Tomorrow is the Advent Sunday and in accordance with the old usage we will be blue again. That will take us away from those to whom Ritual Notes is the authority for Catholicity, and will set us apart from even those who think themselves Anglicans but would never bother to consider obeying the Ornaments Rubric. They now that they have compromised their principles by using stoles over their surplices almost universally do so with the Roman colours.
Advent is one of those strange seasons which I long ago decided that essentially eluded the comprehension of those who gave us our prayer book. I know that some of their reasoning was based upon economics. England had been made poor by a hundred years of civil war and needed to get back to work. The liturgical system of the medieval church was beyond the comprehension of what we would think of as "the man in the pew" because it was in a language which he didn't understand and about a subject that was open to him only by the pictures painted on the church's walls. And the climax of the season was the feast of Christmas which seemed to be about the nativity of Jesus - until you started reading the appointed scriptural lessons and the prayers which accompanied the service.
That is not to say that the Sarum liturgy or those of Lincoln, York or Bangor were not beautiful. As one who spent too much of my late teen years reading through the volumes of the Henry Bradshaw Society how marvelous, how incredibly beautiful they were and were intended to be. But be cause of the language issue they were open and understood only by an intellectual and educated elite while the ordinary Christian knelt on the floor of his or her parish church and said their beads. They had been present at mass; there duty had been done but they were really at a closed door.
The first Book of Common Prayer opened that door for them. I am not sure that they appreciated it. Kneeling there and saying their paters and aves was easier. Now they were being assaulted by a load of Scripture that was almost more than they could take in and digest. The psalms, the Old Testament lessons, the Gospels and more; and then there were the clerical fights over just how it was to be done and how much they would be allowed to actually participate. The change was too quick and too radical for most of them to comprehend or make their personal piece with. Indeed we have seen the same thing with the Roman Church when they switched their liturgy from the old Latin rite of Pius V for the Novus Ordo of Paul VI. They went from full churches to ones almost as empty as those of the Episcopal Church after thirty years of their version of the new Roman liturgy.
And us? Well, we have more than four hundred years of it now and we still can't seem to get it right. High and crazy; low and lazy, broad and hazy with each insisting that they are the real Anglicans. And then we enter the occasional church which seems to be praying of itself. When the services begin the majority of the people seem to know what they are doing and refer only to the service sheet for the number of the hymns. They know where they are and what they are doing and do it well. They do not seem to be noticing each other but are all focused on something, somewhere beyond themselves and the present moment. If it were not for the sense of joy and peace which prevails we might think to be frightened.
And so it begins again, the new liturgical year replacing the one just past. We have said or sung the same songs, the same canticles and heard the same prayers, the same lessons and the same gospels for all of our Christian and Anglican lives - and yet it is always new, taking us almost by surprise. What we once said in our innocence is now said with tingling anticipation it has become so intense, so quietly thrilling. Are these not in the most the same people who have always been here, but how has it become greater, sharper than the last time that we were here and saying these words. Didn't we understand then; do we now? And when will we know? And why is our body responding so strangely? Is it because we know that He is coming and that we must be ready?
What do you think?
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
INCENSE: A Word from Dearmer
When I first read the Introduction to Dearmer's Parson's Handbook, I was very strongly struck by the following passage. It seemed to me that those who claimed to be Bible Christians should immediately be asked about their use of incense in church services. When they admit, as they will have to do, that it is not used among them, then one is free to ask if they have actually read and understood the Bible. Personally I have always felt that those who were uncomfortable about the use of incense probably didn't really believe there was a God or that Jesus was divine. There is something about waving a censor at an altar that makes you aware that you couldn't or wouldn't do it if you didn't believe in God. It would be just too embarassing.
