Septuagesima

I Cor. 9:24-27 * Matt. 20:1-16

We begin the Pre-Lenten Season today. This may be a confusing time for some who have been in more modern "up-to-date" churches that no longer observe this time. However, the Penitential season of Lent, which will start on Ash Wednesday, is so important that we prepare for it with these next few weeks of the “gesimas.” Septua, Sexa and Quintqua, that is, seven, six and five weeks before Palm Sunday and Holy Week. It seems like the very opposite of the times in which we live, very counter to this era of indulgence, that we take the Penitential season of Lent so seriously that we prepare for it by the Pre-Lenten season. But, we need to see that our sins and weaknesses are to be taken seriously, and what we learn from today's parable in the Gospel teaches us that, only in light of our true need, the goodness and mercy of God comes to us.    

Everyone who has raised children close in age to each other, has experienced the opposite of today’s parable. When the little ones, who have not labored and have earned nothing, are given gifts, sibling rivalry manifests itself at its worst. If one receives a gift and the other does not, or if one child believes the other one has been given a better gift, the slight, the injustice, is immediately decried. The fact is that no gift was deserved; the gifts were given out of the goodness of a father or mother’s heart. But, this is not worth pointing out to the child who thinks that he was given the short end of the stick. He thinks he wants justice; but we know that justice would not exactly be welcomed, at least not in place of kindness.   

Here, in the parable, we have a problem that is very much like its opposite, that is, like the scenario I have just described. The laborers who had borne the heat of the day had every reason to expect that their reward would be greater than the latecomers. When they saw that those who had worked but one hour were receiving what was, by the standard of that time and place, a full day’s pay, they assumed that the owner of the vineyard was loose with his money, that he paid by a higher standard than was normal, and that they would be paid more. This was only logical, and so it seemed to them, fair.  

To bear the heat of the day is to live the way Saint Paul describes. It is to work hard to obtain mastery over oneself, over everything that leads to sin and that slows us down in the race. It is no easy thing. To labor in the vineyard speaks of a life dedicated to God, and of dedication that is tied into a life within the Church that involves the development of the virtues, especially of charity. It is a life of service, and of witness as part of the Church and her mission to reach the lost. None of this is to be taken lightly.       

However, the parable reminds us that our salvation, wrought for us by Jesus Christ, was not something we earned. Whatever works and goodness we might achieve, the forgiveness of our sins is not earned by our own efforts. Neither can we do those extra meritorious things beyond what God requires. Article 14 speaks to the limits of what we can do:

XIV. Of Works of Supererogation

.Voluntary Works besides, over and above, God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.    

It is not possible to do works of supererogation. You and I cannot do what God requires, let alone do more. You are commanded to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Even when we have grown in virtues, even if we live the life of holiness as saints, even if we receive signs like the stigmata or visions and revelations of the Lord, our salvation is a gift, and something we cannot obtain by our own efforts. Christ earned it for us and bought us back from sin and death by the full, perfect, sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction of Himself once offered. We were under sentence of death because of sin, eternal separation from God. The one Who was Himself without sin bore our sins in His own body on the tree of the cross. He made there for us the Atonement.

He is the Lamb of God with His cross, upon which he took away the sins of the world and made the atonement, the covering- the Kippor- for us. This was not even our idea, let alone our accomplishment. The dove with the olive branch comes from the story of Noah. When Noah left the Ark he made his offering, and God was pleased with the sacrifice and promised not to destroy man from the face of the earth.   

The symbol is that of reconciliation with God. This reconciliation was made for us by God, by the Person of God the Son in the flesh, in His sinless human nature, in the likeness of our sinful flesh, dying like an offender upon the cross for the sins of the whole world. Pilate wrote the accusation over His head- "Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews." But, in his Epistle to the Colossians, Saint Paul tells us that the real accusation over Christ’s head was the entire Law of God. That Law that He alone kept perfectly; and so His death was the death of the just for the unjust, the sinless One for the sinners. He was the One for the many, to make those rendered guilty by one man’s offense righteous. We are saved by the perfect obedience of the One, by Christ Who gave Himself up for us with the words, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”        

What we are given, we are given by His goodness, not by our deserving. It is all by grace. A good confessor always reminds the penitent that the forgiveness of sins is given because Christ died for us. The act of penance does not earn the forgiveness, and, in fact, penance is done after the Absolution. Rather, penance is meant to strengthen and reinforce repentance and amendment of life, to direct the mind and heart towards God.* Do you know why the “Comfortable Words” follow the General Confession and General Absolution in our liturgy? Well, I can think of three reasons:     

1.To make clear that the forgiveness of sins is real   

2.That it is the gift of God to us through Jesus Christ        

3. and as a light and general penance.    

