Anglo-Catholics:
What they believe
By
Leonard Prestige
Published
for the Catholic Literature Association of the Anglo-Catholic Congress by the
Society of SS. Peter & Paul, Limited, Westminster House, 8 Great Smith
Street, London, S.W. I, 1927
What
is Anglo-Catholicism?
Strictly
speaking, there is no such thing. But there is a thing called Catholicism,
which is a way of loving God. And there are people called Anglo-Catholics; that
is, Catholics who are in communion with Anglican Church in different parts of
the world. And as Anglo-Catholics are not in the least ashamed of saying that
they believe their way of loving God to be the best possible way in all the
circumstances, it is desirable to explain, at least in outline, the principles
on which their belief rests.
Who
is God?
In
certain solemn moments of their lives, and often in connection with particular
places and occasions, men think that they are conscious of a power outside
themselves, whom they call God and worship accordingly. Such feelings often turn
out to be simply the reflection of their own virtues and vices; that was much
the case with the Canaanites, of whom we read in the Old Testament. Their gods
were largely the reflection of the vices of their worshippers. In such
instances what religion means in practice is that the worshippers are trying to
bring influence to bear upon their deity, such as he is, in order to secure the
fulfilment of their own cravings and interests.
But
there was once a people called the Jews, who were regarded by their more
civilized neighbours as unpleasant and insignificant, with whom the reverse was
true: their God was in many important respects quite unlike them; and he
exerted his influence on them, not they on him. So they came to the conclusion
that he was the true God of the whole earth, and allowed themselves to be
organized into a society which was partly political and partly religious,
framed to express his will and carry out his commands.
Their
religion began historically with Moses. Under the inspiration of God he did two
great things. He saved some fugitive tribes of Hebrews from imminent disaster:
hence arose the idea of salvation. And he gave them an organisation of which
the spirit and inspiration were strictly moral and religious: hence arose the
idea of a national covenant with God.
A
little more must be said about this second point. The people believed that God
had adopted them to be in a special way his people, to carry out his purposes
on earth. If that was to be done effectively, they were bound to consider what
his purposes might be, and therefore what kind of person he was. So they came
to learn that he had a certain character and certain particular desires, and
that he expected his people to imitate him.
These
two ideas of revealed salvation and the claim of revealed goodness are the
foundation on which Catholicism is built.
How
the Church Began
All
through their history, in success and in disaster, the people of the Hebrews
clung to those two ideas, even when the bulk of the nation was annihilated and
only an insignificant remnant (whom we call the Jews) survived.
More
and more, as time went on, they grew dissatisfied with things as they were, and
yearned and prayed that God would bring them salvation from sin and
difficulties, and existing worldly conditions in general, by setting up a
kingdom of his own on earth, in which his will should be clearly set forth and
his people be helped to obey it.
And
more and more, as time went on, did they learn under the guidance of inspired
prophets and teachers to understand something of the depths of the character
and purposes of God. They came to realise his essential justice and love of
right; they became aware of the persistence of his saving love; and, as they
traced his guiding influence in the turns and events of the world's history,
they saw that his over-ruling providence was always at hand, whatever wrongs
men might do, repairing the damage and working to bring things to the
fulfilment of those purposes for which he created the world.
In
the end they became more of a Church than a nation, because their whole outlook
and all their organisation were dominated by the idea
of God's revelation of his own character and will, and of his saving purposes
for mankind. In all things they looked to God to reveal himself, whether in the
teaching of men who were inspired with special insight into spiritual things or
in the course and development of the history of events: and thus they believed
that their laws of morality and their religious customs, which had been evolved
through the ages under the guidance of spiritual leaders, were in a special way
a divine revelation.
How
the Jewish Church Became Catholic
Far
and away the greatest of all Jewish spiritual leaders was Jesus Christ. He
revolutionized the Jews' notions of goodness and religion. He did not destroy
them: far from doing that, he took them as the basis of all his work and
teaching. As he found, them they were the ideas of a tiny people, in a
backwater of civilisation, and their methods of practical application were
suitable to such a people, with limited knowledge of God and limited needs and
desires. As he left them, they were so fully developed that his teaching about
God and goodness came to be accepted as the only possible standard for the
whole world, and his re-organisation of religion was rapidly developed on his
own principles and by his own immediate disciples into the Catholic Religion as
it has been believed and practiced by the Catholic Church ever since.
