Thursday, October 30, 2014

Meeting ++Peter Jensen (UPDATED with link to ET of Roman Synod's final statement)

LINK TO ROMAN SYNOD The English translation of the recent Roman Synod's final document is now here.

UPDATE TO BELOW A lovely day at Pudding Hill yesterday. James de Costabadie gave a brilliant Bible Study on Romans 6 and ++Peter Jensen gave a superb session on Conversion (I say 'session' because it was a mixture of talk, engaging us in discussion and response, and generally working through what 'conversion' means biblically and theologically. Before being archbishop Peter was an educator!)

ORIGINAL I am off today to join the annual Latimer Fellowship retreat at Pudding Hill,for which the guest contributor is Archbishop Peter Jensen. It will be good to talk with ++Peter again - I very much enjoyed meeting him in Sydney a few, well, now, eight years ago. Tempus fugit!

Before extending yesterday's post with a second part, here are a few items to potentially stimulate the cells of your grey matter dedicated to things Anglican:

Cranmer's Curate has posted a fine sermon on the Apotle's Creed and Christian identity.

Notwithstanding a diagnosis of Anglican Communion ills re lack of unity, the Living Church reports to us on some progress in "intra Anglican" dialogue here.

Bosco Peters has a lovely post at Liturgy on the waka huia at St Michael's and All Angels here in Christchurch (for overseas readers, our most famous, most uniformly dedicated through the decades Anglo-Catholic church in Kiwiland). Readers here know that I am not one to promote the Blessed Sacrament (e.g. see below) and even less so its adoration, but in the freedom of Christ other Christians think differently and that is fine. His post includes details about the history of tabernacling at St Michael's that I was not aware of ... oh to be a bishop in the days when bishops had nigh on autocratic powers ... you will have to read the post to see what I mean :)

Yesterday I was privileged to be an invited preacher at the weekly 'College eucharist' at St John's College in Auckland as well as an 'Anglican Voice' at an afternoon session with the students and staff. It was good to be at the College, not least catching up - quite briefly, unfortunately, with our diocesan students there.

I preached on Ephesians 6:1-9 and Luke 13:22-30. I pointed out that the former passage is not a good one to preach on to Anglicans as its radical egalitarianism strikes at the heart of love of hierarchy in our church. Focusing on Luke I noted the ways in which Luke in that passage is both clever and too clever by half, or maybe even muddled, yet faithful to Jesus own words. Maybe a post for the future.

In the afternoon session I chided ourselves for having small ecumenical ambitions. That too might be a post for the future.

While en route to and fro Auckland I had some marking to do and my reading alerted me to a passage in Raymond Brown's commentary on John's Gospel - speaking of the Blessed Sacrament - which warmed my Cranmerian heart:

"[John 6] Verses 53-56 promise the gift of life to the man who feeds on Jesus' flesh and drinks his blood, but this eucharistic promise follows the main body of the Bread of Life Discourse in 35-50 which insisted on the necessity of belief in Jesus. The juxtaposition of the two forms of the discourse teaches that the gift of life comes through a believing reception of the sacrament (cf. 54 and 47)." (from Brown, John I-XII, 292. Italics are Brown's).

I do understand that adoration of the Blessed Sacrament comes from faith in Jesus and centres faith on Jesus!

Whatever form our worship takes, we will want to be in touch with the lectionary if we want to keep our Anglican membership cards ... in the 21st century that simply has to mean a touch of electricity. Ian Paul leads us to Oremus and the e-age of lectionaries ...


11 comments:

Father Ron Smith said...

"I do understand that adoration of the Blessed Sacrament comes from faith in Jesus and centres faith on Jesus!"

- Raymond Brown per Peter Carrell -

And where else should the charism of faith be centered, but on Jesus?

This understanding is at the very heart of the adoration of Jesus in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood - which He instituted as a living memorial of his Incarnate, Risen and Ascended Life.

Those of us who centre our worship around Jesus in the Eucharist at St. Michael and All Angels, Christchurch, have the mandate of Jesus, Himself; vide Saints Paul & John. Not a bad provenance for Eucharistic worship!

