Marylebone Ordinariate Group: Confidently Catholic

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Confidently Catholic

One year on from Pope Benedict's visit to this country, the Bishops of England and Wales have marked the occasion with a Mass at Westminster Cathedral on Sunday (the Archbishop of Westminster's excellent homily can be watched here : http://vimeo.com/channels/pope) and have offered some thoughts one how we might build on the good done while the Holy Father was among us:

http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/Catholic-Church/Media-Centre/Press-Releases/Press-Releases-2011/Bishops-issue-message-a-year-after-Pope-s-Visit2

They ask us to be "Confidently Catholic", and, echoing the Holy Father's frequent quotation of Blessed John Henry Newman last year, they ask us to carry out the "definite service" that our Heavenly Father calls us to perform.

God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory—we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Blessed John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions

Being "Confidently Catholic" is certainly one way to do service to God and to others. A strident, triumphalist or exclusivist Catholicism is not what is called for by this phrase, but rather a Catholicism manifested in a Catholic who lives what he believes, who witnesses to his faith by what he does.

In our discussions with others, we are asked to follow the Holy Father's example in witnessing to the Splendour of Truth, as he did at Westminster Hall, where in the Archbishop of Westminster's words he spoke "with sensitivity and reasoned argument, without hectoring or condemning, inviting rather than demanding, firmly but gently."

http://maryleboneordinariate.blogspot.com/2011/09/holy-father-in-westminster.html

One thing that the Bishops invite us to take up immediately is the restored practice of Friday abstinence from meat. Abstaining from meat on Fridays not only achieves our Friday penance, but is also both a means of solidarity with those who have less than we do, and a gentle but clear way of marking out to others that we are serious about what we say we believe.

For those who live in or near London, there are two events in the next few weeks that will give opportunities for other ways of being "Confidently Catholic". Do support these events if you can, and bring all your friends.

The first is a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament from Westminster Cathedral to St George's Cathedral, Southwark on Saturday 1 October, leaving Westminster Cathedral at 1.15pm with Benediction scheduled to begin at St George's at 2.30pm.

http://areluctantsinner.blogspot.com/2011/09/procession-of-blessed-sacrament-from.html

The second is another procession, this time a Procession of Our Lady, a Rosary Crusade of Reparation. For more details, see the link below.

http://maryleboneordinariate.blogspot.com/2011/09/rosary-crusade-of-reparation.html

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Blessed John Henry Newman on the hope for Reunion

… I gather up and bear in memory those familiar affectionate companions and counsellors, who in Oxford were given to me, one after another, to be my daily solace and relief; and all those others, of great name and high example, who were my thorough friends, and showed me true attachment in times long past….

And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a hope against hope, that all of us, who once were so united, and so happy in our union, may even now be brought at length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold and under One Shepherd.

Apologia pro Vita Sua

Blessed John Henry Newman's Prayer for Unity

O Lord Jesus Christ, who when Thou wast about to suffer didst pray for Thy disciples to the end of time that they might all be one, as Thou art in the Father and the Father in Thee, look down in pity on the manifold divisions among those who profess Thy faith and heal the many wounds which the pride of man and the craft of Satan have inflicted on Thy people.

Break down the walls of separation which divide one party and denomination of Christians from another. Look with compassion on the souls who have been born in one or other of these communions, which not Thou, but man, hath made.

Set free the prisoners from these unauthorised forms of worship, and bring them all to the one communion which Thou didst set up at the beginning – the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Teach all men that the See of Peter, the Holy Church of Rome, is the foundation, centre, and instrument of Unity. Open their hearts to the long forgotten truth that the Holy Father, the Pope, is Thy Vicar and representative; and that in obeying him in matters of religion they are obeying Thee, so that as there is but one company in heaven above, so likewise there may be one communion, confessing and glorifying Thy holy Name, here below. Amen

Fr Ignatius Harrison, the former Provost of the London Oratory, on Unity

Another of the Holy Father’s outstanding achievements is his inspiring work for Christian Unity in setting-up the Ordinariates for former Anglicans. What a brilliant way of cutting through the plethora of mealy-mouthed verbiage and foggy thinking that has characterized so much ecumenical activity in recent decades, verbiage and fogginess which may indeed have had the very best of intentions, but which nevertheless achieved so little in real terms.

Let us also pray with all our heart and mind and strength that our vitally important ecumenical journey with our Greek and Russian Orthodox brethren will continue apace, that our charitable and respectful dialogue with them will bear much fruit, so that the universal Church might once again breathe with two whole lungs, and so that soon there may be but one flock and one shepherd. Domine, ut sit!

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Confidently Catholic

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