The Order of Saint Cuthbert

A Reflection for the Order of Saint Cuthbert and the Church

Advent calls us to watchfulness. “Watch therefore,” our Lord commands in the Gospel readings of this season, “for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13). We are to be like servants awaiting their master’s return, like bridesmaids keeping their lamps trimmed, like the faithful steward who continues his work even when the master delays.

But what exactly are we watching for? And perhaps more importantly, what are we watching in?

The temptation of Advent is to make it only about watching the calendar, about external preparations for Christmas. We watch for the packages to arrive, for the liturgical progression from violet to rose to white, for the carols to begin and the feast to come. All good things, to be sure. But Advent’s deeper call is to watch our own hearts, to examine the interior movements that reveal whether we are truly preparing room for Christ or merely making room for religious sentiment.

This is where the ancient practice of the Examen becomes not just helpful but essential, particularly for those of us navigating the troubled waters of contemporary Anglicanism.

Let me be direct: the Anglican crisis is not just “out there” in the institutions, the bishops, the synods and conventions. The crisis is also “in here,” in our own hearts, in our own motivations, in the hidden springs from which our responses flow.

When we hear of yet another bishop covering up abuse, of another diocese ordaining those who deny the Resurrection, of another abandonment of apostolic faith in favor of cultural accommodation, what rises up within us? Righteous anger rooted in love for Christ’s Church? Or self-righteous anger rooted in our need to be proven right? Grief that stems from genuine love for souls? Or cynicism that hardens into contempt for all institutional Christianity?

These are not easy questions. They require rigorous self-examination to explore our own motivations. In twenty years of ministry, I’ve learned that people rarely do things for the reasons they think they do. Our stated motivations and our actual motivations often diverge widely.

St. John Cassian understood this deeply. His Conferences are essentially a prolonged examination of the logismoi, the thought-patterns and interior movements that either lead us toward God or pull us into vice. Cassian knew that we can be doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and that such misalignment of motivation ultimately corrupts even our good works.

This is the genius of the Examen, it trains us to notice these interior movements, to distinguish consolation from desolation, to discern whether our activism flows from the Spirit of Christ or from our own wounded egos.

The Structure of the Examen

For those unfamiliar with the practice, the Examen consists of five movements, typically practiced twice daily:

First, Gratitude. We begin by recognizing God’s presence and gifts throughout the day. This immediately reorients us away from complaint and toward thanksgiving. It’s harder to maintain cynicism when you’re actively noticing grace.

Second, Petition for Light. We ask God for the grace to see clearly and honestly. This is essential. Without God’s illumination, we will inevitably justify ourselves, explain away our faults, and remain blind to our true motivations. “Search me, O God, and know my heart,” the Psalmist prays. “Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:23-24).

Third, Review. This is the heart of the practice. We review the day hour by hour, paying particular attention to the interior movements, what St. Ignatius called consolations and desolations. When did I feel drawn closer to faith, hope, and charity? When did I feel pulled toward fear, bitterness, or self-righteousness? What was I seeking in that conversation, that email, that moment of indignation?

Fourth, Sorrow. Having seen our misalignments clearly, we acknowledge them honestly before God. Not with self-flagellation or despair, but with the simple honesty that makes repentance possible. Perhaps I engaged in gossip disguised as “pastoral concern.” Perhaps I felt secret satisfaction in another’s failure. Perhaps I responded from anxiety rather than faith.

Fifth, Resolution. We turn toward amendment. We choose one specific commitment for the coming day, asking God for grace to keep it. This is where examination becomes formation.

Consider the four vows of our Order: Simplicity, Chastity, Obedience, and Compassion. These provide specific lenses for Advent self-examination.

Simplicity. When I engage with the crisis in Anglicanism, am I driven by genuine poverty of spirit, or by a desire to accumulate influence, allies, vindication? Do I seek the simplicity of the Gospel, or am I caught up in the complexity of ecclesiastical politics? When I write about episcopal failure, speak about institutional corruption, or advocate for reform, from what interior place does this engagement flow?

Chastity, that is, purity of heart. Can I examine my response to a bishop’s theological error or moral failure and honestly discern whether I desire his repentance or his humiliation? Do I pray for those with whom I disagree, or do I secretly hope they’ll be exposed and shamed? This is the most uncomfortable question, but also the most essential. Single-heartedness before God means that even in pursuing justice and truth, our motivation must remain love; love for Christ, love for His Church, even love for the one who has failed.

