Maundy Thursday and the One Mass

In the Anglican Tradition we call the day Maundy Thursday, from the same root as the word “Mandate.” The mandate is Dominical, that is, from the Lord himself: “Do this in remembrance of Me.” What is the “this” that we are commanded to do? The answer is in scripture.

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink of it all of you; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28)

The requirements laid down for us in the Mandate are few, simple, and easy. Several different liturgies have been in use over all of the centuries since that night. This is a point that should be one of unity rather than of division, because whether one uses the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, the Tridentine Mass of the Roman Catholic Church, or the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, etc., the essentials are the same. The celebrant, serving in the role of Christ, blesses the bread and brakes it, and then takes the cup and gives thanks, with each element repeating the Lord’s Words of Institution. It seems only right to surround this holy service with sincere worship, the kind that is best expressed in profound liturgy and that can be enriched with music. The use of vestments helps because it adds a feeling of timelessness as we give eucharist (good thanksgiving) across generations in the Communion of Saints.

In each of those details our difference of custom is evident, differences in vestments, different additional prayers, different kinds of music, all from the riches of almost every language and culture under heaven. Someday I hope to see an Ethiopian Orthodox liturgy just to appreciate the differences in detail that are, essentially and spiritually the same Lord’s Supper, the same Holy Communion, to which I am accustomed. Years ago, I found myself trying to correct a fellow American Christian who was scandalized by a picture of Arabs prostrating and speaking in Arabic. He was offended because he thought I had posted a video of Muslims at prayer (maybe he thought I was promoting that other religion). I failed to convince him that Arab Christians were calling God “Allah” before Mohamed was born - long before.

Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. (Acts 2:6-11)

Those Arabians, the last group mentioned by Saint Luke when writing about the Day of Pentecost, called God “Allah” because Arabic and Hebrew, as well as Aramaic, have the same root, El (or Al) as the word for God. It is simply a linguistic and etymological fact with a lot of history attached. The old phrase “Diversity in unity” may seem corny, but it was Saint Paul who appreciated that concept even on the level of a local congregation, the diversity necessary to a body in which each part is necessary for the whole body to live and function. For this reason, the Apostle warned of the danger of failing to “discern the Lord’s Body,” that is that “we are members one of another,” when partaking of that bread and of that cup (after all why else would he mention the betrayal of Christ? See I Corinthians 11:18-34).

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord…For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. (I Corinthians 12:4,5 14-18)

What was true, and of great importance to Paul, for mutual edification and charity in one local church, became, for it was inevitable, of the same importance on a much larger level because the Church kept growing throughout the world. Yes, the faith of Christ is alive in every language and in every culture - not only Western culture for heaven’s sake! There exists no justification for confusing Christianity and the Body of Christ with Christendom (a word that lost all meaning in 1914) and Western culture. That nonsense is a prejudice we can do without.

Yes, our customs are diverse because the Church is universal, so much so that we may struggle to overcome suspicion by learning appreciation for the richness of what is, in the eyes of God, one and only One Body of Christ wherever it may be manifested in the world. And, as the place of unity is the Lord’s table, there is only one Holy Communion supper as long as we obey the Mandate to “Do this in remembrance of Me.” This one and the same supper has been going on since “The night in which he was betrayed,” and it continues because we continue, all over the world, to “Show the Lord’s death until he come.” (I Corinthians 11:26)

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Speaking of languages - tongues - here is some Latin with the translation next to it. This is the chant for Maundy Thursday.

Pange lingua - gregorian chant

ORIGINAL MUSIC FOR HOLY WEEK

Use this link.

Feast of the Annunciation

Click on the icon for the link

SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE

        

                                                     For the video click on this link.

Eschatology Kooks

Watch out for the “End times Bible prophecy” people. They connect dots that should not be connected. Their interpretation of scripture is ridiculous. This current war (and it is a war) has nothing to do with “fulfilling Bible prophecy.“ And their focus on some need to rebuild the temple is nonsense. What we learn from the Epistle to the Hebrews is that it doesn’t matter whether the temple is ever rebuilt or not. The Epistle was obviously written to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem to warn them to leave the city, because the Roman army was coming as Jesus had foretold. So he explains how the temple had fulfilled its purpose with prophetic types and shadows of which Christ is the reality. It was a very realistic concern, because those Christians were also Jews who would have felt the pressure to remain in the city and fight to the death. But God had another mission for the Church, which did not include taking up arms.