The
Godhead of Christ
But
Jesus Christ was more than a prophet. Those who knew him best on earth were
gradually forced by progressive stages to the conviction that he was God in
human form. That was the conclusion to which their own personal experience led
them.
It
is desirable to state shortly what they meant by Christ's Godhead. They did not
mean to suggest for a moment that he was not a genuine man. But their meaning
did at least cover two points. In the first place, no human intelligence can
realise enough of God's own nature either to understand it or, if he could
understand it, to describe it within the limitations of human language and
ideas. God's own nature is so far beyond our comprehension that it seems like a
foreign language to us. But Christ is a full and perfect translation of God
into the simple language of humanity. In Christ we see God in terms of human
nature, the full, final, and complete revelation of God to man.
Secondly,
the Jews had long been taught that God sought after them and desired to win
their hearts and to save them. He had often sent them prophets and wise men; he
had often disciplined and corrected them. Now he had sent his Son, who was
himself truly God from everlasting to everlasting, to complete once and for all
the seeking and the saving of mankind. In Christ we see God undergoing a human
experience for the sake of redeeming the human race.
Hence
Christ is the final authority for Catholics. What he teaches they accept as
true; what he commands they try to do.
The
Catholic Faith
Christ
did not himself complete the organisation of his Church in detail: he chose and
trained certain apostles, and sent them out after his Ascension, under the
direction of the Holy Spirit, to found churches and to organize converts. These
apostles found that the Spirit of God, who had been manifest in the life of
Christ, now worked mightily in them, and his impulse
carried their gospel of Christianity throughout the civilized world.
Their
gospel was distinguished by certain definite marks.
It
was a gospel of revelation; they did not pretend to teach anything but what
Christ had instituted and taught them, or what men inspired by God's Spirit
could reasonably infer from the facts of God and of Christ.
It
was a gospel of salvation, because God himself had come in Christ to redeem the
world, and had entrusted to his followers the means of grace.
It
was a gospel of goodness (which they preferred to call love), and, by the
wonderful gift of God, converted men actually found themselves attaining to a
standard of goodness and love never before reached, save possibly by a few
exceptional individuals, here and there.
It
was a gospel of authority, because the Church was
Christ's society (they called it his Body): Christians did not organize
themselves into churches, but were "added to the Church" which
already existed, and conformed to the doctrines and practices they found
therein.
It
was a social gospel, because the Church was an organized visible society, and
in it all men were brothers.
It
was a gospel of life, because Christ lived on in the Church by his Spirit.
It
was a supernatural gospel, because the capacities of common people were raised
to a height above their ordinary natural level, and the values of common things
were changed to make them instruments of divine power.
So
this gospel was preached and took root, and came to be known as the Catholic
Faith. From generation to generation it was handed down, under the special care
and supervision of the Catholic bishops.
Sometimes
in the course of history new light came to be shed under the leading of the
divine Spirit upon old problems. Sometimes new problems arose and were solved
by the application of old principles. Sometimes the change of circumstances and
conditions made it necessary to adapt ancient practices to fit modern needs.
Sometimes mistakes were made or misunderstandings crept in, and then some
aspects of the Faith had to be thought out again and reinforced with their
right emphasis and proportion in view of the whole truth as it had been once
for all revealed by or in Jesus Christ. Usually the Church acted and spoke on
these occasions by Councils of Bishops. She believed that some of the Councils
were aided and inspired in a special degree by the Holy Spirit, and the
decisions of those Councils were accepted as true by the whole body of the
Church. And, though in a live Church there must be growth and development,
Catholics believe with good reason that the Faith they profess is essentially
the same in principle and practice as the faith once delivered to the saints
and first preached to the world by the Apostles.
The
Faith in
There
is only one Catholic Church, but it has many branches. It has spread abroad
from one centre to another, until it has come to possess local representatives
all over the world.
If
a body of Christians in any place claims to be part of the Catholic Church, two
things are necessary for them to make good their claim. Their ancestry must be
tested first. When a man lays claim to a peerage, he is required to prove that
he is descended in the true line from the peer whose rights are in question. In
the same way claimants to the Catholic heritage must prove their Catholic
descent in succession from the Apostles. The Church of England has no
difficulty in justifying this claim for itself. It was
founded first by Celtic Catholics, and re-founded after the Saxon invasions by
Catholic missionaries from
The
second test which claimants have to pass is whether they have maintained their
heritage. If they have deserted the Catholic Church and cast away any essential
principle of its apostolic life and organisation, they can only get it back and
recover their former position from those who already possess these things.
