The cosmic trail left behind by the Logos in having become Man, in having walked among us, in having gone to the Cross and risen, and in having returned to the Father, left the pattern for a new vocation on the part of creation. The Incarnation was both a vertical and horizontal movement: a pattern that can only be geometrically represented by a triangle. In other words, in the pattern established by the Incarnation, creation is renewed in its ability to represent God - and now even more fully than it could before. God the Holy Trinity, because of the simultaneous vertical and horizontal movement of Christ, is shown more fully in creation itself than He was even at the beginning, which implies in turn that every detail of creation can be seen as an icon of God, in one way or another.

This, I think, is the key to understanding the whole of the universe and the meaning of life. Life itself is an icon, and the stage on which life unfolds is an icon, which, if correct, takes account of such seemingly disparate works as Pope John Paul’s encyclical, Evangelium vitae, and Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.

We need to consider creation’s renewed iconographical vocation as a priestly one - meaning that creation itself, along with each of its constituents, can represent God to creation and creation to God. Set at the top of this family of icons is humanity. Human beings are, in a very particulr way, given the special status 0f being able to represent God than any other created thing. Jesus, in ascending to the Father, took flesh with him, but more specifically, he took human flesh. In this respect, we might describe humanity as the priest par excellence of the universe.

From among human beings, of course, the Church is chosen as priestly representative, and from among members of the Church, priests are chosen to make manifest the presence and love of God. Crowning this priesthood is the Man-God, Jesus Christ, who, at the top and centre of our triangular image, becomes the locus for our connection to the (likewise triangular) Godhead.

The Holy Trinity, whom we envision as a triangle, is reflected once again in creation, due to creation’s having been restored to its originally-designated place, all as a result of the procession and return of the Word. And this has implications for the whole of creation.

Suddenly, from the rocks beneath our feet to the most sublime celebration of the Liturgy of the Church, everything becomes an image. The priesthood of Christ extends from his place at the top of the triangle of creation to the very bottom, where sit the inanimate things. The world is comprehended in God, even if the world does not always comprehend God.

Of course, the implications of this are immense. For when discussing such questions as infants in limbo, the nature of grace, of Original Sin, of the Liturgy, even of human sexuality, it is possible to begin from the point of view that all is already contained within God’s economy even if its status is not yet fully worked out.

to be continued…

What I used to know as Mothering Sunday, and which the British call ‘Mother’s Day’, is looming. This coming Sunday, in fact. I was reminded of this as I walked to work this morning and got visually assaulted by a billboard telling me to remember to buy flowers.

The Mother’s Days of my youth I fondly remember as days on which the mothers of our parish were given daffodils. The servers would be dispersed from the sanctuary to hand them out, and would inevitably become flustered when faced by the one young woman whose maternal status was unknown. After church, we would proceed as a family to my grandparents’ home, where we would give my grandma the daffodil we had collected for her, and gorge ourselves on all the food her and my grandfather would lay out.

This day, coming as it does at the approximate midway point of Lent, symbolizes a great many things concerning mothers. In fact, I would go so far as to say that on this day, it is almost possible to say more about the whole Christian worldview than on any other single day of the Liturgical year. This is because Mother’s Day, (also called Mothering Sunday, and more anciently, Laetare Sunday), points us beyond the here and now, beyond our earthly mothers, through various levels, to our Holy Mother above.

The Epistle Reading appointed for the day, (at least according to the Canadian Book of Common Prayer, and I assume according to earlier tradition), is taken from the fourth chapter of St Paul’s epistle to the Galatians. In it is contained the words: ‘Jerusalem which is above is free; which is the mother of us all’.

These words give us our theme. On this day around the middle of Lent, just when we are worn down by our fasting and feeling quite discouraged, we are given a glimpse beyond the horizon. It is only a glimpse, mind you, but it is enough to spur us on for the rest of the journey. What that glimpse tells us is that beyond our sight is a city, the heavenly Jerusalem, the place where God dwells, which beckons us on. At the same time as it is the dwelling place of God, it is also our Mother, for it is the place from which we emerge, and it is the place we spend our lives seeking to return to.

But why daffodils? What does all of this have to do with our mothers here on earth; the ones we spend our time visiting therapists to get over?

Well, because our earthly mothers are icons.

