Commontide
Proper 16
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 13th Sunday after Trinity
Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Bishop of Fond du Lac and Ecumenist
Anglican Commemoration
Psalms 144, 145, 146
Psalms 147, 148, 149, 150
Charles Chapman Grafton (1830-1912) was an American Anglo-Catholic bishop of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, who gave his life to two convictions: that the Anglican church was truly part of the one Catholic Church, and that the divided churches were meant to be visibly one. He helped found the first Anglican religious order for men since the Reformation, and at the consecration of his coadjutor in 1900 he gathered Anglican, Old Catholic, and Russian Orthodox bishops in a single sanctuary, decades ahead of his time.
Born in 1830, Grafton was ordained to the priesthood and became increasingly devoted to high-church Anglo-Catholic practice and monastic religious life. In 1866, he and R.M. Benson founded the Society of St. John the Evangelist (commonly known as the Cowley Fathers), one of the first sustained Anglican monastic communities in the post-Reformation era. Elected Bishop of Fond du Lac in 1888, Grafton served for 24 years, establishing the see as a center of Anglo-Catholic theology and practice in the American Midwest. His most significant ecumenical achievement occurred in 1903 when he arranged his own episcopal consecration to include bishops from the Old Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church—a bold and controversial gesture that symbolized his conviction that visible Christian unity was possible across traditional denominational boundaries. He died on June 20, 1912, having profoundly influenced the trajectory of American Anglicanism toward Catholic faith and practice.
Grafton exemplifies Anglo-Catholic ecclesiology and the conviction that the Anglican Church embodies Catholic faith and practice. His ecumenical efforts anticipated mid-20th-century developments in Anglican-Orthodox dialogue. He is venerated in Anglo-Catholic circles as a champion of religious community life and visible church unity. His legacy includes the continuing presence of the Cowley Fathers in the Anglican tradition.