Marylebone Ordinariate Group: Saint Ninian, pray for us

Friday 16 September 2011

Saint Ninian, pray for us

When our Ordinariate group was formed and we were received into the Catholic Church, one of us took Ninian as his Confirmation Name.

September 16th is the Feast of St Ninian, the "Apostle to the Southern Picts", and the first Bishop known to have ministered in Scotland. St Ninian is believed to have been responsible for the construction in 397AD of the first known Church building in Scotland, the Candida Casa (the White House), a white-washed stone building from which the town of Whithorn in Galloway takes its name.

Although the evangelisation of Scotland is more often associated with St Columba, in fact St Ninian lived well over a century before St Columba, and worked in different regions of Scotland.

September 16th also marks the first anniversary of the great day last year when the Holy Father arrived in Scotland at the start of his visit to the United Kingdom. That visit was a definite turning point for many who have come into the Ordinariate and into the wider Catholic Church in this country in the past year. One of the things that Pope Benedict did exactly one year ago was to celebrate an open-air Mass in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow in front of around 65,000 people. That Mass was of course of St Ninian of Galloway.

The Collect at the Mass said by the Holy Father was as follows :

Lord our God, you brought the Picts and Britons to a knowledge of the Faith through the teaching of Saint Ninian, the Bishop: in your goodness, listen to our prayers: grant that we who have received from him the light of your truth may remain strong in faith and active in works of charity. We ask this through Our Lord, Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In the video below, there is some footage of the Mass celebrated that momentous day. Underneath that video is a link to a hymn, Ninian of Galloway, which was sung just before the start of the Papal Mass in Glasgow, and to a prayer for the Feast of St Ninian.

As we now give thanks to Almighty God for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom last year, we ask for His continued blessing on these islands. May Our Lady, St Ninian and all the Saints of this land pray for us.

http://stmungomusic.org.uk/music/feast-of-st-ninian/

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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!

Friday 16 September 2011

Saint Ninian, pray for us

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