“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because i see everything by it” CS Lewis We are a movement of inspiration and hope in the Anglican Communion, bringing together and strengthening lay and ordained people who recognise the positive, inclusive and joyful currents in the Catholic tradition of Christianity. St Mary’s Parish Office Stoke Newington Church St London N16 9ES Tel 078 9185 1722 Registered Charity No. 1122906 Registered Company No. 6434273 GUIDE LINES for Christian Living Affirming Catholicism Guidelines 17 2 Affirming Catholicism Guidelines GUIDELINES Affrming Catholicism in the whole of life AFFIRMING CATHOLICISM We are a movement of renewal and hope in the Anglican Communion, seeking to bring together and strengthen lay and ordained people who recognize the positive, inclusive and joyful currents in the Catholic tradition of Christianity. We believe that this tradition is vital for the identity, mission and future health of the Anglican Communion. As reformed and reforming Catholics, we seek to aid the renewal of the universal Church in its task of bearing witness in the world to Christ’s healing and reconciling love. We celebrate the variety of traditions within the life of the Church. As affirming Catholics, it is part of our mission to promote models of love, friendship and community for all seeking to follow the gospel, irrespective of ethnicity, gender, disability or sexual orientation. Therefore we affirm • Liturgy to inspire holiness and relate the greatness of God to people today. • The church as a community of love for all seeking to follow Christ • Lives of faith which reflect God’s loving call • Commitment to sharing in God’s mission in the world • A living Catholic tradition to carry the gifts of the past into the future. Affirming Catholicism Guidelines 3 1 LITURGY to inspire holiness and relate the greatness of God to his people today People are hungry for a sense of promise of the glory that will be God. When we worship we bring ours when the whole universe is our hunger and our need to God, made complete in him. As we bless and we ask God to fill us with his bread and wine in remembrance of love. In our worship we experience Christ’s death and resurrection, his the greatness of God whose power sacrifice on the cross is joined with fills the universe, and yet we also our offering of prayer and praise, meet him deep within us, as close and the elements of bread and wine to us and as intimate as a lover. are transformed into our spiritual The sacraments of the Church food, food we are invited to share in are promises to us of God’s love Holy Communion. and pledges of his presence. And throughout the two thousand years Neither God’s love nor our worship of Christian history, worship and the ends when the service is over. Our sacraments have brought us close whole life is to be a living sacrifice of not only to God, but to each other thanks and praise. Having received across the barriers of space and the Body of Christ, we become the time, so that our worship becomes Body of Christ to the world. Just one with the worship of the angels as bread and wine, the ordinary in heaven. things of life, are taken by God and transformed and used in his The central act of Christian worship service, so each Christian is called is the Eucharist, sometimes called both to know God’s acceptance and the Mass or Holy Communion. In it love, and to allow themselves to be we recall the last meal of Christ with transformed into the kind of Christ- his friends in the Upper Room, and like person God wants them to be. we recognise him in the breaking The Church too, as the company of of the bread. Although our faith is those who know themselves to be grounded in history, our worship is both deeply loved by God and called not a nostalgic looking back to the by God to change the world, is itself events of the past: we celebrate to be the place where God’s loving the fact that in the Eucharist Christ acceptance and his gospel call to is truly present to us now, and his mission are most clearly shown. 4 Affirming Catholicism Guidelines Questions for reflection or discussion Does the worship in your church give a sense of the greatness and otherness of God? And of his love and closeness? When was the last time that your life was changed by the experience of worship? Does your worship together lead naturally to concern for God’s world? And how are the world and its concerns brought into your worship? While the most important meaning of the Church is ‘the people of God’, Church buildings themselves are places where the Gospel can be experienced. How does your Church do that at times when no worship is going on? Affirming Catholicism Guidelines 5 2 THE CHURCH as a community of love for all seeking to follow Christ By definition, Catholicism is inclusive whole – only continues to live the life – for everybody – because God of Christ if it is made up of pilgrim is inclusive: he welcomes us first, people, who always recognise that then loves us into what he would God calls us