The Portal Mag: May 2013

The Portal, by our Ordinariate brothers and sisters, for May is out (a little early). It’s always a great (free read) resource.

You can read it online here.

Or get it in pdf. here.

 

 

 

The (Ordinariate) Portal Mag: October 2012

I’m a little late on this one (having been away) but the Portal Magazine for October is out. It always makes for some fine (and free) reading.

Now given that it’s Saturday, there should be time to give it a read.

To do so online, go here.

Or simply get it in pdf. here.

And later, I’ll watch the Springbok vs the All Blacks.

Go Bokke!

 

The (Ordinariate) Portal Mag: September 2012

The Portal Magazine for September 2012 is out, offering some nice free reading

You can read it online here.

Or get it in pdf. here.

 

The (Ordinariate) Portal Mag: August 2012

The Portal Magazine, a monthly on-line magazine covering the Ordinariate, is out. It is a great read – and no, I’m not just saying that because I’m (apparently) Ordinariate gaga or anything.  It really is informative (and free!).

You can read it (which I’m going to be spending the next while doing) online here .

Or download it in pdf. here.

 

Holy See Promulgates First Liturgical Texts for Ordinariates

The Order for Funerals and Holy Matrimony:

The first liturgical texts approved for worldwide use by the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans have been promulgated by the Holy See.

The Order for Funerals and the Order for the Celebration of Holy Matrimony are to be used by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom; the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter in the United States and Canada; and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia.

The new liturgies replace existing texts, including those from the Book of Divine Worship. Drawn from the classical Anglican prayer book tradition, the texts incorporate elements of the Anglican patrimony now in the full communion of the Catholic Church.

Monsignor Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, noted, “This is an important moment in the development of our distinctive liturgical and ecclesial life. We saw the world stop to watch the Royal Wedding last year, now a very similar and beautiful liturgy is available for use in the Ordinariates of the Catholic Church – it is a great privilege for us to be part of that obvious working-out of practical, receptive ecumenism”.

The liturgies were promulgated by the Congregation for Divine Worship on June 22, 2012, the feast-day of the English saints of the Reformation, John Fisher and Thomas More. They will be implemented in accordance with local civil law requirements in the various nations, with immediate use in the United States and Canada.

“We welcome with gratitude these texts, which bring into Catholic liturgical life some of the most beloved and memorable texts in the Book of Common Prayer. These texts have blessed and comforted generations of English-speaking Christians and will be deeply appreciated in the Ordinariate communities,” said Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, Ordinary for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.

The new texts were developed under the guidance of Archbishop J. Augustine DiNoia OP, who served until recently as the Secretary for the Congregation of Divine Worship. Archbishop DiNoia, now the Vice President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, has been re-appointed as chair of the Holy See’s Anglicanae traditiones Commission tasked with developing the new liturgical texts for the Personal Ordinariates. The Reverend Uwe Michael Lang, CO, who also just stepped down from a post with the Congregation for Divine Worship, will also continue his role in the development of the texts.

The texts are available online here.

The (Ordinariate) Portal Mag: June 2012

The Portal in the service of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham for the month of June (2012) is out.

Read it by download (pdf.) here.

Read it online here.

Page 12 has a rather nice article with Fr Robert Mercer.

And Her Majesty is looking really good on the cover…

 

 

The (Ordinariate) Portal Mag: April 2012

The Portal Magazine for May, covering the Ordinariate is out.

Read it online here.

Or pdf. here.

And speaking of the Ordinariate, I see that the Pope Benedict XVI has donated $250,000 to support the work.

The news from Rome came to Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate, and read “The Holy Father has benevolently permitted a donation of $250,000”.

Responding to the gift, Mgr Newton said, “I am very grateful to the Holy Father for his generosity and support. This gift is a great help and encouragement as we continue to grow and develop our distinctive ecclesial life, whilst seeking to contribute to the wider work of evangelisation in England and Wales”.

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established in January 2011 to enable Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church whilst retaining essential elements of their heritage and tradition. It comprises around 1200 lay faithful and 60 clergy spread across the United Kingdom.

The Apostolic Nuncio, His Excellency Archbishop Antonio Mennini, was instrumental in securing the Holy Father’s assistance. On the announcement of the gift the Archbishop said, “The Holy Father’s gift of $250,000 is a clear sign of his personal commitment to the work of Christian Unity and the special place the Ordinariate holds in his heart. I pray for the continuing success and development of the Ordinariate”.

Speaking of the need for further fundraising the Nuncio said, “I urge all those who share our Holy Father’s vision to lend their spiritual and material support to the Ordinariate, especially in these early days”.

Mgr Newton, in response to the remarks of Archbishop Mennini said, “The support and encouragement given to us by the Apostolic Nuncio has been very significant. We were very pleased to welcome him as the Principal Celebrant of our Chrism Mass: a clear sign of our deep desire to remain closely united the Holy Father”.

The Ordinariate welcomed over 250 new members this Easter. Bishop Alan Hopes will ordain deacons for the Ordinariate in Westminster Cathedral on 26 May 2012 at 10.00 a.m., and two men in their twenties were ordained to the Sacred Priesthood in London earlier this month.

UPDATE:   Fr Ray Blake calls the gift to the Ordinariate is shameful:

I can’t help feeling a little embarrassed that the Holy Father has donated $250,000 to the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, it is money that could have been used elsewhere. I know our bishops feel they are being generous, they gave half a million quid to start them off and have generously allowed them office space at the Square.

