The Holy Church

“Holiness” is one of the four marks of the Church. The Nicene Creed says “I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” When we say these are the “marks” of the Church, we mean that they are her four necessary characteristics. These marks say who she is and what she is. Problem is, they don’t seem to be accurate.

One Church? Look in the phone book under “church” and you’ll find “churches” innumerable: Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Anglican. Churches by the bunches.

Holy? You’d have to be Rip Van Winkle to be ignorant of the myriad of accusations of un-holiness made about the Church—particularly those specially entrusted with her guidance and welfare—over the past decades. A little knowledge of the Church’s story from the earliest days (remember St Paul’s sharp letters to the Corinthians?) reminds us she has always been unfaithful to her calling to holiness.

And so with her Catholicity and Apostolic character. From the first the Church has been marked with failure. She has never appeared to be the spotless Bride of the Lamb about which the Book of Revelation sings. Over and again she’s been tempted and repeatedly seduced by the Seven Deadly Sins.

In spite of her failings, though, she is, always has been and always will be, the Church, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. It’s essential to her nature, which comes, not from her imperfect members, but from her Head, the King of kings and Lord of lords.

In this Octave of All the Saints, it’s a fair time for us to pause and consider the least questioned but probably also least understood of the Church’s marks: her holiness.

It’s important that we not hide her flaws, the Church’s failings and imperfections. As long as there is a Church here on earth, the Church Militant, the Church still struggling and at war (and she is at war, impolite as it may be to point it out), she’ll be marred with scandals. Squabbles will erupt; the Seven Sins will attack. Sometimes they seem to beat her down.

The Church is Holy, because God is holy, and she is His. Try as we might, from the corrupt Borgia popes to the avaricious Tudor kings, we can’t overturn her holiness. It flows like a crystal stream from God, feeds us in the Sacraments, lifts us to heavenly places—with angels and archangels—in our worship, consoles us in our prayers and opens our eyes to the beauty and grace God has infused in creation.

Holiness is not the pinched piety of the Puritan but the exuberant song of the redeemed. It seeks to find the desire for goodness each human soul, no matter how cramped and selfish and miserable, has buried inside.

The saints are those among us who hunger for grace, who seek the Pearl of Great Price and will give all they have for it. The saints are those among us to whom the Kingdom of God has come now.

The rest of us fumble along, hankering after the wrong things, mistaking God’s gifts for God, imagining that God must want what we want because, after all, He loves us and wants us to be happy, doesn’t He? And so the Church seems to fail, because so many of her members fail. She must be corrupt because some of us are corrupt.

St Athansius, the Archbishop of Alexandria 1600 years ago put things in perspective: “God became like us,” he said, “so we could become like Him.” Or, as the Creed called by St Athanasius’ name says so succinctly, our salvation comes “not by the lowering of Godhood to flesh, but by the raising of Manhood to God.” The holiness of the Church is the holiness of God. Slowly, in the daily sorrows and challenges and joys of our lives, He is “raising us” to Himself.

The Church looks so imperfect because we see and understand so imperfectly: “through a glass, darkly.” We see with a flawed vision. God alone sees things as they are. The holiness of the Church is not the holiness we bring but the holiness God gives. He is creating His spotless Bride—you and I are the stuff He has chosen to work with. There’s the real mystery! A blessed Hallowtide.—Fr Gregory Wilcox

The Household of Faith

The following is a bit unusual for St Joseph’s Table, but some things demand—deserve—our attention.

The Church of England is “established.” That means it’s the official religion of England, tied to the State and, to some degree, controlled by it. Americans find the concept of a “state religion” difficult to imagine; the so-called “separation of church and state” here has entered our national psyche so much that many are cautious about wishing people “Merry Christmas.” Among us, this notion of the separation of church and state is a bit of a cult in itself.

If we find the establishment of the English Church odd, consider that in many Middle Eastern countries, Islam is the “established” religion. Places like Egypt, until very recently a so-called “secular state,” looked to modern democracies for its ideals—if not day-to-day practices. Islam may not have been officially established but as the religion of the great majority of the population, it certainly enjoyed a favored status.

In an article I wrote for One magazine a few years ago (One focuses on the lives of Christians in the Middle East), I interviewed a Coptic priest who was visiting the United States. He agreed to the interview only on the condition that I not use his name, the name of his parish, or even its region. “Retribution against us is real and happens daily,” he explained matter-of-factly.

