The American Church Union, publishers for the Anglican Province of Christ the King, witnesses to sacramental, historic, and Anglo-Catholic faith and practice in the tradition of Shakespeare, John Donne, T.S. Eliot, Dom Gregory Dix, and C.S. Lewis. We offer Church School curricula, books for children and adults, Anglican theological works, aids to worship and church life, reprints of Anglican classics, and recommended reading. We welcome you to browse through our current offerings.
Please contact us for trade and quantity discounts.
Please allow up to three weeks for deliveries.
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All Is Grace, a Collection of Pastoral Sermons, by the Most Reverend Robert Sherwood Morse: All Is Grace. Press Release: All Is Grace Press Release.
ONLINE VIDEO TRIBUTES TO ARCHBISHOP MORSE:
Archbishop Robert Sherwood Morse, 1924-2015, Founder of the Anglican Province of Christ the King, In Memoriam. Thanks be to God for all he has given us.
In Memoriam: Memorial Dedication, October 24, 2015, St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, Berkeley, California
In Memoriam: Video Tribute to his life
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A History of the Diocese of Christ the King and the Anglican Province of Christ the King
In this compelling, concise, and insightful history, Bishop Hansen tells the story of the Anglican Province of Christ the King, led by the inspirational Archbishop Robert Sherwood Morse. He describes the dramatic events leading to the St. Louis Congress (1977) and the Denver consecrations (1978), as faithful Anglicans sought to ensure historic Christian faith and practice. Bishop Hansen recounts the growth of the Diocese and the national Province to become the leading voice for traditional Anglicans in America today. In conclusion, he considers the future of the APCK.
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CHILDREN’S HOLY MASS BOOK
We are pleased to announce that the Children’s Holy Mass Book, Coloring for Children and the Young at Heart, is now available for purchase (see Education tab above). For flyer, click here: PRESS RELEASE.Children’s Holy Mass Book This is an excellent resource for children, to be placed in the narthex or pew, or used as an addition to the ACU Church School Series.
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QUOTE FOR MARCH 2023
“I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world… while it is true to say that God’s own nature is the real sanction of His commands, yet to understand this must, in the end, lead us to the conclusion that union with that Nature is bliss and separation from it horror. Thus Heaven and Hell come in… The question was no longer to find the one simply true religion among a thousand religions simply false. It was rather, ‘Where has religion reached its true maturity? Where, if anywhere, have the hints of all Paganism been fulfilled?’ “
Lewis, C.S.. Surprised by Joy: The shape of my early life (pp. 18, 269-70, 273). Distributed Proofreaders Canada. Kindle Edition.
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QUOTE FOR FEBRUARY 2023
“From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly she will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Alongside this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize her true center and experience the sacraments again as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.
The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystalization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism of the eve of the French Revolution—when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain—to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already… but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI (1927-2022) Faith and The Future (pp. 116-118). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.
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QUOTE FOR JANUARY 2023
St. John writes of the birth of Christ:
“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God…” John 1:9-12, King James Version
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QUOTE FOR DECEMBER 2022
“Everything that exists is in existence only by the will of God, whose purposes define us all. Our problems are all risen from when the ultimate, infinite, eternal God created finite, contingent, and temporal beings with free will. Yet, all is under His will. If it’s a mess, how do we explain that God is at the head of it all? How can we explain what appear to us as mutually exclusive truths? A perfect God, a perfect creation, and an imperfect result.”
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QUOTE FOR NOVEMBER 2022
When does life begin? At the moment of fertilization?
“This is not an abstract discussion although, at times, it takes us into the most difficult philosophical terminology that there is, the most amazing and detailed analyses of embryology and the most intense and controversial social disagreements in modern times; it is a discussion about specific people, whether born, under the heart of the mother or frozen: it is about who has received the gift of human life is simply equal to anyone else who has received the gift of life. Thus no one is excluded from the world discussion of what we, as human beings, are bringing about in the present ethical climate of the human race. As we emerge, then, from our national identities and increasingly recognize that abstract truths about human personhood, that to be a human person is to be a human being-in-relation, need “returning” as it were to the concrete reality from which they came – we will appreciate more and more that mother and father, parent and child, brother and sister, aunt and uncle communicate the profoundly interpersonal structure of human identity.”
