A new weblog for boreal Lutheranism

Dr William Tighe has put us onto a new weblog, Tentatio Borealis, whose author, Esko Murto, is a pastor in the Finnish Lutheran Church and part of the confessional movement in Finnish Lutheranism, connected with the Mission Province in Sweden. Pr Murto is currently a student at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a theological school of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.

From one of Pr Murto’s posts, is this ringing condemnation of all Protestant and Anglican (and Old Catholic) apostasy:

One thing is widely common to all apostasy: it can not bring itself to publicly confess that doctrine and faith have really been changed. The facade of confessions are kept up, the traditions and church history are highly revered, yes. Because in the end, Church which has given up the Word of God has no other force keeping it together than tradition and power.

How true, Pr Murto. How deeply, deeply true.

Catherine of Siena, 1380

Catherine Benincasa was the youngest of twenty-five children of a wealthy dyer of Siena. At six years, she had a remarkable vision that probably decided her life’s vocation. Walking home from a visit, she stopped on the road and gazed upward, oblivious to everything around her. “I beheld our Lord seated in glory with St Peter, St Paul, and St John.” She went on to say, later, that the Savior smiled on her and blessed her.

From then on, Catherine spent most of her time in prayer and meditation, despite her mother’s attempts to force her to be like other girls. To settle matters, Catherine cut off her hair, her chief beauty. The family harassed her continually; but in the end, convinced that she was deaf to all opposition, her father let her do as she would: close herself away in a darkened room, fast, and sleep on boards. Eventually, she was accepted as a Dominican postulant.

Catherine had numerous visions, and was also tried most severely by loathsome temptations and degrading images. Frequently, she felt totally abandoned by the Lord. At last, in 1366, she had a vision in which the Savior appeared with Mary and the heavenly host, and espoused her to himself, so ending her years of lonely prayer and struggle. She became a nurse, as Dominicans regularly did, caring for patients with leprosy and cancer whom other nurses disliked treating.

Opinion in Siena was sharply divided about whether she was a saint or a fanatic, but when the Bishop of Capua was appointed her confessor, he helped her win full support from the Dominican mother house. Catherine was a courageous worker in time of severe plague; she visited prisoners condemned to death; she constantly was called upon to arbitrate feuds and to prepare troubled sinners for confession.

During the great schism of the papacy, with rival popes in Rome and Avignon, Catherine wrote tirelessly to princes, kings, and popes, urging them to restore the unity of the Church. She even went to Rome to press further for the cause.

Besides her many letter to all manner of people, Catherine wrote a Dialogue, a mystical work dictated in ecstasy. Exhausted and paralyzed, she died at the age of thirty-three.

Adapted from Lesser Feasts and Fasts

Collect

Everlasting God, you so kindled the flame of holy love in the heart of blessed Catherine of Siena, as she meditated on the passion of your Son our Savior, that she devoted her life to the poor and the sick, and to the peace and unity of the Church: Grant that we also may share in the mystery of Christ’s death, and rejoice in the revelation of his glory; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The propers appointed for the commemoration of Catherine of Siena are published on the Lectionary Page.

Saint Mark the Evangelist

A disciple of Jesus, named Mark, appears in several places in the New Testament. If all references to Mark are accepted as referring to the same person, we learn that he was the son of a woman who owned a house in Jerusalem, perhaps the same house in which Jesus ate the Last Supper with his disciples. Mark may have been the young man who fled naked when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. In his letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul refers to “Mark the cousin of Barnabas”, who was with him in his imprisonment. Mark set out with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, but he turned back for reasons which failed to satisfy Paul (Acts 15:36-40). When another journey was planned, Paul refused to have Mark with him. Instead, Mark went with Barnabas to Cyprus. The breach between Paul and Mark was later healed, and Mark became one of Paul’s companions in Rome, as well as a close friend of the Apostle Peter.