Whatever you feel you deserve, we are going to make the Confession of sin in a few minutes. The day’s pay is being given, not because of your labors but because of Christ’s labor on your behalf. And, the gift of Absolution that is given is the same for everyone who believes and with a true heart repents. We are unprofitable servants, and what is given to us is due to His goodness. 

Feast of the Purification February 2

Malachi 3:1-5 Luke 2:22-40

We learn from the Book of Leviticus, the twelfth chapter, that after the days appointed for the mother’s purification, the child is to be brought together with a sacrifice of a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and also a young pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering. We see in the last verse of that chapter:

“And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtle [doves], or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering...Lev. 12: 8)”

Remembering that, let us look again at the words from today’s Gospel reading:

“And when the days of her purification according to the Law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord; (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the Law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons. (Luke 2: 22-24).”

We need to understand the theology of what is happening in these verses. To begin with, St Luke is very clearly telling us that the family into which God became manifested, in our own human nature, was not a family of wealth, but of poverty; for they were not able to bring a lamb. The royal line of David, the line of the Jewish kings, had been reduced to poverty by the process of history, of wars and of subjugation to the Roman empire, And so it is that Joseph, in the line of those ancient kings, was a poor carpenter. Into his house of nobility, but of poverty, was our Lord born; this same Lord of glory, who had only a month before been laid in a manger because there was no place else for Him.

Remember the words of St. Paul:

“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich (II Cor. 8:9).”

The implications of this are very deep, and very profound. It is a picture of the mystery of the Incarnation itself, that the One Who did not grasp onto His own equality with God, but became a man, Who humbled Himself in obedience as a servant, unto the death of the cross, is the One to Whom every knee shall rightly bow, and Who shall be called Lord on every tongue, at the mention of His human name, the name of Jesus. Here He was, noble and the heir to the throne of David, yet poor. Here He was, true man yet very God. Here He was, the Lord Who had suddenly come to His temple, yet a new born babe, without power, and without wealth.

To see Him as He truly was required the eyes of faith, a certain faith which is knowledge, and that comes only by the revelation of God. Eyes that see, ears that hear and a heart that understands are the gift of the Holy Ghost. So it is that the true wisdom which comes from above is given to an old man, who wears the mantle of a prophet, seeing the Lord by the revelation given to Him from the Lord’s Holy Spirit. This is expressed in the words which live on in the Church every evening at prayer:

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”

The wisdom of God contradicts everything that a fallen and sinful world holds dear. It contradicts the wisdom of the wise, the might of the powerful, the haughtiness of kings, the wealth of riches. “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek; He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away.”

An old man takes in his arms an infant from a poor man’s house, and declares that He is the salvation of God for all the world. An elderly widow, also given the true wisdom from above, the gift of the Holy Spirit, speaks of Him to all who looked for redemption in Jerusalem. The prophet Amos wrote that, in the understanding of sinful man, “the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad.” How could this poor son of a poor carpenter, bring salvation to the world? Let alone, to Israel? And what light could He give to the Gentiles, light that would overturn the pagan religions, the ignorance of idolaters in every land, including the powerful empire of Rome with its many gods? How could this child born into a carpenter’s house, restore the glory of Israel, as if the throne of David could replace the rule of the cruel gentile tyrant, Herod, and banish the powerful legions of Rome? What did these two foolish and mad old folks have in mind, speaking such non-sense?

Let me allude to a fantasy story: Perhaps some of you have seen the movie The Return of the King, or, better yet, have read J.R.R. Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings. If so, you recall that the world is saved from the power of the evil Sauron by two very little, and completely powerless people. Two hobbits of the shire, Frodo and Sam, accomplish what the warriors of Middle Earth, even under the leadership of King Aragorn, could not do themselves. In the climax of the story, the armies of Middle Earth can only fight their battle to serve as a distraction, while the two little hobbits, both under four feet tall, and without any strength of arms, manage to take the One Ring to its destruction, thus toppling the power of Sauron, and freeing the world from his grasp. Tolkien wrote his story with a Christian mind, as a very devout Catholic; and he made it obvious that the victory was wrought by Providence through the hobbits.

