OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN

“And make us worthy, O Master, that with boldness and without condemnation, we may dare to call upon You, the heavenly God, as Father, and to say: Our Father…” (Orthodox Divine Liturgy)

“At the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say: Our Father…”

(The Catholic Mass)

“And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say, Our Father…”

(Book of Common Prayer Service for Holy Communion)

“And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.” (John 8:23)

Why is it bold, why is it daring, to call God “Our Father?” We have lost sight of the significance of this even to the point where we have to stop and pause in order even to think of this as a genuine question. The ancient Israelites may have thought somewhat erroneously in assuming that no one can see God and live; but we think wrongly to presume upon the grace of God and to assume that just anybody can call God “Father” without some genuine self-examination. Saint Gregory of Nyssa reminds us that sinfulness in anyone’s life should make it much too daring for any person to presume to say such a thing.

Somewhere in the Psalms the great David says, "Who will give me wings like a dove" (Ps 55:6)? I, too, would dare speak with the same voice. Who will give me such wings as to fly with my mind to the height of the noble meaning of these words? I need to leave the whole earth behind. I must traverse all the intermediary air and come to that ethereal beauty, reaching the stars and beholding their lovely order. Even then I could not remain with the stars. I would need to pass through them and go beyond all material things that change and are in flux. I would want to reach the eternal nature of God, the unshakable power, which has established itself and governs the universe. All things exist and are dependent on the ineffable will of the Divine Wisdom. I would have to remove my mind far from all things that change and are in flux. By attaining to an unchanging and unwavering disposition of the soul, I would first earnestly make Him my friend who is eternal and unchangeable. Only then would I invoke that most intimate Name and say, “Father!”

What quality of soul must the speaker possess to speak of God as “Our Father!” What confidence of spirit! What purity of conscience! To perceive God’s ineffable glory, he must comprehend the mystery of God as far as it is possible from the names that have been conceived of and attributed to God in the Scriptures. He must learn that the divine nature of God is goodness, holiness, joy, power, glory, purity and eternity. Whatever God may be in His deep mystery, He possesses all these eternal and many other conceivable attributes that properly belong to the Divine Nature. Let us say that a person could understand all these endowments of God through the study of Holy Scriptures as well as one’s own creative reflection. Could such a person even then dare to utter the sacred Name and call such a God his own Father? (Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Homily Two - Our Father Who art in Heaven)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa went on to call for purity of life in the walk of every believer so that each one can be able to call God “Father” in good conscience. Of course, that is all very true. In the same Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us not only to trust in God as Father, but also to be like Him:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matt. 5:43-48).”

There was an understanding in which having one as father possessed the meaning of being of the same kind in character. In the Old Testament, notorious scoundrels, overt and unashamed doers of evil, were called “the sons of Belial (בְּנֵֽי־בְלִיַּעַל).” Belial apparently was not the name of a pagan god or demon, but a word for something worthless. The implication is not so much genetic, as in from what one is generated in terms of bios, but rather in how one lives. We are called to be sons of our Father in heaven; that is, to be in every sense of our daily walk and the intentions of our heart. Whose son will I be in any given situation? How you walk in this world is one way in which you actually choose, in every circumstance, whose son or daughter you are. By your walk you show who is your father.

They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. (John 8:39-45)

What do we make of these words? Is Jesus saying that every unbeliever has Satan as father in some spiritually generative sense? Is He setting apart the Jews as having Satan as their father, thus teaching some kind of collective guilt shared by a whole people (which could not account for all of His disciples and His own mother)? Or is He not rather saying that one’s deeds show to whom he or she is aligned, deeds by which someone shows forth the same traits, characteristics, and resemblance of another to whom one lives in obedience? Obviously, it is the latter. By one’s choices he resembles, with the same traits, either God’s kinship or the devil’s. But the devil has no power to give life, and so to be the children of the devil cannot be rightly interpreted as meaning that there is a spiritually generative sense in which one is in any way the offspring of a being who is impotent and unable to produce offspring, whether with bios or zoe. But his evil can be imitated, and so by thought, word, and deed, when effected with evil intention, one can choose to adopt the devil as father by sinful actions.

Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to
take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a
pure virgin: Grant that we, being regenerate and made thy
children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy
Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one
God, world without end. Amen. (Christmas Collect, Book of Common Prayer)

The principle of the whole matter is adoption. Those who seek to kill Christ, which at this time after His resurrection from the dead to a human nature of immortality is impossible (Romans 6:9), can, at best, kill only the voice of conscience by which the Holy Spirit speaks to every human heart. The choice to kill the voice of one’s conscience is to adopt the devil as one’s father. To apply this to one group of people called “the Jews” is absurd; but it is also inaccurate to apply it to everyone who has not yet become adopted by grace to become one of God’s children. Many who remain lost in darkness are not, thereby, “totally depraved.” God includes all in unbelief, that He might have mercy on all (Romans 11:32). The words “All have sinned…” does not justify the overstated and exaggerated doctrine of “The Total Depravity of Man.”

But, even so, an unbeliever whose deeds do not necessarily mean that he adopts the devil as father, because such a person tries to live according to his conscience, has no right to call God “Father.” We see in the Old Testament that Israel had honorable allies even among those who were not in the covenant. So also we see in the Book of Acts a difference between one “…The deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man (Acts 13:7),” but still a man yet to be born from above as a child of God, and one Elymas Barjesus a sorcerer who willfully opposed the Holy Spirit. The sorcerer was struck blind miraculously when Saint Paul described him, addressing him as, “O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season (Acts 13:10,11).” But of Sergius Paulus we read, “Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord (Acts 13:12).” Yet, even though we see no indication that the deputy, Sergius Paulus, believed prior to hearing the Gospel and beholding a miracle (and I have seen such miracles of chastening that have silenced opposition to the preaching of the Gospel), he was not called a “child of the devil” nor “an enemy of all righteousness,” but rather “a prudent man,” acknowledging a virtuous quality in him even before he came to faith in Christ. So, it is not a theological truth to ascribe to all unbelievers the status of being “Sons of Belial.” And yet, before he came to believe in Christ, a prudent man though he was, he could not yet rightly call God “Father.”

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved (Eph. 1:3-6).

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together (Romans 8:14-17).

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

It is absolutely necessary for us to notice that when Jesus our Lord taught us to pray “Our Father,” that except for this one occasion of telling us what to say in prayer, the words “Our Father” are never attributed to Him in any verse of the whole Bible. Always He says either, “My Father,” reminding us of His unique relation to the Father, or He says “Your Father,” often “Your Father who is in Heaven.” When Jesus says “My Father” it is because He is the only begotten Son of the Father. The word “Begotten” is iconic, speaking of the eternal procession of Being that is beyond our comprehension. Already we have seen from John 8:42, “I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.” The first part of that is about Who He is as the eternal Son and the Logos; the second part, about coming into the world, is about the human nature He took as the son of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And although the Church more often has reserved the use of the word “Proceed” to the relation between the Father and the Holy Spirit (and the word in John 8:42 is ἔρχομαι - erchomai) rather than ἐκπορεύομαι - ekporeuomai as used for the Holy Spirit in John 15:26), it is a fitting word. Generally, the word used that is translated as “begotten,” is μονογενής (monogen’ēs), a word that contains, as we see, genes’, that is that the Son, that is the Logos, is generated eternally by the Father. This did not happen in something akin to time; the Son is not a creation of God, and neither is the Holy Spirit. It is all a mystery of the ever-present eternal Now that Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father. And it is only in the one begotten Son that we are so fully adopted that it is a new birth from above. It is such a thorough adoption that God the Father’s Name is not only on our adoption papers, but also the full Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is on our spiritual birth certificate on Heaven, giving each of us the common new name In Christ (See Romans chapter six).

Therefore, seeing as God is our Father by this very thorough adoption and grace, every time that we say “Our Father who art in Heaven,” we confess by being so bold, ever so daring through faith in His revealed grace, that Christ is divine, fully God and fully man. Therefore, because he was born on Earth as a human being, and because He carried us through the death brought on by our sin, and carried into His new immortal life, we do indeed dare with boldness to say “Our Father who art in Heaven.” it is fitting to mention Heaven because we have been born of water and of the Spirit. So, we begin to be, even in this life, heavenly beings in Christ.

