language is not tied to a 'time' in history but simply how the Church has always understood that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice. Let Trent speak and then look at Andrewes' writings that I have provided and sought to explain. This is in the context of Andrewes saying to Bellarmine that if you take away 'Transubstantiation' there will be NO difference between us and you on Sacrifice. But, let's hear Trent on Sacrifice and look at what I have provided and what Mr. Wedgeworth writes at his blog. Then, I'll let the reader decide.

He, therefore, our God and Lord, though He was about to offer Himself once on the altar of the cross unto God the Father, by means of his death, there to operate an eternal redemption; nevertheless, because that His priesthood was not to be extinguished by His death, in the last supper, on the night in which He was betrayed,--that He might leave, to His own beloved Spouse the Church, a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requires[note Andrewes' reasons for the necessity of sacrifice below is the same as that of Trent], whereby that bloody sacrifice, once to be accomplished on the cross, might be represented, and the memory thereof remain even unto the end of the world, and its salutary virtue be applied to the remission of those sins which we daily commit,--declaring Himself constituted a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech, He offered up to God the Father His own body and blood under the species of bread and wine; and, under the symbols of those same things, He delivered (His own body and blood) to be received by His apostles, whom He then constituted priests of the New Testament; and by those words, Do this in commemoration of me, He commanded them and their successors in the priesthood, to offer (them); even as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught. For, having celebrated the ancient Passover, which the multitude of the children of Israel immolated in memory of their going out of [Page 154] Egypt, He instituted the new Passover, (to wit) Himself to be immolated, under visible signs, by the Church through (the ministry of) priests, in memory of His own passage from this world unto the Father, when by the effusion of His own blood He redeemed us, and delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into his kingdom. And this is indeed that clean oblation, which cannot be defiled by any unworthiness, or malice of those that offer (it); which the Lord foretold by Malachias was to be offered in every place, clean to his name, which was to be great amongst the Gentiles; and which the apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, has not obscurely indicated, when he says, that they who are defiled by the participation of the table of devils, cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord; by the table, meaning in both places the altar. This, in fine, is that oblation which was prefigured by various types of sacrifices, during the period of nature, and of the law; in as much as it comprises all the good things signified by those sacrifices, as being the consummation and perfection of them all.

Here is Andrewes:

That our sinnes are no lesse taken away by the element of bread and wine, in the Sacrament, then the Prophet’s sinne was by being touched with a Cole.

What did Christ give us to do at this celebration? Andrewes further describes what the action of the Eucharist is. Christ has given the Church a charge in the Sacrament to 1. avvvna,mnhsij, ‘remembering,’ and 2. lh,yij ‘receiving.’ For Andrewes the celebremus is in the sacrifice and the Epulemur is in the Sacrament. What we remember is Mors Domini, Christ’s death. It is here that Andrewes becomes perfectly clear about what he means when he speaks of the Sacrament of the Eucharist as a ‘commemorative’ sacrifice.Initially, he speaks of the celebremus. Andrewes returns to that ancient way of looking at the Eucharistic avvvna,mnhsij and as Lossky has pointed out, he anticipates the theological reflection of the C20 ‘that has allowed Christians of diverse and opposed traditions to escape from the impasse which, since the sixteenth century, have immobilized debate on the Eucharist, both concerning the presence of Christ and the problem of sacrifice.’

What Lossky says becomes evident below. A careful look at his choice of words should make it obvious to the reader that Andrewes took a view of memorial that kept him from sinking into an Aristotelian debate about the nature of presence. Andrewes’ understanding of memorial is closely tied to his awareness of the Eucharist as mystery. There is no repetition of the cross, yet neither is it a picture of what is merely in the past. The memorial is the renewal of the cross-event just as if it were happening in the present.This impasse is escaped by framing the discussion of anamnesis from Andrewes’ theological intuitions of what Lossky called ‘anamnesic realism.’ This is the correction of what Spinks has defined as ‘symbolic realism.’ In a sermon on Ephesians 1:10, preached on Christmas-Day, Andrewes illustrates this connection for us. The emphasis that Andrewes makes with regards to anamnesis is derived from the Greek word avnakefalaiw,sasqai ‘to unite,’ or ‘recapitulate.’