Hebrews 13: 12Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. 14For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

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🔥BREAKING: Pope Leo Condemns Trump’s Oval Office Evangelical Pro-War Gathering! – "War is not sacred; only peace is sacred!"

Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, delivered a strong condemnation from the Vatican today, directly confronting the Christian Zionist leaders who convened in the Oval Office to pray over Donald Trump and "sanctify" his unauthorized military actions against Iran.

In a passionate address, the pope, originally from Chicago, declared: "War is not sacred; only peace is sacred because it is willed by God." He emphasized this point repeatedly, denouncing the conflict as an "immoral" aggression that has already cost American and Iranian lives (including innocent schoolgirls) and risks spiraling into a broader global catastrophe.

"If the world turns a deaf ear to this plea, we are certain that God will hear our prayer and the cries of the suffering," the pope said. He urged religious leaders around the globe to join the call for peace, standing up for the voiceless poor, displaced persons, and the earth itself ravaged by violence.

"We must have the courage to choose peace," he declared. "Enough of these wars, with their tragic toll of death, destruction, and displacement." The pope framed the conflict as a moral dilemma, calling on governments to heed the cries of the suffering, rather than the zealots who justify violence with scripture.

This statement comes as Christian Zionist leaders – many affiliated with evangelical networks supporting Trump’s "end-times" rhetoric – have been praying over the president in the Oval Office, presenting the military action as God's will and a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

The pope’s remarks sharply rejected that narrative, asserting that no war can be deemed holy, regardless of how it is justified with scripture. His Chicago roots and consistent opposition to Trump’s policies lend additional moral weight to his rebuke, shedding light on the growing global concern over the lack of congressional approval, the human cost, and the reckless escalation without a clear end in sight.

While Trump brushes off the increasing death toll as "just the way it is," and his energy secretary acknowledges the war's connection to securing long-term oil interests, the pope calls for de-escalation, challenging the world to prioritize peace over violence. With even the pope denouncing the war as immoral and the justifications for it as misguided, the moral bankruptcy of MAGA warmongering is exposed.

Originally published in Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.

The Sacred Feminine

Robert Hart on the Incarnation & the Ordained Ministry

In 1995, at an art museum in Chicago, I saw an archaeological find: several identical little statuettes of a woman’s body, from the neck down to the mons pubis. A modern Westerner might assume that the ancient, mostly forgotten people who carved these figures were obsessed with sex and had produced pornography, but this would say more about the modern Westerner than about those ancient people.

The fact is, the statuettes were found in graves. Since they showed the part of a woman’s body most clearly identified with bearing, birthing, and nourishing children, the most logical conclusion is that they were buried with the dead to help assure the safe delivery of the departed spirit into another world. There, the dead would be reborn and nourished.

If this interpretation is correct, it shows that these ancient pagans had a clearer understanding of the sacredness of the feminine than do modern theologians who want to convert the Church into a religion with a Divine Feminine or use inclusive language for God. For these ancient statuettes suggest, however dimly and remotely, the ministry of the Church in its role of administering, as well as proclaiming, salvation.

Christians do not worship a goddess. But it is not an accident or mere coincidence that two things we see in our day—women trying to fulfill the role of the ordained ministry, and women (and men) promoting the new “Feminist Theology” of goddess worship, which is meant to overtake and replace the worship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (“ He, the Spirit of Truth”; John 16:13)—have come together in time, and among the same church bodies and movements.

Necessary Distinctions

Christianity has no room for a Divine Feminine, that is, a goddess, because of the mystery of the Incarnation, the central doctrine of the Christian faith. In chapter 5 of his book Whatever Happened to the Human Mind, Eric L. Mascall writes:

It was male human nature that the Son of God united to his divine person; it was a female human person who was chosen to be his mother. In no woman has human nature been raised to the dignity which it possesses in Jesus of Nazareth, but to no male person has there been given a dignity comparable to that which Mary enjoys as Theotokos, a dignity which, in the words of the Eastern liturgy, makes her “more honourable than the cherubim and beyond comparison more glorious than the seraphim.” . . . The centrality of womanhood in redemption is shown by the fact that the Incarnation itself waited for the courageous and obedient Fiat of Mary (Luke 1:38).