The use of incense is a good test as to the continuance of ceremonial under the New Covenant; because it is now regarded, even by some Bishops, as a mark of extreme ritualism. Its use is mentioned in the last prophetic book of the Old Testament[4] as [9] one of the signs of the New Covenant. The birth of the Fore-runner was announced to his father when ‘his lot was to burn incense,’[5] a singularly inopportune moment from the Puritan point of view. One of the three significant gifts offered to our Lord at His birth was incense.[6] In the Revelation an account is given of the ideal worship of the redeemed, by one who, more than any other man, had opportunities of knowing our Lord’s mind upon the subject. Now the worship he describes is again ritualistic; and the use of no less than twenty-eight ‘bowls’ of incense is mentioned.[7] It is mentioned again three chapters further on[8] in a manner that is significant; for it is then used ceremonially at the altar. The angel stands ‘at (or over) the altar, having a golden censer,’ he is given ‘much incense,’ to ‘add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar.’ ‘And the smoke of the incense, with (or for) the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.’ The Sarum Missal itself hardly gives a more complete description of the ceremonial use of incense.
The use of incense is a good test as to the continuance of ceremonial under the New Covenant; because it is now regarded, even by some Bishops, as a mark of extreme ritualism. Its use is mentioned in the last prophetic book of the Old Testament[4] as [9] one of the signs of the New Covenant. The birth of the Fore-runner was announced to his father when ‘his lot was to burn incense,’[5] a singularly inopportune moment from the Puritan point of view. One of the three significant gifts offered to our Lord at His birth was incense.[6] In the Revelation an account is given of the ideal worship of the redeemed, by one who, more than any other man, had opportunities of knowing our Lord’s mind upon the subject. Now the worship he describes is again ritualistic; and the use of no less than twenty-eight ‘bowls’ of incense is mentioned.[7] It is mentioned again three chapters further on[8] in a manner that is significant; for it is then used ceremonially at the altar. The angel stands ‘at (or over) the altar, having a golden censer,’ he is given ‘much incense,’ to ‘add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar.’ ‘And the smoke of the incense, with (or for) the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.’ The Sarum Missal itself hardly gives a more complete description of the ceremonial use of incense.
Friday, November 20, 2009
"THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY"
This posting is going to be extremely simple. It will consist of a few paragraphs of wisdom from Percy Dearmer's introduction to Illustrations of the Liturgy. I am putting them up because they seem especially appropriate at the present moment. What is left of orthodox prayer book Anglicanism is being assaulted by the Roman Church and even its strongest theological defenders have been seduced by the missals and by Roman ornaments not invented until well after the English Reformation and religious settlement under Elizabeth I. The result is a chaos but it also presents an opportunity if we are only wise enough to seize it.
"The curse of the English Church, and indeed of the whole Anglican Communion, has been the individualism of its members. They have been a law unto themselves; and yet this individualism has seldom had the justification of originality: sometimes it has been Geneva that was copied, sometimes Rome. The result has been that our church has failed to make itself recognizable : foreigners know almost nothing about her, have no idea what she is like, would not recognize her when they saw her."
"You cannot enforce a system of worship. Even the iron-bound system of Rome has failed here. Since she has attempted to dictate uniformity, she has found herself obliged to follow the last popular fashion, however puerile or however effeminate, far more than in the comparative freedom of the late middle ages.
"What then can you do? Just what is done in literature, in art, in science, in politics, in every branch of human activity. You can educate. You can search out the facts, you can spread knowledge, you can establish principles. You can show men the beauty of the right way. You can also remove the remnants of autocratic ignorance which still unhappily linger among some of our bishops, or at least you can secure that the young men who are now learning shall know and understand when some of them come to such positions of authority; and you can spread the spirity of loyalty among clergy and layfolk alike, if only on this ground - that the spirit of individualism has proved a failure
"Antimony has been tried and has failed in every form. Every man has done what was right in his own eyes; with the result that every man has done wrong. This was disastrous; but if every man will now be content to learn, to think, and to carry out his appointed duty, if every priest will use the great opportunity which the Prayer Book offers, and if every bishop - true to that "sound learning" which Bishop Creighton described as the keynote of our part of the Church Catholic, and which is as necessary in public worship as in public speech - if every bishop will wisely lead, using the crook of a shepherd and not the driver's whip which disperses and does not direct, then we may in the future be true to ourselves, and of service to a world which is much distracted by the follies of Christians and their moral failures."
