Passover and Pentecost: Andrewes on eucharist and the gift of the Spirit

In his Whitsunday sermon of 1610, Lancelot Andrewes reflected on how we partake of both Christ and the Spirit in the Eucharist.  In the mystery of the Eucharist "we find 'Christ our Passover offered for us,' and the Spirit our Pentecost ... offered to us":

Besides, it was one special end why the Sacrament itself was ordained, our comfort; the Church so telleth us, we so hear it read every time to us: 'He hath ordained these mysteries of His love and favour, to our great and endless comfort.' 'The Father will give you the Comforter.' Why He gives Him, we see; how He gives Him, we see not. The means for which He gives Him, is Christ--His entreaty by His word in prayer; by His flesh and blood in sacrifice, for His blood speaks, not His voice only. These means for which; and the very same, the means by which He gives the Comforter: by Christ the Word, and by Christ's body and blood, both. In tongues it came, but the tongue is not the instrument of speech only but of taste, we all know. And even that note hath not escaped the ancient Divines; to shew there is not only comfort by hearing the word, but we may also 'taste of His goodness, how gracious He is,' and be 'made drink of the Spirit.' That not only by the letter we read, and the word we hear, but by the flesh we eat, and the blood we drink at His table, we be made partakers of His Spirit, and of the comfort of it. By no more kindly way passes His Spirit, than by His flesh and blood, which are vehicula Spiritus, 'the proper carriages to convey it.' Christ fitted our body to Him, that He might fit His Spirit to us. For so is the Spirit best fitted, made remeable, and best exhibited to us who consist of both.

This is sure: where His flesh and blood are, they are not 'spiritless,' they are not or without life, His Spirit is with them. Therefore was it ordained in those very elements, which have both of them a comfortable operation in the heart of man. One of them, bread, serving to strengthen it, or make it strong; and comfort comes of comfortare, which is 'to make strong'' And the other wine, to make it cheerful or 'glad;' and is therefore willed to be ministered to them who mourn, and are oppressed with grief. And all this to show that the same effect is wrought in the inward man by the holy mysteries, that is in the outward by the elements; that there the heart is 'established by grace,' and our soul endued with strength, and our conscience made light and cheerful, that it faint not, but evermore rejoice in His holy comfort.

To conclude: where shall we find it if not here, where under one we find 'Christ our Passover offered for us,' and the Spirit our Pentecost thus offered to us? Nothing remains but the Father Himself, and of Him we are sure too. Filium in pretium dedit, Spiritum in solatium, Se servat in præmium; His Son He gave to be our price, His Spirit to be our comfort, Himself he keeps to be our everlasting reward. Of which reward there, and comfort here, this day and ever may we be partakers, for Him Who was the price of both, Jesus Christ!

"Being united with beauty": McGrath on the imaginative apologetics of CS Lewis

Alister McGrath's recent C.S. Lewis: A Life is quickly establishing him as the significant contemporary interpreter of Lewis.  In an ABC: Religion and Ethics article, McGrath explores the relationship between the appeals to reason and imagination in Lewis' works:

Lewis's explicit appeal to reason thus involves an implicit appeal to the imagination. Perhaps this helps us understand why Lewis appeals to both modern and postmodern people. Lewis gives us a synoptikon which bridges the great divide between modernity and postmodernity, insisting that each outlook has its strengths because it is part of a greater whole. Their weaknesses arise when they pretend to offer the full picture, when they really offer only part of the whole. Once the "big picture" is seen, they are both seen in their proper light.

Lewis enriches our vision of apologetics, allowing us to affirm that Christianity makes sense, without limiting it to the "glib and shallow" rationalism that he himself once knew as an atheist. Reason and imagination are woven together, using a rich concept of truth which emphasizes how we come to see things properly, and grasp their inner coherence. Truth, beauty and goodness all have their part to play in Lewis's apologetics.

Such an "imaginative apologetics" allows us to affirm the reasonableness of faith, while at the same time displaying its power to captivate the imagination. The Christian churches need to ensure that their preaching, witness and worship express this same rich vision of reality, and lead others to wonder how they can go "further up and further in" to the landscape of faith.

This understanding of a reasonableness which serves the call to captivate the imagination is also highlighted in The Tablet's review of McGrath's C.S. Lewis:

[McGrath] points out that under its clothing of reasoned argument, Lewis’ theology is always founded on a profoundly aesthetic effort: to draw us a picture of the Christian universe and our place in it that moves, attracts and persuades us, so that we say: yes, this is what life is really like, and how much more real it is than we ever imagined.

