'The common ground of St. Patrick's Gospel, St. Patrick's Creed, and St. Patrick's Church'
Ahead of the feast of Saint Patrick on Sunday, words from a series of 1852 sermons by Christopher Wordsworth (then Archdeacon of Westminster, later Bishop of Lincoln, firmly in the Old High tradition) on The Church of Ireland, Her History and Claims . Wordsworth rejoices in Saint Patrick as exemplifying that which the Old High tradition vigorously defended and affirmed: the apostolic faith of Scripture, the Christocentric catholic creeds, national episcopal churches, historic threefold order. In the classic Old High term used by Wordsworth at the conclusion of the sermon, this was the 'evangelical truth and apostolic order' of the Reformed Catholic episcopal churches of these Islands. May Wordsworth's words, therefore, aid us in celebrating Saint Patrick in true Old High fashion, rejoicing in "the common ground of St. Patrick's Gospel, St. Patrick's Creed, and St. Patrick's Church". His mission in Ireland seems to have begun about A.D. 440, and there h...