I BELIEVE IN THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS

THE VENERATION OF HOLY IMAGES

The use of pictures and statues in Christian worship

The one thing most TV filmmakers know about Christianity is that Churches and candles go together. A recent adaptation of Joanna Trollop’s novel “The Choir” showed a cathedral with banks of shimmering candles placed against pillars for no clear reason – except that it looked good on camera.

If you visit York Minster you will find just such a stand of lighted candles. On a table nearby, there will be a notice to say that it was a nice idea to light a candle and pray. These days the use of candles has become very popular, not only as a symbol of prayer, but to mark various kinds of aspirations – for the freedom of hostages, or to emphasize all manner of political and social issues. Lights of various kinds are used in a number of world religions, and we are heirs to a certain extent, of ancient Jewish customs. Is there, then, a specific Christian use of candles and lamps?

THE LIGHT OF CHRIST
Beyond the obvious practical need to give light in dark buildings, there are two uses which have special Christian significance. The first is the symbolic use, representing Christ as the Light of the world. The gift of a lighted candle at Baptism, the blessing of candles at Candlemass and the ceremonies of the New Fire and the Easter Candle are all examples of this use of lights.

LIGHTS OF HONOUR
The second use is that of candles and lamps in the sanctuaries of churches and those which are placed in front of statues and pictorial images (icons). It is thought that this custom originated in the ancient Roman manner of honoring their chief magistrates, the Consuls, by carrying lighted candles or torches before them in public. This honorific custom was adopted by the Roman emperors, and then passed over into the ceremonies of the Church. The candles which now stand on our altars are permanent versions of the candles carried in procession at the beginning of Mass and in full ceremonial, the solemn reading of the Gospel is still attended by portable lights. This second use is intended to mark out with honour objects and actions of special sacredness – for this reason we keep a light burning permanently before the Blessed Sacrament when it is reserved.

LIGHTS BEFORE THE IMAGES
The same idea of paying honour is attached to the lighting of candles or lamps before the images which depict Our Lord and His Holy Mother, and the Saints. Such acts have a special significance and history attached to them.

THE THREAT TO THE GOSPEL
We are only too familiar with the unhappy fact that most Churches are sliding toward secularism. Faith in the living Christ becomes a mere philosophy. The joy of the Holy Spirit is replaced by the dullness of humanistic moralism. This is not the first time the Gospel has been threatened in this way-although, in our day, it may have been taken to greater lengths than before.

THE ATTACK ON THE IMAGES
The threat appeared clearly for the first time some twelve hundred years ago and the distance in time makes no difference to the effect. A Byzantine Emperor, Leo III, unleashed an attack on the use of images in the worship of the Church. Leo and his followers accused orthodox Christians of idolatry, and demanded that, in obedience to the Second of the Ten Commandments, the use of the images should cease. Many people agreed with Leo – his message seemed simple, honest, and pious too. It was true that there were people who acted as though the images had some supernatural power of their own. The supporters of Leo’s movement became known as “The Destroyers of the images (icons)” or ‘Iconoclasts’. Few realised that Iconoclasm was actually an attack on the True Faith. For one thing it put the clock back to the Old Testament – making Christianity a religion of rules and not of salvation through grace. Again it made Christianity out to be either a coldly intellectual thing, or a mere matter of emotional response.

HONOUR NOT WORSHIP
Those who wished to honour the images knew that they had centuries of Christian tradition to support them. They knew also that the honour they paid to the icons was quite different from their worship of the Holy Trinity (they even had distinct words to make sure that there was no confusion). There was, though, need for someone to point out to orthodox believers the deeper significance of honoring the icons. The man who did this was a Christian monk who had at one time been a high government official representing the Christian subjects of the Caliph of Damascus.

ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS
St. John of Damascus pointed out that the Incarnation of the Son of God as Jesus of Nazareth changed completely our understanding of God’s relationship with His creation and of the Second Commandment against idolatry. “In earlier times,” he wrote, “God, who is without form or body, could never be depicted. But now, when God is seen in the flesh conversing with men, I make an image of the God I see. I do not worship matter: I worship the Creator of matter Who became matter for my sake. Who willed to take His abode in matter: Who worked out my salvation through matter. Never will I cease honouring the matter which wrought my salvation. I honour it, but not as God. Because of this I salute all remaining matter with reverence, because God has filled it with grace and power.” St. John could see that the attack on the images concealed a denial of the reality of the Incarnation of Christ and a rejection of the sacramental way in which the new life in Christ is received by us. At the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which restored the place of images in the life of the Church, a senior bishop exclaimed of Iconoclasm, “This is the worst of heresies because it includes them all.”

THE REVIVAL OF ICONOCLASM
The calling of the Seventh Ecumenical Council proved a turning point in the struggle against Iconoclasm – a battle which, nevertheless, still had many years to run. In the later Middle Ages when the true significance and use of the images tended to be obscured by superstition, there was a revival of Iconoclasm and this attitude became part of the Reformation program. In consequence the older formularies of post-Reformation Anglicanism are definitely Iconoclastic in character and this is why Anglicanism has never accepted officially the decisions of the Seventh Council.

MODERN ICONOCLASM
The modern influence of Iconoclasm is not to be seen in church buildings with plain walls and clear glass, but in a reducing of the Faith to ‘rational’ principles, an emphasis on secular issues at the expense of spiritual need. The lighting of a candle in a cathedral becomes an expression of the human need to pray, not an acknowledgement of the Christ to whom we pray. It is refreshing to visit a beautiful Church and see candles being lighted in front of a statue of Our Lady. Here we have prayer properly directed and honour rightly bestowed. Its presence is a practical fulfilment of the decrees of the Seventh Council which the HCC-AR has never hesitated to accept.

A WINDOW ON HEAVEN
An image is never an invitation to idolatry. It may depict Our Lord or His Holy Mother. It may represent Our Lady with the Child Jesus, again it may represent one of the Saints, a scene from the Scriptures, or an incident in the subsequent life of the Church. In all cases the image is a window upon the realities of the Heavenly Kingdom, never an object of adoration in itself. St. Basil the Great said that the honour paid to the image passes to the original. So when we light a candle in front of an image we are honouring Christ Himself, recalling his Incarnation and the way in which, through His Death and Resurrection, He lives, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the lives of His Saints. Our prayers through or to the Saints are prayers to Christ Himself and, in Christ, to the Holy Trinity.

THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL
When we honour the images we are honouring the fullness of the Gospel Faith. The proclaiming of this Gospel, in word and deed, is our task as members of the Body of Christ. It is to the fullness of the Gospel that, as members of the HCC-AR in fellowship with all Catholic believers, we have a joyful commitment – a commitment we renew every time we light a candle before the holy images.

MARY- THE SECRET JOY OF CHRISTIANS

The difference between Anglicans (low church persuasion) and Catholic Anglicans (high church persuasion) and their take on this.

WHAT HAS CHANGED?
When you come to the Holy Catholic Church Anglican Rite (HCC-AR) from some other Church you become a different kind of Christian. This is because the HCC-AR is a different kind of Church, a truly Catholic Church – as that was understood before Christendom began to break up a thousand years ago. If, before you joined the HCC-AR, you were a member of a ‘High Church’ Anglican congregation – an ‘Anglo-Catholic’ – you may have fully believed all the ancient Catholic doctrines concerning Our Lady, used all the right prayers, and followed all the traditional devotions to her. Admittedly some of your fellow Anglicans may not have approved, but you believe the same now as you did then, so what has changed?