Begin with the notion of heaven. 1) Heaven, the dwelling place of God, is too big a concept for us to perceive daily and all the time. 2) We are therefore given a tanglible image of heaven in Mary. Mary became the second dwelling place of God, and equally served to show us the way to follow him when he was among us as a man. But for all Mary’s greatness, from our perspective she is still an historical figure dwelling with the saints above. Because we no longer see her in the flesh, we are given a further image. 3) The Church is the place where God dwells now. It is the meeting place between God and humanity, and it is one step closer to us in our earthly experience. And yet it is still beyond our normal perception. 4) Our diocese, however, is not. The mother church of our diocese is the cathedral, and so traditionally, people would make an annual pilgrimage to visit their cathedral on this day. But we don’t exactly see the cathedral every day either. 5) So we have the parish church. We can well imagine at least seeing the building and being reminded of our heavenly destination, even if we can not get to the daily Mass. 6) Then again, when we can not make it, we have a mother at home, and she is around all the time. 7) Finally, even beyond having a mother, there is every woman: a potential mother, and an image of Mary, the new Eve, just for being woman.

I often illustrate this with a set of Ukrainian matrioshka dolls. With seven in the set, I begin with the largest and open it up, unveiling the next, identical doll, continuing until only the tiny one is left. Yet as small as it is, its appearance is just the same as the biggest, if less detailed for its size.

On Mothering Sunday, the Church has the opportunity to present the world with a picture of where it comes from, where it is going to, and the role all of us - and especially women - have to play in getting us there. This is less obvious than it once was (see my entry ‘Missing the ‘gesimas’ for more on that), but it is still within our scope to preach this profound and invigorating side of the Gospel.

After all I have said, I don’t resent this morning’s billboard for assaulting me as it did. Rather, in light of it all, I only hope I can afford the flowers.

For all my interest in intellectual pursuits, I have a bit of a boyish weakness I have never been able to shake. I quite like cars. From F1 to WRC to the average Volkswagen on the street, I can spend far too much time thinking about cars and what goes on underneath them. But having confessed this, I know that I am not alone. Numerous colleagues of mine - men and women - will turn their head toward a nice-looking vehicle. And for good reason. Cars can represent the best in design, with lines as appealing as just about anything human beings have contrived.

Having said that, for the vast majority of people, the immediate appeal of a car does not rest in what it has under the bonnet (hood). Rather, it will be the colour, the shape, the purpose - the possibilities it holds forth, and which capture the imagination - that will appeal. There are some, certainly, who will consider a car’s engine capacity, its brake horse power, and the torque it puts out at so many RPMs, but these are either the specialists or the hobbyists; such matters will be of little interest to the common admirer.

As I left the cinema after Into Great Silence and walked out into the street, I got to thinking the same thing. Except that instead of cars, it was the Catholic Church that occupied my mind.

What I had just witnessed on screen was a picture of the Church that one would be hard-pressed to resist, either as a believer or an unbeliever. It was the sort of image of the Church that one often has of Orthodoxy - that is, it was wordless, mystical, transcendant, beautiful. I suppose it was not all that dissimilar to the image we have in the West of Buddhism, with its placid, orange-robed monks, its incense, and its bells. What was remarkable about the monks in the film, though, is that they were Catholic monks. They represented a mainstream monastic Order in the Latin tradition: a tradition that is normally impugned for its ‘harsh’ dogmas, and its ‘reactionary’ public pronouncements.

Why it is that the Catholic Church is most often seen for its doctrine and dogma instead of the beauty of its life is beyond me. There may be a thesis in there somewhere, but it seems to me that no one ever really talks about the Orthodox Church in terms of what it believes (beyond the Trinitarian and Christological basics, that is!), yet on so many points of doctrine and social teaching, Catholics and Orthodox are agreed. Even when it comes to Buddhism and the gentle face it presents to the West, there would be a great deal in common between the two religious systems.

That the Catholic Church is rather heard for its many words than seen and experienced for its beauty may have something to do with the Reformation, or perhaps its post-Conciliar liturgical turmoil. Whatever the case, what the Catholic Church is can be far better apprehended in the lives of the monks of La Grande Chartreuse than in the words of countless media descriptions of what she has last written, or indeed, in the words of what she has in actual fact said.