McGrath's reinterpretation of Lewis as an apologist of the imagination rather than the rationalism so often associated with, for example, Mere Christianity, offers a glimpse of how the Church's evangelisation and catechetics need to be "a profoundly aesthetic effort". In The Weight of Glory, Lewis wonderfully and powerfully pointed to why this is so:

We do not want merely to see beauty... we want something else which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

"The Lord himself is signified": Augustine's Christological reading of the Good Samaritan

Today the CofI daily office lectionary NT reading for MP was the parable of the Good Samaritan.  It is appropriate, therefore, to revisit Augustine's Christological reading of the Good Samaritan, reminding us that the parable - rather than being a moralistic addendum - coheres with and flows from the Church's proclamation of the Cross and Resurrection:

A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; Adam himself is meant; Jerusalem is the heavenly city of peace, from whose blessedness Adam fell; Jericho means the moon, and signifies our mortality, because it is born, waxes, wanes, an dies. Thieves are the devil and his angels. Who stripped him, namely; of his immortality; and beat him, by persuading him to sin; and left him half-dead, because in so far as man can understand and know God, he lives, but in so far as he is wasted and oppressed by sin, he is dead; he is therefore called half-dead. The priest and the Levite who saw him and passed by, signify the priesthood and ministry of the Old Testament which could profit nothing for salvation. Samaritan means Guardian, and therefore the Lord Himself is signified by this name. The binding of the wounds is the restraint of sin. Oil is the comfort of good hope; wine the exhortation to work with fervent spirit. The beast is the flesh in which He deigned to come to us. The being set upon the beast is belief in the incarnation of Christ. The inn is the Church, where travelers returning to their heavenly country are refreshed after pilgrimage. The morrow is after the resurrection of the Lord. The two pence are either the two precepts of love, or the promise of this life and of that which is to come.

Gatsby and Augustine: imagining the renewal of the icons

This week on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day, Giles Fraser considered F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby from the perspective of Tillich:

At the same time as Fitzgerald was putting together his great critique of the Jazz Age, his distinguished contemporary, the existentialist theologian Paul Tillich, was working towards a parallel critique of the Gatsby’s of this world. For Tillich, faith was understood as a focus on what he called matters of “ultimate concern”. The problem with many of us, he suggested, is we are focused instead on things that are of penultimate concern. In other worlds, we worship things that are unworthy of real devotion - as Daisy was unworthy of the obsessive concern heaped on her by Gatsby. Which is why Tillich believed that one of the principle tasks of theology was iconoclasm – that is, showing up the false idols of our age to be precisely that. Whether it be money, or fun, or even beautiful women, such things are not worthy of the devotion that some people invest in them. And this, of course, was also Fitzgerald’s point – though, in reality, he was much dazzled by them too.

Gatsby is a tragic figure because he over-invests attention in the wrong place. All night long he stood staring out over long island sound, looking towards a flashing green light next to where Daisy lived with her polo-playing husband. Yes, in a sense, he was a romantic hero. But a fool as well. “There must have been moments” wrote Fitzgerald, “when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.” Which is why its right to take seriously the theological imperative of destroying false idols of the mind – and indeed, idols of the heart as well.

The resonance of Fraser's reflections derives not just from the release of the film with Leonardo De Caprio.  There is some sense in which the 'long-1990s' - that NICE era of non-inflationary constant expansion - was shaped by cultural and social pre-occupations not unlike the 1920s.  The neo-liberal crisis of recent years has posed questions of these pre-occupations, but there is little evidence that these questions are being answered in a manner indicative of significant social and cultural change.  With Tillich, we might say that the idols - though tarnished - continue to overshadow the public square.

If there is a weakness in Fraser's invocation of Tillich, it is perhaps in the use of the category of 'idol'.  Yes, the idols exist.  But why?  This is where we might also usefully consider Gatsby from the perspective of Augustine.  In his Common Objects of Love, Oliver O'Donovan points us to Augustine's definition of a "people":

A people, we may say, is a gathered multitude of rational beings united by agreeing to share the things they love.

Tillich's idols are created when people "share the things they love".  As O'Donovan goes on to state:

The loves of some communities attach to concrete material goods as their final term, while the loves of others treat those material goods as mediations of spiritual realities.  Materialism, for Augustine, is the paradigm of the lying love, attached to real goods and yet untrue, since it misconceives the significance of those goods within reality as a whole.

This Augustinian analysis, of course, finds its most beautiful expression in the Confessions:

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you.  And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made.  You were with me, and I was not with you.  The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all.

