Catholicity: Rooting and Grounding in God
By catholicity, I do not mean greater orientation to Roman Catholic practice per se. Instead, what I'm advising is the reclamation of three practices central to the pre-schism (pick yours) catholic church: Eucharist, the offices of corporate prayer, and Penance. The end of this reclamation is a church whose members are in a defined and reasonable program of spiritual development.
One critique I have of Thornton's Christian Proficiency is how he talks about Proficient Christians (by which he means those in a defined and reasonable program of spiritual development) as an elite. There's probably some hint of the debate in the Church of England about whether the parish church should minister to the "faithful remnant" or the parish at large. Yet even in Thornton's time, that question was moot. No priest, as Justin Lewis-Anthony implies in his excellent If You Meet George Herbert on The Road, Kill Him, should be ministering to the parish at large without the help of that "faithful remnant." And that faithful remnant will be poor ministers of grace without Grace working in their lives.
Moreover, a general emphasis on the principles and infrastructure of proficiency will be of immense evangelical benefit. Into our parishes on any given Sunday walk baptized Christians of free church traditions, baptized Roman Catholics, or curious seekers of other kinds. As things stand now, none of these see the formational power of our worship (the Roman Catholics should see but may not have been well catechized.) They see a cultural institution or a political rally. They imagine the people are there for reasons other than religious faith. They might be more impressed if they understood we were trying to work out our salvation in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).
About the time I was born, the Episcopal Church began to restore two important catholic practices of spiritual formation at the expense of another. The Eucharist returned to its central place in the life of the Church and a rite of Penance was included in the Book of Common Prayer. The cost was a reduction in emphasis on the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer, let alone Noonday Prayer and Compline.
Donald Fairbairn, as I pointed out in a recent post, recommends greater emphasis on the Eucharist in the evangelical church, rightly emphasizing that the Eucharist is the way Christ has ordained for feeding His Body. The diffusion of weekly Eucharist in the Episcopal Church has been an almost unmitigated good. What has gone wrong is that the importance of self-examination has been de-emphasized. The use of "An Exhortation" or the Penitential Rites has fallen mostly into disuse. And one cannot blame Prayer Book revision. Both of those elements were retained in the 1979 BCP and can be used with Rite II as easily as Rite I.
And worse yet, suppose you felt keenly the words of An Exhortation outside of a few valiant Anglo-Catholic parishes, how could you take its counsel?:
"And if, in your preparation, you need help and counsel, then
go and open your grief to a discreet and understanding priest,
and confess your sins, that you may receive the benefit of
absolution, and spiritual counsel and advice; to the removal
of scruple and doubt, the assurance of pardon, and the
strengthening of your faith."
By the wayside also has fallen the Office. Its use (except in valiant Low Church and High Church parishes) has mostly shrunk to irregular Choral Evensong, to the extent that some younger Episcopalians have been surprised to discover that the Office is possible without the Choir. I've had some success turning younger Episcopalians onto St. Bede's Breviary (the best of a host of sites), but there are also podcasts for those who like to listen to audio during the run or at work.
Some people still like communal Office, though. Moreover, our labor system is no longer controlled by Sabbatarians. We need to offer more services during the week: ferial or feast day. And noonday services may not work either. Lay-led offices may be the solution. Might there be a group of lay people who would like to pray MP or EP with company one day in the week? Could you notify people about cancellations by Twitter? Why, yes you could!
Thornton's "Rule of the Church" also encompasses private prayer (colloquy), in which one talks frankly with God in one's own words. I know I have had much trouble formalizing my practice here, but I have been fortunate to have been exposed to so many different approaches. Thornton's work reminds us that recovering catholic practices means turning to the spiritual disciplines of the past: English or otherwise. I am happy to say that Episcopal clergy are turning to these practices: particularly to those of the Society of Jesus. However, the individual nature of colloquy makes it incumbent on those in charge of Christian education to expose the parish to the diversity of catholic ascetical practice. Something I am sure will stick.
What I have discussed seems daunting. A priest reading this might say, "I can't do all of this." A lay person might say, "I don't know how to do all of this, even if I had the time." In the next part, I will discuss what changes need to be made in Christian Education to make catechesis more efficient for everyone involved. In the following part, I will make some radical proposals about how we might better organize parishes for growth in both numbers and the divine life.
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