There is more to be added, but I shall not do so now. Some of this is best taken slowly and thought through bit by bit. It has taken us a long time to get ourselves into our present mess and we shall not be out of it quickly. We must learn to want to be what we are supposed to be. It may not be as exciting as adopting the role of another, but it will not make us play either false or the fool.
"The curse of the English Church, and indeed of the whole Anglican Communion, has been the individualism of its members. They have been a law unto themselves; and yet this individualism has seldom had the justification of originality: sometimes it has been Geneva that was copied, sometimes Rome. The result has been that our church has failed to make itself recognizable : foreigners know almost nothing about her, have no idea what she is like, would not recognize her when they saw her."
"You cannot enforce a system of worship. Even the iron-bound system of Rome has failed here. Since she has attempted to dictate uniformity, she has found herself obliged to follow the last popular fashion, however puerile or however effeminate, far more than in the comparative freedom of the late middle ages.
"What then can you do? Just what is done in literature, in art, in science, in politics, in every branch of human activity. You can educate. You can search out the facts, you can spread knowledge, you can establish principles. You can show men the beauty of the right way. You can also remove the remnants of autocratic ignorance which still unhappily linger among some of our bishops, or at least you can secure that the young men who are now learning shall know and understand when some of them come to such positions of authority; and you can spread the spirity of loyalty among clergy and layfolk alike, if only on this ground - that the spirit of individualism has proved a failure
"Antimony has been tried and has failed in every form. Every man has done what was right in his own eyes; with the result that every man has done wrong. This was disastrous; but if every man will now be content to learn, to think, and to carry out his appointed duty, if every priest will use the great opportunity which the Prayer Book offers, and if every bishop - true to that "sound learning" which Bishop Creighton described as the keynote of our part of the Church Catholic, and which is as necessary in public worship as in public speech - if every bishop will wisely lead, using the crook of a shepherd and not the driver's whip which disperses and does not direct, then we may in the future be true to ourselves, and of service to a world which is much distracted by the follies of Christians and their moral failures."
There is more to be added, but I shall not do so now. Some of this is best taken slowly and thought through bit by bit. It has taken us a long time to get ourselves into our present mess and we shall not be out of it quickly. We must learn to want to be what we are supposed to be. It may not be as exciting as adopting the role of another, but it will not make us play either false or the fool.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Service of the Church
"The Order for Holy Communion, the Order for Morning Prayer, the Order for Evening Prayer, and the Litany, as set forth in this Book , are the regular Services appointed for Public Worship in this Church, and shall be used accordingly;" except this has not been the case in the American Church and most of the other national churches in Anglicanism, either in the establishment communion or the parishes of the Continuum. If one were to ask why, the answer is not a difficult one. Up until the beginning of the Tractarian Movement the normal Sunday worship in an Anglican Church was one very long service of Morning Prayer, Litany, and Ante-communion followed by a sermon. English cathedrals and some very rare parish churches obeyed the rubric and actually proceeded to a celebration of Holy Communion every Sunday and Holy Day for which their Book of Common Prayer provided a proper. The others for reason which most of us will probably never be able to really understand felt that while the Book of Common Prayer devotes most of its pages to the Holy Communion service did not really intend that the sacrament should be offered to their parishioners every Sunday and Holy day. They seemed to believe that the purpose of Christian worship was to hear the Scriptures read and then explicated by a long and hopefully learned sermon.
With the beginning of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement, old fashioned high churchmen began to celebrate the Holy Communion service every Sunday. When these celebrations began to be celebrated in the vestments ordered in the Ornaments Rubric, low and broad churchmen responded by dropping the reading of the Litany and ante-communion service and placing the sermon directly at the end of Morning Prayer. This meant that a secondary service was given preference over that ordered by our Lord and considered central to the Church for its first fifteen hundred years. But low and broad churchmen seemed to believe that looking and acting in a way that reflected their view of the Reformation was much more important that actually keeping the obligation which they took freely when they were ordained. This meant that the Church became divided by parties which were specifically forbidden by St. Paul.
