Lancelot Andrewes: The Seed of Anglicanorum Coetibus?

I cannot help but think that early C17 thinkers, like Andrewes, are the seeds of what the Holy Father is offering today that could potentially see them reunited to the Catholic Church. One of the most controversial positions of Luther was his outright rejection of the Mass as any sort of a propitiatory offering for the living or the dead. Andrewes, clearly in his own writings and debates, held to the Catholic Church's teaching throughout her history on this position. Why would I say that Andrewes is the 'seed' of Anglicanorum Coetibus? From an earlier post on the blog I write:

Andrewes is quite aware of the C16 debate and rejection of the sacrifice of the Mass. It is his scholarship as a patristic theologian that allowed him to see that the English Church was advancing into novelty by rejecting what he believed the Church held in its undivided history concerning Eucharistic sacrifice. In order to place Andrewes’ teaching on Eucharistic sacrifice in context, it is essential that we understand what the Council of Trent determined as the Catholic Church’s teaching on the sacrifice of the Mass. Andrewes pressed the Roman Catholic theologians of his day (St Cardinal Bellarmine SJ) that they could not read the Tridentine understanding anachronistically into the Fathers. Yet what one finds in a close examination of Andrewes’ theology of sacrifice, relying as he does on the Fathers, is not in many ways contradictory to Trent’s decrees. It is in the finer details of the ‘effects’ provided by the Mass and the ‘manner’ of sacrifice in relationship to what Andrewes defined as a ‘natural’ sacrifice, i.e., ‘re-offering’ of Christ in each Mass where he suffers ‘anew’ that becomes the underlying issue.

There were a number of groups present at Trent that focused on different aspects of the sacrifice and how it was related to the cross. Powers separates these groups into three basic categories. He explains that the apologists related the sacrifice in these ways:

One group related it more directly to the Last Supper, or to the offering which Christ made of himself at the supper, before suffering on the cross. For them, it was this offering that was sacramentally represented in the mass, but because of the real presence it could be said that it was the victim of the sacrifice of the cross that was offered. For another group, it was the offering on the cross itself that was mystically represented on the altar through the action of the priest, so that consecration and offering coincided. For still a third group, it was the heavenly offering of Christ, the eternal high-priest, that was sacramentally represented, that continuous offering which he makes of himself to the Father, in virtue of the once-for-all spilling of his blood on the cross. For the majority of the apologists, therefore, there is no sense in which an oblation or work of the church could be separated from the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

What is very important for us here is to see that in the debate at Trent in 1551/52 there was a tremendous amount of emphasis put on the unity of the sacrifice of the cross and the sacrifice of the Mass. The council set out to show how precisely the ‘effects’ of the cross were applied to the faithful. Rome laboured to protect its priestly offering and the Protestant churches worked to protect their free gift of grace. Hence, the two could not hear what the other was saying. McHugh concluded in his essay that what Trent required from a Catholic was they hold fast to the doctrine that in the Mass a sacrifice is offered. This sacrifice is more than ‘praise and thanksgiving’ and includes an expiation of sins and an abundant source of grace that profited not only the living but the dead. Therefore, this Eucharistic sacrifice is offered primarily by Christ himself and secondarily by the Church in union with him; it is Christ’s one offering of Calvary memorialised by the Church. Christ offers this in his intercessory role as eternal priest. The priest acts in union with Christ who brings the offering to the Father by the instrumental agency of the office. These sacrifices are not two separate offerings but one and the same, which is eternally before the Father in heaven. Where Trent and Andrewes are of one spirit is in the sacrifice of the Mass consisting of the formal liturgical offering given to God (immolatio) as gift and accepted by him for the forgiveness of sins actually committed.

For the desired result of unity, there must be a way for the Church to keep together the ‘propitiatory offering’ and ‘the free gift of grace’ at the centre of the whole worshipping experience. The problem of Eucharistic sacrifice is tied up in the liturgical act of the Church. The main problem stems from multiplicity of views concerning what the Church ‘does’ when it is gathered together. The affirmation, which must first of all be recognised is that neither Rome's nor the reformer's views are in opposition to the gospel, though they may be in opposition to one another. And Rome and the reformers may not necessarily be directly opposed. The uniqueness of what Andrewes was able to accomplish was the ability to see this dilemma in the liturgical act of the Church and respond to an over-correction given by the C16 by not denying the substance of sacrifice. He understood the necessity of holding the liturgical act of ‘praise and thanksgiving’ along with the expiatory qualities of the one offering of Christ united in the Eucharistic offering as a way of maintaining a fuller sense of the gospel.

The majority of the Tridentine fathers showed themselves to be reluctant to excessive definition on issues pertaining to sacrifice. One such open issue was the efficacy for the dead in the sacrifice of the Mass; it was stated but not defined. Trent accommodated a variety of views on many points, even notions like ‘sacraments cause grace’ and allowed for a variety of theories on the nature of this ‘causation.’ This is due to the variety of opinions amongst the council fathers. Some Cardinals were positive towards a number of concerns the reformers had and it is this acknowledgment that allows one to see how closely Andrewes’ theology of Eucharistic sacrifice answers the concerns of the council.

Read Andrewes' theology of sacrifice alongside Pope John Paul II's encyclical and one sees how the seed grew to close the gap of this very important theological/liturgical dogma. The late Holy Father said,

The Church constantly draws her life from the redeeming sacrifice; she approaches it not only through faith-filled remembrance, but also through a real contact, since this sacrifice is made present ever anew, sacramentally perpetuated, in every community which offers it at the hands of the consecrated minister. The Eucharist thus applies to men and women today the reconciliation won once for all by Christ for mankind in every age. “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice”.¹⁴ Saint John Chrysostom put it well: “We always offer the same Lamb, not one today and another tomorrow, but always the same one. For this reason the sacrifice is always only one... Even now we offer that victim who was once offered and who will never be consumed”.¹⁵

The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it.¹⁶ What is repeated is its memorial celebration, its “commemorative representation” (memorialis demonstratio),¹⁷ which makes Christ's one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time. The sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic mystery cannot therefore be understood as something separate, independent of the Cross or only indirectly referring to the sacrifice of Calvary.

13. By virtue of its close relationship to the sacrifice of Golgotha, the Eucharist is a sacrifice in the strict sense, and not only in a general way, as if it were simply a matter of Christ's offering himself to the faithful as their spiritual food. The gift of his love and obedience to the point of giving his life (cf. Jn 10:17-18) is in the first place a gift to his Father. Certainly it is a gift given for our sake, and indeed that of all humanity (cf. Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24; Lk 22:20; Jn 10:15), yet it is first and foremost a gift to the Father: “a sacrifice that the Father accepted, giving, in return for this total self-giving by his Son, who 'became obedient unto death' (Phil 2:8), his own paternal gift, that is to say the grant of new immortal life in the resurrection”.¹⁸

In giving his sacrifice to the Church, Christ has also made his own the spiritual sacrifice of the Church, which is called to offer herself in union with the sacrifice of Christ. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council concerning all the faithful: “Taking part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which is the source and summit of the whole Christian life, they offer the divine victim to God, and offer themselves along with it”.¹⁹

Andrewes' own theology would concur and hence what began as a seed as he returned to the Fathers is now the beginning of Spring and new Resurrection life for the Church. Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity and we can thank God for early C17 thinkers, like Andrewes, who help to open the door for a return of the prodigal family!