Session 8: Anglican Spiritual Formation

APOSTLES ANGLICAN CHURCH
Fr. John A. Roop

Christian Essentials / Anglican Distinctives
Session 8: Anglican Spiritual Formation

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

Thanks be to thee, Lord Jesus Christ, for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for us, and all the benefits thou hast given us. O most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother: Grant that we may see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more dearly, day by day. Amen. (adapted, BCP 2019, p. 672)

IN MY EXPERIENCE, Evangelicals take the Great Commission very seriously: Jesus’ commandment to make disciples in all the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded (cf Matt 28:18-20). That is one of the great Evangelical strengths, and thank God for it. What Evangelicals don’t seem quite as keen on — and, of course, this is not true for all Evangelicals — is follow up: making converts, yes, making disciples, not quite so much.

Suppose one of these new converts came to you with these questions: What now? Now that I am a Christian, what is it that I am meant to do?

How would you answer him/her? Well, there are many things that need to be said; it would be a long conversation. But starting with St. Paul’s instructions to the Ephesians would not be a bad place to begin. [Refer class to handout.]

Ephesians 4:1-7,10-16 (ESV): 4 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

What now? What am I meant to do? “Grow up,” Paul says. Don’t stay a child in the faith, but rather become mature, complete in Christ.

This process of growth is called by different names. Some call it sanctification. Our Orthodox brothers and sisters call it theosis or divinization, i.e., growing in the divine life. I’ll use a rather more mundane name, but a good Anglican name nonetheless: spiritual formation — being shaped, formed, and molded into the likeness of Christ.

Spiritual formation is a good, classical term, and it has this to commend it; the imagery is biblical. Isaiah, and Paul alluding to him, describes God as a potter and Israel as clay:

Isaiah 64:8 (ESV): 8  But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.

Spiritual formation is first and foremost a work of God on his people. But, as with most else in the Christian life, there is a dual agency in spiritual formation also: two parties working jointly, God and us. Spiritual formation is not passive; we don’t simply wait for God to form us. Nor is it something we can accomplish independently of the grace of God going before us and enabling us. Fr. Stephen Gauthier, Canon Theologian of the (ACNA) Diocese of the Upper Midwest, uses a phrase I like very much: God does everything, but we must do something.

So, what part do we play — always in response to God — in our spiritual formation? What must we do? I suggest that we can find an answer in the Rite of Holy Baptism, particularly in the Litany for the Candidates (BCP 2019, pp. 166-167). These are means that God uses to form us, and means whereby we cooperate with God’s work. I might describe it as a five-fold regula, a five-part rule of life. [Refer class to handout.]

LITANY FOR THE CANDIDATES

The Deacon, or other person appointed, may say

Let us now pray for these Candidates who are to receive the Sacrament of Baptism.

That these children may come to confess their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

We beseech you to hear us, Good Lord.

[I] That all these Candidates may continue in the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.

We beseech you to hear us, Good Lord.

[II] That they may walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which they have been called, ever growing in faith and all heavenly virtues.

We beseech you to hear us, Good Lord.

[III] That they may persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever they fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.

We beseech you to hear us, Good Lord.

[IV] That they may proclaim by word and deed the Good News of God in Christ Jesus to a lost and broken world.

We beseech you to hear us, Good Lord.

That as living members of the Body of Christ, they may grow up in every way into him who is the head.

We beseech you to hear us, Good Lord.

That, looking to Jesus, they may run with endurance the race set before them, and at the last receive the unfading crown of glory.

We beseech you to hear us, Good Lord.

This Litany makes two essential points.

1. By its placement within the Rite of Baptism, it emphasizes that, while baptism is the beginning of the Christian life, it is certainly not the end. We are born in water, but we are expected to mature through spiritual formation.

2. The expectation for growth into maturity is for every baptized Christian, not just for some special, elite group. Further, the means of spiritual formation are quite “ordinary” practices accessible to everyone. You don’t have to be a monk or go into the desert for extended periods of fasting.

From this Litany I’d like to extract five practices that Christians for two millennia have found to be central to spiritual formation.

The petition marked [I] in the Litany gives three of the practices; it may look like four, but I’ll summarize them in a three-fold scheme used by Anglican priest and author Martin Thornton.

The baptizand is to continue in (1) the apostles’ teaching, (2) the fellowship, (3) the breaking of bread, and (4) the prayers. How would you describe each of these practices?

The apostles’ teaching denotes hearing, reading, studying, and obeying God’s Word as found in Scripture.

The fellowship means taking one’s place in the worship and life of the church. It also means living life together in the Christian community, becoming part of a different culture.

The breaking of bread is a common way of referring to the Lord’s Supper.

