Spare Our Blushes

A very special Palm Sunday. We processed from the hall into Church, the sun shone, we sang wholeheartedly.



Several returned in the afternoon for Evensong and Benediction which was supported by organist and singers from a neighbouring Anglican church. Then, to crown it all, there was an unexpected accolade in the Diocesan Magazine, "Portsmouth People".

The diocese has been very welcoming from the start, and we have received great help and encouragement from Bishop Crispian. Today, though, it was a letter from a parishioner in Southbourne, where we share the church building, which gave us a great boost. It is in the letters pages of "Portsmouth People", headed "Ordinariate Privilege". It shows a depth of understanding about the Ordinariate which is very welcome - and so I dare reprint some of it here. I just hope we can live up to it!

"We at the parish of Our Lady Queen of Peace... were privileged last year to have the new members of the Ordinariate join our parish; they were all (around 25) received into the Catholic church at the Easter Vigil... and they are now fully Catholics, although at the Pope's request they have kept a few features of their Anglican ceremonies, such as beautiful music, or the (optional) use of kneelers during Holy Communion.

These slight differences are merely superficial; the Ordinariate members have been delighted to embrace the Catholic faith completely, while nevertheless adhering to the Poe's wishes that they keep their own masses and services slightly separate so that more Anglicans, particularly those who are unwilling to give up some of the own traditions, may be attracted into the Catholic Church. I have been to the Masses (of the Ordinariate) and they are almost identical to our non-Ordinariate Masses, though it has to be admitted that the singing may be slightly better. It is indeed very enriching for us to have the opportunity to attend Benediction and Mass with them... I would like to thank them for enriching our parish with their presence ... I hope that the Ordinariate may continue to act as a bridge for new Catholics for a long time to come."

For our part, is is very good that some from local parishes join us from time to time - as also today we had help at Benediction from a Server in a local Anglican Church. Throughout the Triduum we have been invited by Fr Gerry to participate in the Parish's liturgies, and I am to preach at them. We pray that this mutual enrichment may prove a great blessing to the whole Church. On Easter morning, when we celebrate again as an Ordinariate at 11.30am, it might seem quite lonely!

Cowes Week

Lymington is full of Yachtsmen - and women - most of the summer; but especially just now as Cowes week begins. A couple of days ago we paid another visit to the Island (the Isle of Wight, that is) and the return journey through fleets of competing boats practising I guess for this week's competitions must have tested the Captain of the Ferry.



We have had many visitors this month, and they always give us an excuse for returning to favourite places. So we took an old school-friend of Jane's to Osborne, to be reminded of Victoria and Albert, and the impact they had on this little Island. Albert had a hand in designing their hide-away; some visiting crowned heads though the place far too modest. It set a fashion for neo-Italianate villas, just as Balmoral spawned many turreted baronial semi's and tartan wallpaper. It is still a treat to enjoy a meal at the restaurant on the terrace at Osborne, sitting where the Queen Empress might have sat.

It also created an opportunity for us to see friends on the Island. Fr Jonathan Redvers-Harris and his wife Wendy have moved from a spacious vicarage into a slightly smaller house. The plus side though is that this house, which the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth is renting for them throughout the next year, has a large garden, with distant views of Portsmouth Harbour. It was good to catch up with them both, and elder son Jack - the only one of the five children at home the day we called. We heard about the way the Island's Ordinariate Group is beginning to take off thanks to the generosity of their local Catholic parish. In our own Bournemouth Group we are experiencing similar friendliness, and at this morning's mass some of the their regular congregation joined us, or simply called in to say "Hello" as we took refreshments just before their 11o'clock Mass began. Next Sunday afternoon we are experimenting with Evening Prayer and Benediction at 4pm, and Fr Graham, our Pastor, is issuing invitations to join us then.


Wendy, son Jack & Fr Jonathan

Another old friend who was with us earlier in the week is the sole begetter of EFFA, the Ecumenical Friends Of Fatima Association. It has becomed ecumenical in ways we could not have envisaged when we set it up a decade and more ago. Then it was an entirely Anglican body; now about a third of the membership are in the Catholic Church, and of these twenty or so are members of the Ordinariate. I am sure Our Lady of Fatima (and of Walsingham) had a hand in this. On this visit Fr Malcolm Gray was only with us in Lymington for a couple of nights, but we still managed to sample one local hostelry, as you see from the picture below.




