More Thoughts on the 'Roman Offer'

More Thoughts on the 'Roman Offer'

A few more developed reflections on ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS.

I pray that the new Apostolic Constitution will bear much fruit in the lives and ministries of Anglicans who have long desired to enter into full communion with the Roman Church. I have a number of brother priests in the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC), especially in the United Kingdom, who may avail themselves of this provision. The Constitution does seem to offer a partial recognition of those beautiful traditions of Anglo-Catholicism which have contributed much to the wider Catholic world. It is reassuring to know that the Bishop of Rome honours elements of our patrimony, including our ethos of worship, prayer, liturgy, spiritual formation, pastoralia, and yes, married deacons and priests.

I also pray that the Successor of Saints Peter and Paul at Rome will make it possible for ordination to be, in certain circumstances, administered sub conditione for Anglican priests who become Roman Rite Catholics of the Anglican Ordinariate. The official Vatican commentary was, frankly, disheartening. Several priests I have known personally, all former Anglicans, were each and every one conditionally confirmed and ordained by Latin Rite bishops. I hope that that pattern might continue, as the question of absolute ordination continues to be a major stumbling-block of conscience for many. The denial of Anglican Orders, and of the validity of the Masses, Absolutions and other sacraments Anglican priests have celebrated, is too much for some to bear. For those souls, such a denial presents and constitutes a practical rejection of the objective reality and spiritual efficacy of their entire previous ecclesiastical being. Although this assertion may seem boorishly repetitive and even borderline obsessive to some of our Roman Catholic friends, the issue is decisive, paramount for many Anglicans. Yes, it really is about Orders - for many. And the consideration of Orders does not in itself yet touch upon the equally critical and decisive matters of dogmatic theology:

There are many Anglicans who still locate the essence of the Anglican Tradition in the ecumenical consensus of the Undivided Church of the First Millennium and who therefore cannot accept the dogmatic decrees of Apostolicae Curae, Ineffabilis Deus, Munificentissimus Deus, and the I Vatican Council, decrees maintained unchanged in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Those Anglicans who, as a matter de fide and of informed conscience, cannot accept the distinctives of the Papal Dogmas as currently defined and promulgated will not be able to embrace the new Constitution's offer and provision. And Rome would certainly have it so, and rightly so. The Ordinariate is not merely about the male character of the Apostolic Ministry or the traditional Christian teaching on Holy Matrimony - it is, rather, about one's full, unconditional and unreserved acceptance of the totality of Roman Catholic doctrinal and dogmatic teaching. Anglicans who cannot without reservation accept the Papal Claims in toto should not join the new Ordinariate.

The Malines Conversations of the 1920s between Anglicanism and Rome professed the desire for a 'Church of England united not absorbed.' But now, I confess I am disconcerted with the possibility that we shall have just the opposite: a greatly loved and esteemed part of the Anglican Tradition, a part valued and treasured for its contribution to the full Catholic life of Anglicanism, absorbed, converted, not united. An authentic orthodox ecumenism, leading to full communion and mutual recognition of equal sister Churches in the ancient Catholic Faith, should and must continue. Let us pray that avenues for such a rich and potentially fruitful dialogue between traditional Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics will open or remain open subsequent to the Constitution's implementation.

Our jurisdiction, the Anglican Province of America (APA), although in communion with the Traditional Anglican Communion, is not a Anglo-Papalist body and will therefore almost certainly not choose to be received into communion with the Roman Church on the basis of the new provision. But we Catholics of the Anglican Rite shall indeed pray for those who do and shall strive to maintain the closest relationships possible with those clergy and laity who will decide to become Catholics of the Roman Rite, as well as with those who are already Roman Rite Catholics. These are indeed compelling days.

Examining Chaplains' Chairman and Vocations Director
APA

Christophanies

The mysterious manifestations of the Logos found throughout the Old Testament are real manifestations of Christ, Christophanies. In all of these phenomena, in which the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Word, God the Son appears to the faithful or is active in creation, the pre-existent Logos is pre-incarnate, revealed in mystic forms and apparitions and signs before He assumes flesh of the Blessed Virgin and is made true Man. We see the Divine Logos in Genesis 1 and 2 in the Creation of the world, in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2 and 3, as Melchizedek in Genesis 14, at the oaks of Mamre with Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18, in the Burning Bush before Moses in Exodus 3, in the Cloud and Pillar of Fire before the children of Israel in Exodus 13, as the Rock which followed the Israelites in Romans 10, as the Finger of God giving the Law in Exodus 19 and 20, and as the King of Glory in Isaiah 6, as the Angel of the Lord throughout the Old Testament, just to take a few examples.

