Month: April 2007

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Everybody has a diaconal function in reconciling these separated realities

In recent years, there has been a strong emphasis in Orthodox Ecclesiology on the eucharistic understanding of the Church. Truly, the Eucharist Liturgy is the climax of the Church’s life, the event in which the people of God are celebrating the incarnation, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, sharing His glorified body and blood, tasting the Kingdom to come. The ecclesial koinonia is indeed constituted by the participation of the baptized in the eucharistic communion, the sacramental actualization of the economy of salvation, a living reality which belongs both to history and to eschatology. While this emphasis is deeply rooted in the biblical and patristic tradition and is of extreme importance today, it might easily lead to the conclusion that Orthodox limit the interpretation of the Church to an exclusive worshipping community, to protecting and to preserving the Good News for its members. Therefore a need was felt to affirm that the Liturgy is not a self-centred service and action, but is a service for the building of the one Body of Christ within the economy of salvation which is for all people of all ages. The liturgical assembly is the Father’s House, where the invitation to the banquet of the heavenly bread is constantly voiced and addressed not only to the members of the Church, but also to the non-Christians and strangers.

This liturgical concentration, “the liturgy within the Liturgy”, is essential for the Church, but it has to be understood in all its dimensions. There is a double movement in the Liturgy: on the one hand, the assembling of the people of God to perform the memorial of the death and resurrection of our Lord “until He comes again”. It also manifests and realizes the process by which “the cosmos is becoming ecclesia”. Therefore the preparation for Liturgy takes place not only at the personal spiritual level, but also at the level of human historical and natural realities. In preparing for Liturgy, the Christian starts a spiritual journey which affects everything in his life: family, properties, authority, position, and social relations. It re-orientates the direction of his entire human existence towards its sanctification by the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, renewed by the Holy Communion and the Holy Spirit, the members of the Church are sent to be authentic testimony to Jesus Christ in the world. The mission of the Church rests upon the radiating and transforming power of the Liturgy. It is a stimulus in sending out the people of God to the world to confess the Gospel and to be involved in man’s liberation.

Liturgically, this continual double movement of thanksgiving is expressed in the ministry of the deacon. On the one hand he brings and offers to the altar the gifts of the people; on the other, he shares and distributes the Holy Sacraments which nourish the life of Christians. Everything is linked with the central action of the Church, which is the Eucharist, and everybody has a diaconal function in reconciling the separated realities.

Ion Bria The Liturgy after the Liturgy and also in (88 page) book form.

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Conciliarity is a constant structure of the church

The Faith and Order Commission following the New Delhi assembly turned its attention to a new study of the patristic period. A study group was formed in 1962 and decided to give particular attention to the text of Basil of Caesarea on the Holy Spirit. In presenting its report to the Faith and Order Commission at Bristol in 1967, the group says in its introduction:

“All churches share the common foundation of the Fathers. But they are not accorded the same authority by all the churches, and patristics study is carried on by various methods and with unequal intensity. Therefore it is of great importance for the further development of the ecumenical movement that we come to a common understanding of the Fathers. The problem appeared early in the ecumenical movement. Its urgency has become especially clear, however, since the family of Orthodox churches began to participate fully in the World Council of Churches. … In view of the special significance of the problem for the relationships between Orthodox and Western member churches, the group was to be composed of an equal number of participants from East and West.”

The report, apart from a special interpretation of the essay on the Holy Spirit by Basil of Caesarea, deals with the significance of patristic study for the ecumenical discussion and reflects on the significance and the message of patristic texts for today. Unfortunately, this creative ecumenical approach to a common study of the patristic period has not been continued further in the work of the Faith and Order Commission.

A parallel study on “The Importance of the Conciliar Process in the Ancient Church for the Ecumenical Movement”… introduced the notion of “conciliarity” into ecumenical discussion and explored in particular the importance of conciliarity for the unity of the church.

The report explains: “If we are rightly to understand the importance of synods and councils for the life of the church, it is wise to begin with the general notion of ‘conciliarity’. By conciliarity we mean the fact that the church in all times needs assemblies to represent it and has in fact felt this need. These assemblies may differ greatly from one another; however, conciliarity, the necessity that they take place, is a constant structure of the church, a dimension which belongs to its nature. As the church itself is ‘an assembly’ and appears as assembly both in worship and many other expressions of its life, so it needs both at the local and on all other possible levels representative assemblies in order to answer the questions which it faces.”