The priest, who’s been serving in his rural parish for more than 25 years, wanted to leave a legacy to his parish and people, something “they will have long after I am gone,” he told me. Since Coptic children, even under the recent “secular” regime, were discriminated against in state schools, he wanted to build a school for the young people of his parish. For ten years, he tirelessly raised money for his dream. Finally, cash in hand, he applied for the government permits. One of the requirements was that he appear before the Islamic town council and obtain their permission. The council agreed, with this stipulation: he must build an Islamic school first, to be larger than the Christian school he would someday build.

He’s a better man than I. At that point, I’ve have become angry, told them off and gone home to nurse a cup of bourbon. Fr X told me his story with a slight smile and shrug of his shoulders. “What did you do?” I asked. “I prayed,” he answered simply, “then I built their school.” He began raising money all over again for a Christian school, which he completed two years before he made his trip to America (not, incidentally, a fund-raising trip. When I suggested that, he chuckled. “Then the school wouldn’t be ours.”). It was built despite constant vandalism and theft of materials by the indignant Muslim neighbors for whom Fr X had built a school. He smiles as he tells his tale. “God has been kind to us,” he concludes.

The persecuted Church is the holy Church.

Copts have been Christians for 1800 years. Since the time of the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, any Muslim who converts to Christianity is subject to the death penalty. The Coptic Christians today (who make up 10% of the population of Egypt) are all descendants of the first generations of Copts who refused to convert to Islam so long ago.

I am proud to share the Catholic religion with such defenders of the Faith.
With the fall of the “secular” government there earlier this year, plans are afoot to implement Sharia Law, the religious law of Islam, over the Egyptian population—including the Copts. Under Sharia Law, Christians “will neither erect in our areas a monastery, church or sanctuary, nor restore any place of worship that needs restoration.” Churches cannot display crosses, ring bells, or conduct religious activities in public. Already, since the fall of the “secular” government in January, three Coptic churches have been burned. Christian businesses are routinely attacked. It is a daily headline to read of the abduction of Christian teen-agers who are forced to convert to Islam, their captors knowing the penalties they'll face even for backing out of a forced conversion . Sharia Law isn’t yet in effect, but in all these instances, authorities respond by telling the Coptic community not to make more trouble lest they provoke more reprisals.

Hard to believe? Yeah. And all true.

And so what’s to be done?

I’m not suggesting we write our Congressman or email the White House. Instead, follow Fr X’s good example. Pray for the Copts, whose persecution is making holy the Church of God. And pray for those of us who rarely suffer even an inconvenience for our religion, that God will make us worthy of such companions in the Household of Faith.—Fr Gregory Wilcox

…and Sharing Your Faith

Some people love to talk religion, just like some of us love talking about sports or politics or the stock market. Some are know-it-alls: the history of Church music, the details of doctrine, the intricacies of canon law; others are tar-pits of sincerity: every good thing that happens is a miracle and they attribute their choice of breakfast cereal to divine guidance.

Most of us, though, are a bit reluctant to talk about—not religion so much, as faith—our personal faith. Though we may have a hard time expressing ourselves, I think there’s something else at work, too; something deeper than just being tongue-tied.

It’s easy to talk about the amazing grease-cutting qualities of the latest dish detergent. We’re not really putting ourselves on the line when we gush about cleaning products. Faith is different. When we talk about that, we’re talking about who we are, and what really matters to us.

“I believe in one God…” we say every Sunday at Mass (the Creed of Nicaea actually begins “We believe,” but “I” does nicely right now). The creed embodies the essentials of our faith, ancient and modern. It’s our declaration of faith, not just in God, but in His creation, us included. It’s how we Christians see and understand what God has done, is doing and will do.

When we say the Creed, we’re not saying “I find the following set of historical-religious statements likely to be factual.” “I believe in one God” isn’t so much an intellectual proposition as a declaration of trust. What we’re really saying is “this is the truth on which I base my life.”

Evangelism, the telling of the Good News, is grounded on the truths of the Creed, told in our lives. Evangelism makes us uncomfortable because of the aggressive and manipulative connotations it carries in our culture. It comes across as a high pressure technique which presses people to make a “religious decision for Christ” which will save them from hell. As much as the advocates of such an approach quote the Bible, though, this has nothing to do with evangelism as presented in Scripture.

St Peter says: “be ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you.”

Evangelism is “giving the answer that is in you.” It’s sharing how God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost is present in our lives—in times of sorrow and joy, crisis and freedom. It’s our willingness to share the presence and power of God with those in our lives; not because we “have” something which they don’t, but because we are all of us creatures starving for grace.—Fr Gregory Wilcox

Talking about Religion…

I’ve had six phone calls today. More than half were from friends wanting to share something with me, something they’d liked and believed I would like, too: one told me about a movie I had to see (he’d just seen it), another about a place I had to eat (they knew I’d enjoy because they’d enjoyed it). Two people recommended books.