The major purpose of this blog (too long neglected, I know) is to urge all churchmen to keep the whole of the Book of Common Prayer in the manner in which it was intended. That means doing it in accordance with the English or Anglican usage and with pre-Reformation ceremonial. That will have the effect of making Anglicanism recognizable in a manner in which it is not now.
With the beginning of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement, old fashioned high churchmen began to celebrate the Holy Communion service every Sunday. When these celebrations began to be celebrated in the vestments ordered in the Ornaments Rubric, low and broad churchmen responded by dropping the reading of the Litany and ante-communion service and placing the sermon directly at the end of Morning Prayer. This meant that a secondary service was given preference over that ordered by our Lord and considered central to the Church for its first fifteen hundred years. But low and broad churchmen seemed to believe that looking and acting in a way that reflected their view of the Reformation was much more important that actually keeping the obligation which they took freely when they were ordained. This meant that the Church became divided by parties which were specifically forbidden by St. Paul.
The major purpose of this blog (too long neglected, I know) is to urge all churchmen to keep the whole of the Book of Common Prayer in the manner in which it was intended. That means doing it in accordance with the English or Anglican usage and with pre-Reformation ceremonial. That will have the effect of making Anglicanism recognizable in a manner in which it is not now.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Truth and Beauty; Beauty and Truth!
It has gotten that every time I face this blank page I am consumed with both anger and dispair. Why? Because I miss the austere beauty of the full Anglican rite augmented with the musical tradition of the English church at its best which seems no longer to found anywhere. Instead we have folks who call themselves Anglican who are either lusting after the Roman Novus Ordo, the Puritan Morning Prayer with Sermon or the 'Back to Baroque' Anglican or English missal service with nary a hint of the offices anywhere except for the occasional service of Evening Prayer as a prelude to Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
In the local area we have four groups calling themselves Anglican. The first is connected to the Anglican Province of Christ the King which falls into the last category. The 1928 American Book of Common Prayer may be in the pew but the services would never be recognized as coming from same. The canon used is that of the English prayer book of 1662 so that the celebrant can actually recite the rest of the old Roman canon in Latin. The second is a parish of the Reformed Episcopal Church which varies between emasculated versions of the English 1662 and the American 1928. The third is a parish of the rising Anglican Church in North America which uses the TEO liturgy of 1979 with the exception of a personal re-write of the Nicene Creed by the rector and his curate. The fourth is a classical American prayer book group that seems much too small to ever grow and endure, but which alone represents the 'doctrine, discipline and worship' of classical and orthodox prayer book Anglicanism.
Yep! Mine!
And yet in the middle of such great deprivation, I also am full of hope. Why? because it is the last alone which may claim the fullness of the truth and beauty. And it is because of this truth of beauty and beauty of truth that I am sure that real Anglicanism will survive not only in the United States, but also in all the English speaking world.
In the local area we have four groups calling themselves Anglican. The first is connected to the Anglican Province of Christ the King which falls into the last category. The 1928 American Book of Common Prayer may be in the pew but the services would never be recognized as coming from same. The canon used is that of the English prayer book of 1662 so that the celebrant can actually recite the rest of the old Roman canon in Latin. The second is a parish of the Reformed Episcopal Church which varies between emasculated versions of the English 1662 and the American 1928. The third is a parish of the rising Anglican Church in North America which uses the TEO liturgy of 1979 with the exception of a personal re-write of the Nicene Creed by the rector and his curate. The fourth is a classical American prayer book group that seems much too small to ever grow and endure, but which alone represents the 'doctrine, discipline and worship' of classical and orthodox prayer book Anglicanism.
Yep! Mine!
And yet in the middle of such great deprivation, I also am full of hope. Why? because it is the last alone which may claim the fullness of the truth and beauty. And it is because of this truth of beauty and beauty of truth that I am sure that real Anglicanism will survive not only in the United States, but also in all the English speaking world.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Lo! How the Mighty Have Fallen
I just read in the Christian History blog that a Greek Orthodox couple in Los Angeles have endowed a center for the study of the early church at Wheaton College. In the announcement mention was made of the Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, but there was no mention of Anglicans at all. I was hurt.
