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Cardinal Levada on the Pope’s Anglican initiative

Biretta tip to our soon to be Curate, Sem. James Bradley for pointing this important speech by Cardinal Levada. You can read it here.

Lent with St. Ignatius - Part II

You can follow the second part of this address here.

An old man dreaming

And what a wonderful dream it is. Why not read it here?

Trust

Do not let your hearts be troubled. So Jesus says to his disciples. It does not mean that our hearts are not to be sad. They are not to be troubled; panic or despair is not in the vocabulary of the disciple.

Sadness comes on many levels and different guises. We experience it very bitterly in bereavement, to a lesser degree in the parting of friends; we experience it selfishly when we do not have it our way. Many of us Anglo-Catholics are experiencing sadness in its bitter level. We are understood, make no mistake, but we are not wanted by those who want to re-write the Bible. We are saddened when CofE bishops, those chosen to feed the sheep, look on the other side. When was the last time that they stood together and with one voice stood up for the Faith?

Since Monday I was immersed in Baptism and Wedding preparations, funerals, schools, visits and pastoral meetings, all this underpinned by Mass, the Office and other daily prayers and equally by the prayers and support of the people of this Parish. It is a privilege beyond one’s wildest expectations, as a holy man once told me there is no better place then when we are on our knees washing feet.

So it is with sadness that I cannot comprehend the madness leading people in the CofE not to make provision for us and/or encourage us, as groups, to be Anglicans in full communion with the Pope. Why create fudge that is not acceptable? Is it to ease consciences or is it to accommodate some who like the icing but not cake? I do not know. What I know is that after telling his disciples not to allow their hearts to be troubled our Lord told them to believe and trust in God and in himself.

So as we continue proclaiming the Gospel we fix our eyes on Christ and our hearts will never be troubled. As we continue to journey in Lent we ask to re-learn trust. As we prepare to celebrate the feast day of St Joseph we sit at his feet and learn what trust really means.

Lent with St. Ignatius

Here at St John's we are keeping Lent in the company of St Ignatius of Loyola. Last week I shared my reflections about the life of the saint. Today one of our readers, Roger, who has explored Ignatian Spirituality for many years, has started his reflections on the spirituality of this Master.

You can hear the recording below. You might need to put the volume all up as this was the first time we have tried this out. Hope to improve by next week.

Audio

Cardinal Newman and Malta

This letter has appeared in the Sunday Times of Malta today. It is written by Fr Louis Caruana a Maltese priest based in Heythrop College, London. You can find the link here.

As Malta is preparing for Pope Benedict XVI's visit to mark the 1,950th anniversary of St Paul's shipwreck, and as Britain is preparing for John Henry Newman's beatification later this year, it is worth recalling a poem writing by Newman about St Paul's arrival in Malta, which he dated February 9, 1833.
St Paul at Melita
"And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat."
Secure in his prophetic strength,
The water peril o'er,
The many-gifted man at length
Stepp'd on the promised shore.
He trod the shore; but not to rest
Nor wait till Angels came;
Lo! Humblest pains the Saint attest,
The firebrands and the flame.
But, when he felt the viper's smart,
Then instant aid was given;
Christian! Hence learn to do thy part,
And leave the rest to Heaven.

When writing this poem, Newman had been an Anglican priest for eight years, most of them spent at Oxford University. He was touring the southern Mediterranean, and his travels included a stop in Malta.
He was on the island between January 10 and February 7, 1833, but because of quarantine regulations and his own fragile health, he saw little of the island. They sailed for Naples via Messina, and it was at Messina that he completed this short but significant poem. He became a Roman Catholic 12 years later.

Please offer solidarity to Christians in Mosul

The news has escaped much of the mass media, but Christian families are leaving Mosul, Iraq, in their droves to escape a concerted campaign of violence and intimidation.

Chaldean Bishop Emil Shimoun Nona has said that Mosul is experiencing a "humanitarian emergency" and that "hundreds of Christian families" left the city Feb. 24 in search of shelter, leaving behind their homes, property, commercial activities. The situation "is dramatic", he said. 

The families have chosen to flee after a spate of violent attacks which left five Christians dead last week, and members of a whole family murdered on Tuesday. "In one house all the family members were killed -- five people," said an Iraqi member of Open Doors, a non-denominational charity helping persecuted Christians.

Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk has launched "a demonstration and a fast" to sensitize the international community to the "massacre of Iraqi Christians" and stop the violence in the country.

Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his deep concern and sorrow over the continuing wave of violence. Vatican Radio and the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, reported Feb. 24 that although the Pope is on retreat and not speaking publicly, he expressed his sorrow that "in the area of Mosul, the killing of Christians continues."

Bishop Emil Nona fears that "Mosul will be emptied completely of Christians" and will visit Baghdad to plead for help from the national government in establishing some minimal security for the city's religious minority. The attacks have taken place in the run-up to elections in Iraq on March 7th. Basile Georges Casmoussa, Syrian Archbishop of Mosul, said elections always bring troubles, "but not to the point of killing people, particularly Christians. The Christians were killed not because of their politics, but because they are Christians."

