THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY CHANGE…

So much for the French Plus ca change...

In 1876, there was in the works a plan (seemingly backed by the ultra-conservative Cardinal Manning—himself a convert from the Church of England) to support the creation of

"...an Anglican ‘uniate’ church which would allow a married clergy, on the model of the Eastern rite churches in communion with Rome….The plan, which soon collapsed, involved accepting not only papal infallibility, but also conditional reordination; it appeared unlikely to commend itself to many Anglo-Catholics" (Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography, p. 695).

This is a fascinating view, historically speaking, in light of the developments in relationships between Anglicans/Episcopalians and Catholics in the last 30 years, from ARCIC [the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission], through the first “pastoral provision” of the early 1980s, to the current Apostolic Constitution. Ironically, the 2 issues that Newman thought would keep many (if any) Anglicans from embracing the idea seem not to be issues any more. The Episcopalians past and future who are married priests would in fact be (as Rev Bry Shields and Rev Leo Weisshar were) re-ordained absolutely and not conditionally. And the idea of papal authority (at least in terms of being a focal point of unity and authoritative teaching) seems to be one now eagerly sought out. So what is it that is really at issue between the Catholic Church and the Worldwide Anglican Communion?

In spite of some people’s fears that this is making things “too easy,” the direction of the Apostolic Constitution is in the direct line of the most recent popes, from John Paul II (quoted in Benedict’s greeting of Patriarch Bartholomew in a post above), and Paul VI, who said (in the context of the canonization of the English Catholic martyrs of the 16th-17th centuries): “…when the unity of faith and life is restored…there will be no seeking to lessen the legitimate prestige and usage proper to the Anglican Church…[our] ever beloved sister.”

We are on the verge of something ecumenically traumatic and triumphant—we are on the verge of something which can forge an authentic unity or cause us to shatter ‘like a potter’s vessel’ (Ps. 2:9). Which will it be? On which side will we labor? On which side will we stand in prayer and hope?

FYI: in the picture, along with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict XVI, is Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Secretariat for Christian Unity.

UT UNUM SINT

In his greeting to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I on this Feast of St. Andrew (patron of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and brother of Peter), Pope Benedict XVI offered the following thoughts on the exercise of the ministry of Peter in the Church:

[O]penness [to one another] has guided the work of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue, which held its eleventh plenary session in Cyprus last month. The meeting was marked by a spirit of solemn purpose and a warm sentiment of closeness. I extend once again my heartfelt gratitude to the Church of Cyprus for its most generous welcome and hospitality. It is a source of great encouragement that despite some difficulties and misunderstandings all the Churches involved in the International Commission have expressed their intention to continue the dialogue.

The theme of the plenary session, The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium, is certainly complex, and will require extensive study and patient dialogue if we are to aspire to a shared integration of the traditions of East and West. The Catholic Church understands the Petrine ministry as a gift of the Lord to His Church. This ministry should not be interpreted in the perspective of power, but within an ecclesiology of communion, as a service to unity in truth and charity. The Bishop of the Church of Rome, which presides in charity (Saint Ignatius of Antioch), is understood to be the Servus Servorum Dei ["Servant of the servants of God"] (Saint Gregory the Great). Thus, as my venerable predecessor the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote and I reiterated on the occasion of my visit to the Phanar in November 2006, it is a question of seeking together, inspired by the model of the first millennium, the forms in which the ministry of the Bishop of Rome may accomplish a service of love recognized by one and all (cf. Ut Unum Sint, 95). Let us therefore ask God to bless us and may the Holy Spirit guide us along this difficult yet promising path.

Yet even as we make this journey towards full communion, we should already offer common witness by working together in the service of humanity, especially in defending the dignity of the human person, in affirming fundamental ethical values, in promoting justice and peace, and in responding to the suffering that continues to afflict our world, particularly hunger, poverty, illiteracy, and the inequitable distribution of resources.

The direction of this Commission is one of coming to understand that the role of the Bishop of Rome has not always been, in the course of 2 millennia, what it is today. There are fluctuations and developments, enrichments and setbacks, for better or for worse. The crucial thing is to determine the essentials of the Petrine ministry in the Church, knowing that cast in different contexts they can still be properly preserved and exercised.