However as generous as the Papal gift is shames us and unless it was a gift that was given to the Pope especially for the Ordinariate and passed on shows that the Church here has not been as generous as it should have been.

Over a year on and there is still no Ordinariate Church and they are still struggling with finances, and although individual dioceses and parishes have been generous, in E&W which the Ordinariate is seen as source of augmenting diocesan clergy rather than one of the new movements that should be at the heart of the New Evangelisation.

My reading of Anglicanorum Coetibus is that rather being integrated into diocesan structures it should be outside of these in order to be an effective agent of evangelisation. Its penury keeps it pre-occupied with simply staying alive rather than being able to call others effectively into Communion with Peter.

Pray to Our Lady of Walsingham for some wealthy doners.

 

Fr Brian Gill (former Vicar General of TTAC) to Join the Ordinariate

Fr Brian Gill has resigned from the Traditional Anglican Church (TTAC) in England and begun preparation for reception into the Ordinariate of Our Lady of  Walsingham:

… I pray every reader of this magazine will endeavour to pray and work for true re-unity among all who call themselves Christian. If we have been properly baptised according to our Lord’s Command we are therefore members of His Body. But that is only the beginning because we must become  fully active in His Body in the world, and to which He entrusted the other Sacraments. Jesus the  Christ promised to reveal the fullness of truth to His Church through the Holy Spirit.

We read in the acts of the Apostles 2: 41, 42: “So those who received his word were baptized, and  there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’  teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”. It is in that Church that we receive the true meaning of the Holy Scripture as recorded in her Book the Holy Bible. The
Scripture is not for private interpretation.

Anglicans believed that they were a genuine part of the Catholic world, though since the Reformation separated from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. However, there have always been Anglican leaders and theologians who have sought to bring about reconciliation and reunity,  with the Orthodox Church, but especially with the Church of Rome, from which it was separated from the time of the Reformation. I mentioned before that the Ordinariate of Our Lady of  Walsingham was a genuine response of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, to help those groups  of Anglicans who appealed to him for help to bring about the long hoped for reconciliation and  unity, as prayed for by our Lord, and many Anglicans since the Reformation, and especially now as the Old Anglican Communion by its actions has turned away from its Catholic claim and heritage, and, some would say, from the Christian teaching on morals and ministry. Painful as it is one has to  face the truth and make personal decisions.

What other Anglicans may have asked of Rome I cannot say, but the then Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion which had separated itself from the old Communion in order to retain the ancient Catholic Faith as had been professed by the Church of England, not as schismatics, but as  continuers, sent in 2007 a petition to Pope Benedict XVI requesting re-unity with the Church of Rome in which the ‘catholic’ Anglican ethos, Liturgy, hymns etc., would be preserved. As you know, I was then the Vicar General of The Traditional Anglican Church in Britain and I also signed, with  the bishops, that petition and a copy of the Catholic Catechism on the altar of St. Agatha’s in Portsmouth.

The Petition also stated that we sought “a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics  in communion with the Holy See, at once treasuring the full expression of catholic faith and treasuring our tradition within which we have come to this moment”.

Although the offer might not have been exactly as we had hoped, we did ask for guidance and that is what we have received, also with the statement that we are to maintain our Anglican Patrimony. When one considers the state of the ‘Anglican Communion’ and its divergence from the received teachings of our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, as He promised through His Holy Church, His mystical Body, we can understand why the process was offered in the way it has been, in order to be certain that the Anglicans joining the Ordinariate believe the faith and want to practise what they say they believe and be accepted by all Catholics everywhere.

As I think and pray about it I can’t forget that those clergy who voted in General Synod of the CofE, and before that in the USA, for the new doctrines and changes were trained in Anglican seminaries. One could ask ‘what were they taught!’

When we returned from the Caribbean I found a letter waiting from The Ordinary of the Ordinariate, Mgr. Keith Newton, informing me that I had been accepted for preparation for entrance into the Ordinarate of Our Lady of Walsingham. I have accepted the offer and so has my wife Ann and nearly all of the reduced, through death and illness, etc., number of our church members. In order to do this we have been asked to observe Lent as a Eucharistic fast and this we are doing, remembering our Lord’s forty days in the wilderness.

So on Ash Wednesday I resigned from TTAC, and so has the Congregation.

As I have done before, here are some quotations from various Anglican leaders and others down the centuries on the need for all Christians to be united in Christ’s one holy Catholic Church.

I hope we will all have a blessed and holy Lent and, though it may not be easy, be actively a part of  the reunion of Christendom to the glory of the Holy Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the conversion of all the world, as is the will of God the Father and the Holy Ghost Amen…

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Brian.

Read the whole piece in pdf. here.

 

Fr John Maunder to Join the Ordinariate

So says Archbishop John Hepworth, and with him goes the Church of St  Agatha’s:

Father Maunder has indeed begun preparations, and his dream of the great Saint Agatha’s becoming an Ordinariate church begins to emerge. This quiet process is unfolding in England, Australia, Canada and the US, as TAC groups that withstood the implementation difficulties of the past two years are able to take similar steps.

In April, the TAC bishops and advisors who have sustained the Holy Father’s vision and continue to pastor the clergy and people who are with them will meet and discuss their ecclesial future. I am hoping that Father Chadwick will be among those present.  Perhaps he can sail across the Channel.

Is that the old TAC?

Fr Barnes also mentions:

(Fr) John Maunder and some of his people have begun preparation for reception (and in his case, I hope, Ordination) so the Portsmouth Group is looking increasingly healthy. As always, the preparations John had made for me to say Mass were immaculate, and his welcome most warm and generous…