It is not that the "lovely created things" are unlovely or unworthy, which perhaps Fraser comes close to suggesting when he notes "such things are not worthy of the devotion that some people invest in them".  Rather, it is only when we receive them as gift of the Creator, as matter which "if they did not have their existence in you, they [would have] no existence at all", that we truly reverence them.  Only when we perceive and experience them as participating in and being icons of that "beauty so old and so new", do we rightly receive them. 

The Great Gatsby invites us to gaze on an era when we in "an unlovely state ... plunged into those lovely created things", a time when icons of beauty and meaning became idols of misplaced and misdirected love.  It is, therefore, also an invitation to imagine the renewal of the icons, of economic activity, pleasure and human beauty restored as bearers of the beauty and meaning of the Triune God.

Fitzgerald was, in the end, wrong.  It was not that Daisy fell short of "the colossal vitality of [Gatsby's] illusion".  It was the illusion which fell short, telling of a Daisy so much less then she was, as one created in and bearing the image of, and redeemed by, the Triune communion of Love.

"Narrative, argument, confession and imaginative witness": Milbank on apologetics

On the ABC: Religion and Ethics site, John Milbank has an excellent piece on apologetics.  His key contention is that apologetics is no mere subsidary aspect of theology.  Rather, the Church's theology is inherently apologetics.

Against the "hopelessly compromised exercise" that apologetics had become in the 20th century - "the defence of the faith on grounds other than faith" - Milbank outlines a definition of apologetics which seeks to imaginatively present an alternative to the theology of the city of this world:

Apology as narrative, argument, confession and imaginative witness by the human person in the name of divine personality against the impersonality of the city - that is the very heart of Christian theology. This is why it began with Paul, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus as "apologetics" - not just against pagan accusations and misconceptions, but also in continued expansion of Paul's defence of the God-Man, the infinite personality made flesh, before a human jurisdiction. This defence continues, after Paul, to be a witness to the real eternal life of Christ's spirit, soul and body as untouchable by either time or finite verdict. But it is a defence that must therefore begin to elaborate an entire metaphysical vision that seeks to imagine a reality in which all is divine gift, in which all creatures belong to an eternal kingdom that will overcome every kingdoms of this world.

This metaphysical vision which the Church shares in its apologetics is not derived from some 'neutral' understanding of Reason.  Perception of "natural order and human dignity" flows from the Trinitarian and Christological confession:

Christian apologetics must therefore always remain Christological ... while the truths of the Creation, the Incarnation, the Trinity and Grace, are replete of themselves, they complete and safeguard rather than destroy our sense of natural order and human dignity. This means that they themselves presume such a defence, and therefore that belief in these supernatural truths cannot survive the threatened collapse of the ordinary and perennial human belief in soul, mind and will, and its intuition of a "purpose" that exists in all things.

Milbank's essay echoes some of the themes evident in the excellent Imaginative Apologetics: Theology, Philosophy and the Catholic Tradition.  Against the rationalist apologetics that dominated both the evangelical and catholic traditions in the last century, Milbank points to an apologetics that imaginatively engages the secular society from the heart of the Church's proclamation of Trinity and Incarnation.  What this means for the local church and its evangelisation and catechetics is an interesting question.  It might suggest a greater significance for beauty, music, and art, as well as the centrality of the experience and witness of compassionate, gracious, ordered and yet free community.  Against "cold detached reason", the Church's apologetics is a matter of - after Newman - heart speaking to heart.

Hope, pray, wait: a view on catholic Anglican renewal

There is a sense, I believe, among Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England that they are reaching a real turning point or settlement, with a need to renew or refocus efforts toward the broader life of the Church of England and its identity in Christ’s “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”

In an excellent The Living Church article, Zachary Guiliano assesses the future of Anglo-Catholicism in the CofE.  He does so against the background of two recent events - the Mass of commissioning for new FiF director Colin Podmore and the inaugural Mass of Anglican Catholic Future.  The two events and organisations do, of course, point to the tensions within the catholic Anglican tradition of recent decades.  As Guiliano notes:

What to make of both events and movements? Oddly, they both took place in London the same week, and seemed to draw on distinct groups of clergy. Little overlap was in evidence.

Such facts might be taken as signs of division.

What gives hope despite such appearances, however, is Guiliano's assessment of a change of orientation in both FiF and ACF.  In FiF there is a renewed "generosity of spirit and a commitment to the Church of England".  Thus, the questions addressed to Colin Podmore in his commissioning reflected a positive rather than defensive approach:

These questions focused on his commitment to upholding and proclaiming the catholic faith, praying and working for the unity of the Church, supporting, advising, and defending the members of FiF in their ministry, working with other Catholic groups, and promoting “unity, peace and love in the Church and in the world.”

