Go eat the fat, drink the sweet wine
24 January 2010
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit - AMEN
‘Faith of our Fathers, Holy Faith we will be true to thee ‘til death’ – so Father Faber summed up the hearts and minds of sacristans throughout the history of this illustrious house. Sacristans who it would seem all have much in common, they have no need of any encouragement or excuse to ‘eat the fat and drink the sweet wine’ in celebration of solemnities of the Lord or indeed of the most obscure of the company of saints (and here I think I stand as a towering example of this). And as if by holy succession they all develop an ability to build a shrine at the drop of a hat, a skill they take out from this place into an often grey and dull world in need of the brightness of Belloc’s Catholic sun! Whether it be to the irritation of your theological college principal as you crown the statue of Our Lady during breakfast or you are bringing joy and devotion to the hearts of the faithful in your parish it is all to the greater glory of God – and sets a fine example in spreading the Gospel to the World. Benedicamus Domino!
Anglo-Catholics have always been seen as extreme, certainly in our own provinces of Canterbury and York we can be viewed with a certain amount of suspicion. Yet in all that we do we have always sought greater unity with our fellow Christians and in particular that rock from which we were hewn or perhaps more correctly that rock from which we were torn by the devices and desires of a king, who as the Walsingham hymn suggests, ‘had greed in his eyes’.
In that wonderful prayer often said before the Blessed Sacrament generations have remembered our father Pope Euletherius who sent a mission to this land on the request of St Lucius who had written to the Pope declaring that he wished to become a Christian. The Chronicler tells us that Lucius sought to become a Christian by his own will. The Holy Spirit guided that holy king and thus began this nation’s close relationship with the one holy catholic and apostolic church of which we are a part. The Spirit that sent the missionaries to declare the good news to this pagan land sends us to declare the love of God to the World.
It is this Spirit – the spirit of Church, the spirit of unity – that guides us, the Church to this day, in all it does. In a sense we cannot be Catholics without being charismatic and spirit focussed. It is this of which S Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians. In reading this passage we are reminded that we all have a place in the Church, we are all given gifts of the spirit by grace of our Baptism into the Church. It is a great comfort for us to know that in all we do for the Church we are offering the gifts of the Spirit. We need not be Fresh Expressions focussed in order to be mission focused; we can continue to do as the Church has always done: visiting the people of our parishes, anointing the sick, hearing confessions and saying Mass.
The Church is the extension of the Body of Christ in the world; it is made up of many members who all share in the life of the risen Lord. When that Church is rent asunder by division it is the Body of Christ that is wounded once more. One of the greatest gifts of the spirit is the gift of healing, the gift of making things whole again in relationship with God. We all have a duty to pray and work for the unity of the Church – the spirit of the desire for unity is one that should be close to all our hearts.
Taken from the very beginning of S Luke’s account of the life of Our Lord, our Gospel reading this morning marks the beginning of the ministry of the Spirit-filled Messiah. In true Lukan style we hear of Jesus filled with the Spirit proclaiming the good news. It is this Spirit which Luke again and again refers to as being integral to the ministry of Christ. It is this spirit that guides his ministry to bring healing, liberty and sight to those who need them most. It is this spirit that declares the Lord’s year of favour. It is this spirit that dwells in the body Jesus and this spirit that dwells in his body the Church. When the spirit descends on the Apostles at Pentecost he is the Spirit that guides their every action. Indeed the Acts of the Apostles could well be renamed the Acts of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit which acts in the Church to this day directed their actions and their faith as it does ours. The faith they held and passed on is the one to which we must remain true. This same spirit is the spirit which guides the mission of the Church to bring good news to the people. The missionary spirit of the Church goes hand in hand with its desire for unity. Sadly just as the mission of Jesus was rejected by those in his time there are still those who this day reject the mission of the Church both to bring healing and liberty and also to bring unity. This spirit both of mission and of unity directs our lives as Anglicans in this land to spread that good news. This same Spirit caused the successors of the first Pope Peter, Euletherius and Gregory to send their missionaries to England and it is that same Spirit that directs our hearts towards greater unity again.
Our pleas for unity may be rejected; people may turn away from the hopes of the ARCIC process. Indeed many Anglicans would find the agreed statements on Mary and on authority a little difficult to handle but we must remain true to them just as we remain true to the teaching of the Apostles. The hope for Unity is one of the founding principles of the Anglo-Catholic movement especially in its Anglo-Papalist manifestation. Organisations like the Society of the Holy Cross and the Catholic League (once described as the Fifth Column of the Church of England) were founded with the principles of Christian unity in mind. Indeed this keeping of the Unity Octave from the Feast of the Chair of Peter (in old money) and the Conversion of S Paul was devised by an Anglican Lewis Thomas Wattson who with his Franciscan Community Atonement would eventually move in to full communion with the Holy See and take the name Fr Paul of Graysmoor. Thus the keeping of this Octave by the Universal Church had its beginning in our own Church, the Spirit of Unity moving in the hearts and minds of faithful people sowing the seeds that pray God will one day be reaped. From these initial seeds has grown the ecumenical movement and the ARCIC process and yet time and time again these have been rejected by people. Anglo-Papalists like prophets in their own lands have not been heeded, Cardinals of the Universal Church have been ignored when speaking about the importance of the Apostolic ministry of the Church and the ARCIC process has become a side-show and yet despite all of the rejection the Spirit of the Lord propels us more and more towards Unity. We must remain true to the principles of ARCIC and the historic faith. We are called to proclaim the good news of the Lord, and what better way than by declaring our devotion to the Unity of the Church; that the broken body of Christ on earth, his Church might be healed.
We are, as Aidan Nichols has said, ‘that other Anglicanism, more restricted in size but at the same time more compact and coherent in doctrinal outlook and sacramental practice.’ it is this Anglicanism, one which has learnt much from the historic church of the west and which sees itself firmly within this tradition, this tradition which is fully catholic that we take forward with confidence rededicating ourselves in his service. It is this tradition of service and dedication we offer to this country. It is possible, is it not, that aided by the prayers of the saints, not least those early saints Euletherius and Lucius who saw the faith delivered here, and strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit that this tradition could bring about what Newman described as the conversion of England. The spirit of the Lord is upon us his church he sends us to bring good news to the world...to set the prisoners free...to bring the joy and hope of the Lord to a world that waits and watches desperate for something more. You and I leave this church strengthened by the feast we share, the Body and Blood of Christ: strengthened for mission and service. We, we the Church guided by the Spirit can declare once again and for all time this is the Year of the Lord let us rejoice and be glad – go eat the fat and drink the sweet wine! Amen.
The Revd Philip Corbett Assistant Curate, Worksop Priory