Yeah but, No but...

Blogs are a little thin this silly season; so, like some others, I am presuming to post this morning's sermon - chiefly because it enables me to give you a picture of the delightful Ms Pollard.

'If anyone wants to be a disciple of mine' .... A sermon for the Ordinariate Group in Southbourne

"Want to be a disciple? Oh, come on Lord, you know we want to be your disciples! Why do you think we have left the security of our former churches and come here if we don’t want to be your disciples?" Now that is a good response; not unlike the reply Peter gave when Jesus asked him, 'Simon, do you love me?' 'Lord, you know that I love you….' And you know us, Lord, and you know how we really to want to follow you.

But how hard it was for Peter to discover what discipleship entailed. In last week’s gospel, he must have been so elated. He had said that he believed Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God; and Jesus had told him “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church”. Wow! Terrific! We heard that a week ago, - but in St Matthew’s gospel what we read last week is immediately followed by the very different words Jesus had for Peter today. Then he was the Rock, a firm foundation; now he is the Tempter, Satan’s agent. What a come-down.

Have you noticed that so often a great spiritual experience leaves us vulnerable to the devil’s attack? Some will have found it like that after pilgrimage to a holy place, Fatima or Walsingham or Lourdes – a terrific high, followed by a real low. Others of us will have been oscillating wildly ever since the start of the Ordinariate – or rather, if you are like me you will have done. It is a wonderful offer the Pope has made, and it is great to respond, yeah, but…


We’re a little like Vicky Pollard – 'yeah but, no but': we are trying to justify ourselves. Those buts, those hesitations, are very understandable. 'If anyone wants be my disciple' says Jesus, 'he must deny himself – renounce himself - and take up his Cross, and follow me'. And all the time we are wanting to excuse ourselves, give our reasons for finding things so difficult .. yeah but, you see, it’s the others… not me. Well, we do not have to answer for anyone else. Only for ourselves. And we do not have to waste our breath making excuses; just admit how time and again I am the problem; not someone else, but me. What’s more, I am the only one who can do anything about it.

So back to Peter. Flattened, quite deflated; one minute told he is reliable as a rock, the next being compared to Satan himself and all just because he was trying to help and tell Jesus that the future he foretold of suffering and death, he must avoid at all costs.

Peter might have learnt his lesson; but he did not. In the garden of Gethsemane, first he fell asleep when he was asked to watch and pray. Then he drew his sword on the high priest’s servant, and once more the Lord had to tell him off. Worst of all when it came to it, he was the one who denied Jesus, said he did not even know him. Yet the Lord restored him, made him into a shepherd, told him to feed his sheep; told him how once converted he must strengthen his brothers.

But Peter did not change all at once; and even after the resurrection we find Paul telling him off for falling back into the old structures of Judaism.

If anyone should be able to encourage us as we go through the ups and downs of helping to establish the Ordinariate in England, it should be Peter. However often we fail, it seems Peter has done as much before - and yet still he is the one Jesus relied on, and relies on still in his successor. And Popes have failed too. Our fallings out, our mistakes, are necessary. We are to learn from them. Of course we have given up so much; our beautiful churches, our established place in British society, the people we knew so well and who were so supportive – and now seem so distant. But it is all right. These are such early days.

Think back, if you are a parent, to the baby days of your children. It was all so exciting; but you made so many mistakes. Would your child ever forgive you? Well, they did, and they do – just as we forgave our parents though they seemed unfair to us at the time: and they forgave us, though we were so rebellious and unloving. We forgive one another, because Christ first forgave us. We come to love one another, because he loved us first. He is the one who has given us the opportunity of finding him in the fullness of the catholic faith.

Peter was meant to be a rock; no one knew better than he did that often he failed, and had to be forgiven yet again. Perhaps though that is Peter’s greatest gift to the Church; showing, not just saying, that he knew what it was to be forgiven - not just seven times, but seventy times seven. He wept over his own inconstancy, over his impatience and readiness to blunder on without thinking. But Our Lord saw in these traits of character, the things Peter thought of as his failing, the very things that he needed to build up his church. He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners – sinners like Peter and James and John, sinners like you and me and all of us in church today. Not many wise,not many mighty, just ordinary old sinners like you and me.

And see how today’s gospel ends; ‘the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and, when he does, he will reward each according to his behaviour’. For all of us, just as for Peter, that behaviour will require constant repentance, constant forgiveness. It was a way of life for Peter as it is for us. In the end, though, Peter was faithful, and heard the words “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord”. May those words welcome each of us too, when all the trials of this life are over, and we shall have gone a little to way renouncing ourself, taking up our cross, and following Him.

Happier Times?

I have just posted on the ANGLO-CATHOLIC site (see side-bar for a link) so shall not repeat that. It was good, though, to have a great Civil War site put the present-day rioting in Tottenham &c into an historical perspective. I should also like to post a couple more photographs from today's visit to Corfe, so treat this simply as an appendix. I expecially liked seeing the steam train from the Castle battlements. Is an affection for steam trains part of the Patrimony?