beyond what we have have us be. Affirming Catholics are yet been or seen. committed to inclusive models of Christian life and to work against One significant role of the clergy is injustice and prejudice - some of to connect the journey of individuals which the Church itself has helped to to the Church’s story across time and generate down the ages. Affirming space, by opening up the resources Catholicism exists to remind the of scripture and the tradition of Church that 'the acid test of a truly the church and bringing them into Catholic Christianity is that it seeks conversation with the experience not to make good people better, but of God’s work in our place and bad people holy' (Bishop Michael time. In this way, they enable the Marshall). people of God to grow in maturity and confidence on the pilgrim way. If that is the church’s task, the While rooted and grounded in the church’s life is the place where tradition of the Church, as Affirming it should become a living reality. Catholics we remain open to what Whether it be, the homeless poor, the Spirit is teaching us through asylum seekers and refugees, contemporary insights. As together members of the LGBT community, we read the Scriptures, worship and people suffering from mental illness, pray, and live out our faith in the or those to whom no particular world, we are playing our part in the label is attached, the church should evolution of that tradition itself. practise a non-judgmental welcome of all who wish to come. It is only in We are never perfect in that task. In the context of that welcome that the the end, as Pope John XXIII wrote, challenge of transformation, the call “God’s mercy is our only merit.” to the disciple’s path, can be heard That is as true for the Church as it is and accepted. Each local church for each of us in our own lives. community – indeed the Church as a 6 Affirming Catholicism Guidelines Questions for reflection or discussion Imagine what it is like for different kinds of people to walk into your church for the first time. How would they be received? Would they be welcomed? Is your church a place in which everyone can take part in discovering what it means to live out the gospel in the world, in your local community? Affirming Catholicism Guidelines 7 3 LIVES OF FAITH which reflect God’s loving call If we are to become more Christ-like, our Christian faith must be at the heart, not the edge, of our lives. It is not a hobby or one lifestyle option among others. The purpose of our Christian commitment and church life is to change us into the people God wants us to become, so that we ‘may be saved through Christ for ever’ (Book of Common Prayer Ordinal). Catholic Christianity challenges us to build the whole of our lives upon Christ as our cornerstone and foundation. It draws on the spiritual wisdom and resources of the centuries to help us grow up spiritually. It encourages us to make a rule of life: to commit ourselves to a pattern of worship each Sunday, and a pattern of daily prayer and regular Bible reading. At the very centre of God’s gift to us, and so at the centre of our own life of prayer, is the Eucharist in which we share each Sunday. The Eucharist is the beginning, not the end of our spirituality; the riches of the faith cannot be explored in only one hour a week, nor can we grow up into the full stature of Christ on one meal a week. By developing a pattern of daily prayer – by sharing, if we can, in the daily offices of morning and evening prayer – we unite ourselves with the continuous worship of God throughout the world and across the seasons, feasts and fasts of the liturgical year. Through the writings of the early church, the accounts of the saints, and the insights of more recent spiritual authors we are offered a treasury of guidance to help us in our personal journey of prayer and meditation. Catholic tradition encourages us to find a ‘soul friend’ for spiritual direction and support. It offers (but does not require) sacramental confession as a chance to open ourselves to God and regularly overhaul our spiritual lives. It provides retreats and times of refreshment in monastic communities, which are powerhouses of prayer and spirituality. It supplies renewal and inspiration, as well as fun and fellowship, in pilgrimages to shrines and holy places. 8 Affirming Catholicism Guidelines Questions for reflection or discussion Real Catholic renewal begins with us, as praying individuals. Take stock of yourself. Are you moving on spiritually or are you stagnating? How might your spiritual life benefit from all that Catholic tradition can offer to help you grow in God? Do you need more discipline and structure in your prayer life? Do you need a retreat, a time for serious consideration? Do you have a spiritual director or soul friend? Do you use sacramental confession? Do you read the Bible regularly? Are you helping to make your own church a place where everyone, from infants to the oldest, is helped to learn and grow to their fullest capacity? Affirming Catholicism Guidelines 9