Across the Pond

Isn't technology wonderful? We can watch our Ordinary addressing a conference in Texas as he is doing it, and we can listen to John Hunwicke's humour (not 'humor' surely) direct from that same Anglican Use/Ordinariate gathering. You can go there via the Ordinariate website, or directly at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/anglicanorum

There were one or two little glitches (I believe that is the technical term) - people asking questions without using a microphone, so that we could not hear them though plainly those in the hall could. Or my pressing the wrong button and hearing Msgr Newton and an organ recital at the same time. Still, it is worth persisting. Nor is it just present members of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham who should listen to John Hunwicke, or see what Texan locals such as Fr Chuck Hough have to say. Anyone remotely interested in relations between the Catholic Church and the Church of England should tune in. The Anglican Use has flourished in the States for a couple of decades now, and we in England can learn from them, whether we belong to the Ordinariate or to the Church of England. So some of our groups in England are small? They were small in Arlington or San Antonio at the outset; now their congregations are numbered in the hundreds, even the thousands.

Of course, our situation is different; we have left a Church by Law Established, and at present there is little chance that we shall have the use of any of our former church buildings - but that might not always be the case. There will come a time when the Church of England may have to share what it inherited from our common Catholic past. Today the papers report that General Synod has been debating how to check the decline in worshippers - some even predicted the total demise of the Anglican Church. This is not just a problem for the Church of England. In our secularised society, all faith groups have similar battles. We can learn a great deal from the Churches in the USA.

Our Ordinary was very well received in Arlington. He gave his hearers advice that we must all keep in touch with one another, not just with Ordinariate groups around the world, but also with our former colleagues at present remaining in the Anglican Church. The link with the Arlington Conference is one more way of doing just that.

(The picture at the top of this blog is of Fr Allan Hawkins, Convenor and Host of the Arlington Conference, at his lectern during a visit I made there earlier this year)

Day One

Yesterday, three priests were ordained for the Ordinariate in Portsmouth Cathedral. You will find some pictures on flickr taken by the Diocesan Photographer, Barry Hudd, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/80797397@N00/sets/72157626924521195/ and some from the reception on the Anglo Catholic site http://www.theanglocatholic.com/2011/06/last-round-up/ That was yesterday.



Today, all three began their new ministry. In Southbourne, Fr Graham Smith celebrated and preached; and with him were Fr Gerry, the Nigerian missionary priest who runs the church of Our Lady Queen of Peace & Blessed Margaret Pole - and me. It was a very happy occasion for members of the Ordinariate based in the southwestern corner of Portsmouth Diocese.



We processed with the Blessed Sacrament at the end of Mass, and I was privileged to give Benediction - for of course today we celebrated Corpus & Sanguis Christi, the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.



Afterwards, we enjoyed one another's company in the Church Hall, and some of the regular members of the congregation came to join us.



A great day. These few pictures from the bunfight may give a flavour of it.

Plymouth Ordinations

What will replace these Ordinariate ordinations once they are concluded in a week or so? They have been terrific social occasions as well as hugely important ecclesiastical ones - great for catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. It is a 300mile plus round trip from here to Plymouth - yet even people in London seem to suppose that Plymouth and Portsmouth are next door to one another, and both equally far from London. When eventually we persuade them to make the journey to Lymington they are amazed to get here in about 90 minutes. To Plymouth by road from Lymington is over 3 hours - or it was in the downpours yesterday, and back again today.




Waiting for the Kick-Off

Vaut le voyage, though, as the Michelin guides say. Particularly since about a third of the Catholic clergy of the diocese seem to be former Anglicans - including the Administrator of the Cathedral. Now they have a further seven who, while belonging to the Ordinariate, will also be available to lend a hand in the diocese. With them, too, was one genuine Plymouth candidate.


Seeing the congregation out

It was good, too, so see a number of Anglican priests from the dioceses of Exeter and Truro in the Congregation, and to hear their plans for being in second or subsequent waves. Good, also, to catch up with other old friends. Robbie Low (heading for Ordination at last, by the 'ordinary' route) and Sara his wife were there, as were others I've known even longer. Peter Glazebrook and Robin Ellis read Law at Pembroke, Oxford more than half a century ago - I was an exact contemporary of Peter's, reading theology. Now Peter is retired, though still keeping a finger in the pie at Jesus College Cambridge where he was Law fellow for many years, and last night Robin (formerly Archdeacon of Plymouth) was ordained a Catholic Priest. His son Simon is among the candidates in Nottingham this evening.


Two Lawyers and a Theologian from Pembroke in the 1950s


Msgr Keith was in good form - though he is facing even longer journeys, with an Ordination this evening in Nottingham. Next week he will be back down here in Portsmouth for three more priestly ordinations. It was very good of Keith Haydon and his wife Kathy to put me up overnight in Plymouth. We have been good friends from way back when he was Vicar of Cowley and I was down the road at St Stephen's House. Now he is running a Plymouth parish with four churches while being, in theory, a retired house-for-duty priest. Very sadly his Vicar died shortly before Easter, and Keith has been shouldering the burden ever since.

I hope others will publish photographs from the actual Ordination. As a concelebrant I was only able to get a few before and after the event ... (and apologies for the blurry picture of my overnight host)

Deepest Hertfordshire

The A Team

This morning we were in Hemel Hempstead, where I'd been asked to celebrate Mass for the Ordinariate group. It was a very happy occasion - as of course it should be, for it is the Ascension!
Good to catch up with old friends from former Anglican parishes in the Richborough patch - people from Luton and Marsh Farm as well as the core group from Hammerfield.


The Group meets at St Mark's Church, part of a large Secondary School complex, and the Catholic parish has two other churches. Besides the Parish Priest there is a Polish Assistant Priest, and a very cheery Deacon who come to introduce himself before the Ordinariate Mass.

