The Society is pleased to be able to release the online version of the Fall Edition of the Print Magazine featuring “The Articles of Religion,Part III,’ The Revd. Gavin G.Dunbar “Beyond Imagination: The True Meaning of Creation”, Dr.Paul Julienne ‘Is the Prayer Book an Evangelistic Liturgy?” The Revd. Gavin G.Dunbar “Justification by Faith in Anglican History” Bishop FitzSimons Allison “A Response to ACNA’s Proposed Prayer Book 2019” Drew Nathaniel Keane And more…… Please note the … [Read more...]
Trinity IV
I said unto the fools, deal not so madly…and…Set not up your horn on high, and speak not with a stiff neck. For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor yet from the south. And why? God is the Judge; he putteth down one, and setteth up another. (Ps. lxxv. 5-8) We have said that Trinity tide is all about spiritual growth, fertility, and progress. In this season we are called into a state of sanctification and redemption that ensures our safe and eventual passing through … [Read more...]
Easter II
This is thankworthy, that if a man for conscience endure grief, suffering wrongfully. (1 St. Peter ii. 19) Our Epistle reading for The Second Sunday after Easter, taken from St. Peter’s First Letter, continues our Easter tide theme of suffering. Last week we meditated upon how suffering and death are necessary components of Resurrection and new life. So today we continue to see how the ancient Church Fathers, who chose the readings for our liturgical season, had some deeper truth in … [Read more...]
Low Sunday
As my Father has sent me, so send I you. (St. John xx. 21) You and I have just come off of an intense Holy Week and Easter when we tried to walk with Jesus Christ from His suffering, Passion, and Death into the first intimations of His Resurrection. You will remember that last week we left Saints Mary Magdalene, John, and Peter having found the Empty tomb. Christ Jesus had not yet appeared to them, and so with them, our faith wondered and pondered what all of this might mean. What they did … [Read more...]
Easter Day
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on Things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life Is hid with Christ in God. (Col. 3. 1-3) There is something rather strange about our Easter Epistle, which was addressed by St. Paul to the Church at Colossae, a small Phrygian city in Asian Minor. For no sooner has Christ appeared to Peter, to Mary Magdalene, … [Read more...]
Maundy Thursday
He riseth up from supper, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel and girded himself. Tonight you and I are invited to the last supper of Jesus Christ. We move into a realm that is fraught with the fear and trembling of Jesus’ friends, who do not understand the meaning of it all and what will come next on the tomorrow of God’s today. For the Apostles have been following Jesus for some three years, and they have experienced the hand of God at work in Him. In a sense there was so much to … [Read more...]
Holy Monday
Although all be offended, yet will not I. (St. Mark xiv. 29) We ought to remind ourselves that our membership in the mystical Life of Christ is no easy business. To become a tried and true member of the life of the Crucified One takes time, practice, the development of spiritual discipline, and an ongoing surrender to the Mind of Christ that longs always to remold and remake us. One thing that we learn about the spiritual life today is that membership in the life of Christ requires vigilance, … [Read more...]
Lent IV 2018
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. (Gal. iv. 26) At the very beginning of Lent Jesus said to his disciples, Behold we go up to Jerusalem. (St. Luke xviii. 31) We began our journey at Christ's command. Long journeys are hard work, and this Lenten journey is no exception. For nearly some seven weeks Christians are invited to walk with Jesus towards Jerusalem. Walking to Jerusalem is what our lives are all about. We walk with Jesus in order to see how He … [Read more...]
Forgiveness of Sins
Against thee only have I sinned and done that which is evil in thy sight…(Ps. Li. 4) Ultimately when we sin we rebel against God. Even when we sin against our neighbors, we are sinning against God because they are His craftsmanship and work and deserving of our righteous respect. At the end of the day, whether we sin against others or ourselves, we shall have to give an account of our sinning before God our Righteous Judge. In the final reckoning, all sinners must deal with … [Read more...]
Trinity IX
Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. (St. Luke xvi. 9) In last week’s Gospel we prayed that God’s never failing providence that ruleth all things both in heaven and in earth [might] put away from us all hurtful things and [might] give to us those things which are profitable (Collect: Trin. VIII) for our salvation. And this week Jesus illustrates how we might apply what we know of God’s providence to … [Read more...]
Trinity V
…The people pressed upon him to hear the word of God… (St. Luke v. 1) It must always be the case that good Christians should be pressing upon [Jesus] to hear the Word of God. (Idem) But hearing the Word of God is one thing, and doing it is quite another. St. James tells us to be…doers of the Word, and not hearers only. (St. James i. 22) This is where most well-intentioned Christians find trouble. After all, we can read God’s Word and hear it, but how can we do it? The problem seems to be … [Read more...]
Trinity III
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1 St. Peter v. 6,7) Trinitytide is all about participating in the life of God the Holy Trinity. In the season of Trinity, we are exhorted to return to God the Father, through Jesus Christ the Son, and by the effectual sanctification of the Holy Ghost. What we are invited to participate in is nothing short of the eternal dynamism of the Triune … [Read more...]