God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are powerful, and the foolish things of the world to confound the things which are wise; so wrote St. Paul. The true victory that banishes oppression from the world, and overturns all of the power of evil, was accomplished by a naked and wounded, beaten and humiliated man, breathing His last breath nailed to cross, as a spectacle of all that appears to be weak and powerless. In His humility and obedience to the Father, His submission to the will of God in giving His life, he is the One true hero Who breaks all of the power of Satan, and liberates the whole world from sin and death.

But, the world saw Him in His weakness and foolishness. It saw Him in His poverty and want of all things, having His garments parted among the gambling soldiers, being given nothing to quench His thirst, but only vinegar as if by a cruel joke. By all the wisdom known to sinful men, this was no conquering hero, no victorious king. The words of Simeon and Anna must have seemed a hundred times more mad and foolish than when they had spoken of Him in the time of His infancy. Anyone old enough to have remembered them, who may have recalled hearing them about thirty three years earlier, surely thought that they must have been no true prophets.

Of course all of this brings me to my second theological point from today’s Gospel reading. Here we see Jesus being presented in the temple, and an offering being made for Him as if He were a sinner. His mother, the Blessed Virgin, is obeying the Law of Purification, as if this child had been born in uncleanness, that is, as if tainted with original sin, as if in the prayer of David, in which he says “in sin hath my mother conceived me (from Psalm 51).” You and I can pray those words, for we were born in original sin, subject to powers over which we could not prevail; for we could never have made ourselves pure. But, Jesus needed no such offering, and His mother needed no purification. Yet, Mary and Joseph obey the Law; and this foreshadows for us the fact that Jesus would fulfill the Law.

The scriptures say that “He was tempted in every point as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15).” And, that “God made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (II Cor. 5: 21).” Isaiah had written, “And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death, because he had done no violence; neither was any deceit in His mouth...He bare the sin of [the] many, and made intercession for the transgressors (from Isaiah 53).” The offerings that day, in the temple, foreshadow the life of Christ as one of perfect obedience to the Father’s will, in this case specifically by adhering to the Law of God given through Moses. It foreshadows the words he spoke to John the Baptist at His own baptism in the Jordan River: “Suffer it to be so, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” For in His baptism He let Himself be identified with sinful humanity, and began then to take upon Himself the sins of the world, remaining Himself pure from all sin; as John said that day, “Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” He bore them all the way to the cross; for “surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.”

Yes, He needed no offering, and His mother needed no purification since Her Son was borne in complete purity. But the offerings that day, in the temple, teach us that He was taking our sins on Himself. As the only pure Man ever to live, His death would the only death that is completely undeserved. He did not merit death. Death came into the world through sin, and it is our penalty because of sin. When the sinless One died, death was undone. The power of Satan was destroyed, and with it the values and principles of a sinful world were turned upside down. On the day of his death, certified by His resurrection on the third day, all that was powerful was shown to be weak, all that was rich was shown to be poverty, all that was mighty was shown to be weak. “He hath put down the mighty from their seat; and hath exalted the humble and meek.” The two old prophets, who seemed foolish and mad, had spoken wisdom and reason when they spoke of this child as the One Who would bring redemption in Jerusalem.

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed, as is most justly due, all wisdom, might, power and glory, now forever. Amen.

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Romans 13:1-7  * Matthew 8:1-13

When my children were still children I learned a valuable lesson. One evening when dinner was prepared, I sent our daughter to call her three little brothers in from playing outside. Through the window I heard her simply tell them, “come in now; dinner time.” She came in flustered and annoyed to tell me, “they aren’t coming in.” So, I sent her again, and said, “this time tell them, ‘Dad says to come in.’” This time she came back leading the way, her little brothers appearing one at a time. The oldest of the boys was complaining that he wanted a few more minutes out there, but he was in nonetheless. The difference was “Dad says.”

          When St. Paul bids us to be subject to the higher powers, or governing authorities, in today’s Epistle reading, it is implied that the highest power is God Himself. Even among the worst of the worst, even in the highly corrupt and violent Roman Empire and the city of Rome itself, where the church to which he wrote this was located, it was in obedience to God that the Apostle urged respect for authority. That included his charge to them that they lead peaceful and law-abiding lives.