But in all of these, although Christ the Word is truly revealed and manifested to His people, He appears only in types, figures, images and symbolic apparitions, the shadow of good things to come. Yes, Jesus is throughout the Old Testament, for the Old Testament is ultimately about, and authored by, Jesus Christ, the Word. He is the Lawgiver, the Lord of the Covenants, the Inspiration of the Prophets, the Visionary showing forth the age of salvation. He is the true Ark of the Covenant, the authentic Manna from heaven, the genuine Rod of Aaron, the sure Mercies of David, the Wisdom of Solomon, the One whose Glory appears in the Tabernacle and the Temple. Saint Augustine of Hippo instructs us that the Israelites were proto-Christians who fed on Our Lord in mystical communion, a foretaste of the Eucharist, because they had the supernatural virtue of faith in Christ before His Incarnation. Christ was in the faithful of Old Covenant leading them to the fullness of revelation.

In truth, we have no authoritative basis in Scripture on which to assert the theological premiss that Our Lord, because of His divine consubstantiality with the Father and the deification of His human nature in the Incarnation and Resurrection, actually appeared to the Israelites or others in the period before the Incarnation in His actual human nature. The Fathers of the Church, such as Saint Athanasius, Saint Chrysostom and Saint Gregory Nanzianzus, revel in the mystery of the Old Testament appearances of the Logos, but they never claim He was present there in His human nature born of Mary. For them, locating the historical moment, event and reality of the Incarnation in time and space is all -important, for the Incarnation is God's in-breaking into the created order. God forever becomes Immanuel in the precise moment of the Incarnation.

This raises an absolutely vital point of orthodox Christology: the communcatio idiomatum, the 'communication of idioms' or 'sharing of properties' in the Hypostatic Union of Our Lord''s Person. According to the Council of Chalcedon, in the One Person of Christ, the human nature shares the attributes and properties of divine nature while the divine nature undergoes a true participation in human nature - and this happens with no confusion, fusion, separation or change in the two natures of Christ. Therefore, Christ's human nature was deified or divinised, transformed to partake of the life of the Godhead and to share in the glory, perfection and immortality of the Divine Word. Christ's flesh becomes divine, inhabited by the fullness of God, 'in-Godded.' So just as God truly lived, suffered, was crucified, died and rose again, so in Christ Man lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Ghost in the glory of heaven and forever participates in the communion of the Holy Trinity.

Interested to become an Anglican clergy?

We welcome interested ministers who would want to study with us in Traditional Anglican clergy formation, an extension clergy training of the Anglican Province of America here in the Philippines.

Requirements:

Bible College or Seminary diploma(photo copy)
Transcript of records
Letter of intention
Letter of release from previous ministry and denomination.
Certificate or letter of sponsorship.

Interested person may call, Text or email us for further information.

Notes on Christology

Our Redemption is achieved in Our Lord Jesus Christ because in the Incarnation, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Son, God the Word, the only-begotten Son of God, assumed true and integral human nature of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was made true Man. 'Only that which God assumes does He redeem.' If Our Lord had not assumed a true human nature identical to our own and taken upon Himself true human flesh and spirit, He could not have saved us or redeemed us, for what He came to heal, restore, repair, divinise and transform was our own very nature, the reality of our humanity. Had He not become true Man in every aspect and way, sin being the sole exception, He could not have united the substance of our humanity to the substance of His divinity and thus raise our human nature into perfect communion with God.

Thus Christ took upon Himself a true, created, physical, material and natural humanity. 'God became Man so that man may become God.' In the Incarnation, Our Lord fully restores the Image and Likeness of God in man, which had been marred and injured by Adam's transgression; through Christ's human nature in the Church and Sacraments, we receive Him - and thus our own human natures, united to His in the Mystical Body of the Church through Baptism and in the Sacramental Body in the Eucharist, are replenished and nourished with divine life through the Holy Ghost. In this mysterious gift, we are enabled both to grow in holiness, virtue and love and to allow the Likeness to God to be entirely recreated in us personally. Our human members become the members of Christ the Man in His Body, of which He is the Head.