The sermon is devoted to making certain the hearer understands that all things are to be summed up in Christ both in heaven and on the earth. Andrewes understands the unity of what takes place on the earthly altar as the mystery combined with the heavenly altar. Where Andrewes is so helpful to us in this theological impasse is that he shows us how to move beyond the historical to the eschatological. In the words of Cavanaugh, Andrewes was able to capture the human participation in the sacrifice of Christ ‘because the historical imagination is superseded by the eschatological imagination.’ The Eucharist is the means to unite the Church’s celebration of this ‘recapitulation’ of time and eternity through the liturgical rite.

He describes the memorial showing how the elements of bread and wine are brought together in heaven and earth as the memorial offering and says, ‘Both these issuing out of this day’s recapitulation, both in corpus autem aptasti Mihi of this day.’ ‘Remembering’ is not simply recalling a historical event in one’s mind. Andrewes describes the unity of what happens at the Eucharistic offering pointing us to the eschatological sense concerning the glory to come. Lossky notes Andrewes’ use of ‘recapitulation’ and draws our attention to Andrewes’ use of memorial as it takes shape in the Eucharistic liturgy. Lossky qualifies what anamnesis is all about saying,

This ‘remembrance’ of the Church, which is not a simple remembering of events that have taken place, but which actualizes and makes simultaneous, in a recapitulation of time, what is past and what is to come, is of the utmost importance for Andrewes, as we have seen in connection with the Passion-Resurrection.

This 'liturgical' conception of time quite naturally takes root in his thought in the conception he has of the liturgy par excellence, that is to say the Eucharist. This above quotation is a clear refutation of Mr. Wedgeworth's claims on Andrewes that

Sacrifices before the one true sacrifice point towards it, and sacrifices after it point back to it. It is not repeated, nor is it transported through space and time to be applied ex opere operato or in any earthly or carnal manner.

Well, Andrewes says it is transported and recapitulated on our Altars. In response to Bellarmine he speaks of the sacrifice as ‘Eucharistic.’ Sacrificium, quod ibi est, Eucharisticum esse.’ Guess, what? This is 'Eucharistic' Sacrifice in Andrewes' theology is no different than that of Trent's or the Catholic Church's 1500 years prior to it. Remember, Sacrifice was not a debated issue until Luther in in the early C16.

That we may know there is immolatus for Andrewes with the same emphasis found in Trent we read from Andrewes,

That done to the holy symbols that was done to Him, to His body and His blood in the Passover; break the one, pour out the other, to represent klw,menon, how His sacred body was ‘broken,’ and evkcuno,menon how His precious blood was ‘shed.’ And in Corpus fractum, and Sanguis fusus there is immolatus.

In a final word of support for my reading of Andrewes we find the exact language again that was used in the Tridentine Council where Andrewes produces more evidence in his use of the word ad cadaver. Look at what he writes,

And we are in this action not only carried up to Christ, (Sursum corda) but we are also carried back to Christ as he was at the very instant, and in the very act of His offering. So, and no otherwise, do we represent Him. By the incomprehensible power of His eternal Spirit, not He alone, but He, as at the very act of His offering, is made present to us, and we incorporate into His death, and invested in the benefits of it. If an host could be turned into Him now glorified as He is, it would not serve; Christ offered is it, [John 3.14] thither we must look. To the Serpent lift up, thither we must repair, even ad cadaver; we must hoc facere, do that is then done.

Calvin’s liturgy would make the following qualification to the Sursum Corda, ‘

Therefore lift up your hearts on high, seeking the heavenly things in heaven, where Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father; and do not fix your eyes on the visible signs, which are corrupted through usage…’

Again remember Mr. Wedgeworth's claim?

It is not repeated, nor is it transported through space and time to be applied ex opere operato or in any earthly or carnal manner.

So, I let the reader decide!