The goal of all ecumenical dialogue is precisely this: to find, together, the essentials that must be recognized, and strive to present them in ways that allow for agreement between brothers and sisters, and restoration of unity in the family of the Faith. We seek together to fulfill the will of Jesus that we be one, united in Him and in one another. May Andrew and Peter be reunited soon with us all!

JUST FYI...

Some of you may not care, and that's OK. But just in case you'd actually like to see any more of what I write beyond this blog, you can log on to www.oursaviorparish.org, and click on "Pastor's Corner." There you can find essays I write for the weekly bulletin.

Whatever floats (or doesn't) your boat...

LIGHT ONE CANDLE...

The winter solstice is only a few weeks away—folks know it as the shortest day, the longest night. It’s the official beginning of winter (even though, in fact, the earth is closer to the sun in our winter than in our summer). It’s not so bad here in Alabama, but when I was living in England (far nearer the Arctic Circle) twilight began setting in around 3:30—we had a maximum of perhaps 9 hours of sunlight in those days (if in fact the sun was shining at all—clouds are the dominant weather feature of winter in Britain).

It is natural to look to light as a sign of hope and joy, and this is one of the reasons for festivals of light in this time-frame. Christians (especially Catholics) light the four candles of our Advent wreath, one by one, for each of the four weeks of the season, as a longing anticipation of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Light of the world (John 9:5).

The Jews, too, celebrate the festival of lights at this time—Chanukah is the 8-day celebration of the Re-dedication of the Temple by Judas (“Maccabeus”) and his brothers in the middle of the 2nd century BC. The candles of menorah are also lit one by one, to mark the eight days. This year Chanukah will begin the evening of Saturday, 12 December.

In the Latin American world, this day will also be marked by celebration and much light: the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The processions and vigils, marked by candles and torches, will be nothing short of incredible, particularly in Mexico City and in Chicago.

We all need a guiding light, and we crave to celebrate that light at a time when in fact the days begin growing longer and the nights begin to shorten. In that light there is hope. Jews are waiting for the Messiah; Christians are waiting for the return of Jesus, the Messiah. And so we hope. The message of Guadalupe is that the Light we wait for is actually here and hasn’t left us, even when we feel lost in darkness.

Blessed Advent to us all. Blessed Chanukah to us all. Our Lady of Guadalupe, lead us to the Light.

PS--for a video clip of the procession for Our Lady of Guadalupe, I encourage you all to check "Whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com"--you'll love it.

STRIVING TO COME TOGETHER IN CHRIST

This announcement came from the Vatican’s web-site this morning (11-28-09):

Following the 21 November meeting in the Vatican between Benedict XVI and Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, in the course of which they reiterated their desire to strengthen ecumenical relations between Anglicans and Catholics, on 23 November the meeting took place of the committee entrusted with preparing the third phase of the "Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission" (ARCIC). It was decided that this new phase will begin during next year.
The third phase will focus on fundamental questions concerning the Church - local Church and universal Church - understood as communion, and on the way in which the local and universal Church can, in communion, discern just moral teaching.
Over coming months the members of the commission will be appointed, and the date of its first meeting will be announced.

This set of dialogues will be critical for the future of ecumenical relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglicans. By coming to an agreed understanding of the distinctions and relations between the local and the universal Church, we can perhaps better understand both the overture Pope Benedict made to Anglicans with the new Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. We will, I hope, come to a shared perspective on the ways in which a local Church can be truly a local expression and form while still being fully united in the universal Church.

Beyond this, it is significant that part of the purpose for dialogue in this particular area of theology is to try to agree on the methods by which there can be a unified process to ‘discern just moral teaching’ (and this would indeed mean agreement, at the very least in the basic principles of moral teaching). This is critical since divergences in moral practice have been at the core of the upset felt in the Anglican Communion these last several years.

Why do we dialogue at all? Surely it is because, in the words of St. Augustine, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and no matter what else is true, this will never be untrue so long as we all pray “Our Father.” If we seem, sometimes, to be at enmity with each other, this must cease; the best way is to look into each other’s eyes and see, not a demon, but a child for whom Christ suffered, died and rose. We are called to love each other and so bear witness to the truth of Jesus Christ. Again, as St. Augustine put it:

Blessed is the one who loves you, O Lord; and who loves his friends in you, and his enemies for your sake. For this is the person who loses none who are dear to him; to whom all are dear, in the One who can never be lost.