Redemption cannot be separated from the feminine presence of Mary, the only human person to share in the miracle of the Incarnation with Jesus Christ. In fact, we speak here not simply of a feminine presence, but of a female presence. This distinction is necessary in order to clarify its significance to an age that confuses the meanings of the words “sex” and “gender.”

People come in two sexes, male and female, rather than in genders. The Mother of God is a woman. However, the Church is not a woman, but it is the Bride of Christ and, as such, is of the feminine gender, though not of the female sex. Jesus is a Man, a member of the male sex in his human nature. But as God, he is of the masculine gender, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost. God, speaking strictly of the Divine Nature shared by the three Persons of the Trinity, is (as stated in Article I of the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles) “without body, parts or passions.”

It is necessary to distinguish between the two natures of Christ: the divine nature that is proper to his Divine Person as one with the Father, and the human nature that has been taken into the Divine Person of the Logos. The latter is an alien nature, that is, a created nature taken into the uncreated Person of the Logos, a physical nature taken into a nature of Spirit (though separate and distinct in nature from every created spirit), and a nature fixed in time taken into eternity.

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The Female & Feminine in Redemption

Our redemption necessitates this deifying grace: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. . . .” Clearly revealed from the beginning, and more clearly revealed by the naming of God as “Father” by Jesus Christ, God is masculine in gender. This makes the creation, and the human race in particular, feminine in relation to him. Our redemption was not accomplished without the Son of God appearing in the material world by assuming our nature, and this required both the female sex and the feminine gender.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was the woman, the new Eve, the mother of a new humanity in the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, in whom all are made alive. The female sex was necessary for our salvation, since the redemption that has been revealed by God is not merely a spiritual idea supported by speculation, but a real-life drama that involved everything that was part of the life lived among us by Christ, including the Cross and the Resurrection. This required the Incarnation; it required a womb.

Furthermore, the Church provides our need for the feminine gender. It is the Bride of Christ and the mother of all believers. Because it is called in Scripture the Body of Christ, the Church is an extension of Christ’s Incarnation; in fact, it is his own appointed agent. This, too, requires the Church to be feminine.

The image of this mystery is marriage (Eph. 5:32), where two are made one flesh. In the Church, Christ acts to give new life and salvation to all who truly believe. The Church not only proclaims salvation by the ministry of the Word; it also administers salvation as the sacramental community, called in Scripture the Body of Christ.

Reconciliation to God involves walking in the light with others in the Church (1 John 1:7), and so we see the necessity of a Sacred, though not a Divine, Feminine. Mary is the woman who bore the Son of God for our salvation, and the Church is the Bride of Christ, within which we are born again and nourished unto life eternal.

Ministry of Christ

Even though many churches do not use the term “Apostolic Succession” in the same way that Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and classic Anglicans do (with a historic episcopate and lines of succession), most churches, including those formed during the Protestant Reformation, believe that ordained ministry is essentially apostolic in both its origin and its work.

The apostolic ministry is not simply a function or a job to be done. It is not the possession of any man, even of those who are part of it as Christ’s ambassadors to the people of the Church (the clear meaning of 2 Cor. 5:20). Rather, it is the extension of Christ’s own ministry in the world, established with unique power and authority, and it cannot be assumed or granted merely by human power:

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. (John 20:21–23)

Among the many reasons Catholics, Orthodox, and Traditional Anglicans give for the all-male priesthood is that the priestly ministry is not that of the men themselves, but of Jesus Christ working in his Church. When a priest forgives sins, it is, as believed in traditional liturgical church bodies, the extension of the ministry of Jesus Christ, who gives this power unto men (Matt. 9:8). And when a priest stands at the altar and offers the Eucharist, it is Christ who says, “This is my Body. . . . This is my Blood.”

Thus, the ordained ministry, in almost all church traditions, belongs to the Bridegroom, and represents him in an exclusive sense not fully shared by any layperson, no matter how gifted and holy. It is for the benefit of the Bride of Christ. This understanding is shared by churches in the Protestant Reformation tradition as well as by those that emphasize the liturgical and sacramental ministry.

Embassy of Christ

In writings from the ancient Church, the larger emphasis is on the presbyter’s (i.e., elder’s) pastoral care for the people of the Church, often described in Scripture and in other early Christian writings as his “rule” (proïst’mi) over his flock (see 1 Tim. 5:17, Heb. 13:17, 1 Thess. 5:12–13). The application of this rule belongs exclusively to the pastoral ministry, and includes the functions of preaching, teaching, and leading worship. These are essential functions, whether we think in terms of the Catholic (i.e., Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican) priesthood or of the Protestant pastorate.