You see, in the nineteenth and twentieth century it was Anglican scholars who were the great and consistent students of the earliest Church. Indeed, it was the basis for who we were and what we believed and taught. But now through the treason of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada and the way in which the Anglican Church in the British Isles have followed them in their heresies and embrace of immorality, it as if we have disappeared from the whole of the Christian world. Indeed, we have become a laughingstock, an embarrassment where once we were stupor mundi.
The worst of it is that we in the Continuum don't know who we are. Our parishes and missions, such as they are, reflect either the opinions of those who would have destroyed Anglicanism after the assession of Elizabeth I by their refusal to obey the Book of Common Prayer or those who decided that the only way to be either Anglican or Catholic was to substitute the use of missals and customs based upon the post-Tridentine liturgy of the Roman Church for that of the traditional Book of Common Prayer and the ceremonial and uses which the best liturgical scholars of the last two hundred years have determined was proper to it.
And that leaves me with a further question: do we really want to be Anglicans or are we just playing with religion because once the faith and practice of Anglicanism was that of the social and intellectual elite of the English speaking world? I am, let me admit it, a very high churchman who loves the fullness of English use. The language, the music, the vestments and ceremonial all move me, reminding me of the richness of the worship which God commanded for Himself in the Old Testament and for the protection of same which drove our Lord to violently drive the money changers from the temple. But I am equally made aware of the majesty of our Creator when I recite Morning Prayer and the Litany by myself on a cold morning without vestments, music or incense. Consequently, when I read something like the post in Christian History where Anglicans and Anglicanism is left out, what I hear ripping through my heart and soul is our Lord's cry from the cross: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?
You see, in the nineteenth and twentieth century it was Anglican scholars who were the great and consistent students of the earliest Church. Indeed, it was the basis for who we were and what we believed and taught. But now through the treason of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada and the way in which the Anglican Church in the British Isles have followed them in their heresies and embrace of immorality, it as if we have disappeared from the whole of the Christian world. Indeed, we have become a laughingstock, an embarrassment where once we were stupor mundi.
The worst of it is that we in the Continuum don't know who we are. Our parishes and missions, such as they are, reflect either the opinions of those who would have destroyed Anglicanism after the assession of Elizabeth I by their refusal to obey the Book of Common Prayer or those who decided that the only way to be either Anglican or Catholic was to substitute the use of missals and customs based upon the post-Tridentine liturgy of the Roman Church for that of the traditional Book of Common Prayer and the ceremonial and uses which the best liturgical scholars of the last two hundred years have determined was proper to it.
And that leaves me with a further question: do we really want to be Anglicans or are we just playing with religion because once the faith and practice of Anglicanism was that of the social and intellectual elite of the English speaking world? I am, let me admit it, a very high churchman who loves the fullness of English use. The language, the music, the vestments and ceremonial all move me, reminding me of the richness of the worship which God commanded for Himself in the Old Testament and for the protection of same which drove our Lord to violently drive the money changers from the temple. But I am equally made aware of the majesty of our Creator when I recite Morning Prayer and the Litany by myself on a cold morning without vestments, music or incense. Consequently, when I read something like the post in Christian History where Anglicans and Anglicanism is left out, what I hear ripping through my heart and soul is our Lord's cry from the cross: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A Sermon For Maunday Thursday
"Greater love hath no man tha this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" -- St John xv. 13,14.