At the Annunciation, the miraculous and virginal Conception of Our Lord, the Logos or Word recreated human nature in the womb of the Blessed Mother by the Holy Ghost and assumed from Mary a perfect, sinless, immaculate and complete human nature, a human body, mind, spirit and soul. God put on flesh and took human nature into the Godhead by His hypostatic union: in the One Divine Person of God the Son exists from the instant of the Annunciation and forever two perfect, distinct and united natures, divine and human. The human nature assumed by Christ was created directly by Him in the body of Mary without human intervention or seed, no human father, so that the humanity of Our Lord is the New Creation. Our Lord is called the New Adam, the Second Adam and Lord from heaven (I Corinthians 15) because God the Son became truly human and united perfectly with His divine nature a completely renovated and restored human nature.

Our Lord's human nature was not pre-existent, but fashioned by God in the mystery of the Incarnation. By the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, Our Lady conceived a human nature to which Our Lord was inseparably and instantly united and one which is identical to our own. In this union, Our Lord's divine nature was not changed and our human nature in Him was made whole and returned to its original state.

Notice the Church teaches that Our Lord assumed human nature, an 'impersonal' human existence composite of body and soul like our own, but not a human person. This is because Our Lord Jesus Christ is not a God-possessed man, a human personality in which the Logos dwells as in a temple. Our Lord is not merely a saint or God-inhabited human person, but is God made flesh, God made Man. The one and only Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Divine Word, the Eternal Son of God, not a human person united to a Divine Person. The belief that Jesus of Nazareth is a distinct human person indwelt by another distinct person, the Divine Logos, is the heresy attributed to Nestorius of Constantinople and condemned by Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in AD 431. Nestorianism professes there are two persons in Our Lord joined in a moral union: Jesus the man and Christ the Divine Word. Nestorians often use the heretical phrase 'two persons in one personality' to describe a Word-Man Christology at odds with the Gospel and the Catholic Faith. Jesus is not two persons in one organism, but One Person with two natures, of one nature with the Father in His Deity and of one nature with us in His humanity.

The divine and human natures are united in the One Person of Our Lord without 'confusion, change, division or separation.'

The Orthodox teaching is that Our Lord is One Person in two natures, human and divine, as taught by the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon AD 451. There is one 'Who' (the Word) and two 'Whats' (divine and human natures) in the Person of Our Blessed Saviour. Monophysitism, condemned by Chalcedon, teaches the opposite error of Nestorianism, to wit, that Our Lord has only one nature which is divine. The term Monophysite means 'one nature' (mono phusis). Monophysites hold that Christ's human nature was absorbed by his divine, as the heresiarch Eutyches proclaimed, 'like a drop of water in the ocean'. This heterodox doctrine denies the true humanity of Our Lord as Nestorianism denies the true divinity of the Incarnate Logos.

Thus the womb of Our Lady is the new Garden of Eden, Paradise, and Our Lord is the New Adam, whose human nature is the recreation of human nature free of original and actual sin, untainted by corruption and free from mortality, concupiscence and the consequences of the Fall of man. Christ the New Man, sinless and Virgin-born, possesses a human nature, not of Adam's line, but of His own, given to Him by the Holy Ghost through the Mother of God. The Blessed Virgin Mary is one through whom the human race has been offered the gift of a regenerated human nature liberated from sin, for from her Christ's new human nature presents us with the total renewal of human life, like that of Adam before the Fall, yes, but even higher.

For in Christ, the substance of our mortal flesh has been deified and united to the Godhead in perfect communion and union. Our Lord raises human nature to a level never experienced by or realised in Adam, for in Christ, our human nature is shared by 'One of the Holy Trinity' and thus is inserted into the perichoresis, the mutual indwelling and communal life and love, of the Holy Trinity. Christ our God takes from us our humanity, with its loss of original justice and grace, and communion with God, and likeness to God, and gives us His humanity, effused with the fullness of divinity, in return - a divine exchange of love and grace. This human nature of Christ, the substance of our own humanity freed from sin, glorified by divine life, and full of the Holy Ghost, is communicated and applied to us in the Sacraments.

In Christ, from the moment of the Incarnation, exists the perfect union, personal union, of the One Divine Person of the Son and His regenerated human nature. God is forever Man in Jesus Christ and remains such for all eternity. But the human nature is indeed a created human nature, that is, a human nature generated and truly born from our nature - there were Monophysite heretics in the fourth and fifth centuries that held that Christ possesses an uncreated or heavenly human nature, heavenly flesh not derived of created human nature, but that error is based on a Gnostic denial that God truly took human flesh, was truly conceived and truly born in every we are but with the exemption of sin (Hebrews 4).

