On The End of All Things

The Sunday Next before Advent

STIR Up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Two and a half years ago, I began the Canterbury Calgarian as an attempt to figure out where my home was. In 2013 and early 2014, I had spent time exploring some of the basic theologies of various Christian traditions. Even today, I continue to on occasion attend Great Vespers at a local Eastern Orthodox parish out of reverence and appreciation for that tradition, and hold significant respect for the theological depth of the Roman Catholic tradition. It was in that context, as a lay person, that the investigation into Anglicanism was undertaken in this blog.

Yet today, I find that context is no longer applicable. When I began, I was an Anglican lay person who had recently come to make his home there. Today, I am an Anglican seminarian who has discerned a call to Holy Orders and is preparing for ordination. I am serving in a parish within the Diocese of Calgary, and the concerns reflected in this exploration have largely been concluded.

I am no longer as concerned with uncovering the historic nature of Anglicanism as I once was. The goal of this blog was to establish a clear vision of a traditional Anglican ecclesiology, one rooted in Holy Scripture and the teachings of the undivided Catholic Church. Over the past two and a half years and one hundred and fifty articles, a wide range of issues have been addressed from history, to the Sacraments, to the Anglican formularies and dozens of issues in between. The Anglican ecclesiological foundation has been laid.

As the year ends, it seemed appropriate then to consider a shift. In Christianity, death is not the end. There is a Tolkienesque sentiment there that finds its roots in Christ’s gospel. While this project is at an end, it does not mean that I do not have planned future projects to explore other questions of the faith.

In particular is this: having established this ecclesiological foundation, what are the implications?

Since the advent of digital technology and their proliferation, something that really only occurred within my own lifetime (one of the final generations of children to grow up without the ubiquity of personal computers, let alone personal digital devices), the pace of social change has accelerated dramatically. New secular sociological concerns and practices within society have profound impacts on how Christians live out their faith.

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are a product of 16th century British law and culture, and while they are still quite applicable today, what does that look like? What unperceived challenges do Christians face today that have not explicitly been addressed by these guidelines on how the Christian faith was to be lived out in English society of the day?

From falling rates of marriage to the loss of respect for the authority of Holy Scripture, to simple issues of international connectedness and the wider ranging impact of states upon one another, there are many issues that challenge us in how we are to live out our faith.

This is essentially a shift from academic understanding of theory towards praxis.

While this shift could be lived out in this blog, rather than do so I intend to start fresh with this new perspective and new goal on a new blog. That leaves nothing more than to close out this one.

I think as I reflect, perhaps the biggest conclusion that can be drawn is the great value to spiritual formation to considering the questions that have been considered here. Understanding the nature of these foundational elements of the Catholic faith and Anglican tradition. When someone asks me something about the Anglican tradition, I generally am able to answer. When questions come up today about where Anglicanism is heading or ought to be heading, I can argue from a foundation of Anglicanism actually meaning something—this is harsh reality that for many Christians who do not come from confessional traditions where subscription to a particular confession is a requirement for membership in a particular church, they may not know what their tradition actually professes and their own beliefs may ultimately be incompatible.

This experiment has reinforced in my mind the importance of catechesis and Bible study going forward. I, as an interested Christian, learned quite a bit, and while perhaps not all the details are necessary to know (I can’t really come up with any theological implications for failing to know about the participation of British bishops at the Council of Arles, for instance), overall it seems in many cases, Anglicans have failed to be taught the richness of our own tradition, nor do we even seem to realize how little we actually know about our history.

I’ll close this out with a favourite collect from the Book of Common Prayer:

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words, which we have heard this day with our outward ears, may through thy grace be so grafted inwardly in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of good living, to the honour and praise of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

On Desire

The Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity

O LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion; that they who do lean only upon the hope of thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended by thy mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

As the Articles of Religion affirm and as Scripture teaches us, God has gifted humanity with free will. A consequence of this free will is that we have desires. These are the forces within us that motivate us to act. Our desires can be either good or bad, either drawing us nearer to God or taking us away from him.

St Augustine of Hippo famously defined desire that draws us towards God, virtue, in terms of rightly ordered love. In On Christian Doctrine he famously expands on this meaning stating that:

love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally.