Theprayers indicates the common (shared) prayer of the church, the prayers we offer when we come together. But, without neglecting or minimizing common prayer, we must extend this to our personal prayers as well.

So, let’s put these four things together in an Anglican context — since we are looking at Anglican Christian formation. We might summarize it this way; indeed, Martin Thornton does so in many of his writings:

• Daily Office: Morning and Evening Prayer

• Weekly Eucharist

• Personal Prayer

Daily Office

The invitation to the Confession of Sin in Morning and Evening Prayer summarizes well the main purposes of the Daily Office:

Dearly beloved, the Scriptures teach us to acknowledge our many sins and offenses, not concealing them from our Heavenly Father, but confessing them with humble and obedient hearts that we may obtain forgiveness by his infinite goodness and mercy. We are at all times humbly (1) to acknowledge our sins before Almighty God, but especially when we come together in his presence (2) to give thanks for the great benefits we have received at his hands, (3) to declare his most worthy praise, (4) to hear his holy Word, and (5) to ask, for ourselves and on behalf of others, those things which are necessary for our life and our salvation. Therefore, draw near with me to the throne of heavenly grace (BCP 2019, pp. 11-12).

So, what do we encounter in the Daily Office?

• Confession and absolution

• Thanksgiving

• Worship

• Scripture

• Petition and intercession

At the heart of the Daily Office we find the Scriptures and the Psalms. Cranmer’s intent with the Book of Common Prayer was that the church would read through the whole of Scripture each year and pray through the Psalms each month. He gave us a calendar of reading — a lectionary — to order that reading. That’s a hefty task, and the BCP 2019 has adapted it a bit. It is possible to keep to Cranmer’s goal, or it is possible to read through the whole of Scripture in two years and the Psalms in sixty days following the lectionary. The instructions on how to do this are found on pages 734 ff in the BCP.

Cranmer simply pointed out the obvious by means of a calendar: if you do not immerse yourself regularly in Scripture and prayer you will not grow in Christlikeness. There is nothing magic about the BCP Lectionary: Anglican, yes, but magic, no. You may benefit from a variety of daily Bible reading calendars. The advantage to the BCP Lectionary is simply that you are reading with your local community and with Anglicans around the world.

Weekly Eucharist

About the Eucharist, the BCP says:

The Holy Communion, commonly called the Lord’s Supper or the Holy Eucharist, is a chief means of grace for sustained and nurtured life in Christ. It is normally the principal service of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day and on other appointed Feasts and Holy Days (BCP 7).

Very significantly for us, this text insists that the Eucharist is a means of grace (the chief means of grace) to sustain and to nurture life in Christ. Nurture connotes growth and flourishing. Real, substantive growth — spiritual formation — is hampered by separation from the Eucharist. I want to speak personally — that is, as one particular priest speaking only for himself — for a moment. I say this with no sense of judgment, except upon myself as an inadequate teacher of the faith. The readiness of many churches to minimize the importance of the Eucharist and the readiness of many people to absent themselves from the Eucharist during the recent COVID pandemic was one of the most disturbing aspects of that period. If we really knew the importance of the Eucharist as the source of Christian life and growth, I am convinced we would be willing to risk death to gather at the altar. Many of our brothers and sisters around the world — those facing persecution for the faith — do risk death to gather. We certainly wouldn’t let trivial things keep us from doing so. With no sense of melodrama, I can say that we do risk spiritual sickness and death if we routinely absent ourselves from Holy Communion We should commit first of all — of prime importance — to remember the Sabbath Day, in our case the day of Resurrection, and to keep it holy by gathering for the Eucharist at least weekly and more often as we are able.

Personal Prayer

Common Prayer does not preclude or minimize personal/private prayer, intimate time spent in God’s presence. Here at Apostles we emphasize the need for personal prayer in our Christian Formation class offerings. Regularly, we offer courses on various types of contemplative prayer: the Jesus Prayer, the Rosary (adapted for Anglican use), lectio divina, praying with icons. We might also include journaling and singing/music in this category. Purportedly St. Augustine said, “To sing is to pray twice.” Of course, what you sing matters greatly: not how well, but what you sing. So, we honor the importance of both Common Prayer and personal prayer.

So far, we have a three-fold scheme for spiritual formation. Let’s add a fourth element by looking at items [II] and [III]. Item [II] mentions growing in faith and heavenly virtues. It is easy to describe what that means, and so awfully hard to really do it. It means “doing what is right and not doing what is wrong:” cultivating the classical, cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.

Prudence is the wisdom to judge what is good and proper and appropriate in any circumstance.

Justice is the proper balance between what is right for others and what is right for oneself. Justice is putting things in proper order — in a Christian sense, reestablishing God’s order of things.

