You may have noticed some changes to the logo on the bulletin and the website. The most noticeable of these changes is a brief tagline under the logo: “Continuing Transformative Tradition.” This change to our logo is the result of the work of one of our parishioners, who has generously offered her time and marketing expertise to help us think through our parish identity.

I would like to offer a few thoughts on this tagline, as it articulates a vision of who we are and who we aspire to be together at St. Edward’s.

Continuing

In part, this first word describes where we fit in the ecclesiastical spectrum. We are a Continuing Anglican church, which means that our theological, liturgical, and institutional lineage derives from those faithful Anglicans who gathered together in September, 1977, to draft what would become the Affirmation of St. Louis. This document asserts, “We affirm that the church of our fathers, sustained by the most Holy Trinity, and that we, being moved by the Holy Spirit to walk only in that way, are determined to continue in the Catholic Faith, Apostolic Order, Orthodox Worship and Evangelical Witness of the same.” This is the fundamental conviction of our movement and our parish: It is our intent to maintain the continuity of the faith, order, and worship of the historic Western Catholic tradition of the English Church, and to invite all to share in the redemptive work of Christ as we have come to know and experience it through that tradition.

But this term is not only a marker of our institutional identity: By referring to ourselves as “continuing,” we also signal that we are engaged in a process that is both dynamic and stable, active and receptive. To continue is not only to look back to, and take hold of, what has come before us but also to move boldly forward, confident that our fidelity to this inheritance equips us to face whatever novel challenges and situations may confront us. Ours is a faith not merely of the past but for the future. We trust that our faith is founded on the Rock who is Christ (1 Cor. 10:4), so that no storm may come and wash away what has been established in Him (Mt. 7:24-27).

Transformative

Transformation is the heart of the Gospel, for Christ calls all people to new life in Him. This transformation is not the shallow transformation that our world promises—that with the right system and a positive mental attitude we can lose fifteen pounds, buy a Ferrari, win friends, and influence people. Rather, it encompasses the total and complete renovation of the human person through the Spirit, a rebirth into conformity with Christ and His divine life. This life offers true joy, lasting peace, and persevering hope in union with the One who created and redeems us.

The spiritual life in Christ aims first at our healing—the healing of the wounds of our sins and the brokenness of our fallen world. In the Confession at both Morning and Evening Prayer, we acknowledge that “there is no health in us.” The Church is not a club for saints but a hospital for sinners. Here Christ the Great Physician comes to us to bind up our wounds and restore us to health, to bring about the reconciliation between the holy God and sinful humanity.

But once we have been restored to health, the Lord destines us to something far greater. He seeks to draw us into the life of the Blessed Trinity, to make His life our own, and to enable us to become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). He designs to reshape our wills, our loves, and our longings—to give us a new heart and a new spirit (Ezek. 36:26)—in order that we may desire blessedness, love holiness, and will goodness.

But this process of configuration to Christ is not meant to turn us into holy automatons or virtuous robots; rather, it enables us to become the men and women God created us to be. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a great father of the Church, wrote: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” We are the Image of God, the summit of His creation, His masterwork. Christ calls each of us to become more fully ourselves, and He frees us to be the unique and unrepeatable persons He made us to be. We see this reflected above all in the exuberant variety of the lives of the saints, all of whom glorified God in their own ways, in their particular circumstances, and according to their own temperaments, gifts, and talents. The praise of God is made glorious in their diverse witness.

Liberated from sin in the power of the Spirit, we too become truly able to glorify our Creator through the fullness of our personhood, to “offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice” unto the Lord. Because we are in Christ, we are the adopted children of God through grace, and so all that Christ is and has from the Father now likewise belongs to us. St. Athanasius succinctly states this radical claim: “God became man in order that man might become God.” The Gospel promises nothing less than our transfiguration into the likeness of Christ as we are progressively and eternally drawn ever deeper into the mystery of divine love.

Tradition

At the heart of all that we believe and do at St. Edward’s is a tradition. This tradition has its deep roots in the lives and works of those Christians through the centuries who have witnessed Christ in their words, their deeds, and, at times, even with the shedding of their blood. The word “tradition” comes from the Latin traditio, which refers to the handing over or delivery of a possession. Our tradition is the Faith that has been handed over to us by our forebears (Jude 1:3) in trust that we shall in turn hand it over to those who come after us.

Tradition is not another name for nostalgia, the longing for some imagined and idealized past, a golden age in which people believed and behaved better. Tradition is also not another name for doing everything exactly the same way we have always done it. As the church historian Jaroslav Pelikan wrote, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” What he means is that the tradition itself is the vital and active presence in the Church of the countless generations of the faithful who have come before us—the “great cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us (Heb. 12:1)—, while “traditionalism” is a mindless, sclerotic perpetuation of superficial forms and practices simply for their own sakes. Such an empty and lifeless traditionalism is inimical to the vigor of the Spirit and the power of the Gospel, which must always be carried forth into new contexts and circumstances in fulfillment of Christ’s Great Commission to His Church (Mt. 28:19).

This “living faith of the dead” manifests itself in myriad ways, ranging from the rich matrix of symbols, words, and gestures that comprise our liturgy; the beauty of our musical, artistic, and literary heritage; and the treasury of prayers and spiritual practices that inwardly form us. But none of this inheritance is of any value to us if it is not truly lived, if it does not seep down into the soil of our hearts and become the fundamental way we encounter the world. Citing the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus warns of the Pharisees, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mt. 15:8); accordingly, we must not confuse an exquisitely performed liturgy or precise doctrinal formulations for the inward renewal of the heart. We need right worship and right belief, to be sure, but those things are only good if they lead us to the true love of God and neighbor.

Continuing Transformative Tradition

Taken individually, each of these words marks a crucial aspect of our identity and calling as a parish. Taken together, they name what we exist to do: We are continuing a transformative tradition.

The composer Gustav Mahler said, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire.” Our tradition calls us to that preservation of the living fire, the fire that has the power to melt the cold and hardened hearts of sinners by igniting them with the love of Christ and neighbor. We affirm that it is our duty to continue to preserve this tradition for the future. We assert that this tradition has the necessary resources to meet the chaos, uncertainty, and discord of our current cultural moment. And, finally, we proclaim that this tradition transforms lives. It brings the Light of Christ into the darkness of this world so that we may attain both here and hereafter the life of joy and peace promised through the Gospel to all those who commit themselves fully to Christ and His Cross.