As I wrote in ‘Into Great Silence - A Review‘, the film has virtually managed to show the whole of the Christian life. What the viewer gets to experience in those three hours is the beauty and the mystery and the simultaneous immanence and transcendence of God, as manifest in the lives of a group of Carthusian monks. Their lives are dedicated to knowing God in silence and prayer, in the Liturgy and in work, and it is almost impossible not to see him there, even as we - the viewers - are more than a step away.

Like a car whose lines we appreciate, but whose mechanics we leave to the experts, so might the Church be. The Catholic Faith is a beautiful thing both inside and out, but it is not necessarily for every potential admirer to know. As Catholics, we need to get on with living the Faith and manifesting its beauty for all to see. As observers, the rest of the world needs to stop reaching straight for the Catholic bonnet release so it can peer at the inner workings, and rather accept the beauty of the lines that have so much to offer.

What is on offer is nothing less than life in God. The better way by far is to approach it with awe and wonder.

Having spent yesterday afternoon at the cinema, I am compelled to review what must be the most remarkable film I have ever seen: Into Great Silence (Die Große Stille).

Now, when I say that this film was one of the most remarkable, it is not solely because I fancy watching almost three hours’ worth of ‘church scenes’, or that my penchant for the ancient strains of chant was well-satisfied. These things may be true, but the case for Into Great Silence goes much, much deeper.

Into Great Silence can be described as little short of a portrayal of the Catholic Faith itself. In this film, filmmaker Philip Gröning follows around the Carthusian monks of La Grande Chartreuse for four months, representing each of the four seasons. He was permitted to use no lighting other than that which he found in the monastery, and there is no soundtrack to the film other than the sounds of the monks in their cells, at work, and in the chapel. As a result, there is nothing to distract the viewer from the subject, and nothing to manipulate the viewer’s perception. It is as pure a vision of a subject as one could hope for from any medium.

Yet the film is not devoid of interpretation. It is simply that the interpretation is so sympathetic to the spiritual immensity of what is being portrayed, shy of personal spiritual direction, one can hardly imagine a more intimate experience of humanity’s encounter with the Divine. For a three-hour film with no soundtrack and no action to be riveting might represent a miracle, but a miracle is precisely what this film is.

As the film unfolds, one is drawn through time as it corresponds to eternity. The seasons pass; the stars move through the sky; the hours of the day slowly tick away; the monks go about their tasks and they pray. That is it. Then, into this sublime anti-narrative are woven quotations from different sources expressing some aspect of what it is to commune with God, all framed by the quotation that begins and ends the film:

‘…a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.’

In the beginning, we are extended a quiet invitation. By the end, that invitation has been consummated, and we are left in no doubt as to what it is we have encountered. 

Gröning must have been affected by his experience of the monastery and the life he found there. I have no knowledge of his personal religion, but his insight into what he was a witness to is both profound and profoundly sympathetic. The film helps us see what the monks already know: that the rhythm of prayer, the Liturgy, and of life in God’s world are so closely intertwined, that to enter into them is to enter into the life of God.

Philip Gröning has done in three hours of the Great Silence what it would take countless theological texts to describe. This film is a gift to every person, and will be especially appreciated by those who are seeking a reminder of what the Christian life is all about. It is unmistakably Lenten, but it is equally Paschal and Incarnational. As I enthusiastically declared above, Into Great Silence is a portrayal of the Catholic Faith itself.

What began as a response to R. of Nipawin’s comments to the article ‘Culture and Religious Integration‘, also seemed like an appropriate (albeit partial) response to D. Smith’s comments at the bottom of ‘Apologia pro mutatione mea, pt. VII’. At the end of the day, it is my attempt to explain how I understand the Gospel to relates to culture, how the Church relates to the world, and how the Liturgy relates to life. Like the apologia, I intend to offer it in parts. Feel free to comment.

Back when I was in seminary, there were certain phrases I used that I understood perfectly, but that seemed to confound my teachers and perhaps, on reflection, some of my colleagues too. One of these was ‘cosmic nature of the Liturgy’. I was often asked to explain this phrase, and so I tried, although my attempts must not have been sufficient. For when it came to convocation and the presentation of the degrees, when I was called up to receive mine, my rhetorical eccentricities were used as fuel for an affectionate roast.

