Joyous News from Oxford

Today we have the great pleasure of expressing our joy in the news that Mr Thomas Mason, a member of the Ordinariate Group in Oxford and friend of this group, has been accepted by the Ordinary for training and formation to the Catholic Priesthood, commencing in the Autumn.

Firstly we offer our hearty congratulations to him. But also we renew our thanksgiving to Almighty God for His continued blessings being poured out upon the Ordinariate and the Church in England, especially in sending new workers out into His vineyard in this year when the heart of the Curé d'Ars, universal patron of priests, visits these shores.

Thomas was received into Christ’s Church only last April, and serves as yet another potent reminder of the wonderful fruits that Anglicanorum Coetibus has brought in so little time. His commitment to the solemn and worthy celebration of the sacred liturgy has become the hallmark of those already ordained to serve in the Ordinariate. We think back with delight to the ordination of two other young former Anglicans, Frs Bradley and Lloyd, just a few months ago, and are renewed in our hope for the future of the Church in England.

Yet it is not only Thomas’s fidelity to the liturgical practices of the Church which gives us cause for joy. Like so many of the other young men presenting themselves for ordination, he is fiercely loyal to solid Catholic doctrine. This is the true fulfilment of the Oxford Movement in our age, which continues not to compromise with the prevailing dictatorship of relativism in modern British society, and continues to place the Gospel call to Christian Unity at the heart of its message.  This is the vision of the founding fathers of Anglo-Catholicism, that we might do rather more than just referencing the inherited Truths of Catholicism, and that we might live them and try to share them with others. 

Individuals who found themselves on the sure rock of Holy Mother Church will complete the conversion and restoration of England as Our Lady’s dowry.  Here you will find the Truth, the faith of the Apostles.  Here you find the Catholic faith cherished for the great gift that it is, not merely tolerated as one possible view among many.

We reaffirm, therefore, our commitment to pray for Thomas’s journey to ordination, asking the intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham, Bl John Henry, and S. Gregory the Great that he may grow in holiness and become conformed ever closer to the person of Christ the High Priest.

We know that Thomas is particularly keen on French organ and church music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  To celebrate this news, we include some examples of the genre below, so that we might all rejoice together and ask for God's blessing upon him.

First, the Incantation pour un Jour Saint writted by Jean Langlais.  This piece, at once mystical, symbolic and entirely vivid, is based on the Gregorian chant of the Lumen Christi, sung by the deacon on Holy Saturday, when during the Easter Vigil he processes into the darkened church with the Paschal Candle.  How appropriate for a new Catholic that we focus on the Easter Vigil (and indeed, Thomas's last visit to St James's was for our own Easter Vigil, upon which we reported in this widely read blogpost).



Next, the Gloria from Vierne's extraordinary Messe Solenelle.  Often thought of as a grand setting for grand days, or even as a concert piece, Vierne's work, while it does represent beautifully some of the French style of that period, was in fact one of the firm favourites of many French parish and cathedral choirs.  This then sits in perfect harmony with the liturgical tradition that Thomas is so keen to maintain - the best can always be offered, even in the simplest of settings, there is no reason or cause to offer less.  What makes this piece yet more suitable for today is that it was first sung for a mass on the Immaculate Conception in 1901, a feast so long honoured in England.  That Widor played the grand orgue of St Sulpice that day with Vierne at the orgue de choeur adds a level of colour that any devotee of French music of that period will adore. 



How else to conclude but with a Te Deum.  This, a well known and much loved recording of the plainchant of the Te Deum (as we sang at St James's only two Sundays ago) interspersed in an alternatim setting with the immense power of Pierre Cochereau's playing of the grand orgue of Notre Dame in Paris. 

Tidings of Joy

This morning, the Ordinariate announced its list of candidates for Ordination to the Sacred Priesthood.  Congratulations to all on the list: our prayers are with you, and we share your great joy and thankfulness that the shared journey we have made together into the full communion of the Catholic Church is now leading you onwards on the long and challenging road towards priestly service.

There is one name in particular on that list that causes us to rejoice.  It is, of course: Hunwicke, John William.  It is wonderful news that this learned, holy and charming gentleman is moving forward in the process towards being ordained as a priest in the Catholic Church.  What has happened is not official confirmation or agreement of Ordination, it is simply the publication of a list of candidates, but even so, even if it is no more than a small step forward as part of continuing deliberations, it is to be wholeheartedly welcomed.