An early tradition recorded by Papias, Bishop of Hieropolis in Asia Minor at the beginning of the second century, names Mark as the author of the Gospel bearing his name. This tradition, which holds that Mark drew his information from the teaching of Peter, is generally accepted. In his First Letter, Peter refers to “my son Mark”, which shows a close relationship between the two men (1 Peter 5:13).

The Church of Alexandria in Egypt claimed Mark as their founder, first bishop and most illustrious martyr, and the great Church of San Marco in Venice commemorates the disciple who progressed from turning back while on a missionary journey with Paul and Barnabas to proclaiming in his Gospel Jesus of Nazareth as Son of God, and bearing witness to that faith as friend and companion to the apostles Peter and Paul.

Adapted from Lesser Feasts and Fasts

Collect

Almighty God, by the hand of Mark the evangelist you have given to your Church the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God: We thank you for this witness, and pray that we may be firmly grounded in its truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The propers for the commemoration of Saint Mark the Evangelist are published on the Lectionary Page website.

Mellitus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 624

A Roman abbot of noble birth, Mellitus was sent by Pope Gregory the Great to England at the head of a group of missionaries in 601, to reinforce the work of Augustine of Canterbury. After his departure Gregory sent him a famous letter which modified his previous ruling to Augustine concerning pagan places of worship. Gregory now told Mellitus to tell Augustine not to destroy the temples of the Saxons but only their idols. The pagan places of worship should be converted into churches and their feasts taken over and directed to Christian purposes.

In 604 Augustine consecrated Mellitus missionary bishop of the East Saxons, with his see at London, where Ethelbert (king of Kent and overlord of southern England) cause the first Church of St Paul to be built for the new bishop. As bishop of London, Mellitus traveled to Rome to consult with Pope Boniface the Fourth about the Church in England, taking part while there in a synod of Italian bishops concerning the monastic life and their relations with bishops. Several years into his episcopate, evangelization of the East Saxons was arrested when Sæberht, the Christian king of the East Saxons, died, and his three pagan sons succeeded him and expelled Mellitus. The occasion for this was said to be Mellitus’ refusal to give holy communion to the unbaptized princes. With this reversal in Essex came a corresponding and greater setback to missionary work in Kent on the death of king Ethelbert, Mellitus and another bishop, Justus, retired to Gaul. On the conversion of the new king, they were recalled to England by Laurence, archbishop of Canterbury. Lacking the support of a strong Christian ruler, Mellitus was unable to return to London and the East Saxons. In 619 he succeeded Laurence as archbishop of Canterbury and carried out his ministry ably despite chronic debility from gout. Mellitus died on this day in 624 and was buried near Augustine in the abbey Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Canterbury.

Prepared from various sources.

The Collect

O God, our heavenly Father, who raised up your faithful servant Mellitus, to be a bishop and pastor in your Church and to feed your flock: Give abundantly to all pastors the gifts of your Holy Spirit, that they may minister in your household as true servants of Christ and stewards of your divine mysteries; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The image supra is of the Saint Mellitus window in the parish Church of St Mary’s Prittlewell.

Mellitus, Archbishop of Canterbury, is commemorated in the sanctoral calendar of the Church of England.

The General Convention is the Magisterium

If any doubted the tendencies of revisionist Episcopalians to invest the General Convention with absolute magisterial authority, then let them consider this statement from Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church:

“In the Episcopal Church the belief that God speaks uniquely through bishops, laity, priests and deacons, enables our participatory structure and allows a fullness of revelation and insight that must not be lost in this important time of discernment,” Anderson wrote. “The joint work of the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops is the highest institutional expression of this belief….”

Quoted from here.

Regarding the magisterium, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.

Ms Anderson’s statement goes well beyond what the Catholic Church teaches, because while the Roman Magisterium interprets the Word of God (Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture), the Episcopalian construal apparently creates a magisterium as an independent authority, uniquely (and directly, without the intermediaries of Holy Scripture and catholic Tradition?) receiving God’s Word (“God speaks uniquely”). Perhaps she has only written clumsily, but the actions of The Episcopal Church’s General Convention over the past several years lead me to believe that she has written precisely what revisionists believe.

Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1109

Anselm was born in Italy about 1033 and took monastic vows in 1060 at the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. He succeeded his teacher Lanfranc as Prior of Bec in 1063, and as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093. His episcopate was stormy, in continual conflict with the crown over the rights and freedom of the Church. His greatest talents lay in theology and spiritual direction.

As a pioneer in the scholastic method, Anselm remains the great exponent of the so-called “ontological argument” for the existence of God: God is “that than which nothing greater can be thought.” Even the fool, who (in Psalm 14) says in his heart “There is no God,” must have an idea of God in his mind, the concept of an unconditional being (ontos) than which nothing greater can be conceived; otherwise he would not be able to speak of “God” at all. And so this something, “God,” must exist outside the mind as well; because, if he did not, he would not in fact be that than which nothing greater can be thought. Since the greatest thing that can be thought must have existence as one of its properties, Anselm asserts, “God” can be said to exist in reality as well as in the intellect, but is not dependent upon the material world for verification. To some, this “ontological argument” has seemed more deductive rationalism; to others it has the merit of showing that faith in God need not be contrary to human reason.

Anselm is also the most famous exponent of the “satisfaction theory” of the atonement. Anselm explains the work of Christ in terms of the feudal society of his day. If a vassal breaks his bond, he has to atone for this to his lord; likewise, sin violates a person’s bond with God, the supreme Lord, and atonement or satisfaction must be made. Of ourselves, we are unable to make such atonement, because God is perfect and we are not. Therefore, God himself has saved us, becoming perfect man in Christ, so that a perfect life could be offered in satisfaction for sin.

Undergirding Anselm’s theology is a profound piety. His spirituality is best summarized in the phrase, “faith seeking understanding.” He writes, “I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand (credo ut intelligam). For this, too, I believe, that unless I first believe, I shall not understand.”

Adapted from Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

Collect

Almighty God, you raised up your servant Anselm to teach the Church of his day to understand its faith in your eternal Being, perfect justice, and saving mercy: Provide your Church in every age with devout and learned scholars and teachers, that we may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The propers for the commemoration of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, are published on the Lectionary Page website.

The image supra is an icon of Anselm with Archbishop Lanfranc and Our Lady of Bec, in Canterbury Cathedral.

The nature of the Resurrection event

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15.17)

[T]he resurrection of Jesus is to be thought of as the recreating and restoring of man into the same sphere of real being as that to which we human creatures belong, and is, as such, an historical happening in continuity with the whole historical happening of Jesus, the incarnate Son. If the resurrection is not an event in history, a happening with the same order of physical existence to which we belong, then atonement and redemption are empty vanities, for they achieve nothing for historical men and women in the world. Unless the atonement through the resurrection breaks into, and is real in, our historical and physical existence and continues to be valid as saving power in our earthly and temporal being, it is ultimately a mockery. That is why all docetic conceptions of the risen Christ are quite irrelevant to men and women of flesh and blood, and have no message to offer them in their actual existence. It is for this reason that eschatology, with the heart taken out of it in the denial of a genuine resurrection, is meaningless, and without relevance to the on-going life of the world. Everything depends on the resurrection of the body, otherwise all we have is a Ghost for a Saviour.

Space, Time and Resurrection, Thomas F. Torrance, p. 87

Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Martyr, 1012

Born in 954, Alphege (Ælfheah) gave his witness in the troubled time of the second wave of Scandinavian invasion and settlement in England. After serving as a monk at Deerhurst, and then as Abbot of Bath, he became in 984, through Archbishop Dunstan’s influence, Bishop of Winchester (the capital of the English kingdom). He was instrumental in bringing the Norse King Olaf Tryggvason, only recently baptized, to King Æthelræd to make his peace and to be confirmed at Andover.

