The Historical Journal

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St Stephen

Today is the Feast of my namesake Saint, Saint Stephen.

Found in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapters Six and Seven, these particular verses, at the end of his speech, really stand out:

… “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

- Acts 7:51-60

The Bible says that St Stephen was a man filled with power and grace. He is a great example for us on the need to be courageous in the witnesses of our Christian faith, even if it means that our witness may end in ridiculed, persecution or, yes, even death.

The Collect:

Grant, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here upon earth for the testimony of thy truth, we may stedfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors by the example of thy first Martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succour all those who suffer for thee, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

 

A Wasted Heritage

The wealth of Anglican belief and spirituality is immense and appealing. It stems from Holy Scripture and is defined in the Book of Common Prayer, The Articles of Religion, and The Ordinal (as Aquinas says of the creed, and we may say of our standards, they “are not added to Scripture but extracted from it”).

And then there is the vast amount of literature consonant with the classic Anglican Way – Biblical, doctrinal, devotional, pastoral, and homiletic. Anglicanism has been earnest and industrious in the propagation of the gospel and Christian knowledge the world over. Its endeavors have been appreciated by believers of different traditions, Protestant and Catholic.

The Church of England and its off-shoots have been instrumental in spreading the Word of God and the message of his grace to countless “people of every kind and type”. There is a profound richness in the Anglican blend of Scripture, liturgy, sacramental administration, and pastoral provision, all deeply imbued with an acute awareness of the magnificence of God and the mightiness of his grace.

Anglicanism has ministered effectively to those within the fold and those in the fields of world mission. Home and abroad the churches of the Anglican Communion have labored with sympathetic friends in the faith to make Christ accessible and join souls to God. There has been no Golden Age (better times, yes) and much evidence of checkered history in the Anglican corner of the Lord’s vineyard, but it has been, under God, initially the shaper, and latterly the heir, of an invaluable heritage that, restored by God, has the potential to address mankind very powerfully with the message of the Lord recorded in Scripture and relayed by the Spirit.   The great need in our time is for Anglicanism to embrace and activate the bequest that has been entrusted to us as “a witness and a keeper of holy Writ” (Article xx). We are to adhere to, proclaim, and protect the content and integrity of Holy Scripture. We may not deny, deviate from, or doctor, one whit of revealed doctrine. Rather, we are to grow into and firmly grasp every utterance of the Spirit preserved for us in God’s Book.

There is no end in our prayerful research into the mind of God and we can always request the widening of our minds in the comprehension of heaven-sent wisdom. But man, preferring not to yield to the instruction of God, is always tempted to meddle with the divine word, tamper with it, trim it, ignore it, or contradict where it corrects our thoughts and condemns our sinful behavior. Left to ourselves we are not submissive to our Teacher and seek to invent the notions that are preferable to us. We will either tweak the word or cast it aside…

Read on in VirtueOnline here.

 

Christian History Magazine, Free

Or, at least, the back issues are:

… from issues 1-102.

They can be read online or downloaded in pdf. here.

 

 

Blessed John Henry Newman

Today is the Feast Day of the Blessed John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890), a man who spent the first half of his life as an Anglican and the second half as a Roman Catholic. Wikipedia has more on him here.

And a quote (or two… or more…) from him may be appropriate:

• It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are  in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.
• Calculation never made a hero.
• Let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish.
• If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great  hazards.
• If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable… we must be  content to creep along the ground, and never soar.

 

The Francis We Never Knew

Surprising Revelations about the man from Assisi:

“In his final words to his followers, the issue he found most pressing was not poverty, not obedience, but proper reverence for the Eucharist.” Imagine summing up Saint Francis of Assisi by pointing to his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Yet this is not all we learn from Father Thompson, O.P. In the course of putting to rest various myths about his subject, he tells us surprising truths: for instance, Francis expected his followers to work with their hands rather than to impose upon others by their begging. Francis was more incensed by dirty altar linens and chalices than mistreatment of the poor or breaches of the peace. And Francis, far from being a Deep Ecologist, “was emphatically not a vegetarian.”

If he was not the man we thought him to be, or the man of those with agendas, then what was he? A man who with dogged determination tried to put the words of the Gospel into practice; a man so transformed by grace, that when the barbaric thirteenth-century physician approached his diseased eyes with a red-hot brand, thinking to cure them by cauterizing the flesh of his face, Francis, far from flinching, made the sign of the Cross over the iron and said: “My Brother Fire, noble and useful among all the creatures the Most High created, be courtly to me in this hour. For a long time I have loved you and I still love you for the love of that Lord who created you. I pray our Creator who made you, to temper your heat now, so that I may bear it”…

Continue here.

