What are Sarabites? Are they a species of beetle or fossils of prehistoric animals like trilobites? No, it is a term found in the Rule of St Benedict to denote a type of religious person who is morally reprehensible for living the monastic life the wrong way.

The third and worst kind of monks is that of the Sarabites, who have not been tried under any Rule nor schooled by an experienced master, as gold is proved in the furnace, but soft as is lead and still in their works cleaving to the world, are known to lie to God by their tonsure. These in twos or threes, or more frequently singly, are shut up, without a shepherd; not in our Lord’s fold, but in their own. The pleasure of carrying out their particular desires is their law, and whatever they dream of or choose this they call holy; but what they like not, that they account unlawful.

I have found an amazing article in an “independent” blog – Sarabites, Schisms, and Finding Fellowship in the ISM. They address the challenge to anyone who is not under the complete control of authority, invariably the official Church.

There is an issue of accountability, which I mentioned in an earlier posting. To what extent do we need to be policed, constrained and punished for non-compliance? How reliable are our consciences? It is an eternal issue! We are accountable – to society, our loved ones, the law, our bosses at work or customers. We might have precious little of a church to be accountable to, but there is always someone – and finally there is the all-knowing God from whom no secrets are hid.

It is this issue that often makes us thirst for organic unity with the mainstream Churches, forgetting that unity already exists through our common faith and the Sacraments. All we have to do is accept that the “others” are just as good if not better than we are.

Do these bonds of friendship override the need for theological discussion?  Certainly not, but they are an element of stability that has been underemphasized in the movement’s history.  The era of maverick metropolitans and personal patriarchates may be coming to an end as a new generation looks for ways to build community, but far too much of the furniture of the old era of squabbles and schisms remains to be cleared away.

What a lovely reflection! We indeed live an “old” era of squabbles and schisms, and God calls us to put it away along with the folie de grandeur.

In this article, we learn that “C. S. Lewis said that hell was ultimately a destination for those whose self-love grew until it could not tolerate the presence of any other being“. It all reminds me of the famous quote from the French Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos : “L’enfer c’est les autres” – Hell is other people!

Has a truer word been said by us Anglicans than this quote about hell from Screwtape Letters:

We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.

Truly from the mouths of the humble, God has ordained wisdom! Let us stop worrying about whether we are “true” churches or what our critics will say to demolish us. The parallels are striking between continuing Anglicans and all other independent sacramental Christians: the fear of being compromised by “imitators”. The challenge is thrown to use

Why don’t we all just get together and pray and get to know each other and see what happens?

Indeed, why not?