To use the language of desire, we must use our free will to order our desires in order that we desire to be in the amount suitable to the object of that desire. Disordered desire is the root of sin. For instance, when we desire material wealth for ourselves over our desire for the well-being of our neighbours, it is easy to see how we might be willing to cheat them or otherwise allow our actions to negatively affect them in the pursuit of our own gain.

A clearer example comes from the consideration of the desire for social belonging. It is a fundamental motivator of all human behaviour to have belonging. In a modern Western context, that desire manifests in certain culturally conditioned patterns of behaviour which are normative for anyone who wants to fit in and be a part of society. It is perfectly natural and anyone would be hard pressed to suggest that in and of itself a desire to be a part of a group is sinful. Yet Christianity often challenges these cultural norms that form the basis of belonging. How often on a Sunday does a homily exegete a passage of Holy Scripture by expounding on how Christ is calling us to counter-cultural action? Suddenly our desire for God—to follow him, to honour him and to have intimate relationship with him, is placed in conflict with the desire to conform to the norms of society in order to fit in. If we place our desire to conform to the norms of society above our desire to follow God’s counter-cultural call, we have a disordered desire.

There are many hymns and modern praise songs that speak of turning ourselves wholeheartedly over to Christ. How many Christians, however, can upon reflection sing these lyrics in all sincerity? 

In the famous lyrics, “O Love that wilt not let me go, / I rest my weary soul in thee; / I give thee back the life I owe, / That in thine ocean depths its flow / May richer, fuller be,” we are promising to give back our lives to God who gave us life, yet that does not in practice seem to be what we do. We withhold our lives from God like Ananias and Sapphira withheld some of the profit from the sale of their property.  Our lips proclaim a desire to turn ourselves over to God, but our actions often show those words to ring hollow in our lives.

There is a disconnect between what we say we desire, what we say we love, and what we actually love. We have failed in most of our modern Christian lives, to cultivate a theology of desire, this place of rightly ordered desires that will maintain our orientation towards God.

It is helpful to think of this in terms of desire rather than love because often we view loves as something which we have no control over, and also because we associate love with the emotion of love far more than we ought to when considering the full spectrum of what love entails. With desire, it seems easier to draw that mental connection with our ability to control our desires.

This is where spiritual disciplines come in. It is through the use of spiritual disciplines that we can begin to cultivate Godly desires and suppress those or reshape those desires that are disordered. Spiritual disciplines are opportunities to practice intentional orientation of our desires in a way that we often wouldn’t consider to be the case in terms of love. When love is viewed as an emotion it means it cannot be controlled or shaped, simply experienced and actualized or denied. With desire, we can shape it because it is something more persistent.

Ultimately, when our desires are oriented towards God, they will move us towards him. When they remain disordered, however, they will move us away from him. Desires apart from God are never fully satisfied, however, as they are ultimately self-satisfied. CS Lewis makes this point when he argues that pride is the great sin from which all other sin derives because it explicitly involves placing ourselves in the place of God. As we are created with a desire and that desire can only be fulfilled by God, it becomes a clear implication that when we follow these disordered desires we will always be left wanting more.

Spiritual disciplines that are useful for the reorientation of our desires include the cultivation of gratitude and thankfulness. This might be as simple as beginning your morning in a prayer of thanksgiving for how you are thankful for a day of opportunity that God has brought you to (the collect for grace from Morning Prayer is a suitable starting point for this) to creating gratitude lists: identifying throughout your day all the things you are grateful to God for. 

The confession from Morning Prayer reminds us that, “we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts,” and is a lesson that St Paul reminds us of. In Romans 1. 21 Paul describes how the lack of gratitude towards God for who he is and what he has done is the root of humanity’s descent into guilt and the disordering of humanity’s desires. To return to Godly desires, we need to consider why we got there in the first place and then continue to practice this culture of gratitude in order to strengthen the correctly ordered desires.

It is through this development of a clear theology of desire that we find ourselves drawing closer and closer to God.

On the Articles: Article XXXIX

The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Trinity

O LORD, we beseech thee, absolve thy people from their offences; that through thy bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the bands of those sins, which by our frailty we have committed. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen.

