SERMON FOR 13^TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act---they will be blessed in their doing” The Epistle of James 1:22-25.

The Sunday before last we celebrated with great ceremony the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin, mother of Our Lord.  The sermon dealt, in a large measure, with the manifestation of the Blessed Virgin at Walsingham and the work of the Society of Our Lady of Walsingham.  This organization is one of several devotional organizations in the Anglican Communion, which emphasize some aspect of the Christian Faith.  They all were founded in the mid nineteenth or early twentieth century as a result of the Oxford movement, which reclaimed the Catholic heritage of the Anglican Communion and its various provinces, including the Episcopal Church in the United States.  This morning I wish to speak briefly about two of them: The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament and the Guild of All Souls.

The earliest of these devotional organizations, the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, was founded at Clewer, outside Oxford, in 1862, by The Rev. Canon Thomas T. Carter and is dedicated to the veneration of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Its purpose is to promote the Mass as the main celebration in the Church on Sunday mornings, and as frequently during the week as is possible in every parish.  The other purpose of the Confraternity was to promote the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament so that it might be available at a moment’s notice for the consolation of the sick and dying.

It is difficult for us today to believe that 150 years ago clergy were thrown into jail in the Church of England for advocating the teaching of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist but such was the case.  Clergy were thrown in jail for placing crosses, flowers and candles on the altar, wearing vestments, having choirs vested in procession with processional crosses, mixing wine and water in the chalice, using incense, allowing the Agnus Dei (O Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world) to be sung.   The Confraternity was founded, as Canon Carter specifically pointed out,  to support those who, like Father Arthur Tooth,  were persecuted for their beliefs.  In 1865 a young American priest went to England to meet with Fr. Richard Muse Benson in order to become a member of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) ; his name was Charles Chapman Grafton.  Fr. Grafton became a member of the Cowley fathers but, in addition, he met with Canon Carter and, upon his return to the United States founded the American Province of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament.  Fr. Grafton,  as a priest associate of the Confraternity admitted the first associates in the American Province (2 priests and a layman) on September 11, 1867 in St. Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Parish in New York City.  Even as the Confraternity began its work its policies came under attack by many of the hierarchy of the American Church as their brethren in England had objected to what the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament advocated as un Anglican and un Episcopalian.   However as the ritual movement began to spread it became  the focus of legislative action by the dominant Protestant element in the General Convention of 1871 and again in 1874 to prohibit any of the ceremonies, which characterized the Catholic movement.  A canon of ritual conformity was passed at the 1874 Convention prohibiting “any act of adoration of or toward the Elements in the Holy Communion” On the floor of the General Convention the Rev. Dr. James DeKoven, a native of Middletown Connecticut and a Deputy from the Diocese of Wisconsin, said “You may take away from us, if you will, every external ceremony; you may take away altars, and super-altars, lights and incense and vestments, you may take away, if you will, the eastward position; you may take away every possible ceremony; and you may command us to celebrate at the altar of God without any external symbolism whatever. You may give us the most barren of all observances, and we will submit to you. But, gentlemen, the very moment any one says we shall not adore our Lord present in the Eucharist, then from a thousand hearts will come the answer, ‘Let me die in my own country, and be buried in the grave of my father and mother” For to adore Christ’s person in his Sacrament that is the inalienable privilege of every Christian and Catholic heart. How we do it, the way we do it, the ceremonies with which we do it, are utterly indifferent. The thing itself is what we plead for.” Dekoven was a true prophet—the canon lasted only thirty years and in that time there was only one trial under its provision, that of Father Prescott of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Boston, who suffered no more than an Episcopal admonition. (it is interesting that the present Bishop of Massachusetts, whose predecessor admonished Fr. Prescott is, himself, a monk of the Society of St. John the Evangelist).   Before long Father Grafton became the Superior of the Confraternity and the Bishop of Fond du Lac. One of the ideas, which the Confraternity put forward, was to have a daily Mass during the meetings of General Convention.  Now, of course, this was not an official part of the Convention but was celebrated in a nearby parish church.  This caused quite a stir but nothing could be done about it. The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament exists to this day with its principles unchanged, the devotions of its Associates, lay and clergy still made each day.

And what of those principles, by the way? With the adoption of the Book of Common Prayer in 1979—the Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, commonly called the Mass became the principle Sunday service of worship in every parish in the Episcopal Church.  And in even the lowest and broadest of parishes the Blessed Sacrament is reserved—not I suppose for the service of Benediction but for administration to the sick—and what of everything else :all those manifestations of the ritual movement?   Well, just look around you. —Even our Cathedral has stations of the cross,  the reserved sacrament (even if it is out in the sacristy)  candles, flowers, decorated altars and a side chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Of course here at Grace Church we have it all—and it is the result of the those members of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament who endured attacks and persecution for the Anglo-Catholic position in the Church.   And General Convention—why there is Mass every day as part of the agenda –celebrated with vested choirs and bishops in copes and mitres and vestments behind gorgeous altars and candles and flowers, with processional crosses, croziers and even a Presiding Bishop with a primatial cross;  and, well you get the picture. By the way, James Dekoven has been a saint in Lesser Feast and Fasts for a very long time;  and guess who was added this year by the General Convention—no less a person than the Rt. Rev. Charles Chapman Grafton, Bishop of Fond du Lac and Superior of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament for twenty years!  My goodness who would ever have thought it.