The thing is, what I meant when I referred to the ‘cosmic nature of the Liturgy’, and which I have since come to better understand, is something that I would still want to emphasise. I am of the firm conviction that the Liturgy of the Church is a literal extension of the Incarnation, and that by faithful participation in the faithful Liturgy, one is communing with none other than Christ himself. And if I am correct in this, then the implications are nothing short of cosmic.

In order to explain how I arrive at this, I must begin with an exposition of how I perceive the relationship of creation to God.

In the beginning, creation (a.k.a. the cosmos, the world, humanity, etc.) was established in intimate contact with the Creator. The only thing that separated them was the logical inferiority of the second being - that is, the fact that creation was by its nature derivative of the Creator. It was, however, good; and if good, then a reflection (an image, or icon). Then, the first disobedience took place, and creation’s intimacy with the Creator was lost as it spiralled away. The whole of the cosmos was thrown into disorder, and now the separation between God and his creatures included death.

Even as this separation unfolded, it was exacerbated by the forgetfulness of the creatures. Humanity, with its special vocation to reflect God’s image, still had some of the equipment by which to do so, but not the ability because of its new found propensity to pay attention to other things. Humanity had turned its back on God, and in so doing, set a precedent for all generations to follow.

Yet while human beings disregarded their original purpose, God did not leave them alone. Rather, in response, he called out of the human race a chosen group to serve as mediator between himself and his children. This was, of course, Israel, whose special task it became to do what priests do, by offering sacrifice and by presenting God to humanity and humanity to God. Israel was to become, by God’s decree, the divine image that the whole of creation had been intended to be in the beginning.

Of course, this situation could not last.

Israel was unable to uphold their side of the bargain; not because of who they were as a nation, but because of their human nature. It was inevitable that they should fail as image-bearers, because their creaturely status limited their ability to reflect the Creator. It was inevitable that they should fail as priests because God’s inherent justice could not possibly be satisfied by mere lamb’s flesh. The longer the situation continued, the more apparent it became that a Messiah was needed. Such was Israel’s desire, and such was God’s answer.

Then God sent his Son into the world to remedy the whole situation. The Logos took on flesh in Bethlehem, and in so doing, drew an invisible line between his dwelling place with the Father and his shelter in Mary - a line from Heaven to Bethlehem. As Jesus embarked on his ministry, walking the earth and teaching the people by pointing them in the direction of the God from whom they came, the mysterious line followed. It demarcated his path as he went the Way of the Cross, and it emerged with him on the other side of the tomb. As he spent the next forty days with his disciples, leaving them their final instructions, it traced his steps. And when he finally returned to his place at the right hand of the Father, his complete work was revealed in the trail: the work of descent, or enfolding, and of ascent. What the line revealed was a map of the exitus et reditus, of Christ’s procession and return.

In this procession and return, the stage was set for an explanation of what would become the vocation of the Church, the nature of the Liturgy, and the true nature of all good human endeavor.

To be continued…

I have had a terrible week. It is now Friday, and I feel as if I have accomplished almost none of the things I set out to do last Sunday afternoon. My Lenten observance has not exactly been a resounding success, and my general disposition has been less than attractive to my wife and children. Perhaps I can console myself by pretending I am merely feeling the season.

When I get down, though, my thoughts will often turn to what it is I believe about God.

Teaching the philosophy of religion at a college means that I get to regularly engage with the various proofs for the existence of God - including the moral, ontological, teleological, and the cosmological - yet as convincing as I find these collective arguments, and as objectively helpful as they may be on a rational level, they do very little by way of strengthening my faith. Often, I am left feeling drained after a day explaining Aristotle’s ‘first cause’, Leibniz’s ’sufficient cause’, or recounting Swinburne’s ‘card-shuffling machine’ analogy. The most rational argument in favour of believing does nothing for me when I start with my mental and spiritual malaise.

So it was that, last night, as I lay upon my bed, turning these things over in my mind, I realised just how much I depend on the idea that belief is, quite simply, the best course of action to keep me going. I confess, I do not always believe in God. A particular weakness for me is to play with the idea that existence is all chance, and morality convention, and that everything is ultimately meaningless. Now fortunately, daily availing myself of the Church’s ministry is habitual enough that when I do not believe, the Church does for me. And then I consider my situation, accept Pascal’s Wager, and get on with things.

For those of you who do not know what is that Pascal had to say about belief in God, it is essentially this:

A person has one of two choices: either a) he believes in God, or b) he does not believe in God.