We share the things of our lives with each other: things we like (and things we don’t), things that matter (and stuff that doesn’t), things that happen to us (and things we hope won’t happen). When we do this, we’re doing more than just talking. We’re telling others (and ourselves, too), who we are, what matters to us, how we understand and define ourselves.

We tell each other about our gall bladders, the grades our kids make in school, and where we want to go on vacation next summer. If we don’t know somebody well, we talk about the weather. If we know them too well, we don’t talk about politics.

Religion is a peculiar topic, especially in the world you and I live in. It’s not polite to talk about it very much, or very deeply. We may know what the religions of our co-workers are, and that Guillermo and Susie, who we play bridge with on Thursdays, go to the Lutheran Church every Sunday, but it’s usually not the done thing to ask much more.

That’s understandable. Our society is on edge about religion, and we don’t quite know how to handle it. It’s supposed to be a private matter, like what we keep in our nightstand drawers, but what we believe about these things cuts close to the bone of who we are. Religion is about What Matters Most—who I am, what my life is about, why I live it the way I do. We are a talkative culture. Ours has been called the Communication Age. But as individuals and as a culture we’ve been trained to evade life’s most basic questions when we talk to each other.

This notion is bolstered when we consider what passes for “religion” in our culture, and religious communication. Televised religion is mostly pathetic and stupid: sentimentalized, money-grubbing, shallow and often heretical. I was stunned a few weeks ago to hear on the news that an oft-quoted television evangelist recommended to a man whose wife was deep in the clutches of Alzheimer’s that divorce was a Christian option, to enable the man to live a more sexually-fulfilled life. With such miserable “representatives” of Christ mouthing such grotesque parodies of the Gospel, it’s no wonder many Christians are unwilling to speak about their faith—or even let it be known.

And yet—St Peter says: “be ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you.” Why do you believe in God? Why do you come to church? Why are you willing to get out of that comfortable bed on Sunday morning? What do you get out of it?

Every man and woman, even some teen-agers!—at some point in their lives ask the same Basic Questions: “Why am I here?” “What am I supposed to do with my life?” “Why do bad things happen to me?” “Why did I do that to her?” “What’s wrong with me?”—or, to be succinct—“Why?”

Our Faith is given to us to help us come to terms with these questions. The Church is given to us to help us live out the answers—and as we struggle with them, to share them with each other. Not by shouting on street corners or knocking on doors to tell people about Jesus—but by first knowing yourself what your faith is, and why it matters to you. Christians are to be evangelists—those who share the Good News. The street-shouters and door-knockers are sincere imitations of the real thing. Those who are willing to “give an answer” when it matters—when a friend is hurting or a crisis is looming—this is talking about religion—sharing our faith—in the way that endures. –Fr Gregory Wilcox

“Ole-Fashioned” Evangelism

Most everybody knows the word “evangelism” comes from a couple of Greek words—“eu”, which in Greek means “good,” and “angellion,” which means “a message.” “Evangelism” in good old Anglo-Saxon, means “good news.”

But to see how many Christians (let the reader here understand: “Anglicans”) approach evangelism, it means something like “a grim thing to be avoided.” But I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve had enthusiastic conversations with my co-religionists about a great new restaurant, a fantastic movie, or a wonderful laundry detergent (well, okay, not too many of those). When we really like or enjoy something, our natural inclination is to share the good news about it with the people around us.

Religion is different from detergent. But the desire to share something good with somebody else is the same.

Bishop Mote, as I mentioned in my last post, tossed me a challenge. If I didn’t like the door-to-door, let-me-tell-you-about-Jesus evangelism that is the stock-in-trade of American evangelism, what did I have as an alternative?

I didn’t have an answer for him. But an answer did—and does-exist. There is a genuine Catholic Evangelism, and it’s built right into our Anglican tradition. It’s what the whole Prayer Book is about.

In AD 500, Europe was collapsing. The Roman Empire was reduced to a memory; barbarian hordes swept across the continent from as far as Mongolia, destroying the remnants of the civilization of Greece and Rome. The Church, which had converted the Empire, went into shock from the onslaught: churches pillaged and destroyed, Christians butchered by the thousands. The Faith, which Christ had promised the gates of hell would not destroy, seemed to be tottering.

Pope St Gregory the Great (about whom I’d been reading when Bishop Mote told me to find a better sort of “evangelism” than button-holing people) embraced the task to re-converting Europe to the Good News. He did so principally by recalling Christians to the main reason they existed: the Church exists to worship God and sanctify the world. He did all he could to re-vitalize Christian worship—re-building ruined churches, teaching Christians (priests and people) how to pray and sing (the Gregorian chant is named after him) to make worship beautiful. St Gregory saw that the key to evangelizing was worship. His goal was to re-establish worshipping communities where they’d been destroyed and build new ones where they hadn’t been before. The pagans were converted by worship.