There is no occasion in the whole Christian year on which it is a greater joy to a parish priest to address his people, than on the occasion of the annual address in preparation for the Easter Communion, The joy consists specially in this--that he has before him a conregation of genuine Christian people. For what is the meaning of the words 'a genuine Christian?'--One who is living in conxcious obedience to all the known commands of Jesus Christ--One who is living in conscious obedience to all the known comands of Jesus Christ--One whose great aim in life is to know the will of Christ; and who, when he knows it, and so far as he knows it, deliberately sets to work to do that will of Christ. On other occasions the congregations which assemble in this church, as a rule, contain many who live in habitual disregard of one of the greatest and most solemn commands of Jesus Christ--His dying command concerning the reception of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. It is not unfair or hard to say, that no one is a genuine Christian, or possesses any claim to be considered a genuine Christian, who, being of age, is not a communicant. I am not, for the moment, thinking of the disastrous loss which those who never come to the Holy Table suffer in their own souls. I am not thinking, for the moment, of our Lord's solemn warning, "Verily, verily, I say unto your, Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you." But I am merely thinking of the impossibility of being a good Christian, whilst habitually disobeying our Lord's command, "This do in remembrance of me." I have in mind the words of Jesus Christ, in which He addresses those who so neglect and disregard His gracious commandment. "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" It is our Lord Jesus Christ who, in speaking of the Holy Communion, said quite plainly, so that none can possibly mistake His meaning, "Take, eat; this is my Body; Drink ye all of it; for this is my Blood. This do in remembrance of me."
We meet then as, in a peculiar sense, the friends of Jesus Christ. He has honoured us who are communicants with this honoured title of "friends." He has disclosed to us the conditions upon which we may rightly claim His gracious friendship, saying, "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." And we know that, amongst other things, He has commanded, "This do in remembrance of me." There is but one test of friendship to Jesus Christ--not words, not feelings; but simple obedience. We prove our friendship to Jesus by obeying Him, when He spreads the Holy Feast of the Communion, and invites us to draw near and eat His sacred Flesh and drink His precious Blood.
And think, Friends of Jesus Christ, what joy it must bring to His sacred human heart as He sits at the right hand of the eternal Father in the heavenly places, that we should be assembled to consider how best we may receive the most comfortable Sacrament of His Body and Blood,--how best we may obey His dying command,--when the glad Easter Day dawns. What joy it must be to Him to see, that whilst the world forgets Him in His Passion, and even crucifies Him afresh by its sins, a little flock, such as we are, should be giving testimony to our love to Him by our obedience. For He Himself said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." And this is His own special commandment, at this time in particular, "This do in remembrance of me."
I ask you to open your Prayer Books at the Epistle for the Thursday before Easter, which is written in I Cor. xi. 17 etc., which I will proceed to read, making some comments thereon. After referring to the irreverence of certain Corinthians, St. Paul says:
"For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you." St. Paul the speaker was not present in the upper room when our Lord instituted the Eucharist; hence he did not know, as the other apostles knew, what there took place. He received a special revelation directly from our Lord Himself concerning this matter, as he declares.
"That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. . . ." The instttitution was almost the last act of Jesus before He was taken prisoner. Unless He had instituted the Holy Sacrament then, He could not have done so later. It certainly does give immense importance to the Holy Communion to remember that it was almost the last thing He did whilst He was free.
"And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my Body, which is broken for your." It is these words of our Lord which form the ground of the Church's belief in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Communion. He is present in the consecrated elements really, and not figuratively. The consecrated elements are not merely signs of His Body and Blood: they are, as the Catechism plainly declares, verily and indeed the Body and Blood of Christ, present under the outward forms of bread and wine in a way which passes our understanding. Jesus Christ is present in the Sacrament, not merely because we recall Him to our minds by an act of memory; but because by His own wonderful act He communicates Himself to us in the way which He has ordained.
"Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, . . ." The more we feel our unworthiness the more sure we may be that we shall receive the Sacrament worthily.
May our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all in preparing to come to your Easter Communion. May He make known to you, one by one, on Good Friday the greatness of His love. May His love attract you and constrain you, as you enter more deeply into the meaning of His words with which we commenced,--
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Vernon Staley, Provost of the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew in Inverness.