If the person chooses to believe in God, there are two possible outcomes: either a) God, in fact, exists and so the believer will go to heaven (representing an infinite gain), or b) God does not, in fact, exist and so the believer loses the investment of his belief (representing a finite loss).

If, however, that person chooses to disbelieve in God, there are a further two possibilities: that a) God does, in fact, exist and so the nonbeliever goes to hell (in which case, his loss is infinite), or b) God does not, in fact, exist and the nonbeliever is right it not having invested in belief (in which case, his gain would be finite).

What we are forced to conclude from this wager, is that it is illogical we should not believe in God, for in not believing, we have everything to lose and nothing to gain; whereas in believing, we have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

At my most pathetic, when I can do little believing for myself, I put my money on God. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, I prefer everything.

One of the reasons that it took Johnny Cash to wake me up for Lent this year, I am sure, has something to do with the disappearance of the ‘Gesima Sundays - that is, the three Sundays running up to Lent, including Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima.

Since leaving my traditional Anglicanism for the Catholic Church, I have not really missed much. There is the dignified language of the Liturgy, of course, and the theological rigour required of being in a minority constitutency, but these things are merely incidental, and nothing that can not be replicated now that I am a Catholic. The traditional lectionary, however, in all its resplendent complexity and depth, and in its artful manifestation of the Christian mysteries through the course of the year, I miss immensely. I had not noticed how much this was the case, however, until this Shrove Tuesday past.

Quite simply, I had not prepared. In the good old days, by the time Lent rolled around, I would have already given thought to what I would give up, and considered the kinds of spiritual issues I wanted to address in the particular way provided for by the solemn season. This year, there was no warning. It was probably my own fault, but I suddenly found myself at the end of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphanytide volume of my breviary, and, thinking my choicest words, realized that the Church was shifting gears while I was stuck in first.

As I have already expressed, part of the blame for this sorry state of affairs must lie with the disappearance of the three weeks leading up to Lent. When I used to preach according to the old Rite, I used to say that Septua-, Sexa-, and Quinquagesima Sundays were like three tolls of a bell, calling us to prepare for that great journey through the spiritual desert. Back then, I could extend the metaphor all the way to the end of Lent, until we got into Holy Week and all the spiritual highs and lows that it represented. But no more.

Not only do I not preach any more, I am no longer even afforded the opportunity to consider these things, as the Catholic Church has relegated them to memory alone. And unfortunately, memory is fallible even if the Church is not.

There are certain treasures I believe are important for the Church to dig out of its storehouse and examine once again, for the good her health and for that of her members. Her ancient lectionary is one of those treasures. The reason for this has nothing to do with an eccentric penchant for archaic terminaology, or a mere desire for all things old. I could mount a substantial argument that it is because, along with a solemn and beautiful Liturgy, there is no medium more effective for communicating the Faith of the Church than the underesteemed logic of the traditional lectionary. As with the much-anticipated liturgical motu proprio, I await with eagerness a fresh discussion on its merits.

In this respect, please visit the site Lectionary Central for some excellent material on the traditional lectionary of the Western Church. For the webmaster of that site, its provision is a labour of love. Of particular interest are the various papers offered under ‘Lectionary Studies’.

Because I spent Sunday afternoon compiling music for a class I will be teaching this coming week, I have had the good fortune of being forced to listen to the monks of St-Benoit-du-Lac, a Patriarchal Liturgy from Moscow, and the strains of Ambrosian Chant. Somewhat less fortunately, I have also had to listen to a piece or two from the pen of John Michael Talbot, whose use of first person personal pronouns must surely surpass history’s sum total before him. But it is a comparative exercise, so I had no real choice.

More seriously, though, I should have been prepared for what came next, yet in spite of having it in my collection, I wasn’t. To conclude the music exercise (the students will be asked to consider what is being said about the person and work of Christ in each piece), I decided to include Johnny Cash’s song Hurt. So I inserted the CD, and of course, the video for the song came up by default.

You already know where this is going, don’t you?

No matter how much I might wish I could, I can not watch that video with other people in the room. I am just not comfortable enough with my own manhood to let people see the inevitable contortions of my face as water collects along the bottom lid of my eye.