This pastoral ministry has been given to the Church by Christ to be medicinal and healing for those who are redeemed from sin and death, and to aid in their salvation and sanctification by the Holy Spirit. The objective of such rule by the presbyteroi, or elders, is the care or cure of souls. Thus, it is not to be exercised in a dictatorial or authoritarian manner, like a lord over God’s people, but in a loving and paternal way, like a father in God’s family. “For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” asks St. Paul, rhetorically (1 Tim. 3:5).

Indeed, laypeople may function as teachers and prophets, and also carry on a kind of priestly ministry as those who are called to be saints. The ordained ministry, however, is believed by most church bodies to belong to the heavenly Bridegroom in a special way that makes it the embassy of Christ among his own people, of the Bridegroom to the Bride, of the Lord to the Church. The Church is one with him as his Body, which he nourishes and protects.

For this reason, among others cited in this journal over many years, the pastoral ministry is rightly reserved to men who are called and ordained, and only to them. This, properly understood, protects rather than denies the sacred feminine ministry in our salvation history and in the life of the Church as the Bride of Christ, holy and beloved.

THE LITTLE JESUS WHO WOULD

This article that I wrote, published in Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity in April 2016, seems appropriate for Lenten reading. I feel a little bad about how it may seem like I was picking on President Jimmy Carter, because I believe he had some very real virtues and often demonstrated good works. But I also believe that his words, quoted in the article, serve as a cautionary tale. We should guard our minds.

Robert Hart on Cutting Christ Down to One Size Fits Whatever We Want

On July 7, 2015, former President Jimmy Carter said the following in an interview with the Huffington Post: "I believe Jesus would. I don't have any verse in Scripture. . . . I believe Jesus would approve gay marriage, but that's just my own personal belief. I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don't see that gay marriage damages anyone else."

Often described as "a religious man," Carter was known as an Evangelical when he ran for the White House in 1976. That year, when, in what has always been seen as an error in judgment, he agreed to be interviewed by Playboy, he displayed at least a personal moral scruple and a working knowledge of what Jesus actually said as recorded in the Gospel according to St. Matthew: "But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (5:28).

Since those days in 1976, a new phrase has caught the public's attention: "WWJD"—"What would Jesus do?" Like Jimmy Carter when speaking last July to the Huffington Post, an individual facing a moral decision is advised to consider what Jesus would do, or what he would say. As a result, what purports to be moral guidance might be nothing more than subjective thought, opinion, or sheer imagination, taken as divine wisdom. This seems to me to be a waste of mental energy and time, inasmuch as what Jesus did, and what he said, can be accurately known easily enough by reading
the Bible.

When the younger candidate Carter gave his famous answer to Playboy, he at least thought along the lines of what Jesus said. As an elderly former President, he gave his answer to the Huffington Post based on speculation, admitting, "I don't have any verse in Scripture." That is very interesting, because I can think of several verses of Scripture that actually answer the question addressed to Mr. Carter, and that answer it in exact opposition to his affirmative. We know what Jesus said, and have known it since the first generation of Christians were taught and given the New Testament.

Another Jesus, Another Spirit

Lest I appear to be picking on Jimmy Carter exclusively, I hasten to point out that a fictitious Jesus ("another Jesus," to use the words of St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:4), subject to human imagination, is very popular nowadays. We see this malleable Jesus everywhere.

For instance, we can note what was said and done at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church last June in Salt Lake City, Utah. The convention took place around the time that the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges (June 26, 2015), declaring a never-before-known Constitutional right to so-called same-sex marriage. Among the events at the convention was something meant to be a Eucharist of sorts, celebrating the victory of homosexual church members who had long sought to have same-sex "marriage" formally approved for their whole national church. It was now approved by the General Convention and its new Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry.

Another Episcopal bishop and openly practicing lesbian, Mary Glasspool, declared in a sermon at that service, "We got to this place of redefining marriage by redefining two other words: home and family." Glasspool interpreted the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus, as a grown man, discerns that he must begin his mission and ministry to all the people of Israel, to mean that Jesus was moving away from his natural family: "The concept of family is transformed. The reign of God transcends the closest of family trees," she said.

