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Yet if I should join one of the Orthodox Churches, I would have to deny that I have ever been part of a real church, and if I became Roman Catholic I would have to deny that I have ever been a real priest or received and given real sacraments.

IOW, his bottom-line reasoning for rejecting both Rome and Constantinople revolves around pride -- to accept either of them would mean admitting that his ministry was illicit and invalid, and that's something up with which he will not put, because it's all about him.

St. Paul said he accounted all things as rubbish next to the surpassing knowledge of his Lord, Jesus Christ. He didn't say, "Well, I would have become a Christian, but that would have meant admitting that my former life as a Jewish rabbi was not really serving God, and I can't stand that idea."

Bingo. You and Mad Dawg already covered it. I should read before I post . . .

. . . I know all about pride. I confess it all the time . . . sometimes it gets better, sometimes it gets worse. But I swallowed my pride to get OUT of ECUSA and all its madness.

I have heard this kind of thing, stated more forcefully (and less thoughtfully) from a now retired Bp of the Episcopal Church. His less thoughtful way of saying it shows the pain of the position , and it's good for us to notice that and to minister to it, when we can. He says, "If I were to become Catholic I'd be saying everything I'd said was a LIE!"

Of course there is an important difference between a lie and a mistake. I think there are plenty of well-meaning and thoughtful people who disagree with me, and that doesn't make them liars. And plenty of us who trusted our parents and our childhood rectors believed the claims of the Episcopal Church and acted, at least for a while, with invincible ignorance and in good faith. So, to the extent that that describes the bishop, then he is certainly NOT a liar, or wasn't one.

There is another problem: As pastors, we see a few lives turned around, and our ministrations are involved. We see what certainly appear to be Divine blessings flowing, as it appears, through our what we sincerely think are our sacramental acts.

And, as AnAmericanMother says there are lay people who have been baptized in the name of the Trinity and with the affusion of water, and who have made a public and sincere commitment of mature faith in our Lord, and who then come to a service sincerely desiring to receive and sincerely believing that they DO receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord in the sacrament, undertaken with the intention of obedience to His command and hope in His promises.

Now my opinion, very likely wrong and erroneous, and possibly heterodox (in which case I beg for authoritative correction) is that we ought not to be astonished that the God who loves us so much , who wants all to be saved, who does not willingly afflict or grieve us, ... we should not be astonished if he responds by showering graces on such people with such holy motivations.

So there is what I will call an "attempt" at a sacrament, and there is a REAL blessing somehow resulting or otherwise associated with that attempt.

If that is a possible account, then it is just sloppy thinking to argue that "going over to Rome" would be a denial of the perceived reality of God's grace operating through one's ministrations.

IN fact, I would timidly offer that the increasing sense of a call to the Catholic Church might be a proof (or at least an example) of God's generous grace operating through those who stayed in their Anglican tents rather than obey the summons to join with others. After all, two things are true: "Better late than never," is one. The other is, that knowing you are late is rarely a good reason to dawdle or an excuse for not coming to the party at all.

It is, I suggest, a kind of faithlessness or despair to think that God would NEVER act in one's life and through one's ministry, that one had to deny all God's previous mercies because one perceived a summons to a fuller obedience in a community more closely tied to God's promises.

TO maintain (please stipulate for a minute, if you do not agree)(1) that God has pledged always to act graciously through ministrations of the priests of the Catholic Church; and (2) that He has NOT made such a guarantee concerning, say, Anglican clergy) does NOT require than one believe that He NEVER acts graciously through them.

I'm nearing the end here, thanks for holding on ...

Through the storm and smoke of my sins, I was given such grace that I occasionally, too rarely, was able to form an act of will to give myself and my ministry to God. In my frowardness I rarely hold true to that intention. But in His always astonishingly great mercy, God not only helps me renew that half-hearted self-offering, but, little by little, shows me what it means. I am only a baby, fit only for milk, not for the red meat of mature discipleship. But, by the grace of God, I sometimes and sufficiently free from perversity to desire more and more milk that I may grow and become stronger, and one day perhaps, prompted, supported, borne along by the Love of God and His angels and saints, herded, guided, chivvied, prodded and poked, and occasionally scourged, maybe I will prove to be at least not a total loss as a servant. Now that THERE would be a thrill beyond reckoning!