Marylebone Ordinariate Group: First Mass

Showing posts with label First Mass. Show all posts

Friday, 22 June 2012

Introibo ad altare Dei

As previously posted, we are now expectantly looking forward to the coming ordination of Deacon John Hunwicke to the Priesthood at the Oxford Oratory on Wednesday 27th June at 19:00. And with even greater joy and gladness we are able to relay news that Fr Hunwicke's First Mass will be celebrated according to the Extraordinary Form at the London Oratory the following day at 11:30.

Those familiar with Fr Hunwicke during his time in the Church of England, not least the many many devoted fans of his wonderful and informative blog (which has helped more than a few Ordinariate members, both laity and clergy, to find their way to Holy Mother Church), will recall his ardent devotion to the liturgy, particularly in its most traditional forms, and as such it comes as little surprise that he will celebrate his First Mass according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, a form regarded by the Holy Father himself as an 'venerable and ancient usage'.

Yet again, the Ordinariate continues to show itself as fiercely loyal not only to the patrimony of centuries of separated yet worthy practice and belief developed during its members' former days, but also to the inheritance of the wider Latin Church. That which countless generations before have held as sacred continues to be proclaimed by those individuals who, through the generosity and grace of the Holy Father, find themselves as heirs to that age-old tradition.

The wonderful diversity of the Church Catholic, even in the Latin Rite, is proclaimed by Fr Hunwicke celebrating his second Mass in the Ordinary Form of that same Rite, at the Church of the Holy Rood in Oxford. He is scheduled to celebrate that Mass as the Ordinariate Group in Oxford's usual Saturday evening Mass at 18:00 on 30th June, when the setting of the ordinary of the mass will be Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli.

Certainly members of the Marylebone Group (having good reason to be particular fans of Fr Hunwicke) will be in attendance at these wonderful occasions to which all are invited, and reports on this 'blog will follow in due course. What is about to unfold is something for which Ordinariate members have been praying ardently, and we rejoice that our prayers have been answered.

In these days leading up to this most significant week in the life of the Ordinariate and the Church in England, we renew our commitment of prayer for Fr Hunwicke as he prepares for ordination to Christ's Priesthood, and ask the intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham and Blessed John Henry Newman, but also of S. John Vianney that his fidelity and love for the Sacred Heart of Our Lord may be all the more imprinted on our ordinand too.

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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!