An Episcopal priest named Kimberly Jackson, of the Diocese of Atlanta, read a prayer to begin their version of communion: "Spirit of Life, we thank you for disordering our boundaries and releasing our desires as we prepare this feast of delight: draw us out of hidden places and centers of conformity to feel your laughter and live in your pleasure."

That contrasts quite sharply with the Book of Common Prayer tradition, in which everything is intended to conform wholly to Scripture, and the standard for prayer is the one that Jesus taught, which includes the Church's petition to the Father, "Thy will be done." The new liturgical phrase, "disordering our boundaries and releasing our desires," sounds much more like the slogan of an early twentieth-century pagan cult, The Law of Thelema, created by a magician named Aleister Crowley. To each member of the cult it is taught, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

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In stark contrast to Christianity, The Law of Thelema makes of highest priority the will of each individual, rather than the will of God. And just as Jimmy Carter's little Jesus "who would" replaced the big Jesus who did and said what is recorded in the Gospels, the Holy Spirit has been replaced by a malleable spirit guide (again, in St. Paul's words, "another spirit"), invoked as the "Spirit of Life" in the Episcopal LGBT service. This spirit is a "she," and guides her followers, apparently, only where they want to go anyway. She was thanked in their prayer for just that.

But Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:17–18). That is what we can read for ourselves. It takes only a minute or two to find his actual words, a minute worth more than many hours of speculation on what Jesus would have said.

Getting the Words Right

In recent years it has become popular to say, "Jesus never said anything about homosexuality." Again, it is not the Jesus whose words and acts have been recorded for our learning, but the Jesus who would, of whom they speak.

If they are to be given any excuse, it may be that English translations of Scripture can be unclear in places. For instance, the word "fornication" is used frequently in many English-language Bibles. Every time this word is used, it is with the strongest condemnation of sexual sin. This includes cases where Jesus utters the word himself (e.g., in Mark 7:20–23).

In modern English, we think of "fornication" as meaning only heterosexual intercourse before or outside of marriage. But the Greek word used throughout the New Testament that is translated as "fornication" is porneia. (This is the root not only of the English word "fornication" but also "pornography.") It means any and every kind of sexual sin and also perversion, and thus refers not only to sexual relations outside of marriage, but also to adultery, homosexuality, pedophilia, bestiality, and so forth.

We know that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15), not to affirm their sins. He ate and drank with sinners, to be sure, but not to join in their riotous living, but to call them to repentance (Luke 5:30–32). He came to save his people from—not in but from—their sins (Matt. 1:21).

The word most often associated with the malleable Jesus, and the unholy spirit, is "love." Right after the Obergefell v. Hodges decision was announced, President Obama tweeted, "Love wins." This is a new gospel (again, in the words of St. Paul, "another gospel") of inclusion and affirmation. In this new gospel, of a malleable Jesus who would, the good news is that nothing is sin: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Except for Christians, of course: anyone who believes in or preaches traditional Christian morality is guilty of the sin of hate.

But we know that "charity . . . rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth" (1 Cor. 13:4,6). Indeed, the word "charity," as used here in the King James translation, may be the best English translation of the Greek word agape in this context. In some places, agape is translated as "love" in the King James Version, while at other times, as here, it is translated as "charity." Making the distinction helps clarify things. For one may love a big juicy steak, but one cannot have charity for a big juicy steak. In any case, agape, the word used for divine love or charity, is very distinct from eros, the word used to indicate carnal love.

Love & the Cross

In Christian theology, the love of God is associated most closely with the cross of Christ (Rom. 5:8). The sight of Christ crucified was very terrible—indeed, it was so ugly that, in the words of the prophet, "We hid as it were our faces from him" (Is. 53:3). It was a violent, bloody sight, where the Man of sorrows was poured out like water, and all his bones were out of joint (Ps. 22:14). At once it was God's judgment on sin and the manifestation of his love, where he paid our debt in full ("Teleo," John 19:30).

Jesus came to save the world, to seek and to save the lost, to pour out his soul unto death as the "propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:2). He came for that, not to usher in an era in which lust and carnality, and "the releasing of our desires," take the place of repentance and of taking up one's cross to follow the Son of Man. Give me the real Lord Jesus, who paid my debt, who commanded me to repent, and who forgave my sin.

Give me the Jesus who did and who said, not the other Jesus, the one who would.