 

Ancient Rome & the Bible

The Bible records a number of ancient civilizations. Perhaps the most famous of these is ancient Rome.

By the time of the New Testament, Rome was the major world power, and it was in control of the Holy Land during the entire earthly life of Jesus and during the lives of his immediate followers.

Jesus was born during the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus. He was crucified during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius. The book of Acts records the Roman emperor Claudius by name. And both St. Peter and St. Paul were martyred at Rome by the Emperor Nero.

It is clear that the Romans were extraordinarily important to the world in which the New Testament was written.

All that makes it worth asking: Who were the Romans, and where did their civilization come from?

Read on here.

 

Ruins a Memento of Iraqi Christians’ Glorious Past

Iraq (AP) — A hundred meters (yards) or so from taxiing airliners, Iraqi archaeologist Ali al-Fatli is showing a visitor around the delicately carved remains of a church that may date back some 1,700 years to early Christianity.The church, a monastery and other surrounding ruins have emerged from the sand over the past five years with the expansion of the airport serving the city of Najaf, and have excited scholars who think this may be Hira, a legendary Arab Christian center.

“This is the oldest sign of Christianity in Iraq,” said al-Fatli, pointing to the ancient tablets with designs of grapes that litter the sand next to intricately carved monastery walls.

The site’s discovery in 2007 and its subsequent neglect are symbolic of a Christianity that has long enriched this country, and is now in decline as hundreds of thousands have fled the violence that followed the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

At the same time, the circumstances of the find reflect a renaissance for Najaf, a holy Shiite Muslim city. The airport expansion that revealed the ruins was needed because Najaf attracts multitudes of pilgrims.

The ruins left in the baking heat are within the airport perimeter and relatively safe from vandals and looters. The site’s stone crosses and larger artifacts have been moved to the National Museum in Baghdad.

For al-Fatli, it’s all very tantalizing. “I know if we were to work more, we will find more and similar churches,” he said.

But there is no money to mount a proper dig, he laments. In a country where bombings constantly kill people and much of the populace lacks reliable electricity or clean water, archaeological preservation is a low priority.

Today, the Christian portion of Iraq’s population of 31 million has fallen from 1.4 million to about 400,000, according to U.S. State Department data.

Caught in the sectarian violence of 2005 to 2008, massacred by Muslim militias as heretics, “We were in the worst of times,” says Younadam Kanna, a Christian member of Iraq’s parliament. He says the exodus has slowed but the future for Christians remains uncertain.

Still, he says, for those who remain, the discoveries at Hira provide some hope.

“It shows we can live together in peace with Muslims — because we did for centuries before,” he says. “When Islam first came to Iraq, the Christians here welcomed them.”

Legend traces Christianity in Iraq to Thomas, one of the Twelve Apostles who fanned out to spread Christ’s word after the Crucifixion.

Historians believe Hira was founded around 270 A.D., grew into a major force in Mesopotamia centuries before the advent of Islam, and reputedly was a cradle of Arabic script.

Lying 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, it was lost to Iraq’s southern desert for centuries after Christians were driven out of the area by Muslim rulers.

Erica Hunter, a professor of early Christianity at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, says historical evidence shows that by the early third century, the faith was well established in what is now southern Iraq by the Lakhmid dynasty, an Arab kingdom whose final ruler converted to Christianity.

For centuries Hira was an important center of the Church of the East, sometimes known as the Nestorian church, whose modern offshoot, the Assyrian Church of the East, is still followed in Iraq. Hira, also called al-Hirah, lay near the Sea of Najaf, since vanished, and was renowned as an idyllic retreat.

Archaeological finds have been traced in the 1900s, but the evidence is limited.

Hunter, one of the few scholars to explore the other sites linked to Hira, studied the Syriac inscriptions found by a Japanese-led team in the 1980′s. Other traces of Hira include two churches excavated in 1934 by an Oxford University team. Several church sites were mapped by German archaeologists in the 1980s before the 1991 Gulf War curtailed new exploration.

Hunter is cautious about claims the newly discovered ruins are Iraq’s oldest church, but adds, “They certainly must be very, very early,” perhaps dating to the fourth century dating.

What is clear is that Christianity at Hira continued to thrive alongside Islam until at least the 11th century, hundreds of years after the Muslim conquest of the area.

“In fact Muslim historians talk of 40 monasteries in the vicinity of Hira,” Hunter said in a telephone interview from London

Eventually the region’s Muslim rulers began persecuting the Christians, and Hira’s churches were abandoned. Most remaining Iraqi Christians today are clustered in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk and the self-ruled Kurdish north of Iraq.