BELIEVING THROUGH THE HOLY TRADITION
In the days when Christendom was still united Christians believed – and true Catholic Christians still believe – five things about Our Lady: 1. That she is the Mother of God (Theotokos, “the God bearer” in Greek). 2. That she has always remained a Virgin, even after the birth of Jesus. 3. That she was free from personal sin throughout the whole of her life on earth (Conception). 4. That she has fulfilled the WHOLE plan of God for us (Assumption). 5. That she is our intercessor in heaven. Even when Christendom broke up and Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholics would have nothing to do with each other, they all STILL believed these five things about the Virgin Mary – and they still do. The reason why they still go on believing is because God the Holy Spirit keeps on telling us these five things are true. The Holy Sprit tells us this through the Holy Tradition, his abiding, guiding presence with the Church. The Holy Spirit, through the Holy Tradition, keeps us, heart and soul, focused upon Jesus who is the source of all Truth. That Truth includes the role and destiny of the Virgin Mary, His earthly Mother.

WHAT THE FIVE BELIEFS TELL US
The five Marian doctrines tell us about the WHOLE Plan of Salvation. They tell us this through the story of the Blessed Virgin – her preparation for the role of Mother of the Saviour, her cooperation with the will and grace of God, her total dedication (in her case through a life of virginity). They tell us also what is at the end of the Way of Salvation – the complete package, so to speak. Mary has traveled even beyond the final Resurrection, she is filled with the glory of God, sharing, as far as it is possible for a human being, the divine life itself. In the Mother of God the Plan of Salvation is complete and already at work among us. Mary is still herself, she is not hidden away from us in heaven, any more than our Lord himself (who is always present with us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit). Just as she was chosen to be the earthly Mother of Jesus, so she is now the Mother of us all. Through her Son she cares for us, she prays for us, she acts to guide and help us. Anyone who does not realize this has lost out on a whole dimension of the Faith – and many have lost out because of an idea introduced many centuries ago.

BELIEVING THROUGH HUMAN OPINION
For as long as the Church on earth allowed itself to be guided by the Holy Spirit, through keeping the Holy Tradition, it remained united in a common Faith. During those first thousand years, however, an idea grew up among Christians in the West that Jesus had committed special powers to St. Peter and to his successors, the Bishops of Rome. The earliest written record of the Holy Tradition is the New Testament and this record was now interpreted as giving the Roman Pope authority over all the Christian Churches – the Holy Tradition was being set aside. What God had planned as a FAMILY the ‘Papalists’ were turning into a RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION under central control. The Bible was no longer being used as the foremost witness to the Holy Tradition but as a tool in the hands of merely human opinion and ideology.

THE HOLY TRADITION LOST
By the end of the Middle Ages the Western Church was dominated by the authority of the Roman Pope. Much doctrinal waywardness and abuse of power had crept in. The Western Church, however, still maintained the five Marian doctrines, a constant reminder that the Church is a FAMILY and not an ORGANIZATION. Reform was needed but when it came it led many Christians even further away from the true understanding of the Church. The leaders of the Protestant Reformation set out to purify the Church and looked to the Bible to provide the blue-print for reform. Just as the Papalists had used the New Testament to support their ideas of what the Church should be, so now the Reformers did the same. Anything that was not in the Bible (as they interpreted it) had to be taken out of the Church. The guidance of the Holy Spirit through the Holy Tradition was ignored and purely human ideas prevailed. Yes, Jesus Christ was still worshipped and gratefully acknowledged as God and Saviour, but the Marian doctrines were thrown out, along with papal authority, as being ‘contrary to Scripture’. The Reformers believed they were returning to the pure Faith; in fact, like the Papalists, they were reinforcing the spirit of rationalism – of merely human opinion – for them the Church remained an ORGANIZATION run on ‘scriptural’ instead of ‘papal’ lines.