A Question of Reading Comprehension

I have recently been in a discussion with some reformed evangelicals on Lancelot Andrewes' views of presence and sacrifice. I would like to perform a simple test for the readers here just to make sure I am not insane or unable to understand grammatical sentences and hence live and write lacking the ability to read comprehensively. Here is the test.

Are these two statements saying anywhere near the same thing:

Statement one:
‘Now Ambrose says nature is changed: and indeed it is changed. For there is one nature of the element and another of the Sacrament (which the Cardinal is not ignorant); we ourselves do not deny that by the blessing the element is changed: that now bread having been consecrated may not be bread, which nature fashioned; but, that benediction consecrated it and even changed it by the act of consecration.’

Statement two:
‘Hence, moreover, arose this error: they did not observe that those promises by which consecration is accomplished are directed NOT TO THE ELEMENTS THEMSELVES BUT TO THOSE WHO RECEIVE THEM.’

I will reveal the authors later. You the reader decide. Please cast your vote as to whether or not the two authors have similar positions on a change in the elements at consecration.

Sacramental Realism: Presence and Sacrifice in Lancelot Andrewes

For the past few days I have not posted very much but I have been in a long discussion and debate with some 'reformed' types on the nature of Andrewes' understanding of Eucharistic presence and sacrifice. This is of course the topic of my PhD and there are some in the reformed camp who would like to make the claim that Andrewes' Eucharistic theology is nothing other than that of John Calvin's. For the life of me this is more bizarre than I can personally comprehend. After an email recommendation about the future publication of my work I have requested that my comments be removed. So, let's see if they comply!

What was most shocking to me was that one of the lectures given last week at what is called the Bucer Institute (30 in attendance) was a lecture by Wedgeworth on the psychology of conversion (these are the new editions at the top called Romanism and Orthodoxy). This is the most nonsensical response to conversions that I believe I have ever heard and I do not say this disrespectfully. It cost $0.99 to download each lecture which is about an hour long each. There are four of them. I was not given permission to upload my purchased copy of this lecture but it is only about £0.65. You need a Paypal account.

If there are any readers interested in discussing these four lectures here, please let me know and we'll get something started. Perhaps someone can take extensive notes and quotations that can be discussed.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols' Pastoral Letter for September

In the Pastoral Letter, Archbishop Vincent Nichols encourages Catholics to strengthen their faith through daily prayer, which he says is “central to the stability and fruitfulness of our lives.” He holds up three people as examples of the truth that “daily prayer is essential for our well-being.”

St Thérèse of Lisieux

The first is St Thérèse of Lisieux, whose relics will be in the Diocese of Westminster in October 2009. “She teaches us that prayer can indeed be part of our daily routine, knitted into the regular tasks of the day. Through her own prayer she came to understand that her vocation was to love,“ said Archbishop Vincent Nichols. He continued: “Many people find that, in her presence, their faith is strengthened, their prayer is deepened and they turn to God afresh, through repentance and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”

Cardinal John Henry Newman

The second person is Cardinal John Henry Newman who is to be Beatified, most probably, in early summer 2010, the first English person to be recognised as a ‘Confessor of the Catholic Faith’ for over 600 years. “He came to recognise our faith as “a working religion”,” said Archbishop Nichols, “not concerned with ideas or vague generalities, but taking us up into the true worship of Christ himself. At the heart of Newman’s sense of the realism of our faith was the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, “as real”, he said “as we are real. We can learn from him to reawaken in ourselves this faith in Christ’s real, abiding presence in the Holy Eucharist, reserved in the Tabernacle.”

St John Vianney

The third person Archbishop Nichols holds up as an example is St John Vianney, the famous Curé of Ars, the patron saint of priests. “He too reminds us of the centrality of prayer and repentance in our lives, and of the astonishing gift we are given in the Real Presence of the Lord in our churches,” said Archbishop Vincent Nichols.