Many of us in the Ordinariate owe a lot to the learning that Fr Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes has given us.  Those of us who have met him, even if on only a few occasions, are even more in his debt.  He is a scholar with an in-depth knowledge of all the best of Anglican Patrimony (and of so much more), who has an unswerving loyalty and devotion to, and love for, Holy Mother Church.  He is also a truly lovely man, who has made sacrifices to play his part in answering Our Lord's call to Christian Unity, and who has continued to wait patiently on the Lord while the wheels of process turn.

Fr Hunwicke has featured on this blog before, indeed in one of our most popular ever blogposts.  He very kindly agreed to give us permission to reproduce in full a sermon he gave in October 2010 at St Mary's Bourne St.  It is an extremely inspiring sermon, on the topic of Our Lady of Victories and the Battle of Lepanto, full of details and wisdom, but entirely accessible even to those less familiar with the subjects covered.   Do take the time to read it.

The day after his visit to Bourne St, he posted a very favourable report of his trip to London on his own blog, the comments on which include a few interesting points from Bourne St regulars, on the origins of the sung Angelus in particular (now there's Patrimony for you).  His report charmed all of those at Bourne St who read it, indeed my wife and daughters were among those most thrilled to have been mentioned in such a kind way in so elevated a forum.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that we posted an article on the First Mass of Fr Daniel Lloyd of the Oxford Ordinariate Group.   The eagle-eyed among you might even have spotted a photo of Fr Hunwicke reading the Prayers of the Faithful that day.  Since that group might one day soon, Deo volente, have another priest, as our newest member (a former member of the Oxford group) jokingly notes, it could soon be on its way to being fully resourced for a Pontifical High Mass. 

We concluded the blogpost on Fr Lloyd's First Mass with the Haydn Te Deum.  Time to post it again, in joy and thanksgiving for this wondrous news.  Small steps forward in a positive direction.  Prayers for, and congratulations to, all the Ordinariate's candidates for Ordination.  What a tremendous sign of encouragement, development and growth that there is a list, let along such a long one.  Let us hope, as the process continues, that all these candidates proceed to Ordination, and that the Lord will send us many more priests to serve in His Holy Catholic Church.

Deo gratias!

Another First Mass in the Ordinariate

We reported earlier this week from the Ordinations of Fr James Bradley and Fr Daniel Lloyd at St Patrick's Soho Square, and from the First Mass of Fr Bradley at Holy Ghost Balham.  After the offering of Fr Bradley on Sunday morning, members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group journeyed north to Oxford, the City of Dreaming Spires, to assist at Fr Daniel Lloyd’s first celebration of the Sacrifice of Calvary.

The setting could hardly have been more different. The Church of the Holy Rood, a title so appropriate for the First Mass of an Ordinariate Priest, is in many ways a product of the great iconoclasm of the last century, yet at a second glance retains and rejoices in many of the traditional marks of the Catholic Faith. As such, Mass was celebrated towards the East, as is to be favoured according to the Ordinariate’s liturgical patrimony: priest and people together in awful anticipation of Christ the High Priest’s return.

In recognition of the universality of the Catholic Church, into which Fr Lloyd has now been ordained as priest forever, the Newman Consort sang the Introit and other Propers in Latin plainsong, the language of generations before. The setting of the Mass, Missa Euge Bone, composed by Christopher Tye, echoed that fateful era of the Henrician Schism when, as the Assistant Priest Mgr Andrew Burnham pointed out, the musical jewel of English Catholicism was buried, divorced from centuries of tradition. How moving it was, then, to witness this humble new priest offering the same sacrifice using a “set of texts which has not changed by more than a few syllables since Augustine used those very words at Canterbury on the Third Sunday of Easter in the summer after he landed”.

Fr John Saward of Ss. Gregory and Augustine in Oxford, himself a former minister in the Church of England, preached the homily. He drew our attention to the life of Bl Karl Leisner, a holy priest held in Dachau concentration camp, who died of tuberculosis shortly after being liberated by the Allied Forces. He was captured a deacon, and whilst imprisoned was ordained to the priesthood by a bishop and fellow inmate. Due to his illness he had only the strength to offer the Mass but once.

