I was out with a priest friend for the afternoon. He came into town to visit me and have some RnR after his Holy Week and Easter exercises.
We visited several churches, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then had some supper.
So… to the readers, in the tradition of the infamous “Gins and Tonic” poll…
Chose your answer and then give your well-considered reasons in the combox below.
We had a WDTPRS POLL about what you experienced on Holy Thursday regarding the footwashing rite, or “Mandatum“. The results and your descriptions were interesting.
Last night over Beijing Duck I was discussing the Mandatum with friends. Taking my cue also from the first comment in the previous POLL thread, posted by the Canonical Defend himself, Dr. Ed Peters, I now have a new POLL question.
Please chose your best answer and then add a comment. You don’t have to be registered to vote, but you must be to comment.
I received a note from a reader in Houston:
On May 9th, Mother’s Day, Cardinal Raymond Burke will be the guest of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo and keynote speaker at “A Night for Life” Banquet, benefiting the Pro-Life efforts of the Catholic Charismatic Center of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
Houston. We have a problem!In May of last year Planned Parenthood opened the world’s largest abortion clinic just a few hundred feet from the Catholic Charismatic Center. The Center’s Pro-Life works are many and varied, but the most extensive one is equipping and helping to staff a Mobile Crisis Pregnancy Unit outside the doors of Planned Parenthood. Put simply, our Mobile Unit is a haven beside the clinic, offering free pregnancy checks and ultrasounds. Eighty percent of women desiring an abortion who who have viewed an image of their unborn child have not gone through with an abortion.
Cardinal Burke picked Mother’s Day for this event as his gift to mothers. He would appreciate your support.
Join Eminencies Burke and DiNardo at the Hilton Americas in downtown Houston where we will hear these two pro-life champions speak in defense of life.
The next morning Cardinal Burke will be at the Charismatic Center to celebrate a special Mass for Life at 10:00 am. This will be followed by a procession and prayer vigil outside the doors of Planned Parenthood.
Go to www.anightforlife.com to read more about these events and to register or donate.
Please spread the word.
Do you have some good news for the readers?
Today in NYC I will be spending some time with the great Fr. Robert Pasley, pastor of Mater Ecclesiae in Berlin, NJ, which I have visited several times.
You may remember that last year I helped out there at the beginning of Lent just as a huge snowfall caved in part of the roof of the rectory. Their good news is that it has been rebuilt.
What good is up with you?
From the UK’s best Catholic weekly, the Catholic Herald. My emphases.
Ordinariate comes to life in Holy Week
By Anna Arco & Simon Caldwell
The world’s first personal ordinariate has grown dramatically during Holy Week.
New members of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham celebrated their first Easter as Catholics after the new structure expanded from 20 to almost 1,000 members after receptions and confirmations during Holy Week.
Groups of former Anglicans were received and confirmed at celebrations across the country, which began on the Monday of Holy Week. Most groups entered into full communion with the Catholic Church on Holy Thursday before or during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper though a number of groups were also received at the Easter Vigil.
Mgr Keith Newton, the Ordinary, or head, of the ordinariate, said that it was only now that the ordinariate was coming to life, although the structure was officially established in January.
He said: “This is the start of it. The lay faithful moving into the Catholic Church is really the start of the ordinariate. Until now there have been only about a dozen members, but now it is growing to between 900 and 1,000.
“It is not an enormous number of people in Catholic terms, or even for the Church of England, but it is quite significant that such a number of people are making this step together.”
The Ordinary said that the first wave of groups coming into the Catholic Church only marked the beginning of the ordinariate and that many Anglicans were watching the process carefully.
Ordinariate groups exist across England, Wales and Scotland, including in Greater London, Coventry, Cornwall, and Birmingham. The south of England was the part of Britain most strongly represented in the first wave of groups joining the ordinariate.
Fr Edwin Barnes, one of the five former Anglican bishops who have become ordinariate priests, celebrated the Easter Vigil for a group from St Barnabas in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, who had been received earlier that week. During his homily he told the group that joining the ordinariate was a kind of “resurrection moment”. The little beginnings of the different groups were “a new flowering of the Resurrection”.
“Easter is always the same, but always different,” he said. “For you the differences are very plain: no cavernous spaces of St Barnabas’s to help lift up your hearts. Until now you have been able to rely on the generosity and the prayers of those who preceded you in that place.”
The ordinariate group, Fr Barnes said, needed to “keep in touch with our former Anglican friends, to ensure by our kindness that we don’t put up barriers”. “We will be looked at by many to see just what sort of a go we can make of being ordinariate Catholics,” he said.
For James Bradley, the former curate of St John’s Sevenoaks, the Easter Triduum marked an important journey for his family. He was confirmed during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper with his former vicar, Ivan Aquilina and the Sevenoaks ordinariate group, while his sister was confirmed the day before at the Oxford Oratory. His parents were confirmed during the Easter Vigil.