Transferred to the see of Canterbury in 1005, Alphege was captured by the Danes in 1011, along with other magnates. Ransom was paid for the other prisoners, but Alphege refused to pay the enormous ransom demanded or to allow it to be collected from his already over-burdened people. Seven months later he was brutally murdered, despite the Viking commander Thorkell’s effort to save him by offering all his possessions except his ship for the Archbishop’s life.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that the Danes were “much stirred against the Bishop, because he would not promise them any fee, and forbade that any man should give anything for him. They were also much drunken…and took the Bishop, and led him to their hustings, on the eve of the Saturday after Easter…and then they shamefully killed him. They overwhelmed him with bones and horns of oxen; and one of them smote him with an axe-iron on the head; so that he sunk downwards with the blow. And his holy blood fell on the earth, whilst his sacred soul was sent to the realm of God.”

This took place at Greenwich. He was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, and his body was translated to Canterbury in 1023.

Adapted from Lesser Feasts and Fasts, with additions.

Collect

O loving God, your martyr bishop Alphege of Canterbury suffered violent death when he refused to permit a ransom to be extorted from his people: Grant that all pastors of your flock may pattern themselves on the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for the sheep; and who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The propers for the commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop and Martyr, are published on the Lectionary Page website.

Isabella Gilmore, Deaconess, 1923

Born in 1842, Isabella Gilmore, the sister of William Morris, was a nurse at Guy’s Hospital in London and in 1886 was asked by Bishop Thorold of Rochester to pioneer deaconess work in his diocese. The bishop overcame her initial reluctance and together they planned for an Order of Deaconesses. She was made a deaconess in 1887, and a training house developed on the North Side, Clapham Common, later to be called Gilmore House in her memory. Isabella herself retired in 1906. During her nineteen years of service, she trained head deaconesses for at least seven other dioceses. At her memorial service, Dr Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, predicted that “Some day, those who know best will be able to trace much of the origin and root of the revival of the Deaconess Order to the life, work, example and words of Isabella Gilmore. For this let us give thanks: I feel sure it is most meet and right so to do.” She died in 1923.

Adapted from Celebrating the Saints.

The Collect

O God, by whose grace your servant Isabella Gilmore, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and a shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Deaconess Elizabeth Robinson’s memories of Isabella Gilmore are published on the Project Canterbury website.

Isabella Gilmore is commemorated in the sanctoral calendar of the Church of England.

Magnus of Orkney, Martyr, 1116

Born around 1075 the son of one of the two earls of the Orkney Islands, Magnus Erlingsson was a pirate in early life but was converted to the Christian faith. Later captured by Magnus Barefoot, king of Norway, he was compelled to take part in raids along the west coast of Britain. At Anglesey he refused to fight and remained in the ship, reading his psalter. He soon escaped to the court of Malcolm the Third, king of Scotland, and lived as a penitent in the king’s house. When Magnus Barefoot died, he returned to Orkney to share the earldom with his cousin Haakon Paulson.

The two earls ruled jointly but uneasily for some years, but eventually Haakon claimed sole sovereignty. In 1116, a council was summoned for Easter, and Haakon arrived with a large force of fighting men, refusing to allow Magnus the choice either of flight or of exile. According to the Saga, Magnus accepted violent death as a sacrifice, praying for his murderers.

The Cathedral Church of St Magnus in Kirkwall was built on the instructions of Earl Rognvald Kolsson, Magnus’ nephew. The martyr’s remains were translated there from the Church of St Olaf in Kirkwall (Kirkjuvagr), where the had lain since an earlier translation from Christchurch in Birsay. His relics were rediscovered at Kirkwall Cathedral in 1919.

Prepared from material from The Oxford Dictionary of Saints and Celebrating the Saints.

The Collect

Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Magnus triumphed over suffering and was faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember him in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Magnus is commemorated in the sanctoral calendar of the Scottish Episcopal Church.