Day: May 1, 2026

Theology

Who Are the Fathers?

Who are the Fathers?

Even within (or despite) the narrowing confines of the “age of political correctness”, the term “the Fathers” (Patres) retains an unmistakable, almost magical hold on our imaginations. It evokes a larger world, a universe of doctrine, at once authoritative and compelling in spite of its strangeness, mystical in its remoteness and yet, like all things mystical, near. Very near.

The Fathers are very much with us. If we are strangers to them, it is only because we have estranged ourselves from the “consensus patrum” so essential to the understanding of the Christian faith; in short, to the “consensus fidelium” of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Fathers, in no small measure, are the definitive voices of the essential catholicism of the Christian faith.

There are as well the mothers, too, such as the Cappadocian women: the grandmother of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, Macrina the Elder, their mother Emelia, their older sister, Macrina the Younger; Gregory of Nazianzen’s mother Nonna, his sister Gorgonia, and Basil’s two younger sisters. These women are understood to have contributed to the spiritual themes of deification and monastic devotion in the Cappadocian Fathers. And there is Anthusa, the mother of John Chrysostom, and, of course, there is Monica, the mother of Augustine who figures prominently in his Confessions.There are other important figures such as St. Perpetua and Felicitas, and the 4th century Etheria (or Egeria), famous for her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in her account, The Pilgrimage of Etheria. To name but a few.

Scripture and Creeds, Councils and Controversies, Traditions and Polities, Liturgies and Prayers – we cannot think any of these things apart from the Fathers in this broader sense. Without them, we cannot begin to say what the Faith is, let alone think it. They would have us think and to think in their company, the company of the Fathers.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of SS Philip and James

“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me;
or else believe me for the very works’ sake.”

The centrality and the uniqueness of Christ is an essential doctrine of the Christian Faith. For Anglicans, this is captured in Article XVIII of the Thirty-nine Articles; the only anathema in all of the articles concerns the denial of the centrality and the uniqueness of Christ. It is only through the centrality and the uniqueness of Christ that Christians can and must engage the religions of the world as well as the forms of contemporary culture. And sometimes the pattern of the Sanctorale, especially of the Apostles of the Christian Church, coincide with the themes of the season and illustrate certain features of the Apostolic Faith and teaching.

The Feast of St. Philip and St. James is one of three apostolic pairings in the cycle of the Church Year and falls within Eastertide. The other pairing is found in the late Fall with the joint feast of St. Simon and St. Jude which completes the cycle of the twelve apostles and usher us into the omni gatherum feast and festival of All Saints. At the end of June there is another pairing though of a somewhat different provenance in The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. The readings for all these feasts in the Offices is instructive about the Scriptural witness to their lives, sometimes simply through the mention of their names.  The readings for Philip and James canvass a number of important texts about their witness, particularly the witness of Philip. But note that the Epistle and Gospel for their feast complement the Eastertide readings from the Gospel of John and on the next two Sundays, the Epistle of James. The Gospel reading is the beginning of Jesus’s farewell discourse that illustrates the radical meaning of Christ’s going from us in going to the Father and what that means for his abiding in us and us in him. The Epistle reading from James exhorts us to seek the wisdom of God and not to waver in our faith and understanding. James also will emphasize the importance of the works of faith.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles

The Collect for today, The Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles, with Saint James the Brother of the Lord, Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life; that, following the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect, of the Brethren of the Lord:

O HEAVENLY Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: We bless thy holy Name for the witness of James and Jude, the kinsmen of the Lord, and pray that we may be made true members of thy heavenly family; through him who willed to be the firstborn among many brethren, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 14:1-14

Michael Leopold Willmann, The Martyrdom of SS Philip and JamesArtwork: Michael Leopold Willmann, The Martyrdom of SS Philip and James, late 17th-century. Oil on canvas, National Gallery Prague.

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