Fr Saward noted the natural response of the secular world to such a situation; how great a waste of a life and futile an exercise to ordain a priest who had no opportunity to help the sick or console the dying. We were put in mind of the words of the Blessed Apostle Paul, of the crucified Christ Himself, “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Fr Lloyd was exhorted to remain faithful to the celebration of the Mass, and reminded of the infinite grace outpoured at a single offering in union with Christ and His Church.

The Prayers of the Faithful echoed words which remain imprinted on the hearts of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group, those of the Prayer for the Church Militant here in Earth, amended to intercede on behalf of our Holy Father the Pope, along with the Ordinary, before also beseeching God’s protection of His servant Elizabeth our Queen and her Government. Patrimony received, purified, and proclaimed by the Church in the fullness of truth.

The joyful beauty of the Mass reached a crescendo at the Benedictus and culminated in the Agnus Dei, the Newman Consort truly excelling and raising hearts on high in the sight of the Divine Majesty. Such unspeakable wickedness to silence the song of Christ’s Faithful in the name of reformation.

An altogether different song of gladness concluded the Mass. A resounding ‘We praise thee, O God’ from our new priest gave way to the exuberance of Haydn’s Te Deum, echoing the great joy of the Church Militant and Triumphant at this first offering of the Holy Sacrifice. Those present could not but cast their minds back to the Beatification Mass of Blessed John Henry Newman, when our Holy Father concluded his offering with that same great expression of praise. Not confounded by this monolith of Austrian faith, English devotion to the Ordinariate’s heavenly mother could not but assert its place, with all in typically enthusiastic chorus singing ‘Joy to thee, O Queen of Heaven…’.

The celebration of a priest’s First Mass is one which draws together the Body of Christ in love for the new priest. Yet such an occasion is inevitably deeply personal and intimate for the man conformed to Christ Himself. In grateful thanksgiving, Fr Lloyd offered his mother and wife posies of flowers which had previously adorned the altar, before imparting his first blessing on them and all present.

How can we not, on such occasions, pray all the more earnestly for vocations, for mothers and fathers to offer their sons to the Lord who is ever-faithful? Lovingly reverencing the anointed hands of the new priest, by whose words and actions the grace of Christ is made present to his flock, we pray that His grace may extend to wanderers from the fold so that they might be one with the saints in one unbroken peace, one unbounded love.

Praise we Him, Whose love divine
Gives the guests His blood for wine,
Gives His body for the feast,
Love the victim, Love the priest.

Thanks be to God for sending His Church these two new priests.

Sacerdotes Domini

Another truly groundbreaking few days for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.  This weekend, for the first time in the Ordinariate, we witnessed the ordination to the Sacred Priesthood of former Anglicans who had never been Anglican priests.  This was a sign of progress, a sign of continuity and a sign of hope for the future.   Below you will see a picture of most of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group with the newly minted Fr James Bradley, then below you will see one of our number receiving one of Fr Daniel Lloyd's first blessings.

In April 2010, in our Anglican days, a small group of us from St Mary's Bourne St travelled up to Oxford to attend a conference on the subject of Anglicanorum Coetibus held in Pusey House.  In one of the breaks between the fascinating talks that day, we joked with The Revd Canon Dr Robin Ward, Principal of St Stephen’s House, as we pointed to two of his students, James Bradley and Daniel Lloyd, and together wondered, perhaps in fact only half in jest, if we were looking upon the last two catholic ordinands in the Church of England. 

I doubt that any of us there that day would have believed that only two years later, almost to the day, we would, as Catholics ourselves, be gathered in the magnificently restored St Patrick’s Soho Square to witness the ordination of those two young men into the Catholic priesthood at a service in which Dr Ward read from the Letter to the Hebrews of how Our Lord “learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”  Here is a photo of Dr Ward during the reading of that lesson, standing in the pulpit where, as he pointed out himself on his Facebook page, the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Servant of God, had once stood to preach.

As the two deacons lay prostrate before the altar and we invoked the prayers of Our Lady of Walsingham, the Holy Angels, the Saints and Blessed John Henry Newman, we did so with the confidence of those who had been guided by such prayers, and by the grace of God, into full union with Holy Mother Church.  At the moment Bishop Alan Hopes (himself a former Anglican) consecrated Fr Bradley and Fr Lloyd to the dignity of priesthood we gave heartfelt thanks that we had been brought to witness the ordination of the first two men not previously to have served in the Anglican priesthood to offer their service to God as priests in his Church in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

In his homily, our Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton, quoted from ‘Aaron’ by George Herbert, the divine of our very own Anglican Patrimony.

