+Andrew Burnham sets sail from the Grey Havens

Damian Thompson writes on the last Mass and sermon of +Andrew Burnham as an Anglican bishop.

...on your journey of discipleship, look not to me but to the Lord whom we serve. He alone can teach us how to be pilgrims on the way that leads to Paradise.

Amen. Godspeed, Andrew Burnham.

Several friends have asked me why I would consider "crossing the Tiber" since it would mean accepting all sorts of "strange" doctrine. I usually respond that I do not find Benediction strange, or veneration of Mary (having been raised an Anglo Catholic). The doctrines I find strange are women priests and bishops, communion of the un-baptized, using the Qu'ran in place of the letters of Paul, making the Nicene Creed optional, denying the Real Presence, and the various and sundry other new doctrines of TEC and Western Anglicanism in general. For the record, I also think the folks in Sydney who advocate lay presidency just don't get it either.

Whether I follow him (or his US equivalent) to Rome, or not, I pray that Bishop Andrew and the Ordinariate are successful, that the Catholic Church is enriched by their presence, and perhaps itself regains some of what it has lost, as those who follow the good bishop regain something they have lost. And ask their prayers for those of us they leave behind.

Advent

O Come....
I have never been good at waiting. If a friend asks me for a stock tip, I tell him he would be better off asking me what I bought 6 months ago. Most of the stocks I've bought do well over long time periods, but they often don't do well at all in the first few months. I tend to move too soon. I suspect I do this in terms of the Church as well. Which is not to say that I am quick to adopt the latest "new thang" in religious revisionism, but rather that I react to those new things often before I've really developed my thinking. So, over the years, I have tended to react to TEC innovations and heresies with an immediate emotional response, rather than with a methodical, researched and documented response.

Unfortunately, modern communications make this all too easy. I log into a website and launch a diatribe, or a barb, or toss down a gauntlet (depending on whether I've logged into Stand Firm, MCJ or Covenant). Used to be that I would have several books at my elbow, and while some comments were "one liners", the better ones were more like short essays- utilizing quotes, Bible verses and references to the writings of theologians of 20 centuries to substantiate my point. Nowadays, I am more likely just to fire something off the top of my head, based on a bad memory and virtually no analysis.

I haven't posted on this blog lately because this is the place where I am hoping to better discipline myself, to prepare what I have to say, or at least read through the drafts a couple times in an effort to communicate what I really want to say. To present ideas and analysis.

In Advent, we await the Second Coming of our Lord. A day that, I suspect, most of us anticipate with both hope and fear. Hope for His return, but at the same time knowing that we are not yet prepared, in our selves and our souls, for that day. What I know I must learn, yet, in order to be ready is to defend the Faith in a calm, orderly and, for want of a better word, scholarly fashion. It is not enough to launch a "zinger" now and then when heresy rears its head. What is called for instead is sufficiently reasoned argument to convince those who oppose Christ and His Church- whether they be non-believers or the heretics in our own house. So I will try to better prepare, try to remain silent when I have nothing to offer but caustic humor. And I ask your forgiveness, and His, for the times when I fail, and my rude sense of humor comes to the fore on Stand Firm or MCJ.