Fatima Friends may recognise some faces here

Next Friday, after the Ordinations in Westminster, there will be two more priests in that parish, the current Deacons Fr Tim Bugby and Fr Gordon Adam. It was the latter who looked after me today, and who (a real treat, this, not to have to do it myself) preached - a fine Ascension Sermon.



After meeting people over parish refreshments, Jane and I decided to call in at Wisley. We had a snack lunch there, and enjoyed seeing how things have developed in the area around the Millenium Glasshouse.


We expected a Douanier Rousseau Tiger

Then it was a pleasant bowl down the A3, while the lanes in the other direction were choked with Londoners returning after a half-term break.

A worm's Eye View of Alliums

Singing in the Rain

"Do you ever see the Dominican Sisters in Sway?" asked one of the Ordinariate nuns today. We were at a pre-ordination quiet day in Kensington, the Carmelite Church. "But of course! I was with them yesterday". So here are some pictures to prove it.



We have had two months without rain here in the deep south; and though London had heavy showers today, no rain reached Lymington. But yesterday, being a Bank Holiday, it rained. Not wholeheartedly, but drizzlingly, and enough to make life difficult at the Priory in Sway.



The Sisters coped splendidly, however, and the plant stall proved very tempting. There was bric-a-brac, and a very good tea. So a couple of pictures will reassure you and the former Walsingham Sisters that I was there, where the Sisters look forward to a visit from the Ordinariate Religious asap.



Jane had not seen the Chapel, so before we left I took her to see it - inspired, I am told, by the Chapel at Elmore - now, alas, no longer the home of the monks of one-time Nashdom, who have retreated to the former college Principal's House in Salisbury Cathedral Close. I find the chapel at Sway quite lovely - I hope you do.

Oak Apple Day

In another place (the Anglo Catholic Blog) I have reminded readers of the significance of today, Oak Apple Day. Until the reign of Victoria, this day had been kept as a memorial of 'the King's Restauration'. That is, the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Oak Apple, because Charles hid in an oak tree (The Boscobel Oak) fleeing from the Commonwealth troops. Perhaps our dear Saxe-Coburg Gotha Queen did not want her subjects to be reminded of Charles Stuart - though her Hanoverian predecessors had put up with it. Yet in a few places, notably Great Wishford near Salisbury, it is still celebrated with enthusiasm.

The Propers for the day are terribly long-winded. In the Anglo-Catholic blog I have printed out the two collects to be said at Morning Prayer. There are others, though, for the Communion Service, replacing the customary Collect of the King, and the Collect of the day. Here is the second, a model for those preparing a liturgy of the Ordinariate:

O Lord God of Our Salvation, who hast been exceedingly gracious unto this land, and by thy miraculous Providence didst deliver us out of our miserable Confusions, by restoring to us, and to his own just and undoubted Rights, our own most gracious sovereign Lord, thy Servant King Charles the Second (notwithstanding all the power and malice of his enemies) and by placing him in the Throne of these kingdoms; thereby restoring also unto us the publick and free profession of thy true Religion and Worship, together with our former Peace and Prosperity, to the great comfort and joy of our hearts: We are here now before thee, with all due thankfulness to acknowledge thine unspekable goodness herein, as upon this day, shewed unto us, and to offer up our sacrifice of Praise for the same, unto thy great and glorious Name; bumbly beseeching thee to accept this our unfeigned, though unworthy, Oblation of ourselves; vowing all holy obedience in though, word, and work, unto thy Divine Majesty; and promising in thee and for thee all loyal and dutiful Allegiance to thine Anointed Servant now set over us, and to his Heirs after him;who we beseech thee to bless with all increase of grace, honour and happiness in this world, and to crown him with Immortality and Glory in the world to come, for Jesus Christ his sake, our only Lord and Saviour. Amen.

Today, Oak Apple Day, is the fiftieth anniversary of my first celebration of Holy Communion in the Church of England... but I was not permitted at that eucharist to resurrect the service in Thanksgiving for the King's Restauration - which is probably a mercy. [There is an even longer Collect ordered to follow the Prayer for the Whole Estate of Christ's Church]. But don't you just love the parenthesis (notwithstanding all the power and malice of his enemies)?

Following Peter

Long-time Catholics have been giving a wonderful welcome to us johnny-come-latelys in the Ordinariate. Just a few have found it difficult, though. Indeed one commented on a posting of mine in the Anglo-Catholic blog. Maybe today's Mass reading from Acts 15 can help.

Peter and Barnabas were faced with a group of hard-liners from Judaea who wanted the Church to impose the whole Jewish law on Gentiles converting to Christianity. They had "no small dissension and disputation" with them - so the matter was referred to headquarters, in Jerusalem. There, it was a group of Pharisees who wanted to press the hard line, "to command them to keep the law of Moses". So the Church met in Council, the Apostles and elders together.

Peter reminded them how "God put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith". It was James, leader of the Church in Jerusalem, who delivered the Council's decision. "My sentence is, that we trouble them not, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God".


That same generous spirit has worked in Benedict as it did in Peter and the first Apostles. There may be some who think it improper that former Anglicans had only Lent for a eucharistic fast, or that former Anglican priests are put on a fast track - just six months from leaving the Church of England to Ordination as Catholic priests. In that time, though, they have undergone rigorous assessment, and have begun a course of training to 'make up that which is lacking' in their former priestly formation. It is undoubtedly generous of the Holy Father, to receive us in this way. Some would assert it is a risky procedure. But the Pope is willing to trust the Holy Spirit - and refuses to 'put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples' (note the word which Peter uses of the new Christians) 'which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear').

If this fails to persuade you, then perhaps you might continue from the first reading for today, to the Gospel?