All are welcome to the re-dedication of the whakahuia at SMAA on Sunday, Feast of All Saints & All Souls, 02 November. at the 10am Sung Eucharist.

The dedication will be carried out by Bishop John Gray (Tikanga Maori).

(I do realise that the spirituality of Jesus in the Eucharist will probably not be the subject of teaching at the Latimer Fellowship gathering, Peter. Nonetheless, it lies at the heart of catholic theology, and is accepted by the vast majority of the world's Christians.

"Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore. let us keep the Feast!"

Peter Carrell said...

May the service go well, Ron. I am elsewhere, engaged in ecclesial "business" on behalf of +Victoria.

MichaelA said...

"I do realise that the spirituality of Jesus in the Eucharist will probably not be the subject of teaching at the Latimer Fellowship gathering, Peter"

You seem very confident that you know exactly what others think, Fr Ron!

The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is part of the teaching of classical Anglicanism, as set out for instance in the Articles of Religion. These were the beliefs that Latimer suffered persecution and martyrdom for. I doubt that the fellowship named after him believes any differently.

Peter Carrell said...

Hi Michael
I cannot speak for the whole event as I was not there for it, but my general memory of Latimer talks, lectures and magazine articles over the last few years is that little or no attention has been paid to Eucharistic theology.

MichaelA said...

My apologies Peter and Fr Ron, I was thinking of the Latimer Trust!

A bit of web research now tells me that the Latimer Fellowship is an evangelical fellowship in New Zealand!

Andrew Reid said...

May I question how "intra Anglican" or representative of all Anglican tradiitons that Consultation of Anglican Bishops was, Peter? Given all the Western representatives are part of TEC, it would seem to be more of a TEC marketing exercise than a genuine dialogue. I am not familiar with all of the African primates so I can't comment on their background or current links to TEC, but I note that only Archbishop Ntahoturi from Burundi is part of the Global South leadership (Steering Committee member) and none are members of the GAFCON Primates Council. They may have attended these events, but I don't know. I also note the financial focus of many of the outcomes:
"We committed ourselves to exploring pension schemes, stewardship of finances and other resources (management and investment), health services, mining and related environmental issues, advocacy, migration and statelessness, human trafficking, religious freedom, and theological education."
I commend all forms of meaningful and truthful dialogue in our Communion and I hope this event achieved that. Based on the participants and stated agenda, I am not optimistic.

Peter Carrell said...

It was not representative at all, Andrew. Neither was the All Blacks v USA match today representative of global rugby, but it did do the progress of rugby's global ambitions some good, and maybe the Anglican meeting will assist global Anglicanism!

Andrew Reid said...

Yes, but this is more akin to the Wallabies playing the Barbarians, but all 23 Barbarians players just happen to come from the English test squad. (BTW, Aus v Bar was a cracker of a match and the NZ boys in the Barbars would be walk up Test starters in any other country. How do they miss out?)

If you call it a Consultation of Anglican bishops, you expect a bit of breadth. If they had called it a "TEC - Africa partner bishops consultation" that would be more accurate and clearer in its purpose.

Father Ron Smith said...

Andrew Reid. Perhgaps you need to get this gathering into a proper rrespective.

Perhaps you should see it as a reaction to the other group of 'Anglicans' in GAFCON, who have set themselves up as being truly representative of 'orthodox' Anglicanism.

You have to choose between the Scripture, Tradition and Reason group, or the Sola Scriptura group; as to which truly represents Anglicanism.

My backing is for the non-GAFCON lot.

MichaelA said...

"Perhaps you should see it as a reaction to the other group of 'Anglicans' in GAFCON..."

Do they suggest or even hint as much? Perhaps you should admit to yourself that you are projecting your own beliefs and value onto others, Fr Ron!

Father Ron Smith said...

Well, MichaelA; with TEC being ostracised by GAFCON - do you not get the drift? The fact if, that there ARE African Provinces - who are more progressive on matters of gender and sexuality - that prefer to associate with the mission of TEC - rather than the divisive culture of the GAFCON. I call that a 're-action' against the culture of GAFCON. What do you really think?