Hard on such a day to imagine the murder and mayhem of less than four centuries ago - but then, it is even hard enough for us who lived through it to remember the destruction and loss of the war. Pray for the priests and people of Tottenham, Walthamstow, Brixton and all the other places where looting and rioting are taking place - and pray too for the Police - and for the Media that they do not simply incite further violence by their breathless reporting.

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.

Summer Sunday

One of the benefits of the Ordinariate in Bournemouth is that Mass begins at 9.30 in the morning; which leaves a good part of Sunday free to be a real day of rest. For us today that rest took the form of a visit to a Food and Drink Festival at a local Country House. Oh, and I had celebrated and preached at the Vigil Mass in Lymington; but more of that later. Throughout Mass, and all weekend, Norway was on all our minds. Was it coincidence or some warped bit of extra wickedness that had such an outrage perpertated on the Feast of S Brigitta of Sweden, Patron of Europe? At least maybe we can now understand a little the outrage felt by Muslims when atrocities are committed using their name as a pretext.



Pylewell is an 18th Century House with considerable later additions. Its setting on the Solent Shore is wonderful, with views from the House across parkland to the water and the Isle of Wight.



Later this week there is the New Forest Show - which means that Lymington will be virtually inaccessible by road from the North. This was a smaller affair, but very enoyable. Music of every sort; the Champage and Seafood crowd were entertained by a couple of elegant young ladies on Violin and Cello - very South Hampshire. From there it was all downhill (literally) towards the water's edge, with tastings of local wines and many others, from S Africa and Uruguay and elsewhere. Cheeses, sausages, meat and fish and all manner of delicacies were on sale, along with plants and handicrafts. We ate our modest picnic while watching a food demonstration by a chef from the White Star in Southampton.



Last evening I doubted if I would even be at Mass, let alone a food fair; but a duty doctor at a local Health Centre saw me (at 9.45pm), diagnosed a serious infection (erisipelis, I think it is) and put me on a high dosage of antibiotics. I've since discovered that S John of the Cross died of it, so I am in good company. But he did not have antibiotics. Now the swelling is going down, and I look a little less bruised. It was someone in the congregation at the Vigil Mass in Lymington last evening who persuaded me that I must see the Doctor - and I am glad I did. We sometimes complain about our National Health Service, but it really does seem to do its best in emergencies. The Doctor on duty said I had made his evening worthwhile - apparently my symptoms were especially interesting. Good to be helpful.

Singing in the Rain (2)

"Come, ye thankful people, Come!" we sang this morning in St Anne's Brockenhurst. On hearing the tune I was a little perturbed. First, it is a very long hymn - but I need not have worried, this was a Catholic congregation so we only sang two verses (is long-winded hymn-singing part of the Anglican Patrimony?) Then, it is a harvest hymn and are there not yet two months and then the harvest? Certainly we saw them reaping some of the early barley in Norfolk on Friday, but all is not yet safely gathered in... I look forward to my figs and apples in a couple of weeks or months, even though the currants and berries are mostly in the freezer. But of course, it was tied to today's Gospel - "Wheat and tares together sown"; somehow "wheat and Darnel together sown" just not does not work, though I daresay Estell M White would have thought it scanned perfectly.

Enough of this. Sufficient to say we were in Norfolk on Friday and yesterday because of the Ordinariate pilgrimage to Walsingham. And though they could get the Combine Harvesters going on Friday, yesterday they certainly could not. Walsingham was wet, very wet; that did not daunt the three or four hundred of the Ordinariate who attended the Mass in the Catholic Shrine, or those who joined the prooession to the Village from the Slipper Chapel, as thousands upon thousands had done from the eleventh Century until the desecration of Holy Places under Henry VIII of unhappy memory in the mid sixteenth Century. Msgr Keith Newton, our Ordinary, had announced that he was to celebrate the Mass of Reconciliation in Walsingham this weekend, so we came together from all parts of his Ordinariate. I know there was a Yorkshire priest there, and so was a Devon priest with his nine progeny - a couple of them were leading the procession - in the photo at the top of this page.


If you want to know about the weather, you can read more about that in my other blog at the Anglo-Catholic. And if you want pictures of the Mass, then the place to go is the Sevenoaks Ordinariate site. Some of the participants turned up a little late; the pair on the left said they were stuck in traffic; I think behind a muck-spreader. No comment is necessary. Here I shall just add a few maundering thoughts, and some pictures from what was a most memorable and happy day.



There were happy meetings with old friends.


Here my wife and Fr Mark Elliott-Smith were catching up on the news. Forgive the sickly yellow cast; that is thanks to the sodium lighting in the Catholic Shrine Church. And here is part of our Hants and Dorest contingent waiting for Mass to begin (similarly jaundiced).



They look a little more healthy in the open air; this [below] is at the Anglican Shrine, where the pilgrimage ended with sprinkling from the holy well, and a joint blessing by Msgr Keith and the Shrine Administrator, Bishop Lindsay Urwin.



In all the Churches and Shrines there were flowers; it is the 950th anniversary of Richeldis' vision, and the 50th of the fire in the parish church. Here [below] is the seven sacraments font, duly enflamed with flowers.



So good, to get the Ordinariate together, in company with other Catholics. We must do this more often - but perhaps for Msgr Keith's sake not in the same week that he flies home from Texas.

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.