The Octave of All Saints Day

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

XXXIX. Of a Christian Man’s Oath
As we confess that vain and rash Swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ, and James his Apostle, so we judge, that Christian Religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the Magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the Prophet’s teaching, in justice, judgement, and truth.

Article XXXIX, the last, addresses two different issues.

The first sentence of the Article notes that, “vain and rash Swearing is forbidden Christian men,” by which it means profanity is barred. From the commandment not to use the Lord’s name in vain to Christ’s warning that what comes out of the mouth is more damaging than what goes in, there is a clear line in Scripture that tells us that Christians ought not to be vulgar. It should be recognized that there is a cultural context to profanity—what is considered to be profanity changes from language to language and time to time. In some cultures, for instance in Quebecois French, many vulgarities are sacrilegious, while in English, vulgarities are often sexual or relate to bodily waste. No matter their case, it is what they reflect from within us that is prohibited, and it is the causes of the utterances of profanity that is truly being warned against, not simply the utterances of profanity itself.

The second sense of the Article is a reference not to profanity, but to the swearing of oaths. While it is primarily the second part of this Article that addresses this, there is one historic way in which that first sentence condemning “vain and rash Swearing” also applies to the swearing of oaths. Historically prior to the reformation, it was common for young children to be sent to monasteries and convents. In order to be taken in, these young children would be required to swear oaths of celibacy, poverty and other forms. This Article condemns that medieval practice pointing out that it is a rash thing to have someone swear an oath so rashly, namely when they cannot understand the full consequences of what they are about to do. Biblically, the story of Jephthah (Judges 11. 29-40) seems to speak against this as well, as Jephthah swore rashly and paid a severe price for that mistake, being forced to sacrifice his daughter.
The second half of the Article makes a similar reference to the swearing of oaths in a way that would be understandable to modern eyes, namely the civil and legal sphere where oaths must be sworn, for instance before entering into a civil office or giving legal testimony in a courtroom. To some of the more radical reformers, Christ’s admonition to, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil,” (St Mt 5. 37) is interpreted as prohibiting the swearing of such oaths.

Yet there are many other places in Scripture where oaths are commended, from the Law of Moses (Deut 6. 13) to St Paul’s many references (Rm 9. 1, 2; II Cor 1. 23; Gal 1. 20). Nowhere in the Gospel does Christ overturn the law of Moses, and St Paul and the other Apostles, St James the Bishop of Jerusalem is mentioned explicitly in the Article.

It should be noted that there is room and even historic example, of how Christians ought to apply the lack of oaths, which comes from honesty: the lives as relate to Christians. In monastic communities, monks were prohibited from swearing oaths once they had joined their community because they were to be honest in all things and to swear additional oaths was to suggest they failed in their duty to be honest in all things. It may have been the extension of this practice to clergy in general in the medieval period that placed the seed of the prohibition of oaths among some of the radical reformers of the day.

In recognizing however that not everyone is held to such a standard, because not everyone is Christian, it becomes clear that this Article is a practical way of ensuring that Christians can relate to them in a pluralistic society. While the Christian should follow Christ’s commandment for honesty, that does not prohibit them from swearing an oath, to God or simply directly to another person, in order that the other party might believe them. Similarly, even among Christians, the use of contracts as a legal vow between parties are not prohibited as they can ensure clear understanding on both parties and ought not to be implied to suggest a lack of trust by one party towards the other.

The final sentence of this Article instructs that Christians ought to follow lawful civil authority, “according to the Prophet’s teaching, in justice, judgement and truth.” This is a rather suitable prescription to conclude the Articles, saying simply that as far as our relationship to civil society goes, we ought to do our best to live in such a society in recognition that not all within it are Christian, but bearing witness to Christ in what we do, displaying justice, good judgement and God’s truth.

On the Articles: Article XXXVIII

The Twenty-Third Sunday after Trinity
O GOD, our refuge and strength, who art the author of all godliness: Be ready, we beseech thee, to hear the devout prayers of thy Church; and grant that those things which we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

XXXVIII. Of Christian Men’s Goods, which are not common
The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability.

Article XXXVIII is interesting in that it is the most explicit in its condemnation of protestant excesses, often of the radical reformation and in this case from the Anabaptists in particular. This Article in particular repudiates the idea that a Christian is compelled to live in some form of communism, holding only common property and not personal property.