Obedience. Am I submitted to Christ and His revealed will in Scripture and the historic faith, or have I made my own judgment the final arbiter? Do I obey legitimate authority where it exists, or am I using the failure of some authorities to justify rejecting all authority? There’s a particular temptation here for those of us in the Anglican tradition: having rightly rejected false authorities, we can become so habituated to rejection that we struggle to recognize and submit to true authority anywhere.

Compassion. Do I bear with patience the failings of others as Christ bears with mine? Do I see those with whom I disagree as souls for whom Christ died, or merely as obstacles to overcome? When I encounter theological error, moral failure, institutional corruption, does my heart break with Christ’s grief over Jerusalem, or does it harden with pharisaic contempt?

These are the questions the Examen trains us to ask. Not once, in a moment of spiritual intensity, but twice daily, every day, until the practice rewires our hearts.

A Practice for This Advent

Let me propose something specific. During this Advent season, as we prepare for Christ’s coming, I encourage members of our Order and affiliated parishes to practice what we might call the “Advent Examen of Ecclesial Engagement.”

This could be incorporated into our practice of the Daily Office. It takes only fifteen to twenty minutes, but the cumulative effect over four weeks will be profound.

Gratitude (5 minutes). Begin by thanking God for three specific gifts from the day. Deliberately include at least one related to the Church, however broken it appears. Perhaps a faithful sermon you heard. Perhaps a moment of genuine fellowship. Perhaps a prayer answered. Perhaps simply the grace that you remain in the faith at all, that you have not abandoned ship, that Christ has kept you when others have fallen away. This is not vain optimism, it is training ourselves to see with the eyes of hope rather than the eyes of cynicism.

Petition (2 minutes). Pray the words of Psalm 139 slowly: “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Ask specifically for insight into your motivations regarding the current challenges facing the Anglican witness. Ask for the grace to see yourself as you truly are, not as you imagine yourself to be.

Review (10 minutes). Go through your day chronologically. Recall every moment when you engaged with the Anglican crisis—whether through reading, conversation, writing, social media, or internal thoughts. For each moment, ask:

– What did I think, say, or do?

– What interior movement preceded this action?

– Was I experiencing consolation (movement toward God) or desolation (movement away from God)?

– What was I actually seeking in this moment?

– Did this engagement draw me closer to Christ-like love, truth, and hope?

Be specific. If you read an article about episcopal misconduct, what were you feeling as you read? Relief that “your side” was vindicated? Genuine grief over souls harmed? Satisfaction that someone was finally being exposed? Anxiety about the Church’s future? Notice the movement, name it, and trace it to its source.

Sorrow (3 minutes). Acknowledge specific misalignments. Perhaps you engaged in gossip under the guise of “keeping people informed.” Perhaps you felt a flash of satisfaction when you heard of an opponent’s failure. Perhaps you responded to someone’s question from impatience rather than charity. Perhaps you allowed fear of institutional collapse to eclipse your trust in Christ’s promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church.

Confess these to God honestly. “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:4). The goal is not self-condemnation but honest acknowledgment that makes transformation possible.

Resolution (2 minutes). Choose one specific commitment for tomorrow. Make it concrete and achievable. Perhaps: “I will not discuss Bishop X’s situation without first praying for him.” Perhaps: “I will wait twenty-four hours before responding to inflammatory emails.” Perhaps: “I will read one page of Scripture for every page of ecclesial controversy I read.” Perhaps: “When I speak about the crisis, I will first state one thing I’m grateful for in the Church.”

Ask God for grace to keep this commitment. You will likely fail. When you do, bring that failure to the next Examen. The point is not perfection but progressive sanctification—the slow work of the Spirit conforming us to the image of Christ.

The Theological Foundation

Consider: St. Cuthbert himself practiced exactly this kind of rigorous self-examination. The Life of St. Cuthbert records how he would spend entire nights in prayer, standing in the cold North Sea, examining his conscience and battling his inner demons. The Desert Fathers, whom both Cuthbert and Ignatius drew upon, called this nepsis, or watchfulness and vigilance over the heart’s movements.

St. Augustine’s Confessions is nothing less than an extended Examen, mining his past for the movements of grace and sin, examining motivations rather than merely cataloging actions. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You,” Augustine writes—and that restlessness can manifest as destructive activism in ecclesial politics if it’s not examined and redirected toward its true object.