Holiness on the head,
Light and perfection on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
To led them unto life and rest.
Thus are true Aarons dressed.

Profaneness in my head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest.
Poor priest thus am I dressed.

Only another head
I have, another heart and breast,
another music, making live not dead,
without whom I could have no rest:
In him I am well dressed.

Christ is my only head,
My alone only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me even dead;
That to the old man I may rest,
And be in him new dressed.

So holy in my head,
Perfect and light in my dear breast,
My doctrine tuned by Christ, (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest)
Come people; Aaron's dressed.

We have included a large number of photos of Saturday's Ordination Mass in an album on our group's Facebook site (which you can reach through the link on the right-hand toolbar of this blog - do sign up to "like" our group page if you haven't already done so).  A small selection of our favourite photos is set out below.  For those readers with a connection to St Mary's Bourne St and St Barnabas Pimlico, you might recognise below the Very Reverend John Salter in one of the pictures, another former Anglican, and since 2002 a Melkite priest in full communion with Rome.

After each ordination to the Sacred Priesthood, there is always a First Mass.  Members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group managed to attend Fr Bradley's FIrst Mass in Balham, and Fr Lloyd's First Mass in Oxford.

As feeble and ignorant Central Londoners, we do not know much of what lies beyond Zone 1, and we referred to this on our blogpost about our previous visit to the parish of Holy Ghost, Balham.  Therefore, there were, we regret to confess, those of us who were unaware that true beauty might be found in Balham.  It may famously be the Gateway to the South, but it is not widely known as the Stairway to Heaven.  Some of us trod our way rather warily from W1 to SW12, the marbled magnificence of St Patrick’s Soho Square fresh in our minds.  What a wonderful surprise lay in store for us, for there in Nightingale Square at the Church of the Holy Ghost we found a haven of beauty that should be a compulsory stop on the itinerary of every church architect and parish priest in the land wishing to discover what can be achieved with taste and simplicity.

One would have described it as tranquil but we arrived just as the congregation from an earlier mass was leaving, and the area was awash with small and excited children.  We are not so small but were just as excited as we were about to witness the First Mass of Fr James Bradley, whose ordination we had witnessed on Saturday.

There are few occasions more joyful in church than the First Mass of a priest.  In his homily Fr Stephen Langridge was to remind us of Blessed Theresa of Calcutta's injunction to priests to “celebrate each Mass as if it were your first Mass and your last Mass” and when we witness the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass being offered at the hands of a newly-ordained priest it is as if we too share in it for the first time.

After the rich liturgical diet of the Sacred Triduum at St James’s, Spanish Place, and yesterday’s ordination one could be forgiven for becoming a touch jaded, especially upon hearing of rumours of guitars in church (ever an uncomfortable reminder of the worst excesses of some of the more popular misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council).  Yet again would Balham prove the folly of blind prejudice. The songbirds themselves were surely listening in awed silence as the sound of Padilla's Missa Ego Flos Campi and Guerrero's Regina Caeli floated, accompanied by authentic Spanish instruments in their correct context.

On leaving the church, one parishioner was overheard saying to another "What is this Ordinariate then?".  Her friend replied "Oh, it's what they call the Church of England nowadays."  This reminded us of the challenge continually ahead of us, that of spreading the word about what the Ordinariate is and what it does.  Efforts such as mentioned here must continue to be made (we know that there are plans afoot to do exactly this).  Yet, perhaps that casual remark between friends was closer to the truth than we had at first recognised - where else now was that vision of the Church of England to which we in our Anglo-Catholic days had adhered?

We returned to Marylebone humbled, joyful and full of thanksgiving for the start of the ministry of Fr Bradley.

We will report on the happy occasion of Fr Daniel Lloyd's First Mass in the next few days.  Thanks be to God for giving us these two new priests. 

Sacerdotes Domini incensum et panes offerunt Deo et ideo sancti erunt Deo et non polluent nomen eius. 

The priests of the Lord offered bread and incense to God and therefore they shall be holy to their God and shall not defile his name.