Everyday would look something like this for me. The conversations could be good or bad, heartbreaking or producing anxiety, depending. But all of it is made up of small minutes, small decisions, and each is a decision to remember God or to forget the one who died for my salvation. Each phone call is a call from Christ (God have mercy on me).
Wonderously I am remembering that everything is filled with God – that He is everywhere present. And stopping and going slowly through the day the brightness of this unmitigated joy overwhelms anything that would seek to replace. Not just the natural things that grow – but everything. Glory to God!
And each day, is a struggle to say yes to the Grace that pours out upon us more than we can bear. Glory to God.
In Father Stephen, Orthodoxy’s gain was a great loss for Anglicanism. Would that more orthodox Anglican priests be so deeply rooted in the ancient faith which is our inheritance just as much as it is Orthodoxy’s.
Forgottonia:
When precisely did Anglicanism resemble Orthodoxy?
#2: A. O.
I never said Anglicanism [i] resembles [/i] Orthodoxy. I simply said that the Orthodox faith (being the catholic faith of the undivided Church) is the inheritance of Anglicans, and for that matter, all Christians. It’s one thing to have an inheritance, it’s quite another to live into it. As an Anglican and a priest, I fully understand Anglicanism’s flaws and deficiencies and I also understand Orthodoxy’s abiding fidelity to the Tradition.
But since you asked the question:
1. The C of E sought to be a non-papal but truly Catholic autocephalus Church. This was done by appeal to the ancient Fathers and the tradition of the undivided Church. We can see that this has been a disastrous failure, especially in the last 50 years or so, but the intent was there from the beginning.
2. Until the recent innovations and upheavels in Anglicanism, there was quite a warm relationship between Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, during which the Orthodox recognized similarities between the two traditions. One could trace this relationship from the Caroline divines and non-Jurors up to the early twentieth century. Now, I realize that reunion was never a feature of this relationship (a goal, however), but you asked about resemblence, not reunion.
3. Archbishop Michael Ramsey once said that the vocation of Anglicanism was to embody Western Orthodoxy, and his vision of the Church supported that vocation. Again, we know that this is not how the cookie has crumbled, but the intent was there.
I’m not going to defend Anglicanism to a convert to Orthodoxy (former Anglican, I assume…), but you should know that if being Orthodox is being on the ship of salvation, then asking snarky questions like the one you posed is like taunting the drowning from the comfort of the deck instead of tossing a life preserver. Take it from one of the drowning. Learn charity. Embrace humility.
Peace be with you.