Introduction to Part II
The second series of Tree of Faith Letters continues the theological journey begun in Part I. Having established the foundations of the Holy Trinity, the nature of man, the Fall, and the Incarnation, Archbishop Wright now turns to the saving work of Christ in His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension — and to the life of the Church which flows from these mysteries. These letters were written for students of theology in Johannesburg and represent a sustained effort to present the Catholic Faith as it has been received, lived, and transmitted through the Holy Tradition of the undivided Church.
Letter Sixteen: The Eucharist — The Sacrifice of the New Covenant
The institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper is the culminating act of Our Lord's earthly ministry before His Passion. In the Upper Room, Jesus takes bread and wine and declares them to be His Body and Blood — the New Covenant sealed in His own sacrifice. This is not a memorial in the modern sense of a mere recollection, but the making-present of the one eternal sacrifice of Calvary. The Fathers unanimously understood the Eucharist as a true sacrifice. St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing at the very dawn of the second century, calls the Eucharist 'the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death.' St. Irenaeus of Lyon insists that the bread and wine, once blessed, are no longer common bread and wine but the Body and Blood of the Lord. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Mystagogical Catecheses, instructs the newly baptized: 'Do not, therefore, regard the Bread and the Cup as simply that; for they are, according to the Master's declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ.' The Eucharist is the centre of the Church's life because it is the perpetual re-presentation of the sacrifice by which mankind is redeemed. In it the faithful are united with Christ's offering of Himself to the Father, and through it they receive the life of the Risen Lord. The Eucharist is thus both sacrifice and sacrament — the one act in which the Church most fully becomes what she is: the Body of Christ.
Letter Seventeen: Gethsemane — The Agony of Obedience
The Garden of Gethsemane is the scene of the most profound spiritual conflict in human history. Here the incarnate Son of God, bearing in His human nature the full weight of mankind's sin and its consequence of death, prays: 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' (Matthew 26:39) The Fathers saw in Gethsemane the supreme expression of the obedience which is the antidote to Adam's disobedience. St. Maximus the Confessor, in his great work on the two wills of Christ, explains that Our Lord's human will — the natural will (thelesis) — recoils from suffering and death, as is proper to human nature. Yet the gnomic will, the will of personal choice, is perfectly aligned with the Father's will. In Christ there is no tension between the natural will and the personal will; His human will is perfectly obedient because His Person is the divine Son. This is the mystery of Gethsemane: the Son of God, in His human nature, experiences the full weight of what it means to be mortal and fallen — not because He is fallen, but because He has taken our fallen nature upon Himself in order to heal it from within. The sweat as it were great drops of blood (Luke 22:44) is the sign of the intensity of this bearing of our burden.
Letter Eighteen: The Suffering and Death of Christ
The Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the central event of human history. St. Paul declares: 'For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.' (1 Corinthians 2:2) The Death of Christ is not a tragedy or a miscarriage of justice — it is the deliberate, freely-chosen act by which the Son of God accomplishes the redemption of the world. St. Athanasius explains the necessity of the Death: 'For it was not possible that the Lord should die otherwise than by crucifixion, since this was the death He had prepared for Himself.' The Cross is the instrument by which the curse of the Law is borne and exhausted, by which Satan's power over mankind is broken, and by which the way back to the Father is opened. The Fathers also insist that the Death of Christ is a true death — the separation of soul from body — and not a mere appearance of death. This is important because it is only a true death that can be truly overcome by a true Resurrection. The body of Christ lay in the tomb; His soul descended to Hades, not to suffer but to proclaim liberation to those held captive there (1 Peter 3:19). The Harrowing of Hell is the first fruit of the Redemption.
Letter Nineteen: The Resurrection — The New Creation
The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day is the foundation of the Christian Faith. St. Paul is unequivocal: 'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.' (1 Corinthians 15:17) The Resurrection is not a spiritual event in the minds of the disciples; it is the bodily raising of the crucified Jesus from the tomb. Yet the Risen Body of Christ is not simply a resuscitated corpse. It is the same body — bearing the wounds of the Passion — but transformed, glorified, no longer subject to the conditions of fallen existence. St. Paul calls it a 'spiritual body' (1 Corinthians 15:44), meaning not an immaterial body but a body wholly animated and governed by the Holy Spirit, no longer subject to corruption, suffering, or death. The Resurrection is the beginning of the New Creation. In Christ risen from the dead, human nature — and through human nature, the whole material creation — is taken up into the life of the Holy Trinity. The Resurrection is the pledge and first-fruit of the general resurrection of all the dead at the Last Day. It is the answer to the Fall, the reversal of death, and the opening of the way to deification.