          It is obvious that no human authority, however, is absolute. Shortly after this came a period of time when even so much as being a Christian at all became a capital crime; and that lasted until the year 313 AD, during which long period of history Christians were the victims of an ancient holocaust that claimed several hundred thousand lives (a staggering number in those days). The sentence for being a Christian was death. St. Paul himself would, a few years after writing these words, himself be executed by beheading. The very powers he wrote about would sentence him to death. Why? Because he knew where to draw the line.

          In practical matters of peace and safety, in living with due order, the Apostle taught respect for authority; but not absolute surrender to tyranny. The key to unlock the apparent paradox is very much in the words, “Dad says.” In this case, Christians would pay taxes, honor the emperor within reason, keep the civil statutes, and so on. They would try to live peaceably. But, where the authorities contradicted God, they would have to disobey those earthly rulers in order to obey God.

          This pattern was well established already, long before St. Paul wrote these words. Look at this from the Book of Acts, when Peter and the Apostles stood before the High Priest and the Sanhedrin:

“Before the council… the high priest asked them, Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:28,29).”

          So, we respect and honor authority, but always with a view that no human being has the authority to rule over anyone’s conscience, that is, to take the place of God. The Highest Power is God. However, unless convinced that it is an issue of “God rather than men,” each one of us is strictly commanded in today’s Epistle reading to be subject to lawful authority. Now, if you believe it is a matter of “God rather than men,” then your conscience should be so firm that you would be willing to be stood up against a wall and shot. Selfish or petty concerns, mere rebellion without a cause, or with a personal agenda, does not count. If the issue is “God rather than men,” I expect you to be willing to die for your convictions. If it so important to disobey the speed limit, not to keep off the grass, or to cause disorder and chaos in society or even in the Church, then readiness to lay down your life for it, whatever it might be, should naturally follow.

          St. Peter was telling the High Priest, in effect, “Yes, but Dad says…” He was saying that it was the Lord Himself, Jesus Christ Who had risen from the dead and had stood before them alive after His death and passion for the sins of the whole world, Who had personally commanded them to preach His Gospel. Therefore, even the High Priest and the Sanhedrin, though their offices had been established by God Himself in the days of Moses, had no authority to tell them to disobey the Lord. The Apostles were bound to obey the Higher Power, Christ the Lord. And, yes they were willing to die for that obedience as an unshakable matter of conscience.

          Notice that Peter and the other Apostles did not speak down to the High Priest and the Council. They were never disrespectful. They even accepted a beating, and rejoiced that they were worthy to suffer for the Name of Jesus Christ. They were not rebels, they were not like angry adolescents wanting to make a scene; rather, just like the Centurion, they were men under authority. Like the old TV advertisement for Hebrew National Hotdogs, they were Kosher; they answered to a Higher Authority.

          I resist the idea that we should draw a direct a parallel between the Old Testament rule of the Sanhedrin and the High Priest to the authority God has placed in His Church. But, we may draw an indirect and implied meaning. Listen to these words:

“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you (Hebrews 13:17).”

          The “rule” is the same as care or cure. There are other such passages in the New Testament. There is a good reason why St. Paul wanted Timothy and Titus normally to ordain men who had already proven their ability as fathers in their own households. It takes the same kind of man who is a good father to be a good pastor. Though Paul himself (alone among the Apostles) lived a celibate life, and had raised no family, he nonetheless knew that, normally, it is best for a good father to have the responsibility for the cure of souls.

The priesthood is an eldership automatically (if you know the Greek New Testament you won’t even question that). It is no office for a man who wants either power or prestige. It is an office for a man who accepts responsibility for others, for their eternal good. It is an office with the responsibility of caring for the good of the Church, and also for souls under one’s pastoral care.

          You need to understand something from my perspective. You are not my customers. The customer is always right, and must be placated. But, children in the care of parents, patients in the care of doctors, and parishioners under the care of priests, are not customers. And, they are not always right either. This parish is not my employer, and you are not my bosses: The priest works for God under the authority of the bishop.

My responsibility is to care for your souls. Primarily, just as I was the one calling my sons in for dinner, it is my office to feed you. What do I feed you? Not my own ideas. My own ideas would have no real authority. It would be like my daughter saying, “come in now,” instead of speaking to her brothers on behalf of their father. I am charged with the awesome responsibility of feeding you God’s word. First and foremost that is the Gospel itself, and the appeal to everyone, “be ye reconciled to God.” I am charged always to remind you that Christ died for your sins and rose again, to come to the table with “hearty repentance and true faith.” It is not my own idea. It is what our Father says.