We are left then to remember two things. We are sons already, Children of God, and therefore the full manifestation of our adoption remains for the Day when Christ comes again in glory to infuse the fullness of immortality into each of us. The other is, because God is our Father, our thoughts words, and deeds ought to be those things in which His family resemblance is visible in this world. Let us do the deeds of our Father, and “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful (Luke 6:36).” We are bold because the blood of the great High Priest is on the Mercy Seat, the Throne of Grace. We are bold if our conscience does not accuse us because “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world (I John 4:17).” In Christ, that new surname we share, God is our Father.

The Beauty of Holiness is a reader-supported publication. To support my work please consider becoming a paid subscriber (monthly $5.10).

ALL SAINTS in the Octave

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

I recall my very first solar eclipse, probably in 1962, when I could not have been more than four years old. I remember it well. My mother was very careful to tell me not to look directly at the sun, because it was very possible that I could go blind if I did. During a solar eclipse, we can look at the sun, not realizing that the infrared rays are every bit as destructive to the optic nerve as ever. Our eyes cannot take those rays in their full strength. So, I was told not to look up when the sky would darken, but to look down and so preserve my eyesight.

A cousin, who lived across the street, came over with a cardboard box, that, if worn like a helmet over the head, due to a hole cut in the back and a white sheet of paper as a viewing screen placed in front, could be used to see the reflection of the eclipse. It was a partial eclipse, and I recall that on the white screen I saw the sun with a dark round shadow in front of it, causing the reflection of the sun to appear like the moon, when it is only partly visible. The sun appeared shaped like a quarter moon, reflected inside the box-helmet. Even more strange, when I removed the box from my head, on the ground many such reflections appeared like a pattern, little quarter-moon images of the sun. We could not look directly at the brightness of the sun with any safety, but we could look at the endless reflections all over the ground. I have never seen that particular effect from an eclipse on any other occasion in more than sixty years since that day. But I cannot forget what it looked like. On an exceptionally dark day, the many bright reflections of sunlight could not be extinguished.

That is an illustration for us. In our condition as fallen creatures, subject in this world to sin and death, we cannot not look upon the undiluted glory of God in its fullness. It is not a danger, because it cannot happen; for if it happened we would be unable to endure it. It is true that Christ said, “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.” But, this was accomplished by His coming to us as a man. Even on the Mount of Transfiguration it was His glorified humanity that shined with the  brightness of the sun in its strength. He made known His divine presence by everything He said and did, especially by defeating death when in His resurrection He ushered in immortality. But never did He unleash on anyone a perfect glimpse of His divine nature, for to do so would not have been merciful, but rather terrifying. So He took human nature in its fullness, and this became a part of Him forever by a loving and gracious act of His will. Human nature served as His icon, a perfect image of the Father for us to see. Similarly, His Presence today is very real, but made food for us under “these shadows mean” of bread and wine.

We do hope to see God some day, and not only in the human nature taken by the Son, though never will it be set aside; And whenever we see God we cannot do so without seeing Christ Jesus, for the Trinity cannot be divided or dissected. The goal and hope of Christians is to see God as our Lord Jesus said: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” This one little line is the reason why this passage that opens the Sermon on the Mount is the Gospel for the Feast of all Saints. The Church long has used the word “saints” to speak of those we believe to have entered already into the perfect state that allows them to be granted the Beatific Vision. That is, to see God as God, the final perfect destiny of the human creature by grace.

Because we are not ready in this life for the Beatific Vision, we must, for now, see God the way I saw the sun during the solar eclipse in my childhood. What we see, that is the sight of God in Jesus Christ, is real. And real also is what you see when one of us holds the Sacrament up and tells you to Behold the Lamb of God. We see that reality in a way that is given to us by God’s love, because He saves us by showing Himself. Jesus said to Nicodemus:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the  world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:15-17).