It should be of little surprise that with the rise of Soviet Communism in the 20th century, this Article took on a particular poltical significance among both British and American commentators. Writing even as recently as 2009, the American commentator Gerald Bray places particular emphasis on the modern political dimensions of communism and how much of a failure it is as a political system before eventually moving actually explore the Biblical imperatives.

Most Christians might reflect on the passages of the Acts of the Apostles which note the early Christian community living with all things in common or the deaths of Annanias and Sapphiras for withholding their property. Yet, looking at Christ’s teachings on the poor and even the whole of the account of the Acts of the Apostles, it seems that the living with all things held in common was an idea to be aspired to but not a requirement of the faith. We are called, as the Article notes, “to give alms to the poor, according to [our] ability.” Yet at the same time, to fail to compel a Christian to give up their property seems far more consistent with the Gospel imperative.

Christ invites us into communion with him, he does not compel. Upon being arrested after his betrayal, Christ asks, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (St Mt 26. 53). God could very well compel us to love him, but that wouldn’t be true love. Instead he has given us a choice. Similarly, Christ had already reaffirmed in the antitheses (St Mt 5. 21-47) that God cares about what happens in our hearts, not just what we outwardly do. If a Christian is compelled to give up all they have, they may do so because they are forced but not do so gladly and willingly.

Now of course, what must not be lost among all of this is the final imperative of the Article, that we ought to give alms to the poor. Christ was clear:

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (St Mt 25. 31-46)

We are called to serve the poor, yet it must be of our own decision. We are called to see Christ in others and to treat them appropriately, for we are all made in the image of God and bear dignity through that.

Wisdom of Saints: St Cedd

The Feast of Cedd, Missionary, Bishop of the East Saxons, 664

O GOD, our heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thy blessed Apostles and send them forth to preach thy Gospel of salvation unto all the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant Cedd, whose labours we commemorate this day, and we pray thee, according to thy holy Word, to send forth many labourers into thy harvest; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

St Cedd is another British saint for whom little is known apart from what was recorded by St Bede in his Ecclesiastical History. He was born around 620 and died in 664. He was born into the northern kingdom of Northumbria to a noble family, the eldest of four brothers of whom one was St Chad of Litchfield, and the other two who also became priests. They were all chosen by King Oswald to become a priest and monastic to evangelize the area, and was sent to be educated in Lindisfarne at the priory there under the instruction of St Aidan who was then the bishop of Lindisfarne.

He was ordained a priest in 653 and shortly after began missionary work. The pagan East Anglian king Peada converted to Christianity in exchange for the hand of the daughter of the King of Northumbria in marriage. St Cedd was asked to travel to the kingdom to instruct the king in the Christian faith and to convert the people. He had significant success over the next year, and eventually returned to Lindisfarne.

In 654, owing to his success in converting the people of East Anglia, he was sent to Essex, where again the King of Northumbria’s political actions had opened the door for Christian missionaries. St Cedd was sent by the bishop of Lindisfarne to convert the people there. He began his mission and established two monasteries and several churches there, and upon returning to Lindisfarne again later that year was consecrated Bishop of Essex. As Bede records:

Cedd, having received the episcopal dignity, returned to his province, and pursuing the work he had begun with more ample authority, built churches in divers places, and ordained priests and deacons to assist him in the Word of faith, and the ministry of Baptism, especially in the city which, in the language of the Saxons, is called Ythancaestir, as also in that which is named Tilaburg. The first of these places is on the bank of the Pant, the other on the bank of the Thames. In these, gathering a flock of Christ’s servants, he taught them to observe the discipline of a rule of life, as far as those rude people were then capable of receiving it.

He returned south with newfound episcopal authority, ordaining deacons and priests and continuing to raise up many monks in his two monasteries. He re-established St Paul’s, London as his Cathedral, becoming only the second Bishop of London since the first, Mellitus, had been expelled from London by the East Saxon pagans in 616 shortly after establishing St Paul’s, after he himself had arrived in England with St Augustine of Canterbury in 598.