The Prayer Book envisions something much like this. We don’t (I hope) cling to the Book of Common Prayer (1928) because it’s old. We cling to it—embrace what it has for us—because it shows us how to live the Gospel, the Good News, in our lives. More than anything else, the Prayer Book is the Church’s pattern for the Christian's daily life. Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, the continual cycle of the Mass making holy the days of the year, the Sacraments marking the moments of our lives—this is what the Prayer Book is about. We are a worshiping community: that’s what Jesus means for us to be: it’s why He made the Church and gave Himself for it.

For us Anglicans, evangelism centers around worship. We share our faith by sharing our worship.

Few people, though, are going to become Christians because they’re pushed through the doors of a church. People—you and me and everybody else—are drawn by love. If you and I love our worship, if we delight in the “beauty of holiness,” we will want to share it—to let people know about it—especially if it’s as life-changing as the latest and most splendiferous dishwashing liquid.

Catholic Evangelism

Many years ago, my old diocesan bishop, James Mote of happy memory, summoned the clergy of the part of his diocese in which I served together for a meeting about Evangelism. I went with some interest, curious to learn if he’d uncovered some secrets to a topic not normally associated with Anglicanism.

He introduced us to a very enthusiastic man, a young Roman Catholic deacon, who’d just returned from an “Evangelism Mission” to Haiti. The Mission had been conducted by members of some Pentecostal denomination. The logistics were simple: people paired off into “mission teams” and went door to door, giving a “personal witness” of their faith in Christ and inviting their hearers to attend a “Praise and Healing Service” conducted each night of the mission. The young man breathlessly told of the large numbers of people saved every day. Bishop Mote then thanked him and told us we should “Go, and do likewise.”

I listened to the account with an increasing unease. After we were dismissed for the day (of what was to be a two-day ordeal), the bishop approached me.
“Father, I watched you through the presentation today and you looked unhappy at what you heard. What’s the problem?”

“I can’t see what any of what we heard applies to us. The Church’s teaching can’t be wrapped up by saying ‘Jesus is my personal Savior.’ We don’t tote up ‘souls saved’ and post them on the church board out front like how many McDonalds’ hamburgers have been served. I didn’t hear anything Anglicans can use from what we heard.”

Those of you who knew Bishop Mote know how he responds to that sort of thing. He bristled and said, “Well, do you have any suggestions? What sort of evangelism would be acceptable to you?”

I smothered my irritated reply and quoted Cicero: “I may not be able to say what’s right, but I can say this is not it.”He wasn’t amused and shot back, “Think about it tonight and tell me your great ideas about evangelism tomorrow.”

I knew as I drove home I wouldn’t have anything to say to him tomorrow. I’d never thought much about evangelism. But the burr was under the saddle.

That night, more to forget my troubles than to solve my problems, I spent a few hours reading. At the time I was reading two books—Margaret Deansley’s A History of the Medieval Church and a biography of Pope St Gregory the Great. I took my consolation from my present unhappinesses by retreating to the seventh century.
But as I read, an idea began to percolate. Deansley was discussing St Gregory the Great and the great missionary efforts undertaken under his direction for the conversion of Europe. One of Gregory’s greatest successes was the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons in England. Hmm. How did he do that? I picked up the biography of St Gregory, turned to the index and noted the chapter which discussed the Church’s missionary activities during his time as Pope.

Slowly, a picture began to form. The conversion of northern Europe hadn’t just happened. It was part of a plan—an orderly plan carried it in a disciplined way—which worked. There was, it seemed, an answer to Bishop Mote’s question, one that didn’t require Anglicans to put on Pentecostal clothing to convince people to come to High Mass. There is, in our own background, a plan for Catholic Evangelism.

I stayed up all night and wrote a proposal. It worked. Next week, I’ll tell, Paul Harvey-like, “the rest of the story.”

A Stitch in Time...

Doctors, therapists and minor surgeries have kept me away from the computer for the past ten days or so, but next week I will resume weekly postings on St Joseph’s Table. This week’s schedule and "Worship at St Joseph's" pages are up.

It’s reported the last few weeks that church attendance is up and sin is down across the State of Texas. The Lone Star State, with its drought, raging wildfires and record-setting heat wave, is keeping the devil at home in the more temperate climes of hell!

Until next week,

Pax,
Fr Gregory Wilcox