          The correct understanding of authority unlocks the mysteries in the Gospel reading we have today. The Law of Moses required that the leper was to keep his distance, and cry out “Unclean, unclean” as a warning, so others would keep away. In a very real sense, one we would not understand today in our time and place, the leper’s disease made him unclean and was, according to the statutes of the Law, a sin in itself. For, just by having leprosy a person was Lo Tahor, unclean. He was unable to enter the temple. He was, by having this disease, in a sense, required to keep his distance even from God.

          Jesus, as a man under the Law, always kept it perfectly. Yet, as God, He is also the Lawgiver. In the Sermon on the Mount He spoke plainly as the Lawgiver. As a man He obeyed the Law, and as God it was His Law, his property if I may put it that way.

          In dealing with the leper, He would have been expected to keep away so as not be made unclean Himself. Certainly, He would be expected not to touch such a man. Yet, he stretches forth His hand and touches him: “I will; be thou clean.” The words “I will” are words with ultimate authority, the will of God, the will of the Lawgiver Himself. Instead of the unclean man defiling the young rabbi, the Lawgiver Himself cleanses the leper. Instead of the touch making Jesus unclean, His touch makes the leper clean.

          As the leper saw it, this cleansing touch restored him to the fellowship of his people, and allowed him back into the presence of God in the holy temple. His is the Highest Power, Christ making all things new. Just as He cleansed the leper, so He cleanses and restores the souls of all who come to Him with “hearty repentance and true faith.” It is in His power to cleanse and restore. And, as we see in this reading, that is the will of the Highest Power of all; it is the will of God to cleanse and to heal.

          As a man, Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law and the Father’s will. The good will of God is why Jesus so readily took up His cross to take away all of our sins, just as He bore this leper’s sorrows and carried his grief, healing him thoroughly. He triumphed over death and rose the third day. With all the authority and power of the Lawgiver, with all power in heaven and earth as the risen and immortal Man in whose hand the will of God prospers* He commanded His disciples to go into all nations with the Gospel, and make more disciples, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things He had commanded them.

          In line with the Centurion’s observation, Christ had lived His earthly life as a man under authority, even under the Law. He has all things in heaven and earth under His authority now; He gives commandment to his Church to follow Him and to proclaim the kingdom of God in His Name. It is He Who tells us to do these things.

* Isaiah 53:10           

          

The Conversion of St. Paul January 25th

EASTER OUT OF SEASON

When the Lord appeared to Saul, and made him an eyewitness of the resurrection, many things changed in his understanding. His righteous act of persecuting the Church was revealed to have been the sin of persecuting the Messiah himself, his own self-attained righteousness was shown to be a delusion, the curse that was evident in the manner of Jesus’ death was revealed to be atonement paid by the Righteous one for the many sinners, thus taking away the curse from those who deserved it, and the prophecies of scripture were revealed to have been speaking of two comings of Messiah, not one. How much of this was clear immediately and how much had to develop over time as he thought about it, is not clear. But, right away, in his conversion, is the revelation that would become Paul’s bold teaching about faith in Jesus Christ and the grace that he gives, himself our only Salvation.

See the rest here.

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

I have assigned preaching to Fr. Charles Lindsay this week, so here is a sermon I wrote for this Sunday (based on the American propers).

Gustave Dore' Bible Illustrations

John 2:1-11

Today we will look at three important things meant to be drawn out, exegeted, from this portion of the Gospel of John. These are:

1) Christ’s presence at a wedding
2) His phrase “my hour”
3) The title that he gives to His mother, namely, “Woman.”


Click here for the rest of the sermon.

Her Mother's Glory

Robert Hart on the Hardest of Abortion Cases

I promised myself that I would not be the stereotypical father of the bride, like Spencer Tracy, who hates to give away his little girl. But as I walked her down the aisle, and approached the moment she would become a full-grown, married lady, I felt everything I had determined not to feel. Very far from my mind was the story of her strange origins. It is always far from my mind, unless something reminds me of it, like the recent news from Poland.

Read the rest here.

Do the work of an Evangelist

Not of an underwriter.

(Re-posted from 2007. I was younger and less refined, a tad more feisty. But, I still believe this.)

"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine...do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry."

II Timothy 4:2,5

The insurance business has that dreaded class of gate keepers who study every new application sent by an agent, examining it thoroughly to find whatever reason they may to reject it. The agent has worked hard to sell a policy, only to have it fall into such hands, those who are trained to be suspicious, to protect the company's assets and reserves, and to this end to show no pity on a would be customer. The truth is, the insurance companies do need these menacing figures in order to control losses. They are necessary in insurance, but not in the priesthood.