FOR YOUR PRAYERS: We heard this week from Bishop Crispian (our local Catholic Bishop in Portsmouth) that he has to undergo major surgery later this summer - please pray for him at this difficult time. Then today I learned of the death of an old friend, Canon Roger Greenacre, well remembered for his work in establishing the link between the dioceses of Chichester and Chartres. Requiescat.

What a Day!

The Chrism Mass in Portsmouth was very special today. Eighty or so priests, twenty deacons, and a Cathedral full to bursting with the faithful from across the diocese: from South Oxford in the North to the Channel Isles and the Isle of Wight in the South. It could be a little daunting suddenly meeting a huge bunch of priests, hardly any of whom I had encountered before today - but I only needed to say the word "Ordinariate" and there was a great welcome from everyone.


It was also a special occasion because it was (as he said, "probably") the last time Bishop Crispian will celebrate this Mass for the Diocese. By next year, he should have begun a very well-earned retirement.

The Music was a real treat today. Not just familiar and great hymns - "Christ is made the sure foundation" (a little bowdlerised ... no 'vouchsafe', for instance - not a great loss). 'Soul of my Saviour' (happily unamended) and then at the end the Ordinariate's theme, 'Praise to the holiest'. All that was wonderful. Even better was the singing of the entire Canon of the Mass, in a simple, dignified, and very prayerful setting, by Bishop and Concelebrants. The diocese is greatly blessed in its Musical Director and choir.

Then, during lunch, Jane and I caught up with several old friends. Fr John Barnes and Fr John Catlin, Fr John Humphries and his wife Alison, Fr Paul King and his wife Elizabeth. All of us had served around the same time, half a century ago or so, in the Anglican Diocese of Portsmouth. We forget what a steady movement there has been over the years, not simply since women's ordination and all that. Of course, I should not drop names, but there was another Curate in Portsmouth back in the early 1960's. He was serving in the Catholic parish of Corpus Christi - one Cormac Murphy O'Connor. I believe he did pretty well after his time in Pompey.

It was so good to be renewed in priesthood just a few weeks after being ordained. Good too to hear that this year there are nine new men beginning the discernment process on the road towards Ordination. And this week too the stream of former Anglicans is being welcomed into the Catholic Church. May it soon swell to a flood. Come on in, the water really is fine; and the welcome just tremendous.

Bishop x 2

Bishop Crispian and Fr Keith Newton flank the new priest and Jane

Yesterday he laid hands on me in Ordination; today he was visiting the Parish as part of his farewell tour of the diocese. So of my three Catholic masses, two have been concelebrations with Bishop Crispian - the other was at Brockenhurst, where they told me apologetically that everyone was away for the end of Half-Term. With sixty communicants and a good number of children it did not seem very empty! Maybe they are used to a squash most Sundays. There certainly was not room for many more at Lymington, where latecomers usually find they have to stand throughout. There was a great farewell reception for Bishop Crispian after the Mass.



We had the Sevenoaks photographer Fr James Bradley, in attendance, so until I get copies of the official Portsmouth Diocesan photos, here is a link to a great series of pictures he took and has published on Flickr:
http://ordinariateportal.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/photos-from-the-ordination-of-fr-edwin-barnes/



I have written about an aspect of the Ordination at the Anglo-Catholic blog (see link at the side of this blog). Meanwhile, since some of my American readers still seem to misunderstand what a Bunfight is, here is a picture of the one they put on for the Bishop today in Lymington. Very good it was, too.

Fr Danny was a little nervous, I fancy, before the Bishop's visit; but all went very well, and the Bishop reassured us all that he was not here to tear us off a strip! Below you will spot Fr Danny in the doorway, trying to shepherd some of the flock into the other room where a presentation was to be made to the Bishop.