St. Gregory the Great, in his Pastoral Rule, insists that those who would govern or reform the Church must first govern themselves. Self-examination precedes and enables effective ministry. Without it, even our pursuit of justice becomes unjust, even our defense of truth becomes distorted by pride.

This is thoroughly patristic, thoroughly Anglican, thoroughly compatible with the charism of our Order.

The Integration of Contemplation and Action

The Rule of the Order of Saint Cuthbert calls us to “contemplation in action,” the integration of deep prayer with active ministry that characterized Cuthbert himself. He could not remain on Farne Island when the people needed him, yet he could not minister effectively without his times of withdrawal for prayer and self-examination.

The Examen serves this integration perfectly. It prevents our activism from becoming mere reactivity. It prevents our contemplation from becoming escapism. It ensures that when we engage with ecclesial crisis, we do so from a centered place, from examined motivations, from hearts that have been regularly brought before God for cleansing and realignment.

Without this practice, we risk becoming what we oppose. We risk fighting institutional corruption with our own corruption of spirit. We risk defending apostolic truth with un-apostolic attitudes. We risk pursuing church discipline while remaining undisciplined in our own hearts.

The Goal: Prepared for Right Action

Let me be clear: the goal of this Advent Examen practice is not paralysis through endless self-questioning. The goal is clarity for faithful action.

By examining our motivations daily, we prepare ourselves to respond to Anglican crisis not from our wounds, our anxieties, or our pride, but from the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

We need people who will speak truth in love, who will pursue discipline with humility, who will work for reform as those who know themselves desperately in need of reformation. We need people who can distinguish between righteous anger and self-righteous anger, between holy grief and cynical despair, between hope and presumption.

The Examen trains us to be such people. It doesn’t guarantee we’ll always get it right, but it substantially increases the odds. It creates the interior space for the Spirit to work, convicting us of our mixed motives, revealing our blind spots, redirecting our energies from ego-protection to genuine service.

A Word to the Weary

I know many of you are tired. My years in ministry and counseling have taught me to recognize compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout. Many of us who care deeply about Anglican orthodoxy, who’ve fought for years to maintain apostolic faith in hostile institutions, who’ve watched diocese after diocese abandon the truth, many of us are running on fumes.

The Examen is not another burden to add to your load. It’s actually rest for the weary. By bringing our hearts regularly before God for examination, we’re relieved of the exhausting work of self-justification. We’re freed from the crushing weight of always needing to be right. We’re released from the anxiety that our entire identity is wrapped up in ecclesial outcomes beyond our control.

When we practice the Examen faithfully, we discover that God’s grace really is sufficient for our weakness. We discover that Christ really does bear our burdens. We discover that the Spirit really does pray for us with groanings too deep for words when we don’t know what to pray.

And we discover that being faithful is more important than being vindicated, that love is more powerful than correct analysis, and that the One who holds the seven stars in His right hand will not abandon His Church, however dark the present moment appears.

The Advent Invitation

So, this is the invitation for Advent: Watch. Not just the calendar, not just the liturgical progression, not just the external signs of Christ’s coming. Watch your heart.

Watch the movements within you when you read about episcopal failure. Watch what rises up when you encounter theological error. Watch where your thoughts go when you pray for the Church. Watch, and ask God to show you the truth about your own motivations.

This is the work of Advent. This is how we prepare room for Christ, not just in our schedules or our sanctuaries, but in the hidden depths of our hearts where our truest motivations dwell.

“By your endurance you will gain your lives,” Jesus tells us in Luke 21:19. That endurance is not gritted-teeth survival. It’s the patient, persistent work of allowing God to search us and know us, to try us and know our thoughts, to see if there be any wicked way in us, and to lead us in the way everlasting.

May this Advent be for all of us a season of holy watching, of honest self-examination, of hearts prepared not for Christmas sentimentality but for the coming of the King who searches minds and hearts, who sees in secret, and who will reward each according to their deeds.

Come, Lord Jesus. And while we wait, by Your Spirit, prepare us to receive You rightly, in our worship, in our work, and in the examined depths of our hearts.

– Abbot Kenneth

A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, by Abbot Kenneth Gillespie

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Today is the beginning of my favorite season of the Church year, Advent. In our Collect this morning, we prayed for grace “to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.” These two movements, casting off and putting on, frame not only this day’s worship but the entire Advent season. This is our work for the next four weeks: to remove what hinders us and to clothe ourselves in Christ’s light as we prepare for His coming.