Temperance is appropriate self-control, mastery of the passions.

Fortitude is the courage and persistence to act justly and temperately. Notice how item [III] also tells us to persevere in resisting evil.

Classical moral thought has long maintained that these cardinal virtues are acquired by practice. We learn them by doing them. In fact, a virtue is sometimes defined as an acquired habit of righteousness, a second nature that one develops by disciplined practice. We practice, and, when we fail, we repent and start anew.

Christians add to these four cardinal virtues three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. These differ from the cardinal virtues in one essential aspect: they are not obtained by human effort and training, but are given by God; theologians call them infused virtues. Who am I to disagree? I don’t want to disagree, but I would like to qualify. We cannot achieve love on our own, but we can exercise that degree of love God has given us; the same applies to faith and hope. It seems to me that, even with the theological virtues, virtue neglected is virtue diminished. So, what do we do with regard to the theological virtues? We pray for them and we exercise them.

We might also consider the cultivation of virtues that address the deadly sins.

SIN / VIRTUE

Pride / Humility

Envy / Gratitude

Anger / Patience

Sloth / Diligence

Avarice / Charity (or Generosity)

Gluttony / Temperance

Lust / Chastity

Now, we are up to a four-fold regula:

• Daily Office

• Weekly Eucharist

• Personal Prayer

• Cultivation of Virtues

Item [IV] will complete our scheme: proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed. This is a matter of exercising your vocation, of doing the work God has given you to do in a manner that brings glory to God and welfare to his people. It is living in the kingdom here and now. I am not speaking here just of what we might call “Christian vocation” — what you do in church, though you should be actively engaged in that type of ministry also. I am speaking of doing whatever you are called and gifted to do as unto God and in such a way that the excellence of your work and the attitude and integrity with which you do it proclaims the Gospel.

Let me give an example from an episode of a television show, The Resident, that I saw a few years ago. A black surgeon and an angry young black man who the surgeon was trying to mentor were riding in the surgeon’s very expensive car after dark. They were pulled over by a police officer for no reason at all; the show wanted to portray it as a clear case of driving while black. The surgeon cautioned his young friend to comply with the officer fully and to treat him respectfully. Of course, you can probably see where this is going. The young man began to mouth off and resist, and the officer drew his weapon. Then something unexpected happened. As the officer leveled his gun he took a couple of steps backward into the street and an oncoming motorcycle hit him. It was a life-threatening injury. The surgeon quickly stepped in and began to stabilize the officer as best he could while he instructed the young man to call for an ambulance. The surgeon accompanied the officer to the hospital and, though off duty, scrubbed in to do the necessary surgery himself. It was touch-and-go, a really difficult procedure, but the officer survived. As the surgeon left the OR, the young man was waiting for him with questions. “Why did you save that man? You don’t really think doing that will change the man’s mind about African-Americans or make him less racist, do you?” Then the surgeon told him:

“It’s not about him. It’s about me and the excellence of my work. In my OR I don’t see colors, just people who need my help.” And then he said the line that has stuck with me ever since I watched the episode: “In the midst of an irredeemable world, I am a righteous man.” Now, there are things wrong with that theologically, but I can’t fault the sentiment. In the realm over which he had any control, he was determined to do the right thing, to be a righteous man, to exercise virtue in his vocation.

That’s exactly what I have in mind in speaking of vocation, with this nuance. We do excellent work — we are righteous men and women — because we are Christians and because that is the way we bring God’s kingdom to bear in the midst of a redeemable but fallen world. Do that in your classroom, in your office, in your home, in your business, behind the wheel of the delivery truck, wherever you are. Gather with other Christians who do the same work and ask them what it looks like to do that work as a Christian. Pray about it. You might know the saying often attributed to St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel. When necessary, use words.” That’s what I have in mind.

So, we have completed a five-fold regular for spiritual formation:

• Daily Office

• Weekly Eucharist

• Personal Prayer

• Cultivation of Virtues

• Exercise of Vocation

There are other important things we could add, but this is a very good and essential place to start spiritual formation. Here is a recommendation. With prayer and perhaps with the help of a trusted spiritual friend or advisor, look at your life and at this five-fold regula. Find one area in your spiritual formation that needs intentional emphasis. Commit that to God, make a specific intention and plan to grow in that area, and share that commitment with another who can support you in and hold you accountable to your commitment.

I also recommend looking at the list and adding one element that you are not currently doing. Pray about which one that should be, and perhaps discuss it with other wise brothers and sisters in the faith. God will bless and multiply even such feeble efforts as we sometimes make in our effort to co-operate with grace and grow in Christlikeness.