Low Sunday - Doubting Thomas



The Abbey Sanctuary steps viewed from south transept

 The new and prospective members of the Ordinariate gathered at the 10.30am Abbey Mass.  On this final mass of the Easter Octave we listened to the gospel account of the risen Christ appearing to the Apostles, and the doubting of Thomas turning to his wonderful declaration of complete faith: "My Lord and my God". During the homily we were called to look afresh at our faith in the Resurrection of our Lord. The church brings us to celebrate Easter each year not because the reality of the risen Christ occurs again each year, but that we need to refresh our faith and enter into it more deeply. Was this not like entering a room of fragrant flowers that initially we experience intensely but before very long we smell them no longer? If we are to experience the intensity of the fragrance again we must leave, take a deep breath, and enter again. The church's annual keeping of Lent and Easter is a bit like that. Lent helps us to take a new breath and prepare to refresh our experience of Easter, of the risen Lord.

An Anglican monastic friend sent me an Easter card with an unusual ikon of Doubting Thomas (by Theophan the Cretan 1546 Mount Athos)* to which he added a comment: "An unusual icon this - not often depicted - but perhaps a rather important one for our generation?"

Ordinations this Wednesday
Five former Anglican clergy are to be ordained Deacon in the Catholic Church this week by Bishop Budd at the Cathedral of St Mary and St Boniface, Plymouth, on Wednesday at 11am. Please pray for us. We make the oaths beforehand promising to serve the Ordinariate, to remain faithful to the Ordinariate and to obey its Ordinary. We also make a profession of faith which includes the Nicene Creed but also all that which has been declared to be divinely revealed by legitimate Church authority (ordinary and universal Magisterium). We promise to follow and foster the common discipline of the church and to obey canon law, and with Christian obedience follow the sacred Pastors, assisting the diocesan Bishops in their apostolic activity that may be carried out in communion with the Church.  Although Bishop Budd is graciously conducting the Ordination, he does so on this occasion under the authority of Monsignor Newton (as he did for Fr David Silk earlier this year). Anyone in doubt as to whose authority we will be working under in the Ordinariate need doubt no longer.

Please pray for:  Simon Chinery, Robin Ellis, Colin Furness, John Greatbatch, Ian Hellyer and David Lashbrooke.
Please pray for other former Anglican clergy who are patiently waiting for due process to be completed.

Ian Hellyer, Buckfast Group Pastor.


* See http://www.abcgallery.com/I/icons/icons29.html  for a Russian version of the ikon referred to.