Fr. Tony Clavier on "the essence of Anglicanism"

In a brief essay entitled "The Anglican Way," Fr. Tony Clavier lays out his understanding of "the essence of Anglicanism." "None of these elements," he's careful to note, "are in themselves the exclusive property of our tradition, but taken together they express what our church - with a small c - has sought to be at its best.  As such these elements are always aspirational rather than accomplished ideals."

According to Fr. Tony, there are three elements comprising the essence of Anglicanism: sanctified time, sanctified space, and sanctified worship.  Here's what he says about each of them:

1. Anglicanism is a church of sanctified time. It embraces the rhythm of life of the community expressed in the annual calendar, and seeks to sanctify days, weeks, months and the year as it notes and observes times and seasons, festivals and fasts. It�s rhythm of worship is tied to this calendar, and expressed in the lectionary, daily offices, rites and ceremonies involved in births, comings of age, marriages and deaths. Time sanctified, as in the sounding of Herbert�s bell, as the ploughman stops work for a moment to acknowledge that his being is blessed by prayer and praise: church bells sounding, filling the very air breathed with God�s sound, heard by the community as men, women and children go about their lives: time sanctified in silence broken by the voice of prayer which never ceases. 

2. Anglicanism is a church of sanctified space. It embraces the land, dividing it into dioceses with mother, cathedral churches, and parishes also with mother parochial buildings, solemnly set aside and blessed, made holy by the prayers of the faithful, by Word and Sacrament and sacramental rite. It aspires to embrace the lives, occupations, joys and tragedies of the people who live within its bounds and calls, sets apart and authorizes ministers in what ever Order, to pastoral care and involvement in that context. Those who actively participate in the worship of the church, whose names are noted in lists and forms, constitute that pastoral ministry to the community, led by bishops, priests and deacons, the indelibility of whose apostolic callings symbolizes the indelibility of the baptismal vocation. 

3. Anglicanism is a church of sanctified worship. It seeks in common prayer, to unite the voices, spoken and imagined, of those in sacred time and space, in disciplined and thus liturgical forms, in praise of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in adoration, supplication and confession, supremely in the Eucharist and then in various forms of common prayer. To that end it seeks the beauty of holiness, corporate lives made holy by use of beauty in word and song, ceremony and rite, art and architecture, vesture and adornment whether simple or elaborate. It dedicates buildings and parts of buildings to God the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or to the Trinity, or to holy men and women whose lives have been cause for veneration and emulation in their several ages and generations. These dedicated spaces symbolize and effectuate the vocation of the creature to adore the Creator, as the church on earth participates in and is aided by the worship of heaven.

In each of these ways the church lives into its vocation to tell the whole world of the Coming of Jesus, and is obedient to his commandment to preach, baptize, celebrate the Eucharist and to be his instrument of peace, justice and mercy, in simple obedience until he comes again. It is a vocation suitable to all places in all times, and depends not on what the world terms success or failure, but simply on obedience.

Read it all.

There's much more that can be said about Anglicanism as a unique expression of Christian faith and practice (see, for example, the collection of essays in The Study of Anglicanism, Michael Ramsey's The Anglican Spirit, and James Griffiss' The Anglican Vision). But Fr. Tony does an excellent job of succinctly laying out the basic aspirations of Anglicanism at its best.