Cash’s song and accompanying video is an invitation to the viewer/listener to consider his or her failures and the grace by which they live in spite of this. It is an invitation that I myself often consider, but do not often feel.

This is because I am generally of the opinion that sin is something we can become too obsessed with. If the Church is the community of the redeemed, then whatever it is we might do, providing we offer it up with repentance, it should not burden us anymore. Furthermore, there is nothing we can do that stands outside the reach of this cosmic law. In this respect, we are free.

If anyone might have known this, it would be Johnny Cash. Cash was a man whose difficulties were well-known, and whose appeal to grace in the face of them was a matter of public knowledge. Yet in spite of everything he was sorry for, and in spite of the various figures of Love in his life, as far as I understand, he was still subject to drugs and whatever else may have weighed on his conscience. Like any redeemed human being, we can imagine that however much he might have confessed his faults, and however free he was, he continued to be afflicted by them like the bearer of a permanent Cross.

Then I saw Hurt again, and it struck me. I frequently repent of my sins, but seldom do I feel sorry for them. I am aware of them intellectually, but affectively they barely touch me. So it was that in that song and in that video, I was given a glimpse of the burdens I continue to carry without being aware of them. And then the inevitable happened. Luckily, my family thought I was doing some serious work and left me alone in the room.

I know what it is to repent, and even to let go of my sins and faults. Seldom in my life have I had such problems in conscience that I have felt the need for serious spiritual therapy. I have certainly had issues to work through; they have just not presented the sort of long-term burdens to me that can sometimes oppress. But for all that, there have been times when I have been made to realize just how much weighs down on my soul, and when that happens, I find a relief that I never knew I needed. Johnny Cash provoked one of those times on Sunday.

No matter how much we might be able to recognize what it is we do to separate ourselves from God and from other people, and however good it is that we are able to get over these things and move on, it must surely be the case that to feel the effects of our sin from time to time, and to reflect on them in light of our Lord’s Passion, is a profoundly therapeutic thing. As a community of redeemed creatures, we walk a fine line. First, we are offered forgiveness, which we can accept knowing that we can then just get on with things. At the same time, it is vital that we never take such grace for granted. Yes, we are called deeper into the life of God where we are meant to be transfigured, and because of this, we can leave the obstacles to that transfiguration behind. Yet for all that, it is good to weep for having set them up in the first place.

Lent began for the Church last Wednesday. For me, it began with Johnny Cash.

One of the great joys that comes with being Catholic is the disintegration of barriers between what constitutes one’s regular life and what constitutes one’s religious life. My experience is such that my children attend the local Catholic school, play football (soccer) with their school friends, go to the Friday night ‘junior club’ with the same set of friends, and depending on the year, meet up with those friends yet again for First Communion preparation. In this respect, participation in the Mass must seem to them a mere extension of everything else they do; not an added Sunday morning inconvenience, but part of a holistic world of which family and friends together partake.

I could have dreamt for nothing better back in the days when my long-suffering wife would take the kids to the local C of E school in the knowledge that the religious education program was hardly related to the church, then try to convince them that to attend our parish church was a happy, normal thing to do, when in fact ours were the only kids there, and their mother also happened to be their Sunday School teacher. All of this while we watched our Ukrainian friends get together with other Ukrainians for Ukrainian dancing and music, socializing, religious festivals, cultural instruction, sport, and even for travel. For them, the nearest Ukrainian Catholic Church was just a part of life. From participation in the Liturgy to house blessings and Easter baskets, the Church was simply part of the culture. Best of all, though, the culture was equally part of the Church. It is something we now enjoy ourselves.

I can think of innumerable examples where what we witnessed among the Ukrainians was manifest equally strongly. I saw it among the Mexicans through all the years I spent Christmas in Texas. I saw it among my Greek and Italian friends in Canada. I saw a heavily modified version among the unchurched-yet-still-Catholic Quebecois. (In terms of Quebec, Roch Carrier’s children’s book Le Chandail d’Hockey, aka The Hockey Sweater, illustrates what I am talking about perfectly.) It is a kind of cultural marriage, wherein neither partner is necessarily conscious of what it receives from the other. Each simply gets on with its own business, retaining its own integrity, being the thing each is supposed to be.

The Christological parallels should be obvious.

This relationship reflects both the co-mingling of the human with the divine in Christ, and the movement of the Word through the cosmos in the ‘procession and return’ of salvation.