We were reminded, in our Gospel lesson, that our Lord is indeed returning and were encouraged to keep watch and be ready. That is what this Advent season is really all about, purposefully waiting for Christ. In the next few verses following our reading from the Holy Gospel this morning, our Lord tells us that if a master of a house knows in what part of the night a thief is coming, then he would of course stay away and deter the break-in. Is that not something we could all relate to, the desire to protect and preserve our property, our belongings, our money. Would we not also be willing to do as he says, to stay awake, to stand watch in order to preserve what is ours. How much more so then, should we be willing to stand watch to preserve our souls, to be found ready at the return of Christ.

Saint Paul tells the Romans that the night is far gone, the day is at hand. It is time to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, the very words of our Collect today. To make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. This putting on of armor is an intentional, daily action, not a one-time decision but a constant choosing to live vigilantly, prepared for our Lord’s return.

Advent is, for us, a time of preparation and self-examination. It is a season of fasting, of deep spiritual consideration, of purposeful waiting. This season is the start of a new liturgical year. The Church has always called us to order our lives around certain themes and events from God’s story of redemption. For over fifteen hundred years, the Church has observed Advent as a season of preparation, a time set apart to ready ourselves. Each year, we have the opportunity to cultivate a greater understanding of these truths, to develop a deeper conviction about what they mean to us, and a more intentional commitment to Christ as our Lord.

During this season of Advent, we focus on the threefold coming of Christ: His coming in the Incarnation at Bethlehem, His present coming to us now in Word and Sacrament, and His promised return in glory. We reflect on what His first coming has meant in our lives as believers and what we need to do to prepare for His promised return. This is our new year, and it too is a time for us to make certain resolutions.

If you are wondering what it might look like to devotionally focus on Advent this year, take a look around you, at what is going on in our world today, at what this season has become, and then do the exact opposite. The enemy is clever and is constantly seeking to deceive and disorient us. The world, the flesh, and the devil work in concert to draw us away from God, and what has happened in our Western culture around this season is a perfect example of that spiritual assault.

The enemy is more subtle than to merely rob us of Christmas, that would provoke resistance. Instead, Christmas has been extended backward through all of Advent, turning a season of fasting into six weeks of feasting. We’ve not lost the celebration; we’ve lost the preparation, and in losing the preparation, we’ve lost the meaning of what we celebrate. What our culture has lost is not merely a liturgical season, but the very concept of sacred time, of ordering our lives according to God’s redemptive calendar rather than commercial imperatives.

No longer is this a season of fasting and preparation of one’s soul, but now it is a season of gluttony and materialism. We certainly worship, but what is being worshiped? This culture reflects the corrupting influence of the world, the flesh, and the devil working to deceive us, and the result of this deception is that the darkness has crept in, hope is diminished.

There is a lot of talk in Holy Scripture about light versus darkness, even in our lessons appointed for today we are told to put on the armor of light. You may have heard this from me before, but I think it is worth repeating. Darkness is not the opposite of light; it is not an opposing force that the light must overpower. This reflects what the Fathers taught us about evil itself, that it is not a competing power against God, but rather an absence of good. Similarly, darkness is the absence of light, and light, even the smallest bit, dispels the darkness. As St. John wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

This first week of Advent we are called to focus on hope, on hope in the sure coming of Christ. It is the absence of hope that leads to despair, a spiritual sickness that comes when hope in God’s promises has grown dim. As St. Paul teaches, “we sorrow, but not as those without hope.” The world’s despair comes precisely from having no hope beyond this passing age, beyond their current circumstances. We have many labels for despair’s symptoms and there are many manifestations of it: suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, anxiety. All are rooted in despair, in the absence of hope. Just as light dispels the darkness, so too does hope dispel the despair we face.

This season we are called to purposeful anticipation of Christ, to ready ourselves. Let us at least put as much effort into that as we put into strategically mapping out our Black Friday shopping plan or our holiday feast menu, or our Christmas list. Consider what happens around our country every year during this season. Adults fighting in stores over consumer goods, camping overnight in lines, sacrificing Thanksgiving fellowship for shopping strategy, sacrificing their dignity, their decency, for things. What intense devotion and faith they had. What discipline and motivation. If only we could have such devotion to our Lord, think how much better our lives might be.