Anglo-Catholics believe that the Church of England passes this test as fully as
it does the other. It has been reformed at several different times, but the
course of its life has never been broken short and it maintains now, as it has
always maintained, the Bible, the Creeds, the Sacraments, and the Sacred
Ministry, which it received from its founders in the remote past.
It
is here that Anglo-Catholics differ from Roman Catholics. Anglo-Catholics do
not believe that the Church of Rome is the whole Church (which would shut out
the great Churches of the East as well as the churches of the Anglican
Communion); and they are persuaded that people can be a good Catholics by
accepting the Faith because it is true, as they can by accepting it because the
Pope guarantees it. They do not wish to pass judgment on other Communions or on
any Christian body, except in so far as they are called upon to do this in
defence of their own position. They simply desire to preserve the principle
that the Church of England is a genuine part of Christ's visible Catholic
Church.
The
Church of England to-day contains several different religious groups, who are
all more or less united in maintaining the principles of the church in
practice, but are not all equally convinced of their necessity. Anglo-Catholics
believe that the Catholic principles of their Church must be maintained, and
ought to be practised by all its members: some other groups think there is no
harm in doing so, but that the matter is not altogether vital and essential.
This is the cause of the divisions among members of the Church of England. But
it should be clearly understood that Anglo-Catholics do not wish to force their
beliefs on other people: they only claim the right to continue practising their
own faith within the Anglican Communion, and to preach it to such as will hear.
Anglo-Catholics
have sometimes been accused of being disloyal and lawless, because they have
sometimes been compelled to fight against various other influences in order to
secure their right to exist. Such accusations are absurd. No one is more loyal
than they are to the principles of the
What
Catholicism Stands For
Revelation
God
fulfils himself in many ways; the whole earth is the Lord's and all that is
therein; nothing could be carried on, nothing could exist, without his will and
consent. Much can, therefore, be learned about God from the study of nature;
all science is, so far as it goes, a revelation of God to the minds of men.
But
that is not exactly what we mean when we speak of religious revelation. By
revelation in that sense we mean the unveiling to men's hearts and wills, as
well as to their minds, of something about God's nature and purposes deeper and
more extensive than could be deduced simply by ordinary human intelligence from
the ordinary facts of life. We mean the things which were perceived of old in
the first place by men of special spiritual gifts, whom god used as his
prophets-that is, Announcers; and, above all, the fact of Jesus Christ, the
truths taught by him, and the unfolding of the meaning of these things by the
Holy Spirit to men of spiritual discernment. All men have enough spiritual
discernment to enable them to reach a personal conviction about the truths of
revelation, if they want to be convinced, when those truths are put before
them. But only comparatively few men, like the apostles and
prophets, have been chosen by God to have sufficient spiritual insight to see
them for the first time.
Catholics,
then, believe in "supernatural" religious revelation - that is, the
revelation of divine truth above what ordinary men could recognize by the use
of their ordinary natural faculties without the help of somebody to point it
out to them.
Authority
Catholics
also believe in authority in matters of religion - that is, they attach special
weight to the opinion of those who, as they have reason to think, possess
exceptionally good grounds for their teaching.
There
are many different kinds of authority. There is the authority of a man's own
judgment, which is very considerable and weighty, if his powers of insight are
sound and enlightened, and his opportunities for forming a judgment are
adequate. Many truths of religion, like the truth that God is love, are
self-evident to spiritually minded men: and it is much to be desired that all
men should have their spiritual powers so developed that such truths should be
equally obvious to all.
Then
there is the authority of experience. Catholics regard as matters of particular
importance the opinions developed by a long succession of saints and masters of
the spiritual life, which have accordingly met the test of time.
Then
there is the authority of history. It is on this that we rely for our knowledge
of Christ's life and teaching, and for our acquaintance with the practices of
early Christians.
But,
above all, there is the authority of revelation. The judgments of the prophets,
confirmed by the experience of the Jewish Church, and historically recorded in
the Old Testament, were enlarged and extended and re-asserted by Jesus Christ,
who was God in
Nevertheless,
we still need sound historical judgment, taking into consideration all the
evidence available, to show as accurately as may be what he did lay down. And
we still need to rely on the spiritual insight of spiritual men, apostles,
fathers, and doctors of the Church, belonging to every age down to and
including our own, to help us, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to the
deeper understanding of the facts which history discloses. And we still need
the leading of experience, especially as it is provided by Councils of Catholic
bishops, for the removal of doubts and scruples, and the safeguarding of
revealed truth.