Al-Fatli, himself a Shiite, thinks of those 40 lost monasteries as he surveys the desert around the abandoned Najaf excavation. For now, though, Christianity’s lost city in Iraq will remain mostly a mystery.

But lawmaker Kanna says there’s still time to uncover it. After all, like the remains, Christians in Iraq have endured for some two thousand years.

“This is our country. We will be here,” he says. “We’ll be here not only for one more century, but for many centuries to come.”

Source (and some more pics are there).

 

Quote on Unity

Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.

- St Thomas Aquinas

 

Do Anglicans Have a Valid Eucharist?

Dr Taylor Marshall, a former Episcopal priest, looks at the question of whether or not the Anglican Eucharist is valid, on his blog Canterbury Tales.

Thomas Cranmer – the Greatest Rascal Archbishop of England

I received an email from Harry after the EWTN The Journey Home interview on July 2 asking this same question: Do Anglicans have a valid Mass?

Here’s the short answer: No, Anglicans or Episcopalians (the tradition deriving from Henry VIII’s Church of England) do not have a valid Eucharist. This question was settled by His Holiness Pope Leo XIII in his papal bull Apostolicae Curae on the nullity of Anglican orders, issued 18 September, 1896.

There are two reasons for the nullity of Anglican Holy Orders. After explaining these two reasons, I’ll respond to the objection that Anglicans/Episcopalians have since “revitalized” their Apostolic Succession through the intervention of schismatic bishops of the Old Catholic/Orthodox/Polish National Catholic communities.

There are two reasons for the invalidity of Anglican Orders and Eucharist:

First Reason Against Anglican Eucharist: Invalid Form of Priestly Ordination

In 1550, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (a convinced Protestant) changed the ordination rite for bishops, priests, and deacons. Sacerdotal language was removed and the Roman form was abolished. Without valid bishops, you don’t have valid priests. Without valid priests, you don’t have valid Eucharists. If you don’t have valid Eucharists, you don’t have the Real Presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

Here’s the timeline for understanding the decline of the Catholic priesthood in England:

1533 King Henry VIII entered into formal schism with the Catholic Church

1535 King Henry VIII punishes Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More with martyrdom

1547 King Henry VIII died

After the king’s death, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (a Catholic bishop who had been secretly married) immediately began Protestantizing the Church of England that King Henry VIII had severed from Rome.

In 1547, Peter Martyr Vermigli (a former Augustinian priest who married and became Protestant) and Bernardino Ochino (a former Franciscan priest who married and became Protestant) were both invited to England by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, and given a pension of forty marks by the crown.

In 1548 the Protestantized Vermigli was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford.

In 1549 Vermigli took part in a great disputation on the Eucharist. Here, Luther’s doctrine of sacramental union of the bread and Christ (sometimes called consubstantiation) was publicly denied. Vermigli instead endorsed the Calvinistic teaching that the Real Presence of Christ was conditioned by the subjective faith of the recipient. For Vermigli, Christ was not objectively present in the Eucharist at all.

In 1549, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer rejected the Latin Mass. Thomas Cranmer invited the arch-Protestant Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli to advise him in the liturgies of the Church of England. Cranmer composed his own vernacular liturgies. The Mass came to be called the service of “Holy Communion.”

In 1550, Cranmer changed the Ordinal – the Ordination rite for the Church of England. This is the official date by which Holy Orders ceased in England.

1553-1558 Queen Mary restored Catholicism to England (along with valid clergy and all seven valid sacraments). Mary had Archbishop Cranmer burned at the stake as a heretic.

1559 Queen Elizabeth I re-issued Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer with it’s faulty ordination rites and liturgies.

It is clear to all that the liturgy influenced and produced by Vermigli, Bucer, Ochino, and Cranmer was a flat out rejection of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. These are the same liturgies officially adopted by Anglicans to this day. While there have been modifications over time (eg 1928 BCP and the Scottish BCPs), they are essentially the same rites with the same theology.

Second Reason Against Anglican Eucharist: Invalid Form of Priestly Intent

The 39 Articles are still the doctrinal formulary of Anglicanism. It is a public document. All clergy in the Church of England had to swear to the 39 Articles which officially rejected transubstantiation. American Episcopalians claim that they don’t necessarily make this vow, but it’s assumed since the document is appended to the ordination rite. The Anglican formulary which all Anglican clerics affirmed reads:

Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. {Here they vainly claim that “transubstantiation” overthrows the sacrament – that’s rather strong language!}

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is Faith.

