[W]e having received so great a favour, enter into covenant to correspond with a proportional endeavour; the benefit of absolute pardon, that is, salvation of our souls, being not to be received til 'the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord': all the interval weave promised to live a holy life, in obedience to the whole discipline of Jesus. That is the condition on our part: and if we prevaricate that, the mercy shown to the blessed thief is no argument of hope to us, because he was saved by the mercies of first access, which corresponds to the remission of sins we receive in baptism; and we shall perish, by breaking our own promises and obligations, which Christ passed upon us when He made with us the covenant of an entire and gracious pardon. For in the precise covenant there is nothing else described but pardon so given, and ascertained upon an obedience persevering to the end. ¹

I mentioned above that Taylor upholds Our Lady's perpetual virginity. I would like to quote what he says in detail because its so beautifully said and shows that he, at least, safeguarded well this aspect of sacred tradition about Our Lady.

He that came from His grave fast tied with a stone and signature, and into the college of apostles 'the doors being shut,' and into the glories of His Father through the solid orbs of all the firmament, came also (as the church piously believes) into the world so without doing violence to the virginal pure body of His mother, that He did also leave her virginity entire, to be a seal, that none might open the gate of the sanctuary; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, 'This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord God of Israel hath entered by it, therefore it shall be shut' [Ezek. 44:2]. ²

When it comes to Taylor's understanding of Redemption, his emphasis seems to be much more on the atoning nature of the Lord's death rather than on the redemptive nature of the Incarnation, as we saw with Andrewes. In Jesus Christ-TheGreat Exemplar, Taylor writes Knowing that the prophecies were fulfilled, His Father's wrath appeased, and His torments satisfactory, He said' It is finished'; and crying with a loud voice, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,' He bowed His head, and yielded up His spirit into the hands of God, and died hastening to His Father's glories. ³

Similarly, in a catechism Taylor wrote for young people in 1655 known as The Golden Grove, his answer to the question on how Jesus Christ brought about Redemption for humankind was: "By his holy and humble life, and his obedient dying a painful death for us upon the Cross." In answering the question about how Christ is a Mediator, Taylor gives the classic answer that "a Mediator signifies one that stands between God and us. As Christ is a Prophet, so he taught us his Father's will, and ties us to obedience: As he is a Priest, he is our Redeemer, having paid a price for us, even his most precious blood, and our Advocate pleading for us, and mediating our Pardon and Salvation..."⁴

In light of his view of Redemption, it is important to note that while Taylor is by no means explicit about Our Lady's union with Her Son in His Passion, he at least voices in JesusChrist-The Great Exemplar, a faint echo of that same aspect of sacred tradition regarding Our Lady's heart being pierced by a sword that we heard Andrewes mention earlier. No doubt both Andrewes and Taylor are able to give this aspect of sacred tradition about Our Lady credence because of its biblical basis in the prophecy of Simeon in Luke 2:35.

[T]he holy Virgin-mother (whose soul during this whole passion was pierced with a sword and sharper sorrows, though she was supported by the comforts of faith, and those holy predictions of His resurrection and future glories which Mary had laid up in store against this great day of expense) now that she saw her holy Son had suffered all that our necessities, and their malice, could require or inflict, caused certain ministers, with whom she joined, to take her dead Son from the cross; whose body when she once got free from the nails, she kissed, and embraced with entertainments of the nearest vicinity that could be expressed by a person that was holy and sad, and a mother weeping for her dead son. ⁵

Before leaving our consideration of both Andrewes and Taylor, I must mention the very problematic aspect of their heretical Eucharistic theology. While Andrewes and Taylor are considered to be "high Church" because they upheld the importance of the sacraments, they believed with most of their peers that the Body and Blood of Christ, which resided in heaven at the right Hand of the Father since the Resurrection, was received by the faithful in the Eucharist in only a spiritual manner. While Holy Communion was considered to be great source of grace and emphasis was certainly placed upon receiving it with the proper dispositions of soul, there was a complete rejection of any ontological change in the substance of the Eucharistic elements themselves at the Consecration, either by way of transubstantiation or even consubstantiation. While Jesus Christ could be adored during the Eucharist, the Sacrament itself, as the true, personal and corporal presence of Jesus Christ among the faithful, could not be adored. Tragically, for most of the Caroline Divines, the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine were thought to be a mere sign of the heavenly mystery to which they pointed, similar to the way the East views icons. These 17th century High Churchmen totally missed the fact that the Lord intended the Holy Eucharist to be the very mystery of salvation, His very self Incarnate, come down from heaven, present on our altars and now in our midst to be loved, received, and adored. ⁶

