There have been some questions in my parish regarding auricular confession during Lent. “Is it a sacrament?” “Is it not a sacrament?” “What is a sacrament?” and “Are we Catholics?” First, we must define what a sacrament is and isn’t. The word sacrament comes to us from the Greek word mysterion. From this word, we…
This week the virtual studio is FULL with all three Miserable Offenders present to discuss a recent article by Gillis Harp appearing at The Gospel Coalition. Dr. Harp urges Anglicans to stay true to their confessions, and while we all agreed with this premise we had plenty to discuss regarding Harp’s particular way of applying…
Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. —James 5:16 A key part of growing in spiritual stamina, drawing in closer union with God, and recovering from sin is spiritual discipline (askesis). For Christians, the “Big Three” are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (see Matt. 6:1–21). But…
Across the Anglican Communion, it is safe to say that the Thirty-Nine Articles have fallen into disuse. A general lack of familiarity among the laity and hesitancy to embrace, when not outright rejecting, the Articles among the clergy seems to characterize a growing number of Anglican churches in North America and throughout much of the…
Rediscovering the Anglican treasure of auricular confession with the Oxford Movement I. Introduction When one hears the phrase “the Tracts,” the mind moves right away to the famous Tracts of the Times written by the men of the Oxford Movement, but Anglican evangelicals penned their own series of tracts. In these evangelical tracts, one…
If I’m perfectly honest, the General Confession is possibly the single greatest reason that I prefer the 1928 Book to the 1979 Book. And I will get into why that is a little further on. In his Rule, St. Benedict lists twelve steps on the topsy-turvy ladder of humility (chapter seven). The first of these…
When Christ lives, dies, rises, and ascends, He does so for us, for you.
Jesus never sheds His humanity. To this day, He is fully God and fully man. He is the only One who possesses the resurrected and renewed body awaiting the renewed creation. And by virtue of what He has accomplished for us, He brings humanity into the heavenly realm. He walks – yes physically walks – in the resurrected body in the heavenly realm. He walks into the heavenly temple, the true temple, and He brings Himself, the perfect sacrifice, into the true temple of God, not the temporary man-made temple.
he first need of the soul is reverence. “Reverence is the attitude that can be designated as the mother of all moral life, for in it man first takes a position toward the world that opens his spiritual eyes and enables him to grasp values,” declares the twentieth century Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand.[1] It…
“As long as we remain divided, we grieve the Spirit of Jesus.” ~Peter Leithart, The End of Protestantism[1] The Church needs help. Low church Protestantism is not working. It is too commercial, too disassociated with the broader tradition of the church, and too isolated from other Christians. This line of criticism is a well-worn cliche….
In the previous commentary, it was established that some versions of the Book of Common Prayer still used by traditional Anglicans require (or at least allow) prayers for the dead, on the basis that the faithful departed are capable of spiritual growth and purification. It might initially appear that this belief in purification—that is to…
