Benedict XVI Welcomes Growth of the Ordinariate in England

Benedict XVI attends a meeting of the elderly at the Vatican in September (AP)

Benedict XVI has welcomed the progress of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and has said he is “glad” that its church has been established on the site of the historic Bavarian embassy chapel in London.

Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory’s in Warwick Street is situated where the Bavarian embassy chapel, which was pillaged during the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, once stood.

The Pope Emeritus made his comments in a letter to the Friends of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, in reply to Nicolas Ollivant, chairman of the Friends of the Ordinariate, who had written to the retired pope to express his gratitude for the gift of the ordinariate. He had also sent Benedict a brief history of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory’s.

Read more at Catholic Herald (UK) >>

"Christian Unity Not about Christian Uniformity" says Ordinary

 Mgr Newton and Bishop Philip Egan.

The Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton, has preached to hundreds of Mass-goers in Portsmouth Cathedral, where he spent the weekend of 26/27 July, about the vision of Christian unity held out by the Ordinariate.

He said that people sometimes asked members of the Ordinariate why they couldn't become "proper Catholics" . "What they mean", he said, is "why can't you just be absorbed into the wider Catholic Church so that what you bring disappears like sugar dissolved in water". The answer , Mgr Newton said, was that Christian unity was not about Christian uniformity; rather it was about exploring the possibility of sharing a common faith in communion with the successor of Peter and yet having different liturgical, devotional and pastoral practices which enriched the wider Church. This, he said, had "important ecumenical implications".

The Ordinary spoke of the Ordinariate Use Mass, approved by Rome last year, which integrates elements of the Church of England Book of Common Prayer into the Roman rite. He said the Book of Common Prayer was one of the "treasures to be shared"  with the Catholic Church. People in Portsmouth who were interested to find out more could go to an Ordinariate"exploration day "event being held by the local Portsmouth Ordinariate group at St Agatha's Church on 6 September where they could experience the Ordinariate Use Mass.

The Portsmouth event is one of some 40 different events being held on 6 September by Ordinariate groups across the country aimed at helping people - especially those in the Church of England who may feel that God could be calling them into communion with Rome - to understand the Ordinariate better. Pope Francis has sent a message to the Ordinary in which the Holy Father sends good wishes and says he is praying for the success of the day.

Mgr Newton's visit to Portsmouth was arranged as part of an appeal by the Friends of the Ordinariate, which was set up to assist the Ordinariate and support its work. By kind permission of Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth, the Ordinary celebrated three Masses and preached at all the Masses over the weekend. There was a retiring collection for the Friends of the Ordinariate.

The Ordinary's homily included an appeal for prayers for the persecuted Catholic Christians of the Eastern Rite who are suffering in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

To read the full homily, click here

Ordinariate Turns Out in Force for Walsingham Pilgrimage

From the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

More than four hundred people - the vast majority of them members of the Ordinariate - joined the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham's fourth annual pilgrimage to Walsingham on Saturday 28 June. The pilgrims also included a group from the Melkite Catholic Church - one of the eastern churches which is in full communion with the Holy See. The pilgrimage was led by the Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton. Mgr John Broadhurst, Assistant to the Ordinary, preached.

Our Lady of Walsingham and English Spirituality

Here, for today's Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, is a beautiful reflection on English spirituality and on that land's once and now renewed devotion to Our Lady of Walsingham.  One note that our American readers should bear in mind when listening to this talk is that "homely" has a different connotation in England than it does in America, even when applied to persons.  In England, it refers to that which is pleasant, comfortable and hospitable,  

  

Our Lady of Walsingham, Pray for us.

Ancient Walsingham Prayer

O alone of all women, Mother and Virgin, Mother most happy, Virgin most pure, now we sinful as we are, come to see thee who are all pure, we salute thee, we honour thee as how we may with our humble offerings; may thy Son grant us, that imitating thy most holy manners, we also, by the grace of the Holy Ghost may deserve spiritually to conceive the Lord Jesus in our inmost soul, and once conceived never to lose him. Amen.

Archbishop Urges Catholics to Support the Ordinariate

Mgr Keith Newton (Photo: Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk)

The Archbishop of Westminster has written to every parish in England and Wales encouraging them to welcome the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and praising the “beauty” of its Anglican heritage.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols’s letter, which will be read to parishioners in England and Wales on Sunday, encourages the faithful to read another letter written by the ordinary of the ordinariate, Mgr Keith Newton, to mark the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham on Tuesday.  Archbishop Nichols’s letter says: “I warmly encourage you to take home a copy of Mgr Newton’s letter and to welcome and support the clergy and faithful of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, both for the part they play in the life and mission of the Catholic Church in this country and for the particular gifts they bring which add to our rich diversity.”

Read more at The Catholic Herald >>

 

Ordinariate Is A ‘Permanent Feature’ For The Church, Says Vatican Spokesman

From The Catholic Herald (UK)
By Madeleine Teahan

Fr Federico Lombardi Photo: Press Association

The Personal Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham will remain “a permanent feature in the life of the Church,” Fr Federico Lombardi has said.

Fr Lombardi, Director of the Holy See Press Office told the Catholic Herald: “As the Holy Father said during his visit to the UK in 2010, they will continue to ‘set our sights on the ultimate goal of all ecumenical activity: the restoration of full ecclesial communion’. The Personal Ordinariates are a permanent feature in the life of the Church and a sign of our lasting and unswerving commitment to that ultimate goal”.

Fr Lombardi said that the establishment of the ordinariate was a project, “particularly close to the heart of Pope Benedict XVI.” He said: “The ongoing development of these structures in the future will be a lasting legacy of his pontificate, but also a continuing contribution to the work of Christian unity and ecumenism.”

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established on January 15 2011 following the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum coetibus.

Pope Benedict issued the apostolic constitution in order to, “guarantee the unity of the episcopate” by providing a structure through which Anglicans could enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Fr James Bradley, Press Officer for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham said: “We have been greatly touched by the guidance and love of Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, in the establishment and development of the Personal Ordinariates.

“In resigning as Pope, he has shown that the work and the office of the See of Peter is greater than one man. So, too, it follows that the actions of carried out in the name of that office are not simply policies akin to political strategy. We welcome Fr Lombardi’s words as a further testament to that.”

 

 

Heirs of Newman's 'Oxford Movement'

Lead, Kindly Light

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,--
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,--one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on:
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish days, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on;
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

John Henry Newman

Historic Community of Anglican Nuns to Join Ordinariate

A group of Anglican nuns from the Community of St Mary the Virgin (CSMV) in Wantage, Oxfordshire, are to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in January 2013.

Eleven sisters from the historic Anglican community will join the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the structure established by Pope Benedict XVI to enable groups of Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church whilst retaining elements of their liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral heritage. The group includes the Superior of the community, Mother Winsome CSMV.