Thomas Aquinas on Lent II
My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. (St. Matt. xv. 22) MORALLY by this demoniac is understood a sinful soul and here are noted two evils which a man acquires through deadly sin. The first is, that he is possessed by a devil; the second is, that he is grievously vexed. Every literal historical fact of Scripture can be understood on a higher plane, as allegorical or spiritual in meaning. The Gospel for the Second Sunday in Lent is no exception. A Syrophoenician woman … [Read more...]
Thomas Aquinas on Lent I
When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered. (Matt. iv. 2.) I. AUGUSTINE says that it is the highest religion to imitate what we worship, so that, when Our Lord fasted, we ought to imitate Him in fasting. We worship God Almighty. We worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We worship the Word made Flesh, Jesus Christ. Worship unites us to the object of worshiping. Our object is Jesus Christ because He is the Way to the Father. Through Him, we … [Read more...]
Sexagesima Sunday
And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be? (St. Luke viii. 9) The New Testament is full of examples of parables; there are actually thirty in total. We encountered one of them last week in the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. A parable is an external and visible story or illustration that carries the mind into an interior and invisible truth. Archbishop Trench tells us that a parable always involves the story of human beings; never places their moral education … [Read more...]
God’s Will
God’s will is always being done. Are we aligning our wills with His will? God’s will is His unfolding desire in created time and space. His will is always being done because the laws of His logic and wisdom rule and govern the universe. We cannot escape the law of his logic and wisdom. It is the only formative, ruling, and governing principle that gives meaning to all things. That men choose to ignore and/or reject His rule and governance does not undermine God’s law in any way. He rules and … [Read more...]
St. Bonaventure
But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. (St. Luke xiv 10) Today we celebrate the Feast Day of St. Bonaventure. He was born as Giovanni di Fidanza in Bagnoregio in 1217. He was the Seventh Minister General of the Orders of Friars Minor or the Franciscans. Later he was made Cardinal Bishop of … [Read more...]
St. James the Apostle
But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (St. Matthew 20. 26,27) Today we celebrate the Feast of St. James the Apostle. Tradition has it that St. James is the kinsmen or relative of our Lord Jesus Christ, often called St. James the Great or St. James … [Read more...]
Trinity VIII
O God whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth, we humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things that be profitable for us… (Collect: Trinity VIII) We concluded last week’s mediations with an exhortation to zeal. Having learned that the Divine desire for all men is that they faint not, but rather feed continually on the living Word of God, we opened our souls to the ongoing nutriment that overcomes sloth. … [Read more...]
Trinity VII
Graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same. (Collect: Trinity VII) If you spend time reading the Epistles of St. Paul carefully, you cannot help but come away with a sense of the Apostle’s uncanny ability to unite spiritual contraries to make his point. Perhaps this is a natural consequence of his momentous conversion, when, in a fit of zealous and rabid hot pursuit of Damascan … [Read more...]
Whether the Soul is a Body?
Whether the soul is a body? Objection 1: It would seem that the soul is a body. For the soul is the moving principle of the body. Nor does it move unless moved. First, because seemingly nothing can move unless it is itself moved, since nothing gives what it has not; for instance, what is not hot does not give heat. Secondly, because if there be anything that moves and is not moved, it must be the cause of eternal, unchanging movement, as we find proved Phys. viii, 6; and … [Read more...]
Whether the Soul is Man
Whether the soul is man? Objection 1: It would seem that the soul is man. For it is written, "Though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." (2 Cor. iv. 16) But that which is within man is the soul. Therefore the soul is the inward man. It would seem that soul is to be identified with man. It seems to be man’s inner self and the inner self is the true self. The true man is therefore his interior and inward self or being. Therefore, the soul is the whole of … [Read more...]
Trinity V
…The people pressed upon him to hear the word of God… (St. Luke v. 1) Are you spending your life pressing upon [Jesus] to hear the Word of God? (Idem) And if you are, what good has it done you? Do your neighbors recognize the Word of God alive in your souls? Or does your Christianity involve rather more of an institutional identification that has made others think no further than this address or location? Jane is a quaint gal. I believe that she goes to that Anglican Church near the … [Read more...]
Trinity IV 2016
God is the Judge; He putteth down one, and He setteth up another. (Ps. lxxv. 8) Trinity-tide is all about spiritual fertility and progress. In this season, we are called into a state of sanctification and redemption that ensures our safe and eventual passing through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal. (Collect) Today we shall learn that one of the chief obstacles that frustrates our spiritual advancement is judgment or judging. Jesus tells us this morning, Judge not … [Read more...]
St. Barnabas Day
For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. (Acts xi 24) This morning we celebrate the Feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle, traditionally observed on the 11th of June. The name Barnabas comes to us from the Hebrew bar-naba, and it translates roughly into the son of encouragement or the son of prophesy. St. Barnabas had come to Jerusalem from his native Cyprus of a Levite family. His birth name was Joseph. The Apostles welcomed … [Read more...]
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