THE HOLY TRADITION REVIVED – PART WAY
Among the Churches of the Reformation, the Anglican Church retained many of the ancient ways and traditions, preserving many things which more zealous Reformers rejected as ‘Romish’. It was on the basis of this heritage that, more than a century and a half ago, the ‘Anglo-Catholic’ movement began to restore the ancient Faith. The Anglo-Catholics faced bitter opposition from Protestant-minded members of the Anglican Church, but made headway nevertheless – even achieving the fight to acknowledge the Marian doctrines. Even so the restored doctrines were established, not as the belief of the whole Anglican Church in harmony with the Holy Tradition, but as the ‘private opinion’ of those who were satisfied that there was a ‘biblical foundation’ for them. This is why so many ‘traditionalist’ Anglo-Catholics have been prepared to stay on in the Anglican Communion – while they are allowed to continue in their ‘private opinion’. Other Anglo-Catholics have embraced all kinds of radical changes because the ‘private opinion’ basis of belief is not only Protestant but also rationalistic (and thus captured easily by ideologies of all kinds).

THE DIFFERENCE
The difference between the Catholic Anglican ( the High Church person) and the Anglican (Low church person) is as follows. The Anglican will pick and chose between doctrines he regards as ‘essential to salvation’ and those which are ‘inessential’, mere pious opinions. The Marian doctrines will be placed in this second category and the Anglican can remain in a Protestant Church – provided it is tolerant of his eccentricities. He will, of course, never ‘un-church’ those who believe otherwise because, for him, the Church is a religious ORGANIZATION based on ‘private opinion’. The Catholic Anglican, however, knows that the Faith and the Church form a ‘complete package’ based upon the Holy Tradition -the presence of the Holy Spirit himself. The Marian doctrines will thus be seen as a natural part of the total package. A Church formed by the Holy Tradition is quite different from one based on ‘private opinion’. The second is no more than a religious ORGANIZATION however much it may claim to be ‘Catholic’. The first is a manifestation of the Body of Christ, the New Life in Christ, in which, as a ‘secret joy’, we discover the presence of the Mother of God. (High Church and Low Church inserted by Webmaster for the purpose of differentiation)

THE CHURCH AND THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY

The Implications for the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God

THE FACT OF THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY, MOTHER OF GOD
In spite of their many other divisions, the vast majority of Christians accept that, at the end of her earthly life, the Blessed Virgin Mary was raised from the dead and received, body and soul, into heaven. This event, although it follows the same sequence as the Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord, is not recorded in Scripture. The Assumption of Our Lady is, however, an integral and necessary element in our understanding of the Faith and of the nature of the Church.

NOT IN THE BIBLE
The lack of scriptural mention creates a serious obstacle for those entering the fullness of the Catholic Faith from a Protestant background. Protestantism demands direct Biblical evidence for any doctrine, but in the case of the Assumption this cannot be supplied. While the demand for evidence seems reasonable enough, the mistake which is being made here is the implication that only documentary evidence is acceptable. The scriptural account of Our Lord’s own Ascension is testimony to the event, but it is not proof. The reliability and acceptability depends upon the witness, the testimony, of the Apostles, and only secondarily upon the written record. The Apostolic testimony (known as the Holy Tradition) is the primary source of the Faith; it is, like all else connected with the mission of the Incarnate Lord, inseparable from the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not just with the Bible, but with the Lord, Inspirer, and sole true Interpreter of the Sacred Scriptures with whom we have to deal. It is here we must begin.

“… THEY WHICH TESTIFY OF ME”
Those who give great authority to the Scriptures must heed the words of Christ himself: “Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.” (St. John 5:39). The Scriptures are a signpost to salvation, a signpost by which the Holy Spirit points to Christ as the source of salvation – this is true as much of the New Testament as of the Old. Signposts, however, can be turned by men so that they point in the wrong direction, this is why Our Lord did not rely on the Scriptures alone, but promised his disciples the constant presence of the Holy Spirit who would lead them into ‘all truth’ (St. John 16:13). The Holy Spirit, as a result of his outpouring upon the Church, would not only guide the minds of the disciples, he would bring them the fullness of salvation by enabling them to share together in the risen life of Christ himself.