The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. {Notice this forbids the use of tabernacles, monstrances, and Eucharistic processions}

This is a public document expressing the beliefs of Anglicans. It thereby expresses the intent of the minister when he confects the sacrament. Many Anglican priests reject this doctrine of the 39 Articles (they call themselves Anglo-Catholics), but that doesn’t much matter. A public document containing a public heresy must be publicly repudiated and disavowed. Yet, if one were to do this, he would not longer be Anglican. He’d be an independent Catholic claiming to have Holy Orders. Until an Anglican priest makes this public disavowal of heresy, he is still submitting to it and cooperating with it. Moreover, most Anglo-Catholic priests tolerate these public errors as espoused by their bishops and brother clergy.

A real Catholic would perceive the words of the 39 Articles as a grave and public crime against the Kingship of Christ. The 39 Articles are a blasphemous denial of transubstantiation and also of the revered doctrine that the Eucharist should be reserved or lifted up. A real Catholic would publicly recant of these errors. Anglo-Catholics, instead, wink at the Anglican error regarding the most Blessed Sacrament and pretend that they have everything in common with Catholic priests. The truth is that the Book of Common Prayer was built and structured to frame the Calvinistic theology of Cranmer, Bucer, and Vermigli. A false theology that holds that Christ is not objectively present in the Blessed Sacrament.

What about the claim of a “revitalized” Anglican Apostolic Succession?

Now then, there are Anglo-Catholic priests that have received valid ordinations by dissenting Catholic bishops and who openly profess belief in transubstantiation. Is their Mass valid? Perhaps. Yet many of these priests openly concelebrate with “women priests” or allow “women deacons” to serve their liturgies. This alone reveals that they do not believe in the Catholic doctrine of the priesthood and Eucharist. The orthodox doctrine of Holy Order prohibits the ordination of women to any degree of Holy Orders (even to the ministerial diaconate).

Those Anglo-Catholics who do not compromise by serving alongside women clerics are still living a double life. Even if a man were validly ordained and had proper intent to consecrate and sacrifice, his willingness to consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ apart from the Holy Father in Rome renders every consecration as an act of schism. While the Mass is itself valid and glorifying to God, it is still a sacrilege for the priest who celebrates it. Think of a Catholic priest. If the priest is in mortal sin, he commits sacrilege, but his Mass is valid.

The Catholic priesthood and the Eucharist were never meant to be severed apart from the Pope and the local Catholic bishop. As Saint Ignatius of Antioch said, where the Catholic bishop is, there is the Catholic Church.

Summary

The Church of England officially denied the sacerdotal and sacrificial priesthood of the Catholic Church including her belief in transubstantiation. This is seen today in the Anglican belief that women can be validly ordained. This entails that Anglicanism does not and never has enjoyed a valid priesthood. Even if there are rare exceptions, it would be objectively evil for such priests to celebrate the Mass while being in schism with the Holy Father of Rome.

Consolation for Anglican Clergy Having been an Anglican clergyman, I was uncomfortable with the teach of Apostolicae Curae and it’s conclusion that Anglican Orders were utterly null and void. Pope Leo XIII offers these comforting words to those Anglican clerics who make the difficult and burdensome decision to repudiate their ministry and enter in to the Catholic Church. The Pope promises that they will receive a special hope and reward on the Last Day. This is the beautiful conclusion to Apostolicae Curae:

39. We wish to direct our exhortation and our desires in a special way to those who are ministers of religion in their respective communities. They are men who from their very office take precedence in learning and authority, and who have at heart the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Let them be the first in joyfully submitting to the divine call and obey it, and furnish a glorious example to others.

Assuredly, with an exceeding great joy, their Mother, the Church, will welcome them, and will cherish with all her love and care those whom the strength of their generous souls has, amidst many trials and difficulties, led back to her bosom. Nor could words express the recognition which this devoted courage will win for them from the assemblies of the brethren throughout the Catholic world, or what hope or confidence it will merit for them before Christ as their Judge, or what reward it will obtain from Him in the heavenly kingdom! And we, ourselves, in every lawful way, shall continue to promote their reconciliation with the Church in which individuals and masses, as we ardently desire, may find so much for their imitation. In the meantime, by the tender mercy of the Lord our God, we ask and beseech all to strive faithfully to follow in the path of divine grace and truth.

May our separated Anglican brothers and sisters find a comfortable home in the bosom of Holy Mother the Church. We should pray and fast for them to receive these special graces. Moreover, we should be kind and patient as they come into the Catholic Church.

ad Jesum per Mariam,

Taylor Marshall, PhD