The
Bible
The
Bible is a library of books written by many different authors, divided in date
by as many a thousand years. It contains an immense range of literature, such
as history, philosophy, law, poetry, drama, biography, letters, sermons,
allegories, and so forth. Its unique value for religion lies in the fact that
from beginning to end the background of it all is God; the subjects with which
it deals are all regarded from the religious standpoint by spiritual men who
possessed something of the mind of God. That is why we call the Bible inspired.
The
Old Testament contains the revelation of God to the Hebrew tribes and to the
Jewish Church, and recalls the manner in which they reacted to the revelation.
The New Testament gives us the four Gospels four distinct impressions of the
life, work, teaching, and person of Jesus Christ: The Acts is a picture of the
way in which Christianity first spread, leavening society as it did so; the
Epistles are occasional letters that have providentially been preserved, which
throw a flood of light on the doctrines and practices of the early Christian
communities.
The
Bible clearly possesses immense authority as the record of revelation and
religious experience. But without a good deal of knowledge, historical and
religious, it is often very easy to misunderstand it. Parts of it seem as clear
as day, other parts are obscure even to professional
theologians; and with all of it a knowledge of the general bearings and
tendency of the whole inspired literature is extremely desirable.
So
we find that "the Bible and the Bible only" is a good catch-word but
bad sense, because when questions arise about the Bible's meaning everybody
gives a different interpretation. In order to understand the Bible we need the
guidance of history, the investigation of theologians, and the experience of
saints to direct us; and in the New Testament, above all, we need a knowledge
of the actual practices of the primitive Church to elucidate the meaning of the
written words which in holy Scripture it has bequeathed to us.
The
Creeds
By
the time that most of the books of the Bible had been collected together and
that its contents had been pretty well fixed-that is, about three hundred years
after Christ - questions began to arise about God and salvation which
threatened the very existence of Christianity. What made the situation all the
more serious was that throughout these disputes both sides quoted the Bible in
support of their own views. So it had to be decided
which side was in the right.
After
a great deal of discussion by different theologians, gatherings of bishops were
held to testify on behalf of their respective churches which arguments agreed
with the faith that they and their fathers had held and practiced, and which
disagreed. In this way definite conclusions were reached about the right and
the wrong ways in which to give expression to the Catholic Faith.
The
bishops then took an interesting means of safeguarding the truth for the
future, so as to leave no doubt what was the meaning of the Bible and the
tradition of the churches. Before grown-up people had been baptized they had
always been taught about the Catholic religion, and given a simple summary or
outline of the truth about God and salvation which they recited at their
baptism. This was called a creed, and different churches used different creeds
for this purpose. The bishops now chose certain of these creeds, and added to
them such phrases as they judged desirable to warn people off the paths of
false doctrine, and then issued them to the Church as tests of the true faith.
Later on the creeds came into use at other services beside baptism, as acts of
faith and praise.
Organisation
and Ministry
Catholics
believe that the Christian Church is a single organized society founded by God
and responsible to him and to no one else. The very existence of this society
is a gift from God. He, by his Spirit, drew together the Jewish nation, of
which a selected remnant was to form the nucleus of the Catholic Church: then,
in due course of time, Jesus Christ came and the Church went forth into the
world.
As
God founded the Church, so he laid down its governing principles. Its
membership consists of people whom God has chosen. Its object is the love and
service of God. The method by which this object is promoted is to take men into
a new and spiritual environment, and there sustain them by divine grace and train them in holiness. Its primary rule is to be perfect as
our heavenly Father is perfect. Its officers are the Apostles whom Christ
chose, and those whom the Apostles appointed to succeed them.
Most
things in the Church are done through men and human agency; the riches of
natural man are all intended to be brought in, and to be made the treasure of
the
It
would be extraordinary if the divinely founded Church had no divinely appointed
organisation, because mankind is constructed by God to be organized. We are
created in families and nations, though we remain individuals, with distinct
minds and independent characters. So God calls us to be redeemed and new-born
in a Church; but our personal religion and individuality are not found on that
account to be lacking or suppressed.
