Parish of Llandudno North Wales, Rector's letter

May 2011

On Sunday 15th of May, our Bishop will be visiting us to administer the rite of Confirmation. I will say something about Confirmation in a moment, but I want to begin by reflecting on the importance of the Bishop’s visit to us as an event in its own right.

As members of the Church in Wales we belong to an ‘episcopal’ church – that is a church with Bishops as its chief ministers. Unlike many protestant churches, the Anglican Church retained the ancient three fold ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons when it split from the Roman obedience in the sixteenth century. No doubt the reasons for doing this were partly political (English sovereigns feared their own power might be threatened if power in the church was in the hands of ordinary clergy and laity – ‘no Bishop, no King’ was a favourite catchphrase). But there were also profound theological reasons too.

Anglican theologians, whilst championing the Reformation in many respects, have also cherished the continuity of our church with what went before the split with Rome, seeing the Church of England (which of course also covered Wales until disestablishment in 1920) as the true inheritor of the ancient church first established in Britain in ancient times. They have also stressed the continuity of our church with that of the Apostles of the Lord and the Fathers and Theologians of the undivided church of the early centuries. The three-fold ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons was seen as an important part of this continuity and the ‘apostolic succession’ of Bishops down the centuries as one important guarantor of our churches’ claim to be a part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

So when we welcome our Bishop to our parish – we are not simply welcoming a nice man who has been appointed to look after us but our ‘father-in God’, a man who by his ministry represents the wider church to us, not just our own diocese but the church universal, the church catholic. He represents the continuity of the church through the ages from the time of the Apostles and he is the chief minister of Word and Sacrament in his diocese, the guarantor of the validity of the sacraments of our church. In the most profound sense, our Bishop represents the very presence of Christ himself, our great high priest, in all his love and care for his people.

So it is that when Bishop Andrew visits us to celebrate the Eucharist, to preach, and to meet us on a pastoral basis it is always an important occasion. The church universal comes to Llandudno! But Bishop Andy is also coming for a specific reason – to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation.

This year we have four candidates for Confirmation, two junior, Ben and Luke and two adults David and Geoff. Please pray for them. In Confirmation, traditionally one of the seven sacraments of the church, the candidates firstly ‘confirm’ their commitment to Christ and their willingness to live a life of Christian service. Then, through the sacramental sign of the laying on of hands by the Bishop, they are ‘con-firmed’ i.e. strengthened by God to fulfil this important ministry. The Spirit of God, already present in their hearts through baptism, is stirred up to enable them to be faithful to Christ, hopefully for the rest of their lives.

In our church it has always been the Bishop who has administered this sacrament. This emphasises that the candidates are members not just of the local church to which they belong but rather of the universal church. And if you believe in the apostolic succession of bishops as I do, then the Bishop’s touch is both from a spiritual and a physical point of view the touch of Christ himself. Our Lord touched his apostles, they in turn laid hands on those who followed them, and that touch has come down to us through the succession of Bishops over the centuries.

Please pray for Bishop Andy, he has a difficult and demanding ministry, and do come to welcome him on May 15th, as well, of course, to support our Confirmation candidates as they begin a new chapter in their Christian lives.

Fr. John

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