Instead, most in our society can’t find the motivation to show up for an hour-long worship service each week. I am not even talking about the practices that used to be normal for the Church, like all-night prayer vigils, forty-day Advent fasts, and sustained spiritual disciplines. St. John Chrysostom preached, “Let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.” Yet most churches don’t even speak of such things anymore. Make no mistake, our culture is deceived, shaped by forces hostile to the Gospel, and my encouragement to you today is that we each take a good hard look at our lives and what motivates us.

Let us take the time to consider what it might look like if we were to put on the armor of light this Advent. Imagine evening prayer by candlelight as darkness falls earlier each day, reading Isaiah’s prophecies aloud as a family, allowing the ancient words to kindle expectation in our hearts. Imagine acts of compassion and mercy toward the poor, living out Isaiah’s vision of beating swords into plowshares, choosing peace over conflict, generosity over accumulation. Imagine the beauty of anticipation itself, not the anxious anticipation of whether packages will arrive on time, but the joyful longing for Christ that makes the heart grow in affection. Imagine waking each morning and deliberately choosing to put on the armor of light, to prayerfully clothe ourselves in Christ, as St. Paul says, rather than being dressed by the culture’s expectations.

This season of Advent is meant to be such a time of examination. I encourage you all to fast this season, to do the opposite of what our culture tells you is normal. Fasting is not mere asceticism for its own sake. As St. Basil the Great teaches, fasting is the mother of prayer, the guardian of the soul, and the companion of sobriety. When we voluntarily limit bodily comfort, we create space for spiritual hunger, hunger for God alone. We learn for ourselves what our Lord demonstrated that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

That does not mean you have to go home and take down your Christmas trees and not attend any Christmas parties, which ridiculously don’t even occur during Christmas. I am not asking you to do anything that severe or difficult. Instead, rather than feasting every day for the next four weeks, just so you can go on a diet in January, eat simply, limit how much you eat, avoid over-indulging. Save the Christmas cookies and the peppermint mochas for Christmas Day and the twelve days of Christmastide. I know it will not be easy, but it may just be rewarding. The feast is always better after a good fast. Take advantage of this Advent season, it is a beautiful and wonderful opportunity.

This is not the end of our year; this is the start of it. This is your opportunity to begin a new year with Christ as the foundation, as the focus of your devotion and motivation. This is a time to put on the armor of light. That is an intentional action, a choice we make each and every day. Remember, light dispels the darkness just as hope dispels despair. This is a season of hopeful anticipation. A time to make ourselves ready, to bring our lives into greater alignment with Christ.

So, as we prepare for Christmas, may we also remember that Christ has already come in humility at Bethlehem and we await His coming in glory at the end of the age. But even now, He comes to us, in Word and Sacrament, in the faces of the poor, and in the fellowship of His Body, the Church. To prepare for His final coming is to welcome His present coming in all these sacred ways. As St. Athanasius taught, “He became what we are that He might make us what He is.” He is coming—are we ready?

Do not miss this opportunity to do as Saint Paul instructed us, to cast off the works of darkness, to not gratify the desires of the flesh. Take advantage of this chance to make resolutions that truly matter, not trendy promises that look good on social media but real and substantive commitments that cultivate the Lordship of Christ in our lives. We have a tremendous capacity for self-delusion, to lie to ourselves, especially about ourselves. So, these next few weeks, may we each examine our lives and ask God the Holy Spirit to reveal to us those works of darkness, so that we may indeed cast them off.

Look for ways where you have lost sight of hope, where the despair has crept in and allow God to flood those areas with His light, His hope. Put on the armor of light, that we might truly be light bearers to this world lost in suffering and despair. God loves you. HE LOVES YOU: enough that He sent His Son for us, that Christ willingly suffered and died for us. We must not lose sight of that reality, and we must remember the power that this message carries to those suffering around us. St. Augustine said that hope has two beautiful daughters: Anger and Courage, anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain as they are. It is to a despairing world that we are called to bear His light, His hope.

Surely the Lord is coming soon—are we ready?

Let us pray:

Gracious Lord, You have told us You will return and that we are to make ourselves ready. Give us the grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light. Help us to focus on You through the distractions of this world, to never lose sight of You, and not lose hope in Your return. Give us the grace this season of a holy and blessed Advent, that we might, with the help of Your Holy Spirit, examine ourselves and draw ever closer to You. We ask this in Your name, Lord Jesus, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and evermore. Amen.