The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus

Timely thoughts from the Bishop of Buckingham on law, grace, and the mystery of today's feast. A happy civil new year to everyone.

Observation

"Reappraisers" don't need to "win" The Debate: they need only wait for the baby boomers to retire: Anglicans my age who oppose the blessing of same-gender unions are as unusual as those of my parents' generation who still hold out in "safe" parishes.

The Solemn Preface for Christmas

A recording from Fr Tay.

Credo

With thanks to Michael, here is Candlemass in the Use of Sarum. St Thomas's, Huron Street will celebrate this tradition on 2 February 2010.

Ideas for the next revision of the Book of Alternative Services

*Extend Christmasstide to Candlemass
*Provide a form for the full Vigil of Pentecost
*Provide propers for a Mass at Dawn on Easter Sunday
*Designate the Thursday in Trinity week as an optional memorial in Thanksgiving for Holy Communion
*Raise all feasts of Our Lady to the rank of Holy Day
*Provide propers for Accession Day

Further to female deacons in Forward in Faith

q.v. et q.v.

(Tip of the biretta to TD)

Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican Church in North America

I'm assuming this is a border difference: in the American news, we read much about "spiky" trad-minded bishops like Iker and Ackerman joining the new body. In Canada, it was an entirely Evangelical venture. The only AC parish to join the Network was St John the Evangelist, Calgary, which now along with three other parishes forms a rump of Network congregations remaining in the Anglican Church of Canada.

In fact, it surprises me that Anglo-Catholics in the US were drawn to ACNA. When it was first announced, one of the bishops of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada wrote an op-ed in the Post waspishly but aptly criticizing the ACNA folks for accepting change that suited them (such as women clergy, who freely populate ACNA) but then deciding that gay relationships were "too much" of a break from Tradition. And certainly, the ecclesiology of ACNA is not Catholic. Mind you, "traditional" Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England have been occupying a thoroughly Protestant ecclesiological no one's land for nearly two decades (for what could be more Protestant than a statutory right to opt out of communion with one's diocesan?) and they don't seem to be bothered. But here we have "Catholic" Anglicans who withdrew from their province over a dispute over the sacrament of matrimony, only to settle in a body that enshrined the 39 Articles! (And no Newman tricks here: the "literal and grammatical sense" is the definitive).

I live and write in Toronto. The city of Toronto falls within the purview of at least three ACNA dioceses including the Reformed Episcopal Diocese of Central and Eastern Canada. If I were a prospective ACNA ordinand, I could easily shop around, without actually moving around! And now Bishop Iker is saying that if Archbishop Duncan ordains women bishops, Fort Worth will pull out. Well, why not? They did it once. And no doubt when the next metropolitan they pick out does something they don't like, they'll move on again - and, again, try to take the silver with them! That's understandable, and it's human, but it isn't Catholic, and it's unworthy of someone who (presumably) fancies himself an episcopal defender of Catholic order.

(Thanks to my friend Max at Stuck in the Myddel for triggering this train of thought!)