May we all one day soon be dear to one another, and united, in the One who can never be lost.

5 PEOPLE++ YOU WANT TO MEET IN HEAVEN

The Office of Readings in the Breviary for today featured an excerpt from a sermon by St. Cyprian (3rd century bishop of Carthage and martyr). The gist: if we really sincerely pray “Thy Kingdom come,” why are we afraid to leave this world to enter the Kingdom? The saints are waiting to welcome us!

So I thought: what’s my list for those I would long to meet and spend time with? I will admit up front that there are those whom I pray will be in Paradise, but I hope they’ll be on the other side from me! Besides them, there are of course the “main players” that EVERYONE would want to spend time with: Blessed Mother, Mary Magdalene, Peter and Paul, James and John, Ignatius Loyola, Thomas More, Francis of Assisi… There will be long lines to see them (but thankfully in eternity the concept of ‘waiting’ will be non-existent).

What about family? I surely would want to spend time with my Mom and Dad, but they would be #2 on my list here. I’d first of all want to spend time with my baby brother who died when he was six months old (and I was 8). I’d want to ask him, “How are you?” and “Who are you?” I guess I’d have, at least to some extent, Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven in my mind…
Also, I’d want to spend time with my maternal grandmother—she tried to say things in the last years in the nursing home, but no teeth, speaking softly, very slowly, and half in English, half in Slovak, I could understand nothing. I would want to ask, “Grandma, what were you trying to tell us?”
I’d love to talk with my paternal grandfather, too: I never knew him since he died before my Mom and Dad got married. “Who were you, Grandpa T.?”

Then there are the folks in history that have always intrigued me. I would love to spend time with my hero, Bl. Cardinal Newman (“Were you secretly angry that it took so long for ‘the cloud to be lifted’?”). And I would want to be able to be with Bl. Charles de Foucauld (“Why North Africa? You could have been a ‘universal brother’ in so many other places?”), Cardinal Bellarmine (“What did you really think about Galileo?”), Pope Gregory the Great (“Was the public administration dumped on you your greatest frustration as Pope?”), and perhaps also Bertrand Russell, the great atheistic philosopher (“Yes, I know you rejected belief in God because you found no evidence; now that you have plenty of it, let’s put that to one side and discuss philosophy…”). Sure, Russell was a reprobate, but a delightful one, and I want to believe it wasn’t too late for him…

Who are you longing to meet and spend time with? Who are your "5++ people"? Are you ready? I hope and pray that I am…

GIVING THANKS

The act of giving thanks is one of the most ‘God-like’ of our capacities. So often it is somehow receiving just what we think we do not deserve or cannot ever achieve on our own that becomes our greatest motivation for giving thanks—thanks for the present, and thanks to the one (or the One) whose gift it is.

Think of the role-reversal of the possessed man (Mark 5)—condemned to live life as an outcast, hated and feared, hating himself, ‘crying out and bruising himself with stones,’ the Scripture account tells us. And with a word of power Jesus casts the demonic forces out of him—the townspeople found him ‘clothed and in his right mind.’ Of course he begged Jesus to allow him to stay with Him!

I can imagine Jesus’ words to him: “Yes, I know; it’s been terrible. But you are all right now, and you are now possessed by the power of love. I need you to let the others in your town know about the goodness of God to you—please bring them that message.” And he did—surely becoming as much a remarkable sight for the people of the region (he preached all through the Decapolis—the Ten Cities) as the Samaritan woman must have been after her encounter with Jesus at the well (John 4). But once you’ve been graced, and once your heart is filled with gratitude for it, what else can you do?

We are very, very like the possessed Gerasene man and the Samaritan woman. We need the touch of graced love, and when we experience it really the only thing we can do is give thanks (in a joyful way). We’re so often in the stage of “pre-encounter”—alienated in the town, outcast in the tombs: wretched, miserable, suffering, seeing no future. Then it comes (then He comes), and insofar as we are open to the transformation we are freed. The gratitude then empowers us to accomplish things (and perhaps, also, to endure things) we never dreamed of being able to do or suffer. I pray we will believe that in spite of everything, we are not alone, we are loved, and that even as we walk in the dark, we can wait trustingly for the coming of the Light.