This typical view of the Holy Eucharist held by the Caroline Divines was expressed by James Ussher, Irish primate of Armaghprior to the Insurrection of 1641, as he preached the following before Parliament in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster in 1620:

The bread and wine are not changed in substance from being the same with that which is served at ordinary tables. But in respect of the sacred use whereunto they differ as much from common bread and wine, as heaven and earth. Neither are they to be accounted barely significative, but truly exhibitive also, of those heavenly things whereto they have relation, as being appointed by God to be a means of conveying the same unto us, and putting us in actual possession thereof... And this is the real and substantial presence, which we affirmed to be in the inward part of this sacred action. ⁷

In putting this paper together, it has become my suspicion that a faulty Eucharistic theology is a consequence of, or perhaps even the very cause of, a weak link in the Christology of the Caroline Divines, and even that of the 19th century Anglo-Catholic movement, as we shall yet see. For example, Jeremy Taylor says in speaking of the Last Supper in Jesus Christ-The Great Exemplar, "arming them against future persecutions, giving them divers holy precepts, discoursing of His emanation from the Father, and of the necessity of His departure, He gave them His blessing and prayed for them." ⁸ What he meant by Christ's emanation from the Father, only Taylor knows for sure. However, what does seem lacking is any sense of Aristotelian realism in their Eucharistic theology, and perhaps that is showing itself in their Christology. I believe this is a tragic consequence of the Continental Reformers' total disdain for scholastic theology, with even the best Anglican theologians following suit in this regard. Such serious Christological and Eucharistic errors would surely be a stumbling block to their understanding the ontological importance of Our Lady's divine Maternity in Redemption. ⁹

Before leaving the 17th century Caroline Divines, there is one interesting and little known Divine that I would like to briefly consider. His name is the Rev. Dr. Mark Frank (1613-1664). While he exhibits the same basic theological approach to Redemption as both Andrewes and Taylor, he also begins to reclaim some of what Catholic tradition has always upheld about Our Lady's role in it. During his lifetime, he was a Fellow at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, from which he was ejected by Parliament during the Insurrection. He was reinstated at the Restoration.

In a sermon he wrote for the feast of the Annunciation, heat least acknowledges some aspect of Our Lady's role in the Incarnation more than the other Caroline Divines, though most probably in a passive rather than active way, since there is no mention of Our Lady's fiat. Also, whenever I hear someone speak of Our Lady as a "conduit" as Frank does, I always wonder if they really understood with the Fathers who, without knowing the scientific details of conception, ¹⁰affirmed that God the Son was conceived from the flesh of Mary and that She was no mere channel through whom God the Son simply passed or from whose "blood" He took His flesh. Pope St. Leo I affirmed that" this unique and wonderful generation must not be understood as if the newness of this creation had voided the condition proper to our race. It is the Holy Spirit who made the Virgin fruitful, but a true body has been taken from her body." ¹¹  Similarly, St.Cyril of Jerusalem taught that God the Son "was born of the Holy Virgin and of the Holy Spirit; and was made man, not in appearance or fantasy, but in truth. Neither did He pass through the Virgin as through a channel, but was truly made flesh of her." ¹²

The annunciation...[is the] announcing and proclaiming of Christ unto her, that he was this day to be incarnate of her, to take that flesh to-day upon him in the womb...The annunciation or announcing...is proclaiming of her...blessed among,...above...women...being...highly favoured...by her Lord...coming to her...fit tube remembered and announced or proclaimed unto the world. Indeed, Dominus tecum is the chief business...the Church especially commemorates in the day. Her being...blessed,...and all our being blessed...Blessed she indeed that was the conduit of so great blessings, though blessed most in bearing him in her soul, much more than bearing him in her body... Blessed among women...she indeed only blessed; all others subject to the curse of...conceiving and bringing forth in sorrow. [S]he wholly free from that...she a perpetual Virgin before, and in, and after child-birth. Christ came into her womb insensibly; came forth, as it were, insensibly too, without groan or sorrow to her¹³.