Face It: Most Anglicans Are Happy As They Are

In today's Catholic Herald, we find a featured article by former Anglican priest, now Catholic priest writing about where things are with Anglo-Catholics today. I find his interpretation compelling and in many ways true to what I experienced. The sacrifice today is every bit as challenging or more so without the compensation for sure. But, I can assure everyone that the sacrifice is nothing in comparison to the joy of being in communion with the Catholic Church.

There is no more looking over one's shoulder about the issues facing Anglicanism mentioned by Father Beck. The Church has made them clear and that is what allows for faithful teaching that is backed by a real authority that is able to challenge the philosophy and ideologies of our secularised world. The Anglican communion has not and never will be able to do anything other than proclaim a personal opinion that has no authority to back it. Luther was right about one thing found within Protestant ideology: 'Every man hath a pope in his belly.' Father Beck is absolutely right that 'If you don't really want to become a Catholic, you will find any number of pretexts to justify not doing so: but they are your reasons, not the Church's problems. You can't blame anyone else. This is as true now as it was 15 years ago.' Here is Father Beck in his own words as featured in the Catholic Herald.

Fifteen years ago, on a sunny Saturday in July 1994, after nine years of ordained ministry in the Church of England, I was received into full communion with the Catholic Church at a quiet, ordinary lunchtime Mass in St George's Cathedral, Southwark, celebrated by the late Bishop Charles Henderson. Most of the people there were the ordinary cathedral congregation who didn't know me. Others were the priest who had prepared me and two priests from the local parish in the area where I had worked as an Anglican, as well as my mother and few other relatives and friends. My wife, Caroline, was pregnant with our first child. Afterwards, the cathedral administrator hosted a small informal reception and the archbishop dropped in to greet us.

At that time many were received in similar ceremonies all over the country, the fruit of a long process of discernment with bishops, priests and lay people: we were received with great warmth, understanding and generosity of spirit. This helped us realise that God was calling us into the Catholic Church, and to be priests in the Church. After two years of formation and the gaining of the necessary dispensation from Pope John Paul II, I was ordained a priest. For me and for those I knew, these were days of grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.

So Damian Thompson's words in his article "We should throw a lifeline to struggling Anglicans" (Comment, August 7) are a false caricature when he says that in 1992 the "Bishops of England and Wales were not well disposed to 'misogynist' traditionalists, as they were unfairly characterised; the standard of English Catholic liturgy was at an all-time low; and Anglo-Catholicism, though divided and unhappy, still had the stomach for a fight..."

The bishops who dealt with people like me and our families could not have been more positive, and Thompson's picture is not only mistaken but an insult to the bishops and the memory of those who have since died, such as Bishop Henderson, Cardinal Hume, Archbishop Couve de Murville, Bishop Brewer and Bishop Clark.

We were given financial support. We were pastorally cared for and formation programmes were devised for us, taking account of our Anglican training and experience. At the ordination ceremonies a specific clause was introduced (with the Holy See's approval) which recognised the value of our Anglican ministry. We have worked in a variety of parish and other jobs and many of us have been given positions of responsibility and seniority in the Church in this country, receiving much support and affection in our parishes. We are at home and have not looked back, like Lot's wife.

Thompson's claim about Catholic worship does not stand up to scrutiny either. He writes of his friend who in the past "could not accept the claims of a Church which did not get its worship right. His objection was not to Vatican II, but to a casual celebration of Mass that made it harder to believe in the universal status of the Roman Church. And then along came Benedict XVI..."

This is a distorted view. The nature and authenticity of worship in the Catholic Church was one of the many things which drew us to the Church. In the 18 months or so leading up to my reception I usually went on my day off to Mass in Catholic cathedrals and ordinary churches, to experience Catholic worship from the pew. In that difficult time I was fed spiritually by this - and I am not saying there were some things I didn't like - and could see that this was, warts and all, the worship of the true Church. My Anglican experience of worship increasingly seemed like the shadows on Plato's cave.

Of course, since ordination many of us have helped parish communities develop and renew their worship, and perhaps some think we have done so in a particular way because we are ex-Anglicans, but it has been a process of deepening with others our understanding of how we can best offer worship to God. Once you come into the Church you soon forget about the Book of Common Prayer (which few of us used anyway). Indeed, in the 1990s we were reminded by Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars that the Anglican Prayer Book did not reform the Mass, but supplanted it.