We see Him in His human nature, lifted up on the cross. We see Him as the Lamb of God, ourselves not worthy that He should come under our roof, but asking that He speak the word only, and our souls shall be healed. Yes, what we see is real. And what we see is granted to us in a way that saves us rather than destroying us, for He came to save us. Our sinfulness, our weakness and our foolishness is all taken into account by the Father, and what we cannot see in this transitory life is due to His mercy. The fullness of Godhead dwells in Christ bodily, and the Holy Spirit is really and truly present within the Church- within us with all His gifts. But our destiny is to behold the sun in its strength when our eyes are made able to endure the brightness, able to endure seeing God as God. We are meant to know Him as He is, to behold throughout eternity the Beatific Vision, a vision not stagnant because He is infinite, and our knowledge of Him once made perfect will be ever perfected more and more, endless knowledge, joy and love. Yet, we must never presume on God’s grace. Hell is the denial of this joy; not that God denies it to us, but that we deny it to ourselves as long as we resist His love and grace.

 

Think of the words we call the Summary of the Law. The first and great commandment is the impossible call to be saints, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind, and then to love your neighbor as yourself. When you look at the Epistles of Saint Paul, in the opening of the Epistle to the Romans and the first Epistle to the Corinthians, you see that all of the  people who belong to the Church are “called to be saints.”

I like the King James Bible, with that accurate translation “called to be saints.” That “called to be” part is missing from the understanding of a good many Protestant revivalists, fundamentalists and Pentecostals. They teach that every Christian is a saint just by, as they like to say, “accepting Jesus.” Meanwhile, the opposite error belongs to those who seem to think of saints as if they were comic book superheroes, people with special abilities like Superman born on Krypton, or Spiderman with his radioactive bug bite that enables him to do amazing things. We mere mortals, some people believe, cannot ever be like them, and it’s best just to be “normal.” But the truth is simply that a saint is a holy person. That is what the word means. And the truth is that everyone who belongs to Christ has the vocation to be a saint. We have not yet arrived at being perfected as saints, but neither are we supposed to leave that to a special class of superheroes. The scripture commands us to “follow on to know the Lord (Hosea 6:3).” 

The most important thing that we can focus on during the Feast of All Saints is not the issue of devotions to the saints. Sure, it is possible, I suppose, to slip into idolatry and to worship saints and angels- and some people have. But that is not a likely error for many. I think we all know that only God is to be worshiped as God. The ancient practice of asking the saints to pray for us is not idolatry and should not be condemned as if it were. I can make no guarantee that they have a more than merely human capacity to hear everyone, for that would indicate that they somehow shared the Divine attribute of omnipresence (which they simply cannot). I cannot place my faith in any one of them that way. But I know that they must be praying for the Church militant if only because they have been made perfect in charity.

To keep this in balance, let us consider the words of Origen:

For we indeed acknowledge that angels are ministering spirits, . . . and that they ascend, bearing the supplications of men, to the purest of  supercelestial regions purer still; and that they come down from these, conveying to each one, according to his deserts, something enjoined by God to be conferred by them upon those who are to be the recipients of his benefits. . . . For every prayer, and supplication, and intercession, and thanksgiving, is to be sent up to the Supreme God through the High Priest, who is above all the angels, the living Word and God. And to the Word Himself shall we also pray and make intercessions, and offer thanksgivings and supplications to Him, if we have the capacity of distinguishing between the proper use and abuse of prayer. . . .

And it is enough to secure that the holy angels of God be propitious to us, and that they do all things on our behalf, that our disposition of mind towards God should imitate as far as it is within the power of human nature the example of these holy angels, who again follow the example of their God. (Contra Celsum, V, 4-5)

And he wrote in another place:

When we have the favor of God, we have also the good-will of all angels and spirits who are friends of God. For they know who are worthy of the divine approval, and they are not only well disposed to them, but they co-operate with them in their endeavors to please God: they seek his favor on their behalf; with their prayers they join their own prayers and intercessions for them.

We may indeed boldly say, that men who aspire after better things have, when they pray to God, tens of thousands of sacred powers upon their side. These, even when not asked, pray with them, they bring succor to our mortal race. (Contra Celsum, Book VIII, 64)

The subject of devotions to saints is not our focus on the feast of All Saints. Our focus has always been the call that God has given to all of us, the call to become, by grace, saints ourselves. That is, we are called to be holy, to be faithful in every area of our lives, to press on to know the Lord, to confess the sins we fall into and repent of them in order to be forgiven, and also to be cleansed and delivered from the power of sin. We are called to develop the virtues, faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, prudence and temperance. Above all of the others charity, the bond of perfection.