While St Cedd continued his work in the south, he made frequent return visits to the north. On one of these in 658, he was introduced to King Aethelwald of Deira who had been instructed in the Christian faith by one of St Cedd’s other brothers who had also become a monk with him at Lindisdarne. Finding St Cedd to be a godly man, the King gifted him with land at Lastingham on which he asked St Cedd to build a royal monastery and mausoleum. St Cedd ultimately agreed, but demanded that no construction begin until the area had been cleansed by prayer and fasting. He undertook himself in Lent of 658 to fast forty days, and as St Bede records:

All which days, except Sundays, he prolonged his fast till the evening, according to custom, and then took no other sustenance than a small piece of bread, one hen’s egg, and a little milk and water. This, he said, was the custom of those of whom he had learned the rule of regular discipline, first to consecrate to the Lord, by prayer and fasting, the places which they had newly received for building a monastery or a church. When there were ten days of Lent still remaining, there came a messenger to call him to the king; and he, that the holy work might not be intermitted, on account of the king’s affairs, entreated his priest, Cynibill, who was also his own brother, to complete his pious undertaking. Cynibill readily consented, and when the duty of fasting and prayer was over, he there built the monastery, which is now called Laestingaeu, and established therein religious customs according to the use of Lindisfarne, where he had been trained.

St Cedd spent much of the rest of his life living at his monastery in Lastingham, administering his see from there. He is noted to have served at the Synod at Whiby in 664, under the Abbess Hilda, and supported the Synod’s decision to adopt Romanizing customs for the Catholic Church in the Realm of England in an effort to unify the various kingdoms. Shortly after the synod, a plague broke out in England, and St Cedd died. He was buried at Lastingham.

St Cedd led a life destined for holiness. He was educated from an early age under the pious St Aidan of Lindisfarne and dedicated his life to the transmission of knowledge of God to others. He is commemorated as the evangelist of the Middle Angles and East Saxons, and played a critical role in the spread of the Christian faith throughout many of the English kingdoms, and provided a lasting example through his monastic devotion for generations to come.

On the Articles: Article XXXVII

The Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity

LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy household the Church in continual godliness; that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

XXXVII. Of the Power of the Civil Magistrates
The King’s Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other his Dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign jurisdiction.
Where we attribute to the King’s Majesty the chief government, by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God’s Word, or of the Sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify; but that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doers.
The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.
The Laws of the Realm may punish Christian men with death, for heinous and grievous offences.
It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars.

Article XXII is historically interesting in that it articulates a particular vision of the separation of Church and state which is commonly supported among Western democracies today. In this version, it spelled out the Church’s proclamation that it was independent in religious affairs of the authority of civil offers.

The first paragraph actually again affirms the independence of the Church of England and the English Crown from foreign religious powers, namely the authority of the Bishop of Rome. While the Church of England had never declared itself out of communion with Rome, it had always claimed since the time of the English Reformation under Henry VIII and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer that the Catholic Church in the Realm of England was free from the jurisdictional authority of the Bishop of Rome, just as the Christian East had managed to maintain its independence from his jurisdictional claims to authority. This Article thus affirms that this claim to independence applies to secular authorities as well. By the time of Elizabeth II, this Article had become necessary as the Bishop of Rome, in addition to breaking communion with the Church of England had excommunicated all people of England who followed the temporal authority of the Queen. This Article countered that excommunication saying that he had no authority to require such as it was an invalid assertion of authority over the Crown in addition to invalid assertion of religious authority over local bishops.

The Article continues by then expressing the limits of the Crown’s authority over the Church. Unlike modern principles of the separation of Church and State, which tend to be established to limit religious involvement in public areas of government, this Article sought to place limits on the ability of secular officials to involve themselves in the affairs of the Church. This was essential because the Crown also held the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The Article states, “we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God’s Word, or of the Sacraments,” meaning that civil authorities were not authorized to preach or administer the Sacraments, or otherwise regulate them. These were affairs reserved for the ordained ministers of the Church. The Article then continues to note that civil authorities are not so much under the authority of the Church as they are under God’s authority, “that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doers.”