The report underlines the close relationship between the conciliar process and the unity of the church by pointing to the fact that all councils were rooted in the eucharistic life of the church and were intended to strengthen the life of the church as the eucharistic assembly. Recognizing the fact that contemporary church assemblies composed of representatives of churches which do not live in eucharistic fellowship cannot be properly designated as a council, the commission was nevertheless convinced that they can “contribute towards creating the conditions which will enable all churches to participate in a truly ecumenical council”

. . .

There can be no doubt, however, about the decisive influence of Orthodox thinking in all three texts, particularly in terms of the emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit both in baptism and the eucharist (epiklesis) and the emphasis on the ecclesiological and eschatological dimension of both baptism and the eucharist.

Konrad Raiser The Importance of the Orthodox Contribution to the World Council of Churches (WCC)

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Benedict's hard-to-access homilies

There is a limit beyond which the words of Benedict XVI do not go. They reach completely only those who listen to them in person, whether present physically or thanks to a live television broadcast. The number of these persons is substantial, more than for any earlier pontificate. The Easter â??urbi et orbiâ?? message and the Way of the Cross on Good Friday were followed by huge crowds and retransmitted in more than forty countries. But even more vast is the number of persons who receive the popeâ??s message in an incomplete form â?? or not at all.

Benedict XVI experienced this communications block to an even greater extent in the other celebrations of last Holy Week.

In the Chrism Mass on Thursday morning, the pope dedicated the homily to explaining the profound meaning of being a priest, â??clothed with Christâ?? and thus able to act and speak â??in persona Christi.â?? He did this by reviewing the symbolism of the liturgical vestments. But how many of the more than four hundred thousand Catholic bishops and priests did his words reach?

In the homily for the Mass of the Lordâ??s Supper on Thursday evening, Benedict XVI illustrated the novelty of Jesusâ?? Passover with respect to the one celebrated by the Jews.

In the homily for the Easter Vigil, he described the victory of Jesus over death by using the depictions customary in the Eastern Churches: with the risen Jesus who descends into Hades, and thus â??brings the journey of the incarnation to its completion. By his death he now clasps the hand of Adam, of every man and woman who awaits him, and brings them to the light.â??

But among those present at these Masses, only those who understood Italian were able to listen fruitfully to the popeâ??s homilies. The Catholic media outlets that translated and distributed the texts in various countries barely extended the listening area, to a niche audience.

For a pope like Benedict XVI, who has centered his ministry precisely upon the word, this is a serious limitation. The offices in the Roman curia that deal with communications have to this point done nothing new in order to remedy this, at least in part. For example, no one sees to a quick distribution of the popeâ??s texts by internet to all the bishops and priests of the world, in the various languages.

The only effective initiatives in this area are those of Benedict XVI in person. With his book about Jesus that will be issued in a few days in multiple languages, he will reach in a direct and personal way an extremely high number of readers all over the world.

And it is precisely Jesus, â??true God and true man,â?? who is the heart of Pope Benedictâ??s message. Just as he was the heart of his Easter homilies. Here they are in their entirety:

Magister then includes the following texts in full:

1. At the Chrism Mass on the morning of Holy Thursday

2. At the Mass of the Lordâ??s Supper on the evening of Holy Thursday

3. At the Way of the Cross on Good Friday

4. At the Easter Vigil Mass

5. After the Mass on Easter Sunday

Sandro Magister Easter in Rome: The Secret Homilies of the Successor of Peter

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Humanity is one of the languages of the persons of the Trinity

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. His Word became flesh in the living, dying and rising of Jesus Christ, God’s human face. In response the Son gives himself to the Father and the Father is the Father because the Son, who has answered his call has given him his name. The Spirit enables creation to participate in this dynamic of giving and receiving.

Humanity is one of the languages which the persons of the Trinity use in communicating with one another. The Trinity is not some divine threesome but a union in which the persons call one other into being. They give themselves up to one another in the Spirit and in doing so each evokes in each what else would never come to be. The resurrection opens the door to a participation in this way of being fully human. “Say to my brethren that I ascend to my Father and now your Father and my God and now your God”.

The resurrection is a revelation of the life of God which was expressed on the first Easter Day but the resurrection is also the open door to a new creation in which we are called to participate in the life of the Trinity and to discover that life in all its fullness comes not as we hoard up ourselves and set our hopes of happiness on accumulating things but when in the power of his Spirit we give up ourselves to one another and so bring a new world of possibility into being.