A Paradox

Looking back again at the Epistles of Saint Paul we see a paradox.

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy (ἅγιος, hagios) and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Colossians 3:12-17)

The word translated “holy” at the beginning of that passage is ἅγιος, (hagios), which Saint Jerome translated into Latin with the word Sancti. In effect, in this passage Saint Paul is telling us that, because we are already saints due to God’s love and election, we must become saints. It may indeed seem odd to be told to become what you are. It becomes more reasonable in context, because it means to become what you are in Christ. In terms of nature, it is not so strange to be told that you must become what you are by creation; for indeed, you can choose to sin against God by trying to be something other, and therefore much less than what He made you to be. And now, by baptism, you have born again, born from above, to be a new creation in Christ Himself. Both by the nature of creation and then by the new nature of grace in Christ risen from the dead - risen from mortality itself - become holy, that is sanctified in your daily life. That is the life of a saint, and that is the life you have both been given  as one set apart to God, and it as well your calling to be made perfect in living out that sainthood.

When you look to the front of a church building, you see the altar. I recall many years ago that a man, a church warden by title, took it upon himself to check out the altar before a service. I am not sure why he thought it was necessary. As he did so he was carrying a cup of coffee, and he placed his coffee on the altar, while undertaking his inspection or whatever it was. I immediately asked him to remove his cup of coffee from the altar. It is not that coffee, something I enjoy every day, is evil; it is not that he had committed some terrible sin for which the ground beneath would open while he was swallowed up. It is just that the altar is set apart for a holy purpose. Serving as a coffee table is not that purpose. It is set apart, sanctified and consecrated to be the holy table upon which the Eucharist is celebrated, upon which blessed bread and wine become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Like that altar, you have been set apart for the Lord’s purpose. It is His will that you love Him and that you love your neighbor. It is His will that your entire life be lived as a joyful offering up of worship (Romans 12:1, 2). Theoretically, an altar can be set apart but never fulfill its purpose. A bishop may indeed bless it; but unless a priest uses it to offer up the Good Thanksgiving (Eucharist) with the assembled Body of Christ in corporate worship, it never fulfills its calling, so to speak. Look again at those words by the Apostle, and by God’s grace, fulfill your calling. You are holy because you are set apart; be holy in how you live every day of your life. It is the calling of every person to become a saint; it is the calling of every saint to be that saint.

In order to begin to answer the call to holiness, we must be thankful. And, that is the best reason to look at the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God, lifted up on the cross as Moses lifted the serpent on the pole in the wilderness. It is in thanksgiving that our hearts respond to Christ’s great act of love in that our souls are healed, not treating us as our sins deserve, but rather dying as our atonement. In that love we begin to see the reflection of Divine glory. Like that reflection I saw as a child, wearing a box as a helmet on my head, we see the glory of God the way I saw a projection of the sun. And like the innumerable moon-shaped reflections of the sun that I saw in a pattern across the ground in those dark few minutes, we see radiant glory in the great company of saints who have gone before, and who now, with hearts made pure by grace, behold the glory of God.

The Beauty of Holiness is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber ($5.10 a month).

 

 

A Full Perfect and Sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction

From my archives, first posted in 2008

Article XXXI. Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross. 

The Offering of Christ once made in that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.