The final three paragraphs clarify particular controversies.

The first again asserts that the Bishop of Rome has no authority of jurisdiction, whether civil of religious, in the Realm of England. He may not choose bishops, as he sought to do with the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1054 leading to the Great Schism when he excommunicated the entire Christian East for refusing his demand that they submit to his claim of jurisdictional authority, and neither does he have the right to choose the King, as he sought to do before excommunicating Queen Elizabeth and the entire population of England that refused to accede to his demand for a Roman Catholic monarch that would follow his authority. One point that should be remembered about the historical context of this Article is that at the time of the English Reformation, the Bishop of Rome was not just a religious authority, he did also have political and temporary power as a prince, controlling territory and armies. The assertion that he had no authority in England did have significant political ramifications.

The penultimate paragraph deals with an issue of Christian morality and whether or not the state has authority to exercise the death penalty in the case of “heinous and grievous” offences. This largely was in response to Reformers rather than any claims of the Roman Church.

The final paragraph again responds to a controversy of the Radical Reformation, namely those who argued in favour of pacifism as a Christian imperative. The Article clarifies that if conscripted, a Christian man could not claim it was a Christian right not to fight. Given the political situation of the time, and the wars of religion on the continent, not to mention the fact that England itself had undergone a period of severe turmoil and civil war, was an essential point to make for any civil authority that needed men-at-arms, not to mention to simply clarify the position for priests so they would know what to teach given the tumultuous back and forth and the attempts of various governments of the day to enforce different rules.

On the Articles: Article XXXVI

The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity

GRANT, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace; that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

XXXVI. Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers
The Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops, and Ordering of Priests and Deacons, lately set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth, and confirmed at the same time by authority of Parliament, doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering: neither hath it any thing, that of itself is superstitious and ungodly. And therefore whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book, since the second year of the forenamed King Edward unto this time, or hereafter shall be consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites; we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered.

The final Articles of religion deal with a number of more practical matters primarily, while making less significant theological statements. While the Canadian Book of Common Prayer last revised in 1962 contains within it the rites of ordination for deacons, priests and bishops, the Ordinal, as it was commonly known, was originally published separate to the Book of Common Prayer. Similarly, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion themselves are not published within the BCP but separately. When Anglicans refer to the three formularies, though, they mean the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal referred to in this Article, and the whole of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.

At the time of the English Reformation, the question of the right ordination of priests was one that became somewhat contentious. Especially as Mary assumed the throne and sought to restore Roman supremacy to England. This Article affirms the English rites that would be used to ordain priests to Christ’s priestly ministry.

The statement implicitly affirms the right of the English Church to exist as part of the Catholic Church apart from Roman jurisdictional authority, much as the Eastern Orthodox churches have since their inception (meaning since the time of the Apostles, not simply since the Schism in 1054).

This Article relates directly to Article XXIII which defined the need for a properly ordained priest to preside over the sacraments and to preach or teach. It is in this Article that it is clearly defined how we are to know who has properly called by God and consecrated by the Church for that task.

Just as there was an importance in defending the validity of English ordinations, it was also an article that was important in determining the invalidity of Protestant ministers to preside over English Catholics. At times, Protestants sought to take charge and preach and teach within English churches and due to the confusion of the day, this practice was allowed in some locales for a time. It was Article XXIII’s insistence on properly appointed ministers that clarified that it was not a congregational decision who would preach and teach, something that reflected the congregational polity of Presbyterians coming from Scotland, while it was this Article that clarified in perpetuity the importance of the Ordinal as establishing the means, qualifications and rites of ordination for deacons, priests and bishops.

It should be noted that this Article does not address lay ministers which have always existed as minor orders historically and today are viewed as laity with particular permission to act in a certain way. This includes licensed lay ministers who preach and officiate at services in parishes without permanent clergy as well as catechists and other particular forms of lay ministers who have permission to perform a specific function. These people are not considered to be a form of ordination to holy orders and therefore do not contravene this Article, and similarly find their practice in the authority of the Church to allow for local practices and customs as necessary.