Thompson is right that we should be supportive of those seeking to become Catholics - but this is no different from what happened to people like me. I have advised a number of such Anglican clergy. One new problem is that they will not get the generous compensation that we received, so the practical problems for married men in particular are greater. Those I know have no problem about the Church's worship.

Another thing Thompson gets wrong are the reasons why some Anglo-Catholics did not become Catholics in the 1990s; many of these reasons abide, and fewer will become Catholics than he expects. The first reason why more did not join us was that the Church of England cannily made it easy for them to stay, giving them their own bishops and effectively their own separate liturgical and "sacramental" life. Other Anglicans may see them as "batty aunts", as Thompson puts it, but it will not be hard when women bishops come to get them to stay.

The second reason is supposed to be Catholic teaching that Anglican orders are invalid. It's claimed that to have to go through "another" ordination ceremony is a denial of Anglicans' ministry. Why don't I feel this? Because the bishops told me that it wasn't a denial and I felt happy to accept their authority. If the Church wants you to be a priest you will accept its authority; moreover, a Catholic study of history helps you realise that Leo XIII was right.

The validity argument is actually a red herring - it cloaks other reasons why many "Conservative Anglicans" do not really want to join the Church except on their own terms. Having been raised as an Anglo-Catholic, I think these reasons include problems about Catholic teaching on issues such as homosexuality, social justice and a disturbing attitude towards the Irish and people from other cultures - many Anglo-Catholics have a very insular sense of "Englishness". They do not want to change.

If you really want to become a Catholic, no obstacle will stand in your way because you believe that God is calling you into full communion with his Church. If you don't really want to become a Catholic, you will find any number of pretexts to justify not doing so: but they are your reasons, not the Church's problems. You can't blame anyone else. This is as true now as it was 15 years ago.

From the Mouths of Babes!

Sitting at the dinner table this evening my son Caleb who is 8 asked his sister Abigail who is 6,(pictured left) 'what religion did you learn about today in your RE class?' Abigail quickly responded with straight face and all, 'fruit'. The two little ones attend a Church of England primary school. Out of the mouths of babes! It was funny at the table. Abigail was so serious and we all cracked up and she is still wondering why we've been laughing.

New Job and New Experiences

Many of my readers have asked about my future and what I would being doing after resigning as an Anglican priest in the Church of England. I have not been able to speak about the prospects openly of my future until now. I am happy to say that for the next year I will be filling in as chaplain coordinator at St. Leonard's Catholic School in Durham while the present chaplain is away. What this means long-term for me and where this leads me next year is still to be determined. But, I am thankful for work as a chaplain in a Catholic setting as I settle into the Catholic Church and get my feet on the ground. Thanks for all your prayers!

No Forgiveness without the Church a Controversial Statement?

In a comment below, a one Stanley Ekwugha makes the following comment about my post 'No Forgiveness Without the Church'. I thought I would let his comment become a post of discussion. To speak to the epistomological issue that he raises here with regards to God's truth found in many places outside the Church is true. But, does truth which is found outside the Church constitute salvation that is declared inside the Church? According to the post below, the Churhc is the only source organically united to the Head, that is Jesus, which can offer salvation. So, here it is.

"No forgiveness without the Church" is a controversial statement. It carries the same weight with "extra ecclesiam non sallus - outside the Church no salvation". Here is a statement that retains its meaning but has undergone a fundamental formulation as quoted above in LG14. Now, let it be clear to us that the Church is at the service of forgiveness and salvation and not its custodian. God's pardoning mercy is wider than the Church. Without the Church, Christ is complete as the incarnate truth bringing salvation to mankind. The place of the body the Church vis-a-vis Christ the head should not be over applied to such length. The knowledge of the Church as being founded by Christ needs an epistemological interpretation. Let us be careful. The Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church but is wider than the Catholic Church. Salvific elements are also found in the ecclesial communities and other religions and cultures. Let us beware of religious exclusivism.