This has been proved experimentally in the lives of the saints. Even to those of whom St Peter said “they did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.”

This keeping him company continues. God holds out the gift to us of life with him and he has started the work of building a holy people. The day of resurrection has dawned. It is accomplished. But the resurrection is also happening and the resurrection is full of future hope in a world where we have only just begun to learn how to speak the language of humanity as God intends.

The Rt Revd Richard Chartres, Bishop of London Sermon for Easter Day

He is a very well-read bishop, so we are very glad to have him.

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Humanity is one of the languages of the persons of the Trinity

The Holy Spirit is the medium of God for humankind. He makes a real and material place for us and supplies the whole resource of our creaturely life with God. The Father and the Son speak the Spirit. The Spirit is the language they speak. But the Spirit can speak and be many languages, without being less the language of the Son and Father. The Spirit extends their speech to create a new language, which the Father and the Son are content to speak. They speak humanity. Humanity is one of the modes in which they speak divinity to each other. Humanity does not give divinity something that it did not have before; it is not a reduction of, or addition to, their divinity. The Son is the first speaker and the native speaker. He speaks humanity perfectly and is at home in the flesh; and in the flesh of humanity he is perfectly at home with the Father. He is not impeded by or disguised by the flesh, for it is brought into existence by the speaking of the Son and the Father. The human entity and mode of being are spoken by that enfleshing word and utterance. This humanity the Son receives from the Father, by the Spirit.

Douglas H Knight The Eschatological Economy: Time and the Hospitality of God chapter 1.5

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Logiké latreía

The Lord Jesus, who became for us the food of truth and love, speaks of the gift of his life and assures us that “if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever” (Jn 6:51). This “eternal life” begins in us even now, thanks to the transformation effected in us by the gift of the Eucharist: “He who eats me will live because of me” (Jn 6:57). These words of Jesus make us realize how the mystery “believed” and “celebrated” contains an innate power making it the principle of new life within us and the form of our Christian existence. By receiving the body and blood of Jesus Christ we become sharers in the divine life in an ever more adult and conscious way. Here too, we can apply Saint Augustine’s words, in his Confessions, about the eternal Logos as the food of our souls. Stressing the mysterious nature of this food, Augustine imagines the Lord saying to him: “I am the food of grown men; grow, and you shall feed upon me; nor shall you change me, like the food of your flesh, into yourself, but you shall be changed into me.” It is not the eucharistic food that is changed into us, but rather we who are mysteriously transformed by it. Christ nourishes us by uniting us to himself; “he draws us into himself.”

Here the eucharistic celebration appears in all its power as the source and summit of the Church’s life, since it expresses at once both the origin and the fulfilment of the new and definitive worship of God, the logiké latreía. Saint Paul’s exhortation to the Romans in this regard is a concise description of how the Eucharist makes our whole life a spiritual worship pleasing to God: “I appeal to you therefore, my brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). In these words the new worship appears as a total self-offering made in communion with the whole Church. The Apostle’s insistence on the offering of our bodies emphasizes the concrete human reality of a worship which is anything but disincarnate. The Bishop of Hippo goes on to say that “this is the sacrifice of Christians: that we, though many, are one body in Christ. The Church celebrates this mystery in the sacrament of the altar, as the faithful know, and there she shows them clearly that in what is offered, she herself is offered.” Catholic doctrine, in fact, affirms that the Eucharist, as the sacrifice of Christ, is also the sacrifice of the Church, and thus of all the faithful. This insistence on sacrifice – a “making sacred” – expresses all the existential depth implied in the transformation of our human reality as taken up by Christ (cf. Phil 3:12).

SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS s.70 The Eucharistic form of the Christian Life

Logiké latreía (Romans 12.1) – ‘reasonable worship’ – worship of the true God transforms us from irrational and reasonless to holy, rational and joyful creatures, who no longer seek to makes deities – idols – of ourselves or one another. The Son’s true worship of the Father is the act that creates and re-creates truth here on earth, and allows us to participate freely with one another in the Son’s life.

