The Memorial is a Bartlett family lay-ministry for the Rose Garden and Santa Clara Valley areas (CA). During the week, we study and pray the Christian faith as set forth by the British Crown’s “Settlement of Religion”. The Thirty-Sixth Canon, prepared by Bishop Bancroft in 1604, nicely sums our standards by three basic articles:
- That the King’s Majesty, under God, is the only Supreme Governor…
- That the Book of Common Prayer [BCP], and of Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God…
- That he alloweth the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops…in the year of our Lord God [1562]…being in number nine and thirty besides Ratification, to be agreeable to the Word of God.
These Articles date back to Parker’s 1571 Book of Discipline, purposed so ministers might…
“teach nothing in their preaching, which they would have the people religiously to observe, and believe, but that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old Testament, and the New, and that which the catholic fathers, and ancient bishops have gathered out of that doctrine” (p. 23)
Thus, the Three Articles stand as a convenient witness of catholic faith against both Papal and Puritan innovations. Since 1893 these Articles have been translated into various North American Solemn Declarations. As Anglicans with the Diocese of the West (from APA), our Fundamental Principles take Anglicanism by the 1886 Quadrilateral, the Book of Common Prayer “as the traditional Anglican movement hath received [it]“, the 1801 Articles of Religion, as well as the “spirit of the St. Louis Affirmation”, requiring no less than “Orders consisting exclusively of men”. An amended St. Louis Affirmation will be posted soon. At home we use the 1928 Prayer Book with an enlarged appendix.
Our public prayer is mainly with Anglican Episcopalians. If you’d like to discuss family memorials, their combination into proto-vestries, the possibility of local Ascendancy, and how multi-generational churching can eventually restore Northern Catholicism, please contact us at: chapelmouse@yahoo.com