Why Common Prayer?

We have all had the conversation. Usually it’s with half-a-dozen people who’ve lingered in the parish hall an hour after coffee hour is over, or a few vestry members hanging around in the priest’s office long after the Vestry meeting adjourned. “Why doesn’t our parish attract the numbers that swell the ranks of the huge non-denominational conventicle on the freeway?” “I love the Anglican Church. Why don’t other people see what I see?”

There are a lot of answers, some of them actually—at least partially—correct: we think it’s in bad taste to talk to people about our religion, or our worship isn’t easy to follow if you weren’t brought up in it, or our church building is too small/old/hard to find. Our priest isn’t a good preacher, the hymns are too dull, or we don’t really want people we don’t know/who don’t look like us/who are of a different political party coming to our church.

A lot of these are silly, even if some of them are true. But even if we have a beautiful church building with a great choir and St John Chrysostom as the regular preacher at Sunday Mass, we won’t be giving the Abundant Life Center, with its 9,000 members, a run for its money anytime soon.

Why?

Because that’s not what Jesus had in mind when He founded His Church. At its heart, the Church is a group of baptized people, gathered with its clergy around the parish Altar. The Church is Christian people, living a common life, practicing common prayer.

St Ignatius, a first-century bishop of Antioch, was arrested and carried to Rome to be eaten up by lions in the Coliseum. As he traveled from Syria to Italy, he wrote letters to Christians he met along the way. In one of them, written to the people of Smyrna (a church mentioned by St John in his Book of Revelation), Ignatius said “Where the bishop appears [to celebrate the Eucharist], there let the people gather; just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

This is the first time we have a written record of the Church being called the “Catholic” Church. This ancient and venerable word is familiar to most Christians. Those familiar with the Creeds know it because they say it every time they say the Creeds; those who aren’t equate it with the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants who use the Creeds (Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc) are careful to explain that “catholic” (with a small “c”) means universal, as in “all Christians everywhere.” Our Roman friends quite happily refer to themselves as Catholics (with a capital “C”) and insist they are the Catholic Church.

When St Ignatius wrote his letter to Smyrna, however, he meant something different, something tantalizingly subtle with a bit of a bite. Catholic comes from the joining of two Greek words—kata and holon. Kata means “according to” and holon means “the whole.” This kataholon Church is the One Church, the one the Lord Jesus founded. Ignatius understood it, and so did the people he wrote to, as having a leadership coming from Jesus Himself through His Apostles down to the Bishops to whom the Apostles entrusted the Church. This One Church passed along the One Faith.

St Ignatius saw the One Church as revealing itself in a variety of ways. It was the One Church, spread over the whole world (the Greek word for this was oekumene, from which our word “ecumenical” comes). It was the One Church for all Christians who followed the Faith preserved by those who followed the Bishops appointed by the Apostles. The One Church is not only those who are alive at any particular time; it cannot be broken by death, since it is joined forever to its Lord, Who destroyed the power of death. It is all Christian people of all times, in Heaven, on earth, and those who are at rest.

But Ignatius understood that this Catholic Church spread throughout the world, held in common by all Christians living and dead, had a real existence. If the Church exists at all times and in all places, it must of necessity exist at this time and in this place. The Church shows itself most perfectly at worship. Scripture tells us this is the Church’s calling in Heaven; it is her highest calling here on earth.

So for Ignatius—and for Christians keeping the same Catholic tradition and Faith Ignatius had received from the Apostles—the Church shows herself most as the Church when she gathers to offer the Eucharist. That’s the meaning of Ignatius words above: “where the bishop is, there let the people be; where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

Great. What does all this have to do with Common Prayer and Anglicanism?

Quite a lot. But to see how, you’ll have to tune in next week, beloved, for Part Two of “Why Common Prayer?” Till then, I hope you have good air conditioning!—Fr Gregory Wilcox