Eucharistic Adoration: Something of the Past not Worthy of the Present?

I have obviously been away from the computer and Internet due to my recent move but now that things are getting settled once again I am trying to catch up on recent happenings and news.

One great disappointment but not a huge surprise was my reading of Fr. McBrien's apparent lack of need to visit our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament during perpetual adoration. This is old news to readers I know but the story is fairly new to me. It undoubtedly saddens me on numerous fronts to read this sort of denial and presumptions of a priest in the Catholic Church about the unworthiness of Eucharistic devotions as if only the thick or uneducated could find any benefit in it. Perhaps Father McBrien is too educated to see any value in believing in the Incarnation as well. Please, Father, perhaps if you visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in the spirit of St. John Vianney in the Year of Priests you may discover the worthiness of this devotion. Perhaps meditating on the love of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and his condescending love experienced and shown to us incarnated in that Great Mystery might be helpful in allowing him to once again come to love this great devotion and see the fruitfulness of it for our lives.

St. John Vianney reminds of how sorry a state we are in by how quick we are to run to novelties in the world but to our shame we are not able to give our Lord the time to learn more deeply of his love shown and offered for us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass incarnated within Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. The Curé of Ars writes,

Alas! how many Christians are pressed for time, and only condescend to come for a few short moments to visit their Saviour who burns with the desire to see them near him and to tell them that he loves them, and who wants to load them with blessings! Oh! what shame to us! If some novelty appears, men leave everything to run after it. But we run away from our God; and the time seems long in his holy presence! What a difference between the first Christians and ourselves! They passed whole days and nights in the churches, singing their praises of the Lord or weeping over their sins; but things are not the same today. Jesus is forsaken, abandoned by us in the Sacrament of his love.

The reason we have Eucharistic devotion is because we Catholics believe that our Lord is hidden there, he waits for our coming to visit him and pray to him. He is there perpetually interceding to our heavenly Father for our benefit. He is present in the Blessed Sacrament to console us when we are heavy laden with the burdens of this world. To what love Jesus has exposed himself to us in his continued humility by coming to us in the Sacred Host that we might ponder his sacrificial love for us. By his humility seen in coming to us in the Host he perpetually is adapting himself and his love to our own weaknesses. St. John writes,

Ah! if we only had the angels' eyes! Seeing our Lord Jesus Christ here, on that altar, and looking at us, how we should love him! We should want to stay always at his feet; it would be a foretaste of heaven; everything else would become insipid to us.

Is there not anymore delight in seeking God by forgetting ourselves and finding delight in him? Are we now too intelligent for such things? Sometimes we lose our intelligence and know not what to say to God and then what comfort do we have? When our intelligence runs dry and our mouth shut for not knowing what to pray we can say with St. John Vianney before the tabernacle,

My God, here I am. I come to adore thee, bless thee, thank thee, love thee, and keep the company with the angels....Say what prayers you know, and if you find it impossible to pray, hide behind your good angel and charge him to pray in your stead.

And in another place he says,

My children, we know when a soul has worthily received the Sacrament of the Eucharist, it is so drowned in love, so penetrated and changed, that it is no longer to be recognised in its words or its actions. . . . It is humble, it is gentle, it is mortified, charitable, and modest; it is at peace with everyone. It is a soul capable of the greatest sacrifices; in short, you would not know it again.

O blessed Jean-Marie, pray for us all and for Fr. McBrien, and obtain for us the grace like you to make visiting the Blessed Sacrament our delight!

No Forgiveness Without the Church

Something that I have come to know and love is my union with Christ by being united to the Catholic Church from my prior separation. Thanks be to God for showing me his light and life found in the Catholic Church. There is a sense of security, beauty and of course human frailty in the Church which all add to its beauty and give evidence of the incarnational love of God in Christ Jesus to a world that has lost the concept of love. This morning's Breviary reading from Blessed Isaac of Stella really marks out for me the beauty of being united to the Catholic Church and the security that is to be found within her very large walls. This sermon reminded me of what I read in Lumen Gentium which sealed for me my decision that it was time for me to offer all to Christ and become a Catholic. Those words read,

14. This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism(124) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.

