Category: Anglican

who?

.

He ate distasteful food; wore a hair shirt next his skin; used the discipline on his body; accepted humiliations with the eagerness of a saint; said Mass every day at four; ignored malaise and headaches; made acts of humiliation when servants touched their caps to him; and had a rule of life “always to lie down in bed, confessing that I am unworthy to lie down except in Hell, but, so praying, to lie down in the Everlasting Arms.” To look into his face was to see the light of Heaven. Thus his sermons were listened to by breathless congregations, in spite of their inordinate length and his monotonous delivery.

Anyone want to guess the saint?

living sacrifice

Father, we offer ourselves to you
as a living sacrifice
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Send us out in the power of your Spirit
to live and work for your praise and glory.

APBA, Prayer after Communion

The New Life in Christ
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1-2

Sacrifice is surrendering a good for a greater good. It is the flip side of sin, choosing a lesser good over a greater good. For me, sacrifice is a part of my daily life: to always choose Jesus!

the decision

In baptism, God calls us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new life with him.

Therefore I ask:
Do you reject the devil and all rebellion against God?
I reject them.

Do you renounce the deceit and corruption of evil?
I renounce them.

Do you repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour?
I repent of them.

Do you turn to Christ as Saviour?
I turn to Christ.

Do you submit to Christ as Lord?
I submit to Christ.

Do you come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life?
I come to Christ.

Common Worship – Baptism

towards a patrimony

… solitaries, recluses, or anchorites, [are] men and women who … live a spirituality of contemplative isolation. … embracing a spirituality of on-going conversion, spiritual combat, penance, and solitude. … Anchorites … [or] urban hermits … [embrace] stability and enclosure as a means of protecting contemplative prayer.

The above is a modified version – that is, present tense – of some introductory points from the book, Hermits and Consecrated Virgins, Ancient Vocations in the Contemporary Catholic Church: A Canonical-Pastoral Study of Canons 603 and 604 Individual Forms of Consecrated Life. I will use these as an ongoing guide to building a “spirituality of patrimony” of the enclosed solitary life in a modern Anglican context.

Day 652 – ‘… economy of the Holy Ghost’

The contribution which stands out, however, as one reads the debate a century later, came from Charles Grafton, Bishop of Fond du Lac in the USA, the only bishop present who had been a member of a community. He made three important points. First, he believed Religious Life was a vocation and should be treated as such. Second, it did not belong, as priesthood did, to the corporate life of the Church, but instead belonged ‘to the economy of the Holy Ghost’. Obedience to a Religious superior was a voluntary action of love, not the result of the legislative action of the Church. Unlike ‘the fixity of ministerial orders’ then, he believed the work of the Holy Ghost in the call of Religious Life manifested itself in a variety of different forms. Bishops had to trust this call to have a corrective power in itself. Third, he reminded the Conference that in Religious, bishops were dealing with ‘special devotional temperaments’ that could be ‘personally emotional’ about small matters of worship. A high-handed approach would not therefore be advisable. He went on to echo the arguments put forward in Father Puller’s paper, and concluded by suggesting bishops should regulate communities only in relation to property, financial donations and insisting on communities’ having sound government.

Petà Dunstan, Bishops and Religious 1897-1914

… traditional devotions

I was reading about the traditional devotional life of anchorites in Medival England. These anchorites followed the fashion of the day, which was dominated by affective piety focusing on the humanity of Jesus. So the major focus was the Passion of Jesus.

Besides the 15 Oes, there were prayers to “The Five Wounds of Christ”, “The Seven Wounds of Mary”, or the “Seven Prayers of St Gregory” centring on the Passion of Jesus. There were also liturgical feasts dedicated to the Prayer in the Garden, the Five Wounds of Jesus, the Winding Sheet (burial shroud), and the Precious Blood.

As an aside, The Gregory Prayer Book has a number of these prayers and devotions. An interesting and useful aid to my prayers. There is also a Book of Hours available that gives some insight into English devotional life.

I wonder what happened to all these devotions?

hermits and solitaries

The Advisor Council publishes “A Handbook of the Religious Life” which is extremely helpful. In recent editions, there is an Appendix on hermits and solitaries.

The terms Hermit and Solitary are often used interchangeably but for the purposes of the Handbook, the term ‘hermit’ refers to a member of a Religious Community and the term ‘solitary’ refers to one who is not a Religious.

Appendix V

There is a long tradition that anchorites (modern solitaries) are semi-religious. The above gives a technical starting point. There are many consequences from the above short working definition. Maybe I will post about them?!

… go worth

I had to speak to someone today about worldly affairs. Like anchorites of old, I am paying my own way. The whole conversation stressed me because it is so much outside of my experience of daily life. And I reflect on the following:

Go forth upon thy journey from this world, O Christian soul.
Go in the name of God the Father Almighty who created thee,
In the name of Jesus Christ, his Son, who suffered for thee,
In the name of the Holy Ghost who strengthened thee.
In communion with the blessed saints and accompanied by angels and archangels and all the armies of the Heavenly Host,
May thy portion this day be peace. And thy dwelling in the heavenly Jerusalem. Amen.

I have been thinking about enclosure rites (as one does). These, in the broader English tradition, normally include the Office of the Dead and a Requiem after the enclosure of the individual. In a somewhat strange twist, the enclosed individual gets to watch their own funeral through the squint. I wonder what people would say about me? Also, the anchorite normally dug their own grave, by hand, in their cell. But, overall, undoable in a modern context!

But what about the above? It is part of APBA – Commendations of the Dying. I used it recently and understand it more in an existentialist sense: enclosure as death to the world. The solitary life is a place in the grey area – in relation to the church (often without definition) and to the world (separate from it).

So I have been listening to Elgar’s version and am moved.

… more vocation thoughts

So more thoughts on the idea of vocation.

I found (and, yes, I am very excited) an online copy of the 1976 Anglican Religious Communities: a directory of Principles and practice. The excursion on the solitary life makes the following point:

The existence of solitaries living geographically apart from society helps those living in society to realize the solitary dimension of their lives. In this way the solitary is a sign to the world, as well as to the Church. By virtue of its closeness to the material environment, the solitary life can help our present age to recover a more balanced relationship to the material world.

Directory of Religious Life, 1976

My thought: I am super far away from the ideal.