There is no occasion in the whole Christian year on which it is a greater joy to a parish priest to address his people, than on the occasion of the annual address in preparation for the Easter Communion, The joy consists specially in this--that he has before him a conregation of genuine Christian people. For what is the meaning of the words 'a genuine Christian?'--One who is living in conxcious obedience to all the known commands of Jesus Christ--One who is living in conscious obedience to all the known comands of Jesus Christ--One whose great aim in life is to know the will of Christ; and who, when he knows it, and so far as he knows it, deliberately sets to work to do that will of Christ. On other occasions the congregations which assemble in this church, as a rule, contain many who live in habitual disregard of one of the greatest and most solemn commands of Jesus Christ--His dying command concerning the reception of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. It is not unfair or hard to say, that no one is a genuine Christian, or possesses any claim to be considered a genuine Christian, who, being of age, is not a communicant. I am not, for the moment, thinking of the disastrous loss which those who never come to the Holy Table suffer in their own souls. I am not thinking, for the moment, of our Lord's solemn warning, "Verily, verily, I say unto your, Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you." But I am merely thinking of the impossibility of being a good Christian, whilst habitually disobeying our Lord's command, "This do in remembrance of me." I have in mind the words of Jesus Christ, in which He addresses those who so neglect and disregard His gracious commandment. "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" It is our Lord Jesus Christ who, in speaking of the Holy Communion, said quite plainly, so that none can possibly mistake His meaning, "Take, eat; this is my Body; Drink ye all of it; for this is my Blood. This do in remembrance of me."
We meet then as, in a peculiar sense, the friends of Jesus Christ. He has honoured us who are communicants with this honoured title of "friends." He has disclosed to us the conditions upon which we may rightly claim His gracious friendship, saying, "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." And we know that, amongst other things, He has commanded, "This do in remembrance of me." There is but one test of friendship to Jesus Christ--not words, not feelings; but simple obedience. We prove our friendship to Jesus by obeying Him, when He spreads the Holy Feast of the Communion, and invites us to draw near and eat His sacred Flesh and drink His precious Blood.
And think, Friends of Jesus Christ, what joy it must bring to His sacred human heart as He sits at the right hand of the eternal Father in the heavenly places, that we should be assembled to consider how best we may receive the most comfortable Sacrament of His Body and Blood,--how best we may obey His dying command,--when the glad Easter Day dawns. What joy it must be to Him to see, that whilst the world forgets Him in His Passion, and even crucifies Him afresh by its sins, a little flock, such as we are, should be giving testimony to our love to Him by our obedience. For He Himself said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." And this is His own special commandment, at this time in particular, "This do in remembrance of me."
I ask you to open your Prayer Books at the Epistle for the Thursday before Easter, which is written in I Cor. xi. 17 etc., which I will proceed to read, making some comments thereon. After referring to the irreverence of certain Corinthians, St. Paul says:
"For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you." St. Paul the speaker was not present in the upper room when our Lord instituted the Eucharist; hence he did not know, as the other apostles knew, what there took place. He received a special revelation directly from our Lord Himself concerning this matter, as he declares.
"That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. . . ." The instttitution was almost the last act of Jesus before He was taken prisoner. Unless He had instituted the Holy Sacrament then, He could not have done so later. It certainly does give immense importance to the Holy Communion to remember that it was almost the last thing He did whilst He was free.
"And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my Body, which is broken for your." It is these words of our Lord which form the ground of the Church's belief in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Communion. He is present in the consecrated elements really, and not figuratively. The consecrated elements are not merely signs of His Body and Blood: they are, as the Catechism plainly declares, verily and indeed the Body and Blood of Christ, present under the outward forms of bread and wine in a way which passes our understanding. Jesus Christ is present in the Sacrament, not merely because we recall Him to our minds by an act of memory; but because by His own wonderful act He communicates Himself to us in the way which He has ordained.
"Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, . . ." The more we feel our unworthiness the more sure we may be that we shall receive the Sacrament worthily.
May our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all in preparing to come to your Easter Communion. May He make known to you, one by one, on Good Friday the greatness of His love. May His love attract you and constrain you, as you enter more deeply into the meaning of His words with which we commenced,--
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Vernon Staley, Provost of the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew in Inverness.
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