Likewise in ACF, Guiliano points to an authentically ecclesial agenda "rather than focus on divisive issues":

It seeks the renewal of Catholic expression, with a focus on theology, spirituality, vocation, and social justice, among other things. The group also hopes to have various events of pilgrimage or reflection on vocation for Catholic-minded Anglicans. It explicitly looks back to the Oxford Movement as a model and is thus preparing teaching pamphlets, “tracts” even, which focus on aspects of Catholic teaching and practice or on basic questions of Christian confession.

Here indeed is hope for the catholic Anglican vocation and witness.  Yes, the disagreements about women in the priesthood and the episcopate will continue, as will differences in patterns of discipleship for gay Christians.  These differences, however, cannot consume the energy and vision of catholic Anglicans.  Giving generous and gracious space to one another - the generosity and grace Christ has showered upon us - will allow catholic Anglicans to discover both common ground and engage in common witness.

Guiliano ends his piece by saying:

For now, we can only hope, pray, and await such renewal. We can work quietly toward its realization in small ways. In returning and rest shall we be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be our strength (Isa. 30:15).

Two things are worth reflecting on here.  Firstly, as these days between Ascension and Pentecost teach us, waiting prayerfully in hope is no act of resignation.  It is, in fact, the very heart of the Church's life and witness, a joyful affirmation of the Christological centre.

Secondly, the quotation from Isaiah 30:15 was also placed by Keble on the title page of The Christian Year.  The Oxford Movement was entirely defeated in terms of the political controversy over Irish sees which initiated it.  That controversy is long forgotten.  The CofE and wider Anglicanism, however, was transformed through the prayer and sacramental ministry of Keble, drenched in the thought of the Church of the Fathers.  This, rather than political agendas, is the vocation of catholic Anglicans.  In quietness and confidence shall be our strength.

"Darkness is my only companion": the Psalms, the local church and the experience of darkness

In a recent blog post Katharine Welby - daughter of the ABC - movingly spoke of living with depression:

The bible is my key. Reading the psalms (that oh so regularly quoted ‘you can yell at God, look’ book) I find that I don’t need to have hope every second of the day. In my hopelessness I just need to acknowledge that God is bigger than my illness and he will come through – eventually. Not always easy, but always possible. I go back to Job in the bible, again an inspiration, a man in despair, who maintained trust and faith, but not in a squeaky clean ‘all is fine’ kind of way. In fact, I don’t know that I have yet encountered a single person from the bible who did have a ‘everything is fine’ kind of life. So why do we feel we need to?

The church is the place where hope can be found, but this is only possible if the church is willing to accept that life is not always rosy. The stigma around mental health illness – of any kind, must be eradicated. The bible is full of people who screw up, who get miserable, angry, who hurt and who weep. Even Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane found life a little too much to bear and pleaded with God.

In a subsequent interview, she noted how some Christian communities struggle with the reality of a disciple experiencing depression:

Some Christians will say, 'You're not depressed'. Then they insinuate – or state directly – that you don’t have enough faith, or that depression is not biblical because the Holy Spirit gives us joy, or that you haven’t experienced the love of God. To which I just say, 'I experienced the love of God more during my darkest period than at any other point in my life'.

Without pushing this too far, her reflections do raise the question about the importance of the Psalms in shaping a Christian community's embrace of those who experience darkness and brokeness.  In the absence of regular exposure to the Psalms' reference to the darkest of times, are we left with a highly sanitised vision of life and discipleship? 

When "darkness is my only companion" - the darkness of depression, anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, failure - the Psalms assure us that the experience of darkness is embraced by the Triune God: "Even darkness is no darkness with you".  This assurance is the ground for prayer shaped by the Psalms during darkness: "Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears". 

According to Athanasius, "in the words of this book [the Psalter] all human life is covered, with all its states and thoughts".  Removing the Psalter from the formative discourse of the local church, profoundly weakens the local church's ability to embrace in its life and prayer, its empathy and compassion, those who experience the times of darkness.  Likewise, an absence of the Psalter in prayer, formation and catechetics leaves individual disciples without knowledge of a practice and discourse of prayer during the times of darkness.

Shaping communal and individual prayer through the Psalms strengthens both the local church and the individual disciple for the dark times.  It is this which can help us to say with Katharine Welby, "I experienced the love of God more during my darkest period than at any other point in my life".