Francis Etheredge, in UNFOLDING A POST-ROE WORLD, soon to be published by Enroute Books and Media.
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QUOTE FOR OCTOBER 2022
“We are called to be saints in whatever state of life it shall please God to place us. If our manner of life can’t be lived to the glory of God, then we have to change it. There are some ways of life which can’t be lived to the glory of God. If we find we are living such a life, we need to get out of it, so that we may walk in the vocation to which we are called.”
Raymond Raynes, Superior, Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, England, in The Faith (London: Faith Press, 1961; ACU re-issue, 2012, 65-6)
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QUOTE FOR SEPTEMBER 2022
“Morality is the discipline of freedom. The Ten Commandments are as valid today as they were to the people of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments are the compass that point our way as a people out of the desert of modern despair. Freedom and responsibility are one. The role of the Church in every age is to civilize men by giving them a conscience, for without a conscience we can never know God, and without God we can never be free.”
The Most Rev. Robert Sherwood Morse, in ALL IS GRACE (ACU: 2017), Address given at the Tenth Annual Synod of the Diocese of Christ the King, Episcopal Heritage Center, 1987
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QUOTE FOR AUGUST 2022
“Today [August 6] is one of the great feast days of the Christian world, the day the Apostles saw Christ transfigured on Mount Tabor. It is one of the many moments of epiphany that take place during Jesus’ earthly ministry in which He reveals His divine nature: His Baptism, the wedding at Cana, the stilling of the wind and storm on the Sea of Galilee. Yet the more interesting insight into the Transfiguration is His conversation with Moses and Elijah, reflecting the law and the prophets of the Old Testament. They spoke of His coming sacrificial death. In this moment of glory, why such a shattering, devastating revelation? It reveals who He is, why He came among us, and why He still comes among us.”
The Most Rev. Robert Sherwood Morse, in ALL IS GRACE (ACU: 2017), p. 147, from sermons preached in 2000 at Holy Family, Arcata, CA and St. Martin of Tours, Concord, CA.
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QUOTE FOR JULY, 2022
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QUOTE FOR JUNE 2022
“Jesus and the Resurrection were always joined together. The early Christians weren’t the disciples of a great philosopher who came to a sudden death; they weren’t continuing his preaching to the best of their ability; they weren’t trying to persuade people to be good. No, they preached Jesus and the Resurrection. They declared Our Lord to be the Saviour, the long-expected Messiah, Son of God, and Son of Man. They said that there was no other name under heaven whereby men can be saved. This is clear in St. Peter’s sermon on the Feast of Pentecost, the first Whitsunday.”
Raymond Raynes, Superior, Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, England, in The Faith (London: Faith Press, 1961; ACU re-issue, 2012, 56)
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QUOTE FOR MAY 2022
“[W]e are, literally, conceived through relationship; both in-relationship to our parents and to God who, in the first instant of fertilization, brings the soul to exist in union with the body. In other words, when a child is conceived, there is not a cell mass, a plant or any other kind of life; there is, rather, a child of the parents and of God. Thus, the human loss, whether through miscarriage or abortion, is a suffering in an existing relationship; and, therefore, death entails relationship, just as life does, in that the relationship transcends death just as a child’s life transcends biological ingredients and implies the action of God.”
Francis Etheredge, referencing Catechism of the Catholic Church and Pope St. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, 13, in Reaching for the Resurrection: A Pastoral Bioethics, soon to be released by Enroute Books and Media.
