Some days, I read the appointed texts and think "thanks be to God?" Today was one of those days. Luckily, there is another way! Today in our calendar we remember Thomas Cranmer. Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury when Henry VIII was king, and Cranmer supported Henry's break from Rome and divorce from Catherine of Aragon. He is also known as the "general editor" of the first Book of Common Prayer, the book that put the prayers in the everyday language of the English people, where before they had been offered in Latin by priests on behalf of the people (this is a huge part of the reformation movement). There are a couple of connections here that offer a place to begin my morning meditation.
One connection is that there is a ski run at Winter Park Resort called Cranmer. It goes all the way from the top of the mountain to the bottom, and is a wide, intermediate run. Sometimes Anglicanism is referred to as "the middle way," and we imagine ourselves having a "big tent," so this makes total sense. Not too hard, not too easy, not too smooth, not too bumpy. It is often groomed to make it easier.
The other connection is a reminder of the complete intertwining of church and state in England and many other places for many, many centuries from the time Constantine legalized Christianity in the Edict of Milan. It is easy to forget this, living in the US, but here in France literally every day I am reminded. The street outside our door is part of the Camino de Santiago, and there are brass medallions in the street that mark it. There are churches everywhere, even in the tiniest villages. Usually in those small villages, they are the largest structures. In a sign of the times, many no longer serve as churches but as art spaces, or they are open but in various states of disrepair. No matter what path we take, there are crosses on high points. Many of the trails and roads here are in fact part of the network of "the way," the Camino that pilgrims traveled (either in whole or in part) to Compostela, and so in addition to crosses there are shells and references to pilgrims and the Camino.
In the marriage of Empire and Christianity, I would have to say that Christianity has compromised way more than Empire. "[Cranmer] had believed, with a fervor that many people today will find hard to understand, that it is the duty of every Christian to obey the monarch, and that "the powers that be are ordained of God" (Romans 13). As long as the monarch was ordering things that Cranmer thought good, it was easy for Cranmer to believe that the king was sent by God's providence to guide the people in the path of true religion, and that disobedience to the king was disobedience to God. Now Mary was Queen, and commanding him to return to the Roman obedience. Cranmer five times wrote a letter of submission to the Pope and to Roman Catholic doctrines, and four times he tore it up. In the end, he submitted. However, Mary was unwilling to believe that the submission was sincere, and he was ordered to be burned at Oxford on 21 March 1556." (http://www.missionstclare.com/english/March/morning/21m.html)
I leave this for you to consider. And today when I walk on the Way, I will remember again where my true allegiance lies.
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