The Docetists and other early quasi-Christian Gnostics held Our Lord was but a phantom, an apparition, a heavenly being devoid of material flesh and blood who only appeared (dokeo) to be human, but did not possess a truly material physical human nature. Several early Gnostic heretical movements asserted Christ was truly divine but that He lacked a true and consubstantial human nature with us: such error vitiates the purpose and reality of the Incarnation. The Orthodox Catholic Faith maintains that Christ is consubstantial with us concerning His Manhood and consubstantial with the Father concerning His Deity (Athanasian Creed). Jesus Christ is like us, therefore, in every way. He is Very God and Very Man. In Him, both natures exist distinctly, without fusion, mixture and confusion, and yet are inseparable and interpenetrate each other. As the ancient Fathers describe the mystery, the Son's divine nature divinises His human nature 'like iron in the fire.' The iron and the fire remain distinct from each other, but each takes on the property of the other. Truly we can say therefore that God was born, performed miracles, hungered, thirsted, suffered, was crucified, died, was buried and rose again. And the humanity of that God-Man is now divine, resplendent with the glory and life of God.

Thank You for your prayers

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to those who prayed and responded to our request for prayers. Thank you. Truly our God is an answering God who is full of mercy and grace. Our province of Nueva Vizcaya was spared from the damaging effect of this typhoon.

Please continue to pray for Cagayan Valley, Baguio, Kalinga, Nueva Ecija, Marikina , Cainta and Rizal that was heavily affected by these recent typhoons. Thank you.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

STATEMENT OF FAITH

We believe in one God; eternally in three persons: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; each with separate and distinct, albeit common purpose, ministries and manifestations toward mankind.

We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, sinless life, demonstration of miracles vicarious and atoning death through His shedding of blood at Calvary, bodily resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father and His personal return in power and glory to the earth.

We believe that the Holy Bible, the Holy Scriptures are the inerrant, revealed Word of God and therefore is the ultimate authority and standard of faith and practice in our lives.

We believe that the regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential for the salvation of the lost and sinful mankind, for men have sinned.

We believe that an individual Christian is enabled to live a Godly life through the present ministry of the Holy Spirit.

We believe that the Sacraments convey grace and through them Christ is known and is manifested among believers.

We believe that Christian Morality of the New Testament is the sole guide for the Church as they make a significant difference in the world by their being a witness through their life of faith.

We believe Christ instituted the apostolic ministry of Bishops, Priest and Deacons, which is MALE in character and advocates the ministry of all believers and the laity working together with the 3-fold offices.

We believe that the Creeds, as standards of our Faith mean exactly what they say.
(The Apostle's creed, the Nicene creed and the Athanasian creed)

We believe in emphasizing the regular, reverend and disciplined worship service where we praise the Almighty God, admit our need of Him in our lives, and offer Him our prayers of thanksgiving and petition for others as well as for ourselves.

We believe in the continuity of the Church as it moves into maturity to become the Bride of Christ, in spiritual unity with those who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ and have made Him as Lord and Savior of their lives.

Who we are:

The Anglican Church in the Philippines (Traditional), Inc. (ACPT) is an autonomous and independent Anglican body, a continuing Anglican Province in the islands of the Philippines and in communion with the Anglican Province of America.

We are Catholic meaning universal because we share the faith, sacraments and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ embraced at all times and in every era while we are in fellowship with all-minded people and of “like-faith” around the world.

We are Apostolic as we continue adhere to the Apostle’s teachings and fellowship. Acts 2:42.

We are Evangelical, as we believe in the Gospel and in Jesus Christ as the only advocate and mediator between God and men. 1 Timothy 2:5. Because we believe in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, we are Biblical in morality as we make it the sole guide for our everyday conduct of life.

We are Reformed because we hold on to the doctrines and liturgy handed down by the English Reformation in the 39 articles of Religion and the worship based on the 1928 version of the Book of Common Prayer.

We are Liturgical / Sacramental as it expresses worship of God is form and order still based on the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

An opprtunity to plant seeds of Wisdom for a lifetime

The Anglican Theological Seminary of the Philippines has started building their school library. Our trainees are increasing, the school needs are also increasing, presently we are in need of theological books, study materials, children teaching materials, video and audio teaching materials and other technical equipments for training and library use. We appeal to those who have a generous heart, if you are moved to respond to these needs, to give and plant new or used theological books for the school and help the pressing needs of the training and school library.Please send us an email Your generosity will bring forth fruits of righteousness for a lifetime. Thank you.

Thank you...Thank you

Thank you for your prayers for the training in Southern Luzon. The training produces two deacons for the Anglican church in the Philippines(Traditional)Inc. They will continue with their training for the Priesthood. Your obedience and generosity brought forth fruits that will remain and will cause God's work to advance here in the Philippines.