SALVATION IN CHRIST
Salvation comes by incorporation into Christ, hence the Church, the company of those who have been thus incorporated, is the Body of Christ. This term is no mere figure of speech, it is a reality; Christ is made known to the world-by the Holy Spirit – through those whom he indwells. To this kind of reality which renews and transforms our created and ‘fallen’ condition by the divine grace is given the name ‘sacramental’ – it is at this point that “… earthly things of heaven partake.” Sacramentally we may say, and say truly, that Christ and his Church are one. In baptism as St. Paul says, we die and rise with Christ (Romans 6:3ff); while the Lord himself has assured us, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” and, “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.” (St. John 6:53 and 57).

THE FULLNESS OF THE CHURCH
The Church is not, therefore, just a collection of individual believers drawn together by a common interest, it is one body expressing the life of Christ in all its members, both those on earth and those departed from this life. Since it reflects the totality of the life of Christ – of all that Christ offers to mankind in himself – there will be members of the Church who have passed not just beyond this world into a place of ‘refreshment, light and of peace,’ but those who have already shared the resurrection of Christ (see Matthew 27:52). The Church knows also of one who has not only passed beyond the resurrection but attained to the fullness of deification – the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church cannot be truly the Body of Christ, something is lacking until a representative of redeemed humankind has arrived at that glorification of the creation purposed by the Holy Trinity.

NO DETAILS
The details of the event of the Assumption of Mary – the mechanics, so to speak – are not disclosed to us. We do not know for sure when this happened or how. What written records exist are comparatively late and somewhat fanciful: they do however hint at a pattern of events passed down by word of mouth and ‘written up’ at different times and in different places. In these circumstances ‘evidence,’ in the sense of literary documentation, is of small value since the ‘event’ of the Assumption, implicit in the Gospel, occurs at that point where the rules of a fallen creation are transcended by the imperatives of the New Creation. The special position accorded to the Mother of God by the Church, as the first of a fallen race to be assumed into heaven and glorified, secures for us both our understanding of the full effect of that New Creation and the destiny to which it leads. At the same time that special position recalls the quality of discipleship required in the Kingdom- “Blessed are they who hear the word of God and do it” – and the height to which cooperation with the will of God raises the redeemed creation.

SALVATION REVEALED IN ITS COMPLETENESS
In Mary, the Mother of God, the whole course, purpose, and fulfillment of Salvation is revealed. The Church has treasured this knowledge within the Holy Tradition, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly (as far as the world is concerned) but true believers must recall constantly and act faithfully upon this knowledge lest, for them, the signpost is moved out of its place.

INTERCESSION OF SAINTS

The entire controversy surrounding this issue is grounded merely in semantics. In numerous plays by William Shakespeare and other authors of his era, the phrase, “I pray thee…” occurs very often. No divine praise is assumed in these instances, rather in contemporary language we would say something like, “I implore you” or something else to that effect. The assumption is that our members render divine praise to such people as the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles and St. Francis, and other historical and heroic members of the Church who are in the eternal presence of God (Church Triumphant). The reality is that these Saints are merely asked (or implored) for their prayers on our behalf. As Christians we all believe in the power of prayer and ask each other to pray for us. (We who on earth , the Church Militant engaged in the warfare with evil and darkness)Exactly how quantifiable that prayer is we do not know, but we do know that it is powerful nonetheless. No Christian man or woman would be insulted when asked for his or her prayers. We pray for one another regularly. Then why is it that some become offended when we ask someone such as the Blessed Virgin Mary to pray for us? Is she not alive and well in the presence of God? We say unequivocally YES she is as are all of God’s saints. And, we have the Holy Hope that through the mercy of God we too will be with them one day. We at St. James hope that this literature was helpful to you. And, we always invite additional questions and comments. Please accept our humble invitation to come and worship with us. And, please feel free to contact us anytime should you have any needs for a priest. May God always bless you richly.

I BELIEVE IN THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS

THE VENERATION OF HOLY IMAGES

SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

MARY- THE SECRET JOY OF CHRISTIANS

THE CHURCH AND THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY

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