Sadly, in his Ninth Sermon on Christmas Day, Rev. Dr.Frank makes the following derogatory, and even blasphemous, comment regarding Our Lady's role in salvation: Not a feminine salvation,...lest we should fondly look forth Marian, the Virgin Mother. Not she, but the Virgin's Son: the Holy Ghost, as I may say, afraid of Salvatrix mea,Salve Redemptrix, before ever Christianity dreamt of that sacrilege. ¹⁴

Similarly, he also says in the sermon we quoted from above on the Annunciation:

Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give the praise...must she sing as well as we; and they do her wrong as well as God, that give his glory unto her, who will not give his glory to another, though to his mother, because she is but his earthly mother,...a thing infinitely distant from the heavenly Father. Nor would that humble handmaid, if she should understand the vain and the fond, and almost idolatrous styles and honors that are given her somewhere upon earth, be pleased with them; she is highly favoured enough that her Lord and Son is with her and she with him: she would be no higher sharer. ¹⁵

In his 3rd Sermon of Christmas, Frank also shows himself to be a believer in the theory of "spiritual reception" of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, so typical of the 17th century Caroline Divines. "We call it a receiving, and so it is, the most signal receiving that we have, a receiving Him full and whole; body and blood, flesh and spirit, really though not corporally..." ¹⁶ 45

19TH CENTURY ANGLO-CATHOLICTHEOLOGIANS, KNOWN AS THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

Reacting against the liberalism of the day in both its humanist and political manifestations, the Oxford Movement embraced an enthusiasm for tradition that characterized much of English thought during this period due to a total disenchantment with the French Revolution. ¹⁷46 Similarly, proponents of the Oxford Movement emphasized assent to a doctrinal deposit of faith as the way to obtain and express confidence in God in opposition toothier Evangelical counterparts who had stressed one's subjective experience of confidence in God during the 18th century, which could all too easily deteriorate into mere sentimentalism or what has been mockingly called "justification by feeling." ¹⁸ 47 There were three principal members of the Oxford Movement, namely Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-82), John Keble (1792-1866)and the Venerable John Henry Newman (1801-90).

While John Henry Newman is considered to be the guiding light for this movement because of his voluminous writings, Newman himself considered John Keble to be the one who began it. On July 14, 1833, Keble delivered what is known as the Assize Sermon before Oxford University. In his Apologia ProVita Sua, Newman writes of the day of Keble's sermon: "I have ever considered and kept the day, as the start of the religious movement of 1833." ¹⁹ 48 The sermon was published on July 22, under the title National Apostasy. Keble's chief aim was to sound the alarm regarding the grave and pressing dangers threatening the English Church both from State interference with her liberties, and from the widespread decay of religious convictions. He proclaimed that it was the duty of all who valued the cause of the Apostolic Church to devote themselves to its defense.

One of the consequences of Keble's sermon was the decision to circulate written tracts geared at reviving the practice of daily common prayer and more frequent participation in the liturgy, especially on Sundays. These tracts also encouraged resistance toady attempt to change the liturgy on any insufficient authority and explained aspects of both discipline and worship that might be easily misunderstood. These Tracts for the Times, as they were named, began as short papers but later developed into elaborate treatises. Newman was mainly responsible for the Tracts, writing nearly a third of the first series himself. Seven of the Tracts were written by Keble (Nos. 4, 13, 52, 54, 57, 60, 89) ²⁰.