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What looks like liberality is an exclusion of religion from the public sphere

Britainâ??s democracy has stood out among nations both by its tolerance and its traditional respect for the value of religion in the public sphere. These are not principles in contradiction. Indeed British democracy has been exemplary precisely because these two principles are mutually reinforcing. There is no room for intolerant secular dogmatism or cynicism towards Christians. But I fear we may be seeing now exactly the appearance of such attitudes. So when Christians stand by their beliefs, they are intolerant dogmatists. When they sin, they are hypocrites. When they take the side of the poor, they are soft-headed liberals. When they seek to defend the family, they are right-wing reactionaries.

I do not think it an accident that this new secularist intolerance of religion has been accompanied by the stateâ??s increasing acceptance of anti-religious thinking. There is a modern British law, not actually on the statute book but widely observed, that politicians, in the famous words of Alistair Campbell, â??donâ??t do Godâ??. Politicians should stay clear of religion, and treat all religions alike. They are free to believe what they like, because the state â??has no beliefsâ??.

What looks like liberality is in reality a radical exclusion of religion from the public sphere, and such an exclusion does deep harm to the tolerance and inclusivity which has worked so well for so long. Yet this doesnâ??t sit easily with what the state often wants from religion. If one looks at Catholic schools, for example, one cannot deny that they are among the most popular schools in British society. Most of them are over-subscribed, they work hard at integrating pupils and are among the most socially diverse. Where they can, they are happy to receive a significant number of people from other faiths â?? or from none. Whenever I meet politicians, of whichever particular party persuasion, they invariably comment on how much admired our Catholic schools are. But I always say to them, â??You cannot have the fruits without the rootsâ??. Catholic schools are rightly recognised as gems in our education system but we must bear in mind that they are underpinned by a community of faith lived by ordinary families, families who are happy to contribute to the common good of our society. Remove the faith which motivates those parentsâ?? choice of a school and you remove the heart from those very schools.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-Oâ??Connor RELIGION AND THE PUBLIC FORUM â?? the Corbishley Lecture, 28 March 2007, Westminster Cathedral Hall. the full lecture is a Word document at the bottom of the page

Well roared, Cormac. Now what coverage has this speech received?

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This is the day that the Lord has made

The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly; the right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.”

I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has punished me severely, but he did not give me over to death.

Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.

The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Easter Day Psalm 118

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That eternal love will not be destroyed

Now what the events of Good Friday and Easter tell us is that every single human being is implicated in something profoundly wrong. We say, rather glibly, that Jesus died for our sins, that he died to save humankind – and thereby we say that we are all in need of something we cannot find or manufacture for ourselves, in need of a word, a gift, a touch from someone else, somewhere else, so that we can be made free of whatever it is that keeps us in the clutch of illusions and failures. If the purpose of Jesus dying was that all might be made whole, the implication is that all have been sick. So that Good Friday tells all of us, those who think they’re good and those who know they’re bad, all alike, to look inside and ask what part we would have played in the drama of the Lord’s death. There is only one innocent character in that drama and it isn’t me or you. So for all of us there is something in our lives that would, if it came to it, if it reigned unchecked in us, allow us to range ourselves with the crucifiers – some habit of selfishness or fear, some prejudice, some guilt that we don’t want confronted, some deficit in love or lovability. In some way, however small, we have already contributed to the death of Jesus. He is there on the cross because we are the way we are.

But on Easter Day, this bleak recognition is turned on its head. We were all involved; yet the combined weight of every human failure and wrongness, however small or great, all of that could not extinguish the creative love of God. We share one human story in which we are all caught up in one sad tangle of selfishness and fear and so on. But God has entered that human story; he has lived a life of divine and unconditional love in a human life of flesh and blood. He has not protected himself, or forced anyone to accept him. And in this world that human beings have made for themselves, this world of politics and religion and social co-operation, divine love loses. It is helpless to maintain itself in the face of the so-called real world. The vortex of error and failure that affects everybody in the world draws Jesus into its darkness and seems to destroy him body and soul. That, says Good Friday, is the kind of world this is, and we are all part of it.

Yet there is more than the world to think about. If that love is really what it claims to be, eternal and unconditional, it will not be destroyed. What’s more, the human embodiment of that love, the flesh and blood of Jesus, cannot be destroyed. As we heard in the reading from Acts this morning, the friends of Jesus ate and drank with him after he was raised from the dead – as we are doing in this Holy Communion. The life that God brought into the world in Jesus is here for ever with us.

Archbishop of Canterbury Easter Day sermon