This Is My Body: The Choice Between Gift and Grasp
Introduction: The First Choice A Catholic senator defends marriage and votes against labour rights on Monday. A Catholic activist champions the poor while dismissing chastity as repression. An environmental warrior fights pollution while treating sexuality as a private choice. We have fractured what should not be divided. We speak of sexual morality as one thing and social justice as another. We build entire Catholic identities around these divisions. Left versus right, private morality versus systemic sin, bedroom versus boardroom. This division obscures a deeper unity. The Second Vatican Council said it plainly: "Man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self." From Eden to the present, human love unfolds as a single fundamental orientation: gift or grasp, communion or consumption, an open hand or a closed fist. In the modern West, we’ve built a civilisation of grasping. Radical autonomy, sexual utilitarianism, and economic acquisitiveness....
I had no idea young Calvin had embraced Catholicism with such alacrity. Perhaps this is the real reason there was no room at the diocese of London for him.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, great wig Calvo.
A peaceful and blessed Christmas day to one and all.
Calvin has been ordained as a Deacon in the Free Church of England after his disgraceful treatment by the Established Church of England earlier this year.
DeleteAccording to Wiki, the Free Church of England is "a conventional Anglican church body, worshipping in the Low Church tradition and holding to the principles of the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles."
It then describes itself as "Episcopal, Liturgical and Evangelical."
Wiki continues:
"It was founded principally by Evangelical or Low Church clergy and congregations in response to what were perceived as attempts (inspired by the Oxford Movement) to re-introduce medieval Roman Catholic dogmas and practices into the Established Church."
[But like all protestant 'churches' it has 'reformed' a couple of times and divided into opposing sections]
"In 1956, the FCE published a revision of the Book of Common Prayer to form the primary text of the denomination's liturgy. The stated intention of the revision was to remove or explain "particular phrases and expressions" from the Church of England's 1662 edition of the prayer book that "afford at least plausible ground for the teaching and practice of the Sacerdotal and Romanising Party.
In 2003, due to the adoption of High Church practices by the FCE, two bishops and ten congregations split from the main Church ... and formed the Evangelical Connexion of the Free Church of England. Two churches in Farnham and Teddington having become independent altogether, the ECFCE currently has five churches ...
"The provision of contemporary language liturgies has been approved by convocation and a process of drafting and authorisation has begun. The church has continued to ordain bishops in the apostolic succession, with Moravian, Church of England and Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church bishops taking part on occasion. ....
The presiding bishop is chosen annually by convocation and has the title "Bishop Primus". Only baptised males are ordained to Holy Orders as bishops, presbyters, and deacons, or admitted to the public teaching office of Reader."
@Chef
DeleteIt's his real hair, from when he was a member of seminal rock bank The Calvin Robinson Experience.
Nice to see you here, to see you nice, have a great Christmas.
@Jack
DeleteIt also seems relevant to mention that the denomination's theology is said to be Calvinist.
Jack may consider himself wished a happy and blessed Christmas.
I'd be more than happy to hear a message of hope from Calvo, but I'm just getting depressing news from that link.
ReplyDeleteScroll forward a few minutes. Robinson's contribution includes carols (in Latin) and thoughtful interviews with Catholic and Orthodox figures such as Gavin Ashenden.
ReplyDelete