What is most significant about the Oxford Movement for our purposes was its stress on the redemptive nature of the Incarnation, going even beyond what the Caroline Divines had said in this regard. Re-emphasizing the glorious condescension of the Incarnation, the Oxford Divines upheld the Catholic view of the continuity between nature and grace. They believed that the human person was indeed capable of genuine sanctifications a consequence of our humanity having been taken into God in the Incarnation. ²¹This was in sharp contrast to the strict emphasis of Evangelicals on the atonement, wherein human beings who were totally depraved were saved from the corruption of this world. ²² Consequently, the Oxford Movement saw the sacraments to be earthen vessels that really mediated grace, rather than mere external rituals with no inward impartation of grace. Additionally, the movement's adherents re-established religious orders in the English Church as a means for recalling the nation to holiness and to encourage the sanctification of individuals. ²³52 While none of the Oxford Movement's adherents reclaimed any of what England had lost as regards its former understanding of and appreciation of Our Lady's mediation of the grace of the Redemption, the very fact that humanity itself was once again seen as capable of holiness is a contribution and, perhaps, a bridge. However, there is no indication that they had any appreciation for the fact that the lives of redeemed, holy members of the mystical Body of Christ are "co-redemptive" and" make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ," as St. Paul teaches in his Letter to the Colossians (Col. 1:21-29).

Having pointed out the strengths of the Oxford Movement for our concerns, I must now point out some of its gross weaknesses and errors. First of all, while its adherents placed emphasis on the fact that the sacraments really convey grace, none of them, including Newman as long as he remained an Anglican, upheld the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation in the Holy Eucharist. Their failure to do so not only continued the tragedy of English apostasy as regards the Blessed Sacrament but also, as I mentioned above, raises questions about the real orthodoxy of their Christology, without which there can never be an appreciation of Our Lady's Co-redemption. Let me be specific.

The Oxford Movement produced two very notable treatises on whether English clergyman can rightfully adore the Eucharist, both during the celebration of the liturgy and outside of its confines. One was written by John Keble, entitled, On Eucharistic Adoration. The other is John Henry Newman's famous Tract 90, in which he addresses the doctrine of transubstantiation directly.

In his treatise, John Keble does thankfully uphold the principle that the Flesh of Christ can and should be adored because God the Word has deified It, "eternally receiving from the Divine Nature, to which it is inseparably united, all such properties and perfections as it might enjoy without losing its reality and ceasing to be human." ²⁴ 53 He also says that the Flesh of Christ cannot be separated from His Divine Person, unlike some of his peers who gave a new twist to Nestorius' heresy by believing that the Body and Blood of Christ could be present in the sacrament while His Divine Person was still in heaven! ²⁵ However, Keble says that the Flesh of Christ in the Eucharist isn't a carnal, bodily presence but rather a "mysterious presence of Christ, God and man," ²⁶ whatever that means.

He goes on to say that in the Holy Eucharist Jesus Christ is in us "through a real and entirely spiritual participation of that Flesh and Blood which He took of our father Adam, through the Blessed Virgin Mary; wherewith He suffered on the Cross, wherewith also He now appears day and night before His Father in heaven for us." ²⁷  Furthermore, while Keble holds that we must adore the Lord in this special coming to us in the Eucharist, ²⁸nonetheless,"as to Transubstantiation, 'the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; (for that were idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians).' And as to material presence,' the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one.' " ²⁹  He explains that it "is not true that the consecrated Bread and Wine are changed in their natural substances, for they remain in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored. It is true that worship is due to the real though invisible and supernatural presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, under the form of Bread and Wine." ³⁰Keble's heretical approach to the Lord's true and actual presence in the Holy Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, to my mind smacks of Docetism. It also fails to comprehend the real meaning of the Resurrection. Lord, forgive us for we know not what we say!

As regards John Henry Newman's Tract 90, Newman says that Jesus "Christ can be really and literally, yet not locally, present in the Sacrament; that He is there given to us, not in figure but in truth, and yet is still only on the right hand of God." ³¹ 6  Again, it's totally unclear to me what kind of presence Newman is pointing to. And, I have the sense that Newman felt that way too, after he fully embraced the Catholic Faith as a Roman Catholic. In his Apologia, Newman admits to not embracing the Doctrine of Transubstantiation until he became a Roman Catholic in 1845. ³²Likewise, when Newman embraced the Catholic Faith in its entirety as a Roman Catholic, he also wrote beautifully about Our Lady as the Second Eve. Furthermore, he upheld the active nature of Her fiat and the real contribution that Her fiat made in the work of Redemption in his famous Letter to Pusey,dated Dec 7, 1865. ³³  (S)he co-operated in our salvation not merely by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon her body, but by specific holy acts, the effect of the Holy Ghost within her soul; that, as Eve forfeited privileges by sin, so Mary earned privileges by the fruits of grace; that, as Eve was disobedient and unbelieving, so Mary was obedient and believing; that, as Eve was a cause of ruin to all, Mary was a cause of salvation to all; that, as Eve made room for Adam's fall, so Mary made room for our Lord's reparation of it; and thus, whereas the free gift wasn't as the offence, but much greater, it follows that, as Eve co-operated in effecting a great evil, Mary co-operated in effecting a greater good. ³⁴