From The Supper of the Lorde and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Masse, in the first Book of Common Prayer, 1549:

O God heavenly father, which of thy tender mercie diddest geve thine only sonne Jesu Christ to suffre death upon the crosse for our redempcion, who made there (by his one oblacion once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifyce, oblacion, and satysfaccyon, for the sinnes of the whole worlde, and did institute, and in his holy Gospell commaund us, to celebrate a perpetuall memory of that his precious death, untyll his comming again: Heare us (O merciful father) we besech thee; and with thy holy spirite and worde, vouchsafe to blesse and sanctifie these thy gyftes, and creatures of bread and wyne, that they maie be unto us the bodye and bloude of thy moste derely beloved sonne Jesus Christe. Who in the same nyght that he was betrayed: tooke breade, and when he had blessed, and geven thankes: he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saiyng: Take, eate, this is my bodye which is geven for you, do this in remembraunce of me.
Likewyse after supper he toke the cuppe, and when he had geven thankes, he gave it to them, saiyng: drynk ye all of this, for this is my bloude of the newe Testament, whyche is shed for you and for many, for remission of synnes: do this as oft as you shall drinke it, in remembraunce of me.

Hebrews 9:24-28:

For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
___

It was assumed by the Roman Magisterium, in 1896, that the Church of England had rejected Eucharistic Sacrifice, on the basis of Article XXXI, quoted above in its entirety. But, is the meaning of the phrase "sacrifices of Masses" the same as Eucharistic Sacrifice? Note the plurality of that phrase in the Article. Was it an attempt to reject the Tradition of the Church, or to correct the popular mis-perception of the common man in that time and place?

The average layman needed to be taught two things about the Supper of the Lord. First, the specific sacramental act of the Church in each individual Mass was not, itself, an isolated sacrifice on behalf of the living and of the dead. In the "nun theology" of that time and place, each Mass was viewed just this way: And, so it seemed good for Christ to be offered quite often, over and over again, in as many sacrifices as the priests could reasonably perform.

What needed to be taught, in order to correct this popular error, was best summarized in those words that remind us of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "All glory be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world..." Christ was once offered, and his offering is sufficient. No other sacrifice for sin can be made.

It was this essential truth of the Gospel that motivated the English Reformers to write the Article, and to give us so clear a teaching within the service of Holy Communion. This was the reason for their emphasis on his once for all sacrifice. In no way did this emphasis repudiate Eucharistic Sacrifice. Instead it helped to clarify the true meaning of Eucharistic Sacrifice, in terms that are true to the Tradition of the Holy Catholic Church, in perfect accord with the Scripture. The Anglican emphasis was not a mistake, not an error, and not a rejection of Catholic Faith.

There is one Sacrifice, and every Eucharist is mystically joined to that one event, that offering by Christ of himself as "priest and victim, in the Eucharistic feast." There is one Supper of the Lord, and every Eucharist is the same supper that Christ held in the night in which he was betrayed. When the Church gathers for this highest and most important time of worship, we are taken to the same table with Christ and his apostles, and we are also taken to the cross at Calvary.

"And although we be unworthy (through our manyfolde synnes) to offre unto thee any Sacryfice: Yet we beseche thee to accepte thys our bounden duetie and service..." If we are unworthy to offer a sacrifice, how can we nonetheless offer it? By asking the Lord, of his mercy, the request as it follows: "not waiyng our merites, but pardonyng our offences, through Christe our Lorde..."

Writing in 1624, speaking for the Anglican position, a Church of England priest named William Bedell wrote about Eucharistic Sacrifice:

"[If by it you mean] a memory and representation of the true Sacrifice and holy immolation made on the altar of the cross...we do offer the sacrifice for the quick and the dead, by which all their sins are meritoriously expiated, and desiring that by the same, we and all the Church may obtain remission of sins, and all other benefits of Christ's Passion."

The Eucharistic sacrifice is the complete sacrifice. It takes us to Calvary. It is our bounden duty and service, the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and of ourselves as living sacrifices (following Romans 12:1,2); as the English Mass also says: "And here wee offre and present unto thee (O Lorde) oure selfe, oure soules, and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee..." Nothing is omitted, nothing neglected, in this highest act of Christian worship.

The second thing they wanted to teach is that the people were supposed to receive the sacrament. For this reason they came up with yet another name for this ancient service, one taken directly from St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians: Holy Communion. It was not enough to "hear the Mass" of a priest. This offering of the whole Church (led by a priest) made the sacrament available so that each Christian could feed on the bread of life. "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."(John 6:54, 55) And, about this we have already written.

Once again, we see that the English Reformers did not attack the Catholic Faith. They defended it, and they restored it.