More photographs of the Ordination last Wednesday

Please go to the page (listed on the right of this blog) entitled "Ordination" for more photographs.

Ordinations to the Diaconate

On Wednesday 6th May six members of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham in the South West were ordained to the Order of Deacons in the Catholic Church. Before the Mass we made oaths of freedom, fidelity, and obedience to the Ordinariate and the Ordinary witnessed by Fr David Silk.  The Mass of Ordination was Celebrated by Bishop Christopher Budd with warmth and generosity.  During the Rite of Ordination he offered a prayer of thanksgiving for our ministry within the Anglican Communion.  We were welcomed into Deacons Orders not only by the Bishop but also by many of the Deacons of the Diocese, as well as several priests who had come to support us.  We were very pleased that Fr David Silk, of the Ordinariate, presented us to the Bishop on behalf of Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary (Fr Silk had been ordained in the Ordinariate earlier in the year and was formerly a Bishop in the Anglican Communion).

I will publish more about the Ordination together with the other Photos later.
Deacon Ian Hellyer OLW

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.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.



Children and tourists looking at tadpoles on Easter day

 The warm sunshine brought out the tourists at Buckfast Abbey, as the very large congregation poured out of the Abbey church into the bright sunlight.

The Ordinariate group gathered together to exchange Easter greetings. There were cards to exchange and I had a box of freebies: copies of some catholic reading materials. We couldn't quite believe what had happened in so short a time. The Ordinariate is a reality in this land!

Amazement was of course the much more profound experience of the first disciples as they became the first witnesses of the Resurrection.  Father Abbot very boldy declared, in our Pontifical Mass today, that the Resurrection was a defining moment in human history, that we were Easter people. The Abbot's words although different echoed the Holy Father's words in his latest and much applauded book, "Only if Jesus has risen has anything really occurred that changes the world and the situation of mankind." * The Holy Father is echoing the great Apostle St Paul (e.g. 1 Cor 15). The Resurrection was not expected by the disciples, or at least not in the way it happened. The crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah were not anticipated and it took the disciples some time to make sense of it all. Even today the Resurrection is imbued with mystery, as it should be, for it is a divine event. But what was clear from the beginning was that it changed everything.

The modern person is no stranger to change. Change is all around us. Yet so many grow weary of this change. It is rarely change that amazes us, but too often change that bores us. Or at least it might amuse us for a while but we soon move on to other things. Not so the disciples, their amazement continued. As I gazed at the pond with my children today, as together we longed to see that the tadpoles had changed, we were a little disappointed. They did not seemed to have changed at all.

This longing to see the transformation of tadpole to frog seemed to me to echo a longing in the human heart. We want change but we don't want superficial change. We long for visible, tangible change that changes everything. Is this not a longing for the Resurrection in some way? The key thing we should note here is that the Resurrection was a divine event and not orchestrated by man. This distinguishes the changes in the world from the changes inspired by God. Let us then be Easter people and let us allow the Resurrected Christ to effect in us a change not orchestrated by us but God.  I am apt to believe that the Ordinariate is the answer to a divine call rather than that of man, and all of us can bear witness to the way God has changed us in a very short time.
Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Ian Hellyer, Group Pastor

* Ratzinger, Joseph "Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week" (CTS 2011)  p242. 

Alleluia! Lumen Christi. Deo gratias.



The Easter fire

 As night began to fall so we gathered by the fire outside the Abbey church.  We watched the embers glowing warmly as we felt a little chill in the darkness. And then the monastic community emerged to begin the joyous vigil of Easter. The fire was blessed, the paschal candle marked and then a light was taken from the fire to light the paschal candle. Easter had begun: "Lumen Christi" sang the Abbot, we replied, "Deo Gratias". Thanks be to God indeed for the Light of Christ, not least for the light that has illuminated the hearts of the first to enter the Ordinariate this Holy Week & Easter.

In the Easter homily we were reminded of the connection between Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover, and the question Jewish childern ask their father on the night of the passover: "Why is this night different from all others?" A question Father Abbot suggested we all should ask of this night. And the answer is to be found most beautifully put in the Exultet, the ancient Easter hymn.

On this night Christ passed over from death to life. May the light of the Paschal Candle be a symbol of Christ's light aflame in our hearts, and may it forever burn in us. Amen.

We were privileged to also witness a new Christian being brought into the fold through the waters of baptism, along with two of the baptised brought into full communion with the Catholic Church. All three were Confirmed.

What a joyful night! The Prince of Life being dead, now lives and reigns. Alleluia.
Ian Hellyer, Group Pastor

Hail, O Cross, our only hope, glory of the Redeemer

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me

At three o'clock the Liturgy for Good Friday began at Buckfast Abbey. Those of us who were Received into the Catholic Church yesterday were still within their first twenty-four hours of life as Catholics. In the homily we heard the call to take up our own cross. The way of Christ is not the easy way. Many today like the easy way and prefer it. Alas the easy way leads not to happiness but hell. Whereas the Christian disciple takes up the cross each day and endeavours to walk the path of sacrificial love.  Lord, may we and all the members of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, take courage and recognise Your way of fruit-bearing, that each day we may deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow You, for You are our Saviour and our God. Amen.
Ian Hellyer, Group Pastor



St Austell Receptions

John, the St Austell group's pastor, writes:

Sorry I didn't have the camera handy, had too much on my mind! The Reception went well at St Austell, with 23 received and 21 Confirmed. The Group also presented me with a stole for my Ordination which was blesssed by Fr. Paul, the Parish priest.