Speaking to Terrasanta.net Feb. 22nd, Archbishop Sako said the elections are prompting struggle between political groups made up of Arabs and Kurds. "They are fighting to have authority, power and also the economy and there's a big tension," he said, adding that in Mosul they are "pushing the Christians to get out of the city - that is their main purpose." He warned that lack of security is due to a political vacuum in Mosul, with Arabs running the city without sharing power with the Kurds, although he said he remains hopeful that peace could return after the elections.

He also said Iraqi Christians feel neglected by the West. "[They] have the impression of being forgotten by the West that is secular," he said. "In the past, some might have wanted to protect Christians but now we have the impression of being isolated and forgotten by all."

See Terrasanta.net 

 

A Welsh logo

 

from Wikipedia

In the UK we always said that the mess in which the American Episcopal ecclesial community finds itself will never be repeated here. We look at their lawsuits, Christians dragging Christians to court, and recoil in horror. Many British senior clerics on all sides of all arguments have said that they will never allow that to happen here.

Well if you believe that…just recently the Friends of the Ordinariate put a web site for those from the British Isles who would like more information about this development. Members of the Church in Wales are free to join and to be proud of their heritage. and see how this can contribute towards the Ordinariate. But not so the Welsh powers to be, they have threatened with legal action and there you go: courts. See the story by Damian Thompson here.

Barry and his chums have been pleased to see Welsh-Catholics suffer in not appointing  for them a successor for a bishop to look after them. Barry and his chums are so bitter that they did not have it their way in whatever kind of synod they assembled to vote in wiminbishopesses. Barry and his chums will do whatever it takes to make life hard for Welsh-Catholics. Now if they are ready to take Anglo-Catholics to court for the use of a logo (used in a non-profit scenario and also for members of that Church) what will they do to those who will try and take with them a building? Fear not: liberals like Barry will follow their idols in the States. I am sure that in these financially difficult times Barry & Co will find all the necessary money to waste on legal fees, that for them, I am sure, are more important then Gospel work and principles.

Parish Magazine

The March 2010 edition of our Parish Magazine is now also available on line. Please click here.

Support for the Papal visit to the UK

The usual empty vessels are making much din about opposition to the Papal Visit in our country. So far they have reached about 20, 000 signatures. I think we must call their bluff and show what support there is for the Holy Father's visit here in the UK.

So can you please sign this petition and promote it as much as you can. Thank you.

You can sign this petition here or by clicking on the title.

Anglican Patrimony

A lot has been written in the past months about Anglican Patrimony. Looking eagerly at what other people have been saying it seems that this Patrimony is the Book of Common Prayer (which when ASB came out in 1980 became the CofE Extraordinary rite), Sarum rite, English or Anglican Missal, Evensong and the King James version of the Bible. I think these people mean heritage rather than Patrimony. All these issues are icing on the cake, they are the accidents and not the substance. This betrays also a view which is not entirely in touch with reality. Parishes using the above-mentioned liturgies or keeping Evensong every Sunday exist for sure but are few and far between. Most parishes of my tradition use the Roman Missal (and whilst appreciating the Holy Father’s care in allowing the use of the rite of St Pius V as reformed by Bl John XXIII, I personally value the Missal of Paul VI as amended by the present Pontiff) or else they use Common Worship (which I like too although it has a lot of borrowings from the Roman rite) or have a combination of the two. Whilst acknowledging that the above named rituals shaped our forbears we need to realise that that is not our Patrimony, it is our heritage. Those who use such rites should be encouraged to continue to do so but it should not be imposed on the many who have joined the evangelistic and missiological liturgy as presented by and since Vatican II.

So what is our Patrimony? It is not the depth and wealth to be found in the Caroline Divines down through the Tractarians and to recent giants like Dix and Mascall. That too is our heritage, that has informed our understanding of who we are and helped us live the Gospel in our day-to-day life. All these good and holy things and persons are our heritage that combined together and lived today are our Patrimony. Patrimony is alive and changes every minute as it is enriched by our living it. Our Patrimony is what we do today; how we live our Christian calling as a result of the joy and sadness we experience and share. It is also our experience of the Act of Synod, of upholding the Catholic Faith in difficult and sometimes hostile ground, a witness which makes that ground holy. It is the way in which you and I today live the Faith, teach it, knock on doors in visiting, go to schools, hospitals, nursing homes, assist those who come knocking on our doors and those whom we seek in the roads of life. Our Patrimony is all of us together today and the work we do, the prayers we pray, the love we live, the passion for Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life who consumes our hearts with his fire. That is why the Patrimony is a common treasure, alive, fresh and always changing from glory into glory as in humility it seeks to be Gospel shaped and thus Christ-like.