Mr Bradley, who is due to be ordained as one of the ordinariate’s two transitional deacons, said: “It was wonderful to see my sister and parents received this week. Whilst they have made their own very personal journey into the full communion of the Church, it’s obviously also been something very profound for us to share.”
Archbishop Bernard Longley received three groups on Holy Thursday at St Chad’s Cathedral in?Birmingham. Ian O’Hara, who belongs to the Coventry group, said: “Maundy Thursday was a profoundly moving yet joyful and inspiring day. This was the culmination of a journey which for many of us had lasted several years.”
Speaking about the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Mr O’Hara said: “This Mass was especially significant and poignant for us as it marked the end of our Eucharistic Fast which we had all begun on Ash Wednesday. To make our Communion for the first time as Catholics on the very day our Lord instituted the Eucharist will have a deep and lasting affect on us all.”
For Easter the group joined the parish of St Joseph the Worker in?Canley where they had received instruction.
Mr O’Hara said: “We were delighted to be able to take a full part in the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night and the Mass of Easter Day where we celebrated our Lord’s Resurrection with even more joy and gusto this year.”
We would like to hear the stories of newly received members of the personal ordinariate. If you would like to share your story, please contact us at editorial@catholicherald.co.uk.
From CNA:
Royal row breaks out in UK over anti-Catholic legislation
London, England, Apr 25, 2011 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the week of the Royal Wedding, a centuries-old law banning British monarchs from becoming or marrying a Catholic is sparking an international row in the United Kingdom.
London’s Daily Telegraph reported on April 25 that plans to abolish the 1701 Act of Settlement have been ditched because of “significant objections” from the Church of England. [How many former Anglicans were received into the Catholic Church in the last few week?]
Now the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, has written to the British Government asking for urgent clarification.
“I recently wrote to the Prime Minister (David Cameron) calling for the abolition of all discrimination contained in the Act of Settlement, including its blatant discrimination towards Catholics, which is completely unacceptable in a modern society. [The Last Acceptable Prejudice.] I am deeply concerned at these reports that this much-needed and long overdue reform has been shelved by the UK Government,” Salmond wrote.
There is no similar prohibition on the British royal family marrying members of other faiths such as Islam or Judaism, or those who are agnostic or athiest. Anglicanism is still the state religion in England and the monarch is called the “Supreme Governor” of the Anglican faith.
A spokesman for the British Government told the Telegraph, that the government “accepts there are provisions (in the Act) which could be discriminatory.”
However, [You knew there would be a “however”…] he added, the process of amending the law is “a complex and difficult matter that requires careful and thoughtful consideration” because it effects [or affects] succession to England’s throne. [Oh yes… that has to be thought through.]
A Church of England spokesman expressed similar concerns. He said that the anti-Catholic prohibition “inevitably” looks outdated. [“But …”,… hear it coming?]
“But if the prohibition were removed the difficulty would still remain that establishment requires the monarch to join in communion with the Church of England as its Supreme Governor and that is not something that a Roman Catholic would be able to do consistently with the current rules of that Church,” the spokesman told The Telegraph. [How many Anglicans became Catholic in the last few weeks? I still don’t have numbers.]
The Act was originally passed to prevent the descendants of the Catholic King James II from ascending the throne. He was deposed in the 1688 “glorious revolution” by supporters of the Protestant William and Mary. Mary was the eldest Protestant daughter of James II and was married to William of Orange, who later became William III.
In recent years, the Act has effected [affected, perhaps] several members of the British royal family.
In 2001, Lord Nicholas Winsdor, the youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, permanently forfeited his right to the royal succession by converting to Catholicism.
In 2008, Autumn Kelly, the Canadian fiancee of the Queen’s grandson Peter Philips, converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism, [not good] thus preserving her husband’s chances of becoming king.
The present heir to the British throne, Prince William, will marry Kate Middleton on April 29 at a Anglican service in London’s Westminster Abbey.
The Last Acceptable Prejudice.
We are out for Beijing Kao Ya.
More to come!
More…
It was suggested that th thing on the left was a favorite of a priest friend in St. Paul, which he dubbed “Rat On A Stick”.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
revueltos67 on Daily Rome Shot 1116: “White to move and mate in 4 Unless I’m missing something, this would seem to fall into the too easy…” on Daily Rome Shot 1115 – Different St. Martin today: “Black to move and mate in 4 1. …Rb2+ 2. Ne2 {or Kg3,Rd2} Rxe2+ 3. Kg3 {forced} Qf4+ 4. Nxf4…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1116: “This reminds me of something Thomas Pink said in a response to a question fromAndrew Cusak: Many European Bishops are…”
on Continue the Rome shot posts? I dunno.: “Sometimes I wonder if people who champion for abortion have ever had anything charitable done for them in their entire…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1116: “We should remember this poor man in our prayers – God still loves him, but will hold him to account…”
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Ordinariate comes to life in Holy Week