Well now, after all of that the Guild of All Souls will seem pretty tame, but its impact was, in many ways, just as important.  It was founded on March 15, 1873 at St. James’ Church Hatcham, England by three communicants  Joseph and Walter Plimpton and Edward Frederick Croom. They invited the vicar, the famous Father Arthur Tooth to become its first president and he accepted.   Its purpose was to promote two major doctrines set forth in the Creeds of the Church.  The Communion of the Saints and the Resurrection of the Body.  At the time of its foundation it stated that it was “to provide furniture for Burial according to the use of the Catholic Church so as to set forth the two great doctrines of the Communion of Saints and the Resurrection of the Body; and intercessory prayer for the Dying and for the repose of the souls of the deceased members and all the faithful departed.”  For years the Board of Directors was comprised entirely of lay persons because any priest who was known to be associated with it was liable to be deprived of his living—that is thrown out of his parish by the diocesan authorities.  Eventually of course,  that changed but not for sometime.

Subsequently some additional principles were promoted by the Guild—The restoration of the use of the Rite of Anointing the Sick commonly called Holy Unction and the restoration of the “primitive custom” of reserving the Holy Eucharist for the sick and the dying.  To these principles was added that of promoting Requiem Masses at funerals, instead of merely conducting a burial office for the departed. 

On May 14, 1889 a branch  of the Guild of All Souls was established in the United States following a visit by several English clergy and lay people to Chicago, Illinois.  Father Edward A. Larabee , later Dean of Nashotah House,  was elected Superior of the Chicago Branch as it was called and shortly there after Father James O.S. Huntington, of the Order of the Holy Cross was chosen as Superior of the New York Branch.

The English branch determined to establish a Chantry Chapel for the purpose of offering a Requiem Mass daily for the faithful departed. This was achieved when the Guild was invited to use the Chapel at St. Stephen’s Gloucester Road in London. The Guild was also opposed by those members of the church, chiefly the Protestant League for the Defense of the Faith of the Church of England, who did not approve of praying for the dead (or much of anything else for that matter)  but the death of Queen Victoria on 1901 put an end to all of that. There was much criticism of the lack of Christian music at her funeral and this was corrected when a Solemn Requiem High Mass, sponsored by the Guild of All Souls, was sung for the repose of the soul of the Queen.  It received much favorable publicity. The Daily Telegraph said “To all  (it seemed) the ceremonial proceeded in the highest and most elaborate manner known to the Anglican Church” The Church Times finished its very full report by saying “a general opinion was expressed that this beautiful and well ordered service, with al its Catholic accessories, might well be followed in great churches on great occasions for Requiems.” 

Unlike the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament the Guild of All Souls  in the United States did not have to wait until 1979 to see its principles receive national attention.  In the revision of the  Book of Common Prayer  in 1928 prayers for the faithful departed were added in the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church and also in several other portions of the Prayer book.  The Queen’s requiem and the dreadful  number of those killed in World War I brought the attention  and support of the whole Church to what the Guild had been advocating for years.

One of the greatest principles of the Guild promoted in its long history is the administration of Holy Unction and prayer for the sick as well as the dying and this also is now established in the Book of Common Prayer.  In our parish, as in many others, thanks to the advocacy of the Guild of All Souls we have the laying on of hands after Sunday Mass and a monthly Mass for Healing with administration of Holy Unction.  Few of us knew, I am sure, where this practice originated or who is responsible for it.

The Guild also has a new Chantry in England where Mass is said for the faithful departed, especially those who were members of the Guild and who have died.

For many years attempts were made to secure property on which to build a Chantry but without success.  Then, in 1963 a plot of land was offered and the foundation stone for the Guild Chapel was laid by the Bishop of Exeter on the Feast of St. John the Baptist in 1965.  The Completed Chapel of St. Michael & the Holy Souls was consecrated on October 13 October 1965, the Feast of St. Edward the Confessor by the Rt. Rev. William H. Brady, the Bishop of Fond du Lac. The Chantry Chapel is located, where else?   Next to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.  

Members of Grace Church have been members of the Guild of All Souls for many years, and just the other day as I was praying the list for August 24 there was the name of Sherrill MacAaron and the next day, there was the name of Dorothy Auten Sutton. 

I am sure at the time of their beginning the founders of these little devotional guilds never dreamed of what they and their successors would achieve.  “But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget, but doers who act-they will be blessed in their doing.”  Surely they were doers of the word and not hearers only— they are indeed blessed and not forgotten ; may we go and do likewise.

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