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QUOTE FOR APRIL 2022
“The mystery of Easter, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, points to the essential meaning of history, the victory of life over death. Catholic Christianity is a religion of life, not only eternal life, but life right now, not death. The Resurrection is the triumph of love over hate, forgiveness over revenge… The Resurrection cannot be described. It is beyond human understanding. It is part of our divine destiny, the end for which we are created, to see God, and to see each other again in Him. And if we are destined to see Him, what will we see? We will see Love.”
The Most Rev. Robert Sherwood Morse, in a sermon preached in 1988, in All Is Grace, p. 108-9
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QUOTE FOR MARCH 2022
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. & This Collect is to be said every day in Lent, after the Collect appointed for the day until Palm Sunday.”
1928 Book of Common Prayer, 124
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QUOTE FOR FEBRUARY 2022
“No human heart is capable by itself of expressing the whole of the love of God, but each one must express that particular manifestation of the love of God, which God expects from it. No one can take the place of anyone else. Only I can give to God what he expects of me, and that is to be complementary to what other members of the mystical Body of Christ will be expected to give; it is both individual and corporate.”
Raymond Raynes, Superior, Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, England, in Darkness No Darkness (London: Faith Press, 1958; ACU re-issue, 2014, 51)
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QUOTE FOR JANUARY 2022
“13. Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”
Psalm 139: 13-16, King James Version
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QUOTE FOR DECEMBER 2021
“AND it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
St. Luke 2:1+, Gospel for Christmas Day, 1928 Book of Common Prayer, 98-9
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QUOTE FOR NOVEMBER 2021
“Nancy and I once visited Auschwitz in Poland, the infamous death camp of the Nazis, a place of horror and sadness… It was more than a temporary death factory. It was a permanent emplacement. Hitler said that during the war they would do in the Jews and the gypsies. After the war they would kill Christians and capitalists, then the mentally defective and physically malformed, and on and on. This nihilistic vision ends in nothingness. My generation battled this evil, until victory. This generation must battle a similar evil.”
The Most Rev. Robert Sherwood Morse, ALL IS GRACE (ACU 2017), 193, in a sermon preached at St. Joseph’s Chapel, Berkeley, 2001
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QUOTE FOR OCTOBER 2021
“Within the Church, we, as members of Christ’s Body, share the revelation of God, the teaching of Holy Scripture and the grace of the sacraments. No prayer or worship is really my own. I only pray and worship because I am a member of the Body of Christ… It is a glorious vocation, given us by the grace of God and a privilege to be, as it were, involved with the angels and the saints, the poor and the humble, the weak and the sinful, within the Body of Christ, all set on the path of perfection by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Raymond Raynes, Superior, Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, England, in Darkness No Darkness (London: Faith Press, 1958; ACU re-issue, 2014, 39)
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QUOTE FOR SEPTEMBER 2021
“O GOD, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
A Collect for Peace. The Order for Daily Morning Prayer, 1928 Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 17.
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QUOTE FOR AUGUST 2021
“Christians are living in an age that eclipses the persecutions of the Early Church. Christians are caged and silenced in the Soviet Union, murdered by the millions in China and Cambodia, tortured and martyred in Africa. Solzhenitsyn, that twentieth-century prophet, sees the worst for us in the West. The decline and decay of Western man is accelerating at a far more rapid pace than that of the Marxist police states, whose new Gnostic value system of materialism and power is based on the denial of God.”
The Most Reverend Robert Sherwood Morse, “The Long March into the Desert,” Address to the St. Louis Congress, 1977, in ALL IS GRACE (ACU 2017), 245.
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QUOTE FOR JULY 2021
“ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favour and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Prayer for our Country. 1928 Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 36.
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QUOTE FOR JUNE 2021
“We must find our source, our roots of simplicity in our gathering around the altar, the Holy Table of God, Sunday after Sunday to celebrate the mystery of the changing of the bread and wine into the Corpus Christi, and thereby discover the center of our faith, Christ in each other.”
The Most Rev. Robert Sherwood Morse, ALL IS GRACE (ACU 2017)
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