Letter Twenty: The Ascension — The Glorification of Humanity
The Ascension of Our Lord into heaven forty days after His Resurrection is the completion of the Incarnation. The Son of God took human nature upon Himself at the Annunciation; He now carries that human nature, glorified and transformed, into the very life of the Holy Trinity. This is a truth of the most profound significance. Human nature — our nature — is now, in the Person of the Son, enthroned at the right hand of the Father. The Ascension is not the departure of Christ from the world but His presence in the world in a new and more intimate mode. He is no longer limited by the conditions of earthly existence; He is present wherever His Body, the Church, gathers in His Name. The Ascension also inaugurates the period of the Church's mission. Our Lord's final words before the Ascension are the Great Commission: 'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.' (Matthew 28:19) The Church is sent into the world as the continuation of the Incarnation — the Body of Christ, animated by the Holy Spirit, bearing the presence of the Risen Lord to all peoples.
Letter Twenty-One: The Holy Spirit and the Church
The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles at Pentecost is the birth of the Church. The promise of the Father (Luke 24:49) is fulfilled; the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, comes to dwell in the community of believers and to guide them into all truth (John 16:13). The Church is not a human institution or a voluntary association of like-minded individuals. She is the Body of Christ, animated by the Holy Spirit, the continuation of the Incarnation in the world. St. Paul's great image of the Body (1 Corinthians 12) makes clear that the Church is an organic unity in which every member has a role, and in which the life of the whole flows from the Head, who is Christ. The Holy Spirit is the bond of unity in the Church. He is the one who distributes gifts for the building up of the Body, who inspires the preaching of the Gospel, who makes the sacraments effective, and who leads the faithful into the fullness of truth. The Church's authority to teach, to sanctify, and to govern flows from the Holy Spirit, who was given to the Apostles and their successors for this purpose.
Letter Twenty-Two: Ministry — The Apostolic Succession
The ministry of the Church is not a human invention but a divine institution. Our Lord chose twelve Apostles, gave them authority, and sent them as He Himself had been sent by the Father (John 20:21). This apostolic commission is perpetuated through the laying on of hands — the sacrament of Holy Orders — by which the authority and grace of the Apostles is transmitted to their successors. The Apostolic Succession is not merely a historical chain of ordinations; it is the means by which the Church in every age is guaranteed the authentic ministry of Word and Sacrament. The bishop, as the successor of the Apostles, is the centre of unity in the local Church. The priest shares in the bishop's ministry and is the ordinary minister of the Eucharist and the other sacraments. The deacon serves the bishop and the community in works of charity and proclamation. The Affirmation of St. Louis, the foundational document of Continuing Anglicanism, insists on 'the necessity of a bishop of apostolic succession (or priest ordained by such) as the celebrant of the Eucharist.' This is not a matter of ecclesiastical preference but of fidelity to the institution of Christ and the practice of the undivided Church.
Letter Twenty-Three: The Sacraments — Channels of Grace
The sacraments are the means by which the saving work of Christ is applied to individual souls and to the community of the Church. They are not mere symbols or commemorations; they are effective signs — outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, as the classical Anglican definition has it — by which Christ Himself acts in and through the Church. The seven sacraments recognised by the Catholic Church are: Baptism, Confirmation, the Holy Eucharist, Penance, Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, and Unction of the Sick. Each sacrament corresponds to a moment in the life of the Christian — birth, growth, nourishment, healing, vocation, covenant, and preparation for death — and each is the vehicle of a specific grace. Baptism is the sacrament of new birth, by which the baptized person is incorporated into the Body of Christ, freed from original sin, and made a child of God. The Eucharist is the sacrament of nourishment, by which the faithful are fed with the Body and Blood of Christ and united with His sacrifice. Penance is the sacrament of healing, by which sins committed after Baptism are forgiven through the ministry of the Church. Each sacrament is an encounter with the Risen Christ, who is the true minister of every sacrament.
Letter Twenty-Four: The Colony of Heaven — Our Final Destiny
The final letter of the Tree of Faith series looks to the end — not the end as extinction, but the end as fulfilment. St. Paul writes to the Philippians: 'Our citizenship (politeuma) is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.' (Philippians 3:20-21) The word politeuma means a colony of citizens living under the laws of their homeland while resident in a foreign country. The Church on earth is a colony of heaven. The destiny of man, as we have seen throughout these letters, is deification — theosis — the participation by grace in the divine life of the Holy Trinity. This is not the absorption of the human person into the divine essence, but the transformation of the whole person, body and soul, by the uncreated energies of God. St. Peter speaks of our becoming 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4); St. Athanasius summarises the whole economy of salvation in the famous phrase: 'God became man so that man might become God.' This deification is not the achievement of human effort but the gift of divine grace, received through faith, the sacraments, and the life of prayer and virtue. It begins in this life — in Baptism, in the Eucharist, in the practice of the virtues — and is completed in the life to come, when we shall see God face to face and be transformed by that vision into His likeness. This is the Tree of Faith in full flower: the creature restored to communion with the Creator, and the whole creation renewed in Christ.