I think I first noticed this when watching a military tattoo in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The arena in which it took place was packed with spectators, all there to watch men and women in uniforms march to music according to certain protocols and traditions. Once I saw it there, I began to see it everywhere. The rituals at sporting events; the ecstasy of a rock concert; the street greetings of a group of friends: all of these things reveal the humanity of Christ and the procession side of his ‘procession and return’.

By contrast, the Church and her rituals simultaneously represent Christ’s divinity and his return. In this respect, the necessity of the faithful performance of her own liturgies is paramount. It means that if the Church is to hold up its side of the image, it must do what it is meant to do and not try to confuse its role with that of the culture it serves. Having said that, in the examples mentioned above, I think she does.

I opened this comment by saying that one of great joys of being a Catholic is experiencing the disintegration of barriers between so-called secular life and religious life. It says that I can be and do the things I want to be and do, for when I do this in relation to the Church, I am simply manifesting my side of the image. Of course, to be in relation with the Church ideally means availing oneself of her message of grace, which in turn means seeking forgiveness and partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Wonderfully, when I consider my children’s school, what they are learning there in terms of the Catholic religion, and the relation it has to the parish church, I see the image manifest very well indeed.

Becoming a Catholic after one has lived life as an Anglican is not an easy thing to do. The belief of many Catholic-minded Anglicans is that whatever the Catholic Church might express in the Catechism and the Missal, the appalling way in which so many of her priests celebrate the Liturgy, the lack of attention paid to the content of homilies, and the rebellion of so many Catholic adherents on so many crucial questions, contradicts, and ultimately undermines, her declared intentions.

And so I had always believed.

A Picture of Vatican II

Even after having studied the Second Vatican Council in detail, I took the view that the Council had served to radically alter the Faith of the Church, and so to make the Catholic Church as protestant as any of her 16th-century offspring. What is more, I thought, she was still seeking to explain the doctrine of Christ according to overwrought definitions and legal decrees, all while allowing the Liturgy - her principal task - to become a tool of populist priests and extroverted, domineering parish busybodies. This, from the Catholic Church: the Church that had withstood the persecution of pagan Roman emperors, the Church that had deigned to crown the new Holy Roman Emperor, the Church that had fostered the best art, the best philosophy, and the best science that the world had ever known. All that thought and beauty and mystery was reduced to Father Personality and his band of ‘lay-popes’ cajoling everyone in the parish into mumbling the latest ditty by the St Louis Jesuits (see this article for a revealing commentary on the state of Catholic music). Or so I thought.

While I would still maintain that the Mass has, in some places, become the victim of zealous de-mystifiers and ultra-subjectivists, and while I could go on at length at how this has betrayed the Church’s patrimony - including all the saints, theologians, and faithful through time who have lived according to the great and mysterious Icon of the Liturgy - as well as her ecumenical commitment to the Orthodox, whose own liturgical traditions have never been treated with such callous insensitivity, I must also acknowledge that her clarity of thought and her comprehensiveness is such that these liturgical (and so theological) errors can be counted as nothing but lapses.

An Ecumenical Proposal

I am well aware that from a traditional Anglican’s perspective, such problems in the Catholic Church will be seen as reflective of precisely the same difficulties and frustrations faced by those seeking to maintain some semblance of faithfulness in Anglicanism. My arguments regarding the subjective nature of Anglican theology notwithstanding, they quite simply are not. It may be that one could argue in favour of shared experience between Anglicans and Catholics were the old ‘branch theory’ to apply, but that is an ecumenical metaphor used by no one except Catholic-minded Anglicans. In other words, if both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church are under threat from the Enemy, it is from entirely different positions on the battlefield; not as part of the same organic unit.

The picture I would propose as an alternative to the ‘branch theory’ is that of a castle. (Bear with me. I live surrounded by three major ones!)

At the centre of every castle is the keep. The keep is the main repository of stores, and the ultimate safe-haven of the castle’s inhabitants. Outside of the keep are all sorts of sheds, storehouses, and shelters, each serving different purposes within the castle grounds. Well beyond them are the exterior walls of the castle, on which are positioned all those who keep watch over the castle’s well-being.

