Bishop Eric Menees
O Lord, who hast
taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy
Ghost and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very
bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead
before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and
reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
This Collect of Archbishop Cranmer is as beautiful as it is
convicting and challenging. Archbishop
Cranmer challenges the church with four different things.
First, he acknowledges before The Lord that all of our works
and actions, if they are done without Charity, are for naught. It is
interesting that the Archbishop used the term “Charity” rather than
"Love," which he uses in other collects. Charity can be translated as
love, but really has a larger meaning than that. Charity, in its broadest
sense, includes love of God as well as love of man. In other words, it is the
love of the Great Commandment - Matthew 22:36-40.
Secondly, this collect acknowledges that Charity is a gift
from God that comes as an anointing of the Holy Spirit. No matter how hard we
try, we cannot infuse the gift of Charity
- this love of God and man - into ourselves by shear will power or
desire. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is so much more than a thought or
a feeling - it is a virtue.
Thirdly, Archbishop Cranmer implores God the Holy Spirit to
give this gift of Charity to us, which we experience passively as peace and
actively as a virtue. This peace, or Shalom, is what St. Paul promised for
those who rejoice in the Lord in his epistle to the Philippians, [7] “And the peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 4:7 ESV) This Shalom is so much more than the absence of violence
or strife in our lives - it is the active presence of the Holy Spirit! It is
that very presence of the Holy Spirit that leads us to actively love. The
virtue of Charity calls us to go beyond ourselves to care for another as an
expression of our love for God, and to love God as an expression of our love
for man. It is that beautiful interrelationship - the dance with God - that
Archbishop Cranmer is desires for us, the People of God.
Fourthly, Archbishop Cranmer desires this for us because he
knows that, without it, we are dead; Dead in sin, dead in self, and dead in the
world. You see, one of the great deceptions of the devil is the idea that if we
embrace the world - if we seek all the "gusto" in life - we are, in
fact alive. But that is only a deception. The more we embrace the world the
more we sin, and the more we sin the more callous we become to the things of
the Spirit. That is why St. Paul argues that we are to die to sin and be raised
to new life in Jesus Christ. "How can we who died to sin still live
in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by
baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
(Romans 6:2-4 ESV)
This collect speaks to the reality that we are either alive
or dead, living in Grace or dying to sin. Satan tries to tell us - and we try
to tell ourselves this too - that there is this gray area where it's enough
just to be nice, isn’t it? It's enough just to not harm others, isn't it?
The answer to that is, NO! Our Lord Jesus looks to us with
the eyes of compassion and perfect understanding, and says to you and to me,
"I love you!" Our answer to that can only be made through the power
of the Holy Spirit: "I love you, Lord. Please allow my life to demonstrate
that love."
My prayer for you and
my prayer for me is that our lives will demonstrate our answer to Jesus. And to that I say... AMEN
Note: The "Notes to the
church" articles are written by Bishop Menees for the Diocese of San
Joaquin. I have posted them on Soundings with his permission for a wider
audience. This is also the case for his "Why I am an Anglican" series.
Dale+
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