Marylebone Ordinariate Group: A New Ordinariate Group is Born

Monday, 12 September 2011

A New Ordinariate Group is Born

Welcome to our new blog.

The Marylebone Group of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham began formally on Saturday 3 September 2011, the Feast of St Gregory the Great, when three former members of the congregation of St Mary's Bourne St were received into the full communion of the Catholic Church by Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established on 15 January 2011 for groups of Anglican faithful and their clergy who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. It has been placed under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman.

The establishment of this Ordinariate in England and Wales was the first fruit of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, issued by Pope Benedict XVI on 4 November 2009. The Constitution and the Complementary Norms published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith provide the essential norms which will enable members of the Ordinariate to preserve within the Catholic Church those elements of Anglican ecclesial prayer, liturgy and pastoral practice (patrimony) that are concordant with Catholic teaching and which have nurtured and nourished their Christian faith and life.

Our members usually attend the 10.30 Solemn Mass each Sunday morning at St James's, and it is hoped that eventually occasional Ordinariate masses will be said at St James's, in addition to the active liturgical life of this busy and very welcoming parish.

We are very grateful to Fr Christopher Colven, Rector of St James's Spanish Place, for his welcome, understanding and much valued assistance.

A word of thanks also to the clergy of the Ordinariate who have been instrumental in bringing us into the Catholic Church. We thank Fr Christopher Pearson, as well as Monsignor Keith Newton and Deacon James Bradley for their time, patience and dedication.

Please check this blog from time to time for updates, sign up to follow it, or join our Facebook group (link on the right) to be updated automatically.

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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!

Monday, 12 September 2011

A New Ordinariate Group is Born

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