First and Last

Brockenhurst, this morning; the Catholic Church of St Anne (l) is run from Lymington, so today I was there for a first visit - and my last as a Deacon. Next Sunday, God willing, I shall be back at St Anne's to celebrate Mass for the first time as a Catholic Priest. Then there will be a mad dash back to Lymington, where Bishop Crispian is making his last visit before his retirement - and I will hope to concelebrate with him and our parish priest, Fr Danny McAvoy. This morning Fr Danny asked me to preach in Our Lady of Mercy in Lymington for the first time. "Think of us as Christ's Servants" said St Paul to the Corinthians - so I spoke about being a deacon, and how it was not a demotion as some supposed from being a bishop to becoming a deacon. Quite the contrary. Being a deacon, a servant, is the epitome of the Christian's call, the very thing Jesus tells us all to do; and inasmuch as we have done any service to one of the least of our brethren, we have done it to him. I might have said something about the bishop wearing the deacon's dalmatic beneath the chasuble, to remind him and us of his servant ministry - but you can't say everything all at once. There will, I hope, be other opportunities.

Just to cheer up anyone who has stumbled on this blog, here are a couple of local New Forest residents whom I met on the way to Mass in Brockenhurst. They don't look terribly happy, despite the sunny morning - perhaps because they were heading away from church rather than towards it.

More Revs

Today was very good. Bishop Crispian of Portmouth made us very welcome, and although there was only a handful of us in his private chapel for my ordination to the diaconate, we had some good music. For Our Lady of Lourdes, we'd chosen a bit of the Anglican Patrimony. We sang as an introit: Bishop Ken's "Her Virgin Eyes saw God Incarnate born", to Lawes' tune 'Farley Castle'. I was not the solitary deacon on parade; Stephen (good name for a Deacon) Morgan, who is finance secretary to the Diocese, propped me up and ensured I did not fall over my feet. He is the handsome chap on the Bishop's right hand. To his right is the Chancellor of the Diocese.


Jane, formerly known as the Flying Buttress when I was a Flying Bishop, was also present but as ever wanted to take a back seat. She was eventually inveigled into a photograph. We had a very jolly lunch after the Ordination. Bishop Crispian is clearly keen to make the Ordinariate work in his diocese, and has given great encouragement to the three groups in his territory which are in process of formation. As he pointed out, my duty and that of my fellow priests is not to him but to our Ordinary, and he was only able to Ordain me because he had been asked to do so by Fr Keith Newton. For all that, he is doing everything he can to ensure that we are made welcome by all the catholic clergy and laity within his diocese. For ourselves, I must say Jane and I have felt a great warmth of affection and a welcome we could not possibly deserve. If anyone is holding back from the Ordinariate fearing that a clergy wife might not be welcome, please speak to Jane or any of the other bishops' or priests' wives who have made the journey. I hope that even after our local Anglicanorum group is running, I shall still be some use to priests and parishes in this southern part of Portsmouth diocese.

Calm down, Dears

Signs of over-excitement in the blogosphere. Since my last posting it has had over a thousand hits a day - which shows there must be a few people interested in the Ordinariate. Oh, I know Fr Ed will regularly get two thousand hits per diem, but you don't come here looking for controversy. Let's just take Michael Winner's advice in the ads, and calm it.

So today is nice and sober. Some thirty or so, including four clergy, met this afternoon in a Catholic Church just over the Dorset border in Christchurch for our latest session on the Ordinariate. After an Anglican eucharist, celebrated by Fr Brian Copus, Fr Graham Smith was able to give us all news of the Timetable for those seeking to join the Ordinariate. My own experience of the eucharistic fast (before being Received and Chrismated in two weeks' time) was explained, to help some realise just what was meant by not being able to receive Communion throughout Lent. In preparation for all this the Bishop of Portsmouth is calling together members of the various groups exploring the Ordinariate in his diocese. We shall be invited to St John's Catholic Cathedral on Saturday March 12th, when this stage on our journey will be marked liturgically.

The completion of this period of fasting will be on Maundy Thursday, when the Group will be received together into the fulness of Communion in the Catholic Church. Through Lent too those former Anglican priests joining the Ordinariate will undertake a special course at Allen Hall, the Catholic Seminary in Chelsea, as part of their preparation. The five former bishops will participate in this, too.

It is a busy and exciting time. Several at the meeting are planning to be at the Ordination of the three recent PEVs in Westminster next week, and any day now we should know who is to be our Ordinary. To me, this seems like the fulfilment of what the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation both set out to achieve - the renewal of the Faith. This time not through schism but by beginning the work of re-uniting Christ's Church, his Body. I lived through the seond world war (just); these events seem to me every bit as historic. Never has persistent prayer been more necessary.