The
history of the ancient Hebrew people may teach us a lesson to the point. They
split into two nations about a thousand years before Christ. In the smaller
section religion came to be highly organized, and that section (the Jews)
survived national exile and political destruction. In the larger section (the
So
the Catholic Church has its apostolic ministry of bishops, priests, and
deacons, which was fully developed in the first seventy years of Christianity
by or out of the apostolate. This ministry is not to be thought mechanical or
un-spiritual because it has an orderly method of consecration. The Holy Spirit
of God is a Spirit of order, not of confusion: he works to bring order out of
confusion, and the ordination of successive generations of ministers by those
who had the grace of the ministry before them is a characteristic method of the
Holy Spirit's working. No one would claim that this is the only conceivable
method: all that Catholics say is that it is the way the Spirit moves.
And
the men ordained to any holy function in the Catholic Church do not lay claim
to any greater wisdom or power of themselves than other men may possess: they
are frail earthen vessels like the rest. But they know that the Spirit of God
is come upon them for the work they are ordained to do, and that his work is
done by him through their means.
Grace
and Sacraments
Grace
is the influence of God exerted on the hearts and lives of men, and it is won
by communion with God, which we call prayer. Like all personal influence it
comes by spiritual contact. People pray, as they speak, sometimes by words and
sometimes by signs and symbols; and God who made men what they are chose
certain signs and symbols as particular means of grace. We call these
sacraments.
The
Jews also had religious signs and symbols, but they were not sacraments. They
were rites of human invention, in their origin very similar to the religious
rites of other primitive and uncivilized peoples. But in the Jews' case these
rites became genuine and useful forms of prayer, because under divine guidance
they were progressively purified and developed.
Jesus
Christ accordingly instituted certain sacraments to be employed by his people
as outward signs of devotion, and pledged his divine power and authority, not
merely to accept them, but to impart certain graces and gifts by their means.
The two outstanding examples are Baptism and Holy Communion. He also gave to
his Apostles order and authority to carry out certain other spiritual work,
such as healing the sick and forgiving sins, and they were led by the Holy
Spirit to make provision of corresponding outward means for carrying this out.
In the same way by the laying on of hands they handed on the gift and graces of
the Holy Spirit when he came.
But
the two most essential and important Sacraments are those of baptism, by which
the Holy Spirit grafts men into the body of Christ's Church with a new and
spiritual birth, the beginning of a second life which is eternal because it is
shared with Christ; and of Holy Communion, in which men's souls (and, through
their souls, their bodies also), are strengthened and refreshed with the divine
sustenance and spiritual food of Christ's Body and Blood, which were created,
sacrificed, and glorified for our salvation.
Worship
By
divine worship Catholics mean the
Other
forms of public worship there are, some formal and some informal. But the
centre and core and heart of all is the sacrifice of Christ. The monastic
service of Mattins leads up to the Mass by way of
preparation: the corresponding service of Evensong completes the daily worship
by way of thanksgiving. But the Mass is the thing that matters most. It is our
only bounden duty and service in the worship of Almighty God: it is the only
kind of worship which is offered literally and completely "through Jesus
Christ our Lord."
The
word Mass is as simple as a piece of bread or a glass of wine, yet deep and
tremendous as the Body and Blood of Christ. Nobody knows exactly why it came to
be used for the sacrifice of the altar; but anybody can learn exactly what it
means. It has so little meaning of its own in the language of men that perhaps
it alone is fully capable of bearing the tremendous meaning which it has in the
language of religion and Christ's Church.
Holiness
The
Catholic religion is not intended to be merely a Sunday religion, which can be
discarded during the other six days of the week. It is meant to change and
discipline the lives of those who follow it. No one has so much as begun to lay
hold of its first principles until he is trying to live a good life and to do
right by himself and by his fellow-men. And no one has succeeded in penetrating
very far into it until he realised that its great aim is to make men like God.
Catholics,
then, are called to be saints. Heaven itself simply means that state of life in
which saints are truly at home: and saintship means
the elimination of sin, which is disobedience to God, and the reproduction of
God's life in men.
There
are several practices beside prayer and devotional study of the Bible (which
are too obvious to need further mention) which are traditional in the Catholic
Church as means of assisting men to eliminate sin and become saints. All men
are prone to sin. But sin can be overcome by repentance. Repentance means three
things: first, being sorry for sin, because without being sorry for it we
cannot hate it and cannot get rid of it; secondly, confessing it-that is,
telling God we are sorry for it, because God expects us to tell him everything,
our sins just as much as our need of daily bread; thirdly, making up our minds
to put it away from us-that is, amendment of life, without which our sorrow and
our confession would be insincere.