As an ecumenical model, the keep houses the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Within the keep, these are separated by a curtain drawn across the building, unfortunately cutting each of the Churches off from the other. The curtain, however, is soft and permeable, proffering hope to those inside that it is not a permanent fixture. The sheds and houses outside represent the various Protestant communities. Well within the safety of the Church, in their desire to serve the Lord of the castle faithfully, they have cut out for themselves a variety of niches. Some are positioned in closer proximity to the keep than others, but all are of the same intent. The Anglican Church, in this case, may even be the structure nearest, but that would be for the Anglican Church to decide. Manning the exterior walls are the theologians of every group in the castle, keeping watch on the horizon for signs of trouble, and surveying the castle itself for places where it might be strengthened.

In this respect, it seems to me, Anglicans and Catholics may be said to be at one in the same war. And that is no small thing. But the difference in perspective it implies for the various battles waged is roughly equivalent to the difference between the Novus Ordo and the modern Anglican liturgies of North America. Kind of similar. But not exactly the same.

Implications

What convinced me of the fundamental difference between the Catholic Church and my own Anglicanism, and of the fact that Catholic problems (even when they shared superficial similarities with Anglican problems) were of a very different nature, was in my experience of the Novus Ordo in numerous Catholic churches and monasteries around Britain, as well as in the Ukrainian Catholic Church my wife and children attended up North. Whether it was the Requiem Mass for Pope John Paul II in Westminster Cathedral, the Easter Vigil at Church of the Holy Name in Manchester, or even Mass at my parents’ local parish church, such exposure helped me to see that the essence of Catholicism was a very different thing from Anglican perception. As mentioned in Part VI, the nature of the Novus Ordo Missae as an evolutionary, as opposed to a revolutionary Liturgy, became clear to me. And as I realised this, my understanding of what happened at Vatican II also began to change.

One important thing I came to see is that what I had always loved about Orthodoxy - the almost chaotic liturgical affirmation of people’s folk culture - was one of the hallmarks of Catholicism as well. For me, this was, and is, a Christological issue. I first witnessed its power when I attended a friend’s ordination to the priesthood in a Russian Orthodox church, and saw it again in the context of the two Ukrainian churches and one Roman Catholic church in the town of my own former parish. And here I am not talking about the inclusion of people plucking away on poorly tuned guitars, or (God forbid) liturgical ‘dancers’. I am talking about the genuine freedom of people within the Liturgy to respond to God as naturally as the Liturgy is supernatural. When this works, it is a testament to the Incarnation; the juxtaposition of ancient ritual with people’s need to shift feet or sit down; the fusion of sublime formality at the Altar with reverential human informality in the Nave. We can see it in medieval paintings of Western liturgical scenes, we can experience it in the Orthodox Liturgy, and we are re-presented with it in the documents of Vatican II.

I think it was either Kendall Harmon or Peter Toon who said that the reason they could not become Catholic, even while many other orthodox Anglicans were, was due to the fact that, in spite of what people may assume about the Catholic Church since Vatican II, in light of reading the Breviary, the Missal, and the Catechism together, it was clear that the Catholic Church had not changed its theology at all. Whoever it was that said it, the statement was made as a reason not to become Catholic. For this reader, however, nothing could have brought a bigger smile to my face. Precisely. The Second Vatican Council may have constituted an aggiornamento, a bringing up to date, but it did not constitute a change in belief. The documents attest to this. However the Council has been interpreted by theologically nescient priests, its clear intention was to direct the Church in a constructive engagement with the modern world, and in the process to enliven people’s faith by inviting them to live again within the Liturgy.

Conclusion

Having said all that I have, I quite accept that what the Catholic Church is may not always be easy to see. The radical iconoclasm of the last forty years in some parts of the Church would obscure the vision of the most clear-sighted person. But this iconoclasm is a lapse, and one that is being addressed all over the world even as I write. What matters is that adherence to Scripture, the teaching of the Fathers, the continual engagement with Tradition, and the manifestation of a full, resplendent Christology in the Liturgy and the Magisterium is all intact in the Catholic Church, and that the people of God are able to enter in, offer what they have, and become swept up in the graceful heavenward movement of the Body of Christ. She remains the living vessel of our Lord’s exitus et reditus: a vocation she has always enjoyed, and which she retains until the end of time.

In this were my former difficulties with becoming a Catholic resolved, and now I wait with happy impatience to learn what Christ would have me do in response.