Born ca. 1100 AD, Blessed Isaac entered the Cistercian Monastery of Citeaux, near Dijon, France, in the early years of the Cistercian order. A contemporary of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Isaac became abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Stella where he was renowned for his holiness and the teaching he gave his monks to help them advance in the spiritual life. He died in 1169 AD.

A sermon by Isaac, abbot of Stella
It is not Christ's will to forgive without the Church

There are two things that are God’s and God’s alone: the honour of receiving confession and the power of granting forgiveness. Confession is what we must make to him, and forgiveness is what we must hope to receive from him. The power to forgive sins belongs only to God, and this is why we must confess them to him.

But God has taken a bride. The Almighty has taken the feeble one, the Most High has taken the lowly one – out of a servant he has made a queen. She was behind and beneath him and he raised her to be at his side. From out of his wounded side she came, and he took her to be his bride.

Just as all that the Father has is the Son’s, so too what the Son has is the Father’s, since they share the same undivided nature. In just the same way the bridegroom gave all that was his to the bride and shared all that she had, making her one with himself and the Father. Hear the Son making his plea to the Father for his bride: I desire that just as you and I are one, so these should be one with us.

The bridegroom is one with the Father and one with his bride. Whatever in her was foreign to her nature he took away from her and nailed to the cross. He carried her sins with him onto the tree and by the tree he took them away from her. Whatever was natural and and proper to her he took on and clothed himself in it. Whatever was divine and proper to him, he bestowed on her. He took away what was diabolical, took on what was human, conferred what was divine, so that all that the bride possessed should be the bridegroom’s also. Thus it is that he who has committed no sin, on whose lips is no deceit, can say Take pity on me, Lord, for I am weak – for he who shares in his bride’s weakness must share in her lament, and thus all that is the bridegroom’s is the bride’s also. Here is where the honour of confession comes from, and the power of forgiveness, so that it can truly be said: Go and show yourself to the priest!

The Church can forgive nothing without Christ, and it is Christ’s will to forgive nothing except with the Church. The Church can forgive no-one except the penitent – that is, one who has been touched by Christ – and Christ does not wish to forgive anyone who does not value the Church. What God has united, man must not divide, says Christ, and Paul adds, I am saying that this great mystery applies to Christ and the Church.

Do not sever the head from the body so that Christ is whole no longer. For Christ is not whole without the Church, nor is the Church whole without Christ. This is why he says No-one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man who is in heaven. He is the only man who can forgive sins.

Getting Settled and Discussion on Our Lady and Prots

I am absolutely swamped in trying to get through all the boxes that are necessary for everyone to go to school tomorrow etc. I haven't even begun to touch my study yet and the 6ft tall stacks and stacks of boxes of books surround me as I write!!!! I do not have a lot of time to discuss the present discussion concerning Mary that is going on below but anyone who would like to bring some fruit to the discussion so that I can unpack the rest of the day that would be appreciated. I will hopefully be a bit more sorted by Monday night where life begins to return with a bit of normality if there is such a thing.

Where is the Church?

HT/ Kevin at Journey to Rome

Our Wonderful Catholic Family

In the Middle of a Move

Just so the readers know, my lack of posting and writing is not due to my disinterest in the blog or putting new material out. I am in the middle of a move and on Thursday the lorries arrive to pack and load for the Friday departure to our new home in Durham for the next year. I will be without Internet from Friday 4 September to Monday 7 September. Hopefully I will be able to find my computer by then and at least post something more than a piece about moving. I do dislike moving and I am beginning to wonder about how much the devil is involved in such things! Anyway, if I can post tonight I will try or tomorrow perhaps but I will pretty much be out from Thursday to Monday. Thanks for understanding and continue to come by and check on us... For those of you who regularly contact me by phone please send me an email if you did not get the new address update from the mass email I sent out this morning. I will give you our new address that way.