laudable Practice

In an 1851 sermon preached in Westminster Abbey on the feast of the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin, ' On a Recent Proposal of the Church of Rome to make a New Article of Faith ', Christopher Wordsworth - a leading figure in the Old High tradition, Bishop of Lincoln 1869-85 - addressed the process which led to the Bishop of Rome promulgating the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. In this extract, Wordsworth expounds how refusal to accept this doctrine is rooted in the Scriptural proclamation and creedal confession of the Incarnation. Not only is the mystery of the Incarnation not aided by the doctrine Immaculate Conception. In fact, as Wordsworth emphasises, the mystery and grace of the Incarnation is more faithfully acknowledged by a recognition that the Blessed Virgin is, with us, entirely dependent upon the Redeemer. This also points to the grounds for what Wordsworth terms "the true honour of the Blessed Virgin", her overshadowing by the Holy Spi...

'Mary is for life, not just for Christmas' It was an Anglo-catholic response on 'X' to an evangelical asking, when about to address a gathering of pastors on the theme of preparation for Christmas, "what would be the most helpful thing for me to say to the pastors?". After smiling at the online ecclesiastical humour, the phrase did strike me as a very good description of the Marian piety of Prayer Book Anglicanism. This day on which we commemorate the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a particularly appropriate occasion to deliver an Old High affirmation of 'Mary is for life, not just for Christmas'. The role of the blessed Virgin - the title for Mary used in Article II of the Thirty-nine - in the mystery of the Incarnation is confessed twice daily, morning and evening, in Prayer Book Matins and Evensong.  Every day of the year, we confess in the Creed "born of the Virgin Mary", a recognition that our redemption in and through the Lord...

... though we have rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God - Sentences, Daniel 9:9-10. But, unlike us, the Daughter of Sion has heard and kept the word of God. As Augustine says, "Mary, too, is blessed, because she heard the word of God and kept it. She kept truth safe in her mind even better than she kept flesh safe in her womb. Christ is truth, Christ is flesh; Christ as truth was in Mary's mind, Christ as flesh in Mary's womb". And there is no health in u s - General Confession. We rightly hesitate to say this of the Blessed Virgin: a respectful reserve and reticence is called for.  Hooker declares regarding her sanctity and the presence of sin, "we say with St. Augustine, for the honour’s sake which we owe to our Lord and Saviour Christ, we are not willing, in this cause, to move any question of his mother". ... that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure, and holy - Absolution. We pray that we may be pure and h...

Some Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics on Twitter on Tuesday - the feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Roman tradition - could be found suggesting that Thomas Ken believed in the Immaculate Conception because of a verse in his poem ' Sion: or, Philothea ': The Holy Ghost his Temple in her built, Cleans’d from congenial, kept from mortal Guilt; And from the Moment that her Blood was fired Into her Heart celestial Love inspir’d. Colin Podmore - the former Director of Forward in Faith and editor of an excellent collection of Roger Greenacre's Marian writings - has stated rather straight-forwardly that Ken is here affirming the Immaculate Conception: This is poetry, not prose, but surely we have here the doctrine that at the moment of her conception – ‘the Moment that her Blood was fired’ – Mary was cleansed from original sin in order that she might become the mother of Our Lord. More cautiously, Paul Williams in Mary: The Complete Resource suggests that this "a...

In his A Memoir of the Rev. John Keble (1869), J.T. Coleridge quotes from a Keble letter of May 1855, referring to Pius IX's 1854 promulgation in Ineffabilis Deus of the Immaculate Conception.  Keble critiques the "distinctive" character of such Marian doctrines: The Legendary services in the Breviary, with that for the 15th August at the head, are a standing instance of this; and so will this new doctrine be, in whatever degree they allege antiquity for it. They cannot but know in their hearts, that it has not the shadow of a Tradition ... Most fearful it is to me, that neither among the more moderate Romanists, nor among our Romanizers, (with one exception that E. B. P. told me of,) does it seem to have produced any sort of scruple or re-action. Coleridge goes on to comment: It will be seen how Keble speaks of the new dogma  of the Immaculate Conception, and he felt the same  as long as he lived. The promulgation of it pained  him much; it constituted in his...

As we enter into mid-Advent, the 1662 Kalendar today quietly commemorates the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a black letter day.  A quiet commemoration not only reflects the silence of Scripture on the matter, it also coheres with our observance of Advent.  Awaiting the Advent of the Lord - the One "which was, and is, and is to come" - we do so after the manner of the Prophet, "in quietness" (Isaiah 30:15), and of the Apostle, "with quietness" (I Thessalonians 3:12).  Just as the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary occurred in a quietness not recorded in Scripture, so we too wait quietly during the days of Advent, as we "inwardly digest" the "blessed hope" of the Scriptures in company with Israel and the Church across long centuries. Today's liturgy in the classical Prayer Book tradition carries neither collect nor readings for the Conception.  The psalms, readings, and collects of this second week in Advent continue.  T...