A while back I listened to a priest, a man with little experience but generous with unsolicited advice, describing how he had protected his church from the wrong kind of people. A couple, both Episcopalians, were moving to his area, and wanted to find what they called a "Bible believing church." The alarm bells went off in his head, since he took the expression "Bible believing" to indicate that they were Protestant in their thinking, Low Church in their tastes, and just not the right sort for his "Anglo-Catholic" parish. He was practically boasting about how he had scared them off by arguing over who was and who was not orthodox, and by his firm refutation of women's "ordination." Yes, he manged to keep the wrong sort of people away, and they did not even come by on Sunday morning to visit and see the church for themselves. He had scared them off just fine over the phone.

The man should have been an underwriter.

The famed Barrister of fiction, Horace Rumpole, once said about a colleague, "It's no great trick getting people into prison. How good is he at keeping them out?" The opposite applies to the sacred ministry in the Church. It is no great trick keeping people out of the Church. Just decide, O' Priest, that you shall be a gatekeeper instead of a fisher of men. It's much easier, and you get to play the role of the Bad Vicar.None of that nasty business of being patient and kind, none of that drag on your time. And, you get to cater to the desires of the most fussy and effeminate contributors who think it is more important to observe all of the choreography of Ritual Notes than to tend to the salvation of souls. Golly! You can even console yourself as your congregation remains stagnant, or drops off to nothing, that you had done well by keeping it pure. You can concentrate on the gossip and who's who of the bitter Continuing divisions, and treat everything to do with learning as a matter purely theoretical.

But, guess what my friends; we don't need underwriters among the clergy. So, if you are the type who examines visitors to see whether or not their "application" is solid, please go do something else. The world always needs good waiters and janitors, and insurance companies could use very fussy people as, you guessed it, underwriters. Get an honest job.

This is a time of opportunity for us. At this point in history, the Anglican world is exploding. When it falls back down it will be resorted and reconfigured. Many of the people in official Cantuarian Anglican churches are fleeing for their lives; and they are looking to African Primates, or going to Rome or Orthodoxy, because for too long the Continuing Churches have been choking the supply of the Gospel, and of the power to save souls through the pure preaching of God's word; they have been squeezing the hose shut instead of allowing the water to flow through it. The Spirit has been quenched for too long among a people who, having the truest and best of orthodox doctrine, nonetheless have made evangelism the lowest priority, if a priority at all.

When I say, "evangelism" I do not mean, first and foremost, church growth. Church growth is a consequence of evangelism; but the purpose of evangelism is the salvation of souls. When all is said and done, we will not answer on the Last Day for how well we performed the Ritual Notes (not even for the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Procession); but we will answer for whether or not we had been moved by charity to become vessels meet for the Master's purpose, pliable to the Holy Spirit for the work of evangelists. How much have we cared about the eternal destiny of lost souls in a fallen world? How much have we sought to welcome them, in fact to "compel them to come in?"

Now, if this couple had asked me if my church were A "Bible believing church," I would have said, as every true Catholic, including Catholic Anglicans, should say: "Yes, we most certainly are." I would have urged them to come, to taste and see that the Lord is good. We can deal with ignorance. In fact, dear priests, expect ignorance since you are supposed to be the teachers, and you cannot teach people what they already know. Welcome people whose minds are confused, and learn to speak in and interpret tongues enough to communicate in terms they receive. If such faithful Christians think in terms too foreign for your understanding, how do you hope to win the nations for Christ?

"O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling,

to tell to all the world that God is Light;

that he who made all nations is not willing

one soul should perish, lost in shades of night.

Refrain:

Publish glad tidings: tidings of peace

tidings of Jesus, redemption and release.

"Proclaim to every people, tongue, and nation

that God, in whom they live and move, is Love;

tell how he stooped to save his lost creation,

and died on earth that man might live above. Refrain

"Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious;

give of thy wealth to speed them on their way;

pour out thy soul for them in prayer victorious

till God shall bring his kingdom's joyful day. Refrain

"He comes again! O Zion, ere thou meet him,

make known to every heart his saving grace;

let none whom he hath ransomed fail to greet him,

through thy neglect, unfit to see his face. Refrain"

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O' Zion Haste, hymn 261 in the 1940 Hymnal

Words: Mary Ann Faulkner Thomson, 1870