CONCLUSION

I would be less than honest if I did not say that doing the research for this paper was one of the most depressing experiences I have had in a long time. While there are certainly some threads of hope that I have tried to lift up, I found myself constantly encountering the depth of the wounds in my brother and sister Anglicans as a result of the Reformation. It is not that I am naive about such wounds; I live with them every day as an Anglican who embraces the Catholic Faith in its fullness and prays fervently for full, visible reunion with the Holy Father. It is simply that seeing how deep the wounds run, even among those in our tradition who should be most hopeful, is a bit overwhelming.

I was constantly reminded of a quote attributed to Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta: "When we handle the sick and the needy we touch the suffering body of Christ and this touch will make us heroic; it will make us forget the repugnance and natural tendencies in us. We need the eyes of deep faith to see Christ in the broken body and dirty clothes under which the most beautiful one among us hides. We shall need the hands of Christ to touch these bodies wounded by pain and suffering." ³⁵    If this is true regarding our natural lives, how much more true it is when handling the brokenness we encounter in the universal Church. Mother Teresa's quote kept me both grounded and going, as I did my research.

I simply cannot say strongly or loudly enough that the failure of both the Caroline and Oxford Divines to embrace the truth that Jesus Christ is truly and actually present in the Holy Eucharist Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity corporally and not just spiritually is such a gross error that it overshadows everything else and makes them not really Catholic at all. As I mentioned at the beginning of this paper, I am convinced that this ongoing heresy, which characterizes the overwhelming majority of Anglican clergy and theologians even today, is the source of all kinds of theological, ecclesial, and moral³⁶    error in our Communion. The very miracle of the Holy Eucharist is precisely that at the Consecration, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a supernatural transformation, a real substantial change occurs in the bread and wine without accidental alteration. While the accidental properties of bread and wine remain after the Consecration, their essence and substance simply cease to exist. They have been replaced by the substance of the true and actual Body and Blood of Christ, Jesus Christ Himself, both corporally and locally present, which are always united to His Divine Person since the very moment of the Incarnation.

Unless Anglicans and all other Christians both realize, and totally embrace the reality that the very true and actual, Sacred Body and Blood of Jesus, present for us in the Holy Eucharist, is not just food, but also the Blessed Trinity's total self-gift to us, they will never really understand what Redemption is about. They will miss the fact that it is indeed the True, corporal Body and Blood of Jesus Christ that mediates our participation in the divine life and communion of the Blessed Trinity-which is the only thing we were created for in the first place and the only thing that matters at all.

And, without this basic understanding of Redemption, it is impossible to realize that the only person who can bring us into this blessed life of communion with the Trinity is the Lord's Mother, whose very flesh and fiat make any hope of our communion with the Blessed Trinity possible in the first place. But, oh, with this understanding, the Holy Spirit can reveal the mystery that Our Lady is present in each and every Consecration of the Mass as Co-redemptrix. She is Co-redemptrix because She is the ever-Virgin Mother of the Lord-and, therefore, Mother of the Eucharist-and, therefore, Mother of us-not in some mere sentimental way but, rather, ontologically and corporally.

Writing this paper has led me to pray all the more fervently that Our Lady will soon vanquish all forms of Eucharistic heresy among Her Anglican children so that we may rightfully reclaim ourselves to be "Our Lady's Dowry" and rejoice over Our Lady's Co-redemption of Her poor, wounded, Anglican children. I invite all of you to join me in this prayer-and hope-that we will yet be the Blessed Virgin's prodigal children come home and become one of the biggest recovery stories in salvation history.