If
we fall into grave sin, and find ourselves unable to quiet our own consciences
by reason of the barrier we have by sin set up between God and ourselves,
Christ has ordained a remedy by which we may be assured of forgiveness and
grace. He has left power to his Church to absolve all sinners that truly repent
and believe in him. We confess our sins to a priest who is the Holy Spirit's
minister, and by Christ's authority committed unto him, he absolves us from all
our sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And
because Catholics find that confession to a priest is a powerful remedy against
sin and a means of grace, they commonly confess to a priest at regular
intervals, whether they have committed deadly sin or not.
Another
means of grace and spiritual discipline sanctified by the examples and precept
of Christ, and commended by the experience of the saints, is that of fasting.
Catholics always come fasting to receive Holy Communion. They also have certain
fixed times and seasons of spiritual discipline, at which, by strict regulation
of their natural appetites, they make a special effort to bring under control
all their natural impulses and direct them to the service of God. Such occasions
are most Fridays, and the season of Lent.
The
Church and This Present World
The
Catholic Church is a missionary Church. It can never rest until all mankind has
been converted and brought under the sway of Christ and into the ark and home
of his Church. Yet it is a society which is not only carried on for the benefit
of its members, but is meant to influence and leaven the whole world. It is a
great world-wide organisation for social service and the improvement of the lot
of mankind, and as such ought to make itself a power that is felt.
Christ
worked in the days of his flesh for the bodies as well as for the souls of men,
and left his Church behind to carry on that work. If his Church has the mind of
Christ, it is bound to try and carry out all his gracious and beneficent
purposes for men so far as it finds opportunity. The Catholic Church then has
to hold up before men's eyes the ideals of justice, peace, and mutual support,
and to do what it can to secure that those ideals are made effective. At all times
when the Church has been true to its mission it has been the champion of the
weak and oppressed, and the opponent of cruelty, avarice, and contention.
The
Church is not a political agency: the other powers that be are ordained of God
to manage such affairs. But at all times the Church as an organized society
claims the right to impress Christian principles on men and parties and
nations, as the only source of true happiness, real welfare, and genuine
progress: and, sometimes, when a clear-cut moral issue is presented, the whole
weight of the Church's influence is properly thrown into the scale of practical
righteousness.
A
vast amount of social work owes its inspiration and initiation directly to the
Catholic Church. To go no further, two instances alone are sufficient to prove
this. The Church has always been foremost in the care of the sick and aged, and
the relief of those in need. In countries where a Christian civilisation has
been built up, these obligations have been impressed upon the general
conscience as a national duty: in other countries the Church is still the chief
agency in their discharge. And the same is true of education. But for the
efforts of the Church, the modern world would mainly consist of unlettered and
savage barbarians.
The
Church and the World to Come
Men
do not resign their membership in the Catholic society at death, still less are
they expelled from it. The Catholic Church is one great body here or hereafter,
below or above. Consequently, since all good gifts come from God and he wills
that we should ask, as for our own needs, so also for those of the whole body
of our brethren, we pray for God's grace and blessing on our departed, as
common sense would indicate that they pray for us.
Little
is revealed to us of their needs in detail. But certain things are clear. The
earthly conditions of their warfare are ended, and they need rest, refreshment,
and peace. Like all men they were sinners, and need cleansing. And they are
closer to God's presence and need light and progress in holiness. For these
things Catholics may and do make request on behalf of the faithful gone before
them.
Some
great and heroic souls become saints in this life: God's will is more
completely fulfilled in them and his mind more fully know to them, and they
have given themselves more wholly to his love than is the case with others.
They have come nearer than ordinary men to the centre of all life and truth.
They
are still members of the one body, and their needs are therefore included in
the prayers of the Church for all its members. But with them it seems more
natural to lay the greater importance on the prayers they pray for the church
than on the Church's prayers for them. They can pray best as being nearest to
Christ's heart. Therefore we call upon them more particularly to pray to God
for us.
They
are our dear friends in Christ, though we have never seen them. We reverence
them as the chosen vessels of God's grace, and love them as the elder brethren
of the family of Christ. We glory in their triumphs; we try to imitate their
virtues. Some day we hope to be united to them, not by faith only, but by
sight. Heaven is the home we share with Mary the blessed Mother, the glorious
Apostles and Evangelists, the strong Martyrs, the pure Virgins. When we reach
home they will be there, knit together with us in the one Spirit to the
glorified Lamb in the inexpressible radiance and joy of the Father's
everlasting throne.