Anglicanorum Coetibus: Latin for ‘Press Forward With Confidence’.

Jan 9th
Posted by Fr. Anthony Chadwick in General
This posting, copied from the Anglican Use e-mail list, is reproduced by kind permission of its author. Fr Joseph Wilson, ordained in 1986 for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn NY, is a parochial vicar of St Margaret Church in Middle Village, NY and past chaplain of the Anglican Use Society. It was a reply to those who write fearfully, suggesting that the Ordinariate scheme would concern very few clergy after the exclusion of those who are canonically irregular or lacking the full curriculum of ecclesiastical studies required by the Code of Canon Law.
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by Father Joseph Wilson

None of us, of course, can foresee the future; therefore none of us can be certain of the way in which our Holy Father’s initiative will play out especially as regards the details. What we can do, though, is reaffirm our trust in divine Providence.

Years back I made a pilgrimage to one of my favorite cities, Boston. I was going to All Saints in Ashmont, specifically to the rectory. Father Bradford had preached his last sermon as rector there, exhorting his people to follow him home to Rome, and the next Sunday a whole group of them gathered at the rectory, which Father and his family had use of for the following six months (and longer in the end). Father had set up an altar in the dining room and there he celebrated (facing East, thank you!) as the Faithful knelt on the floor of the dining and living rooms.

He went to Cardinal Law to tell him, “Here we come!” And looking back, what followed was very instructive. The Cardinal instructed him to keep his flock gathered: not to miss a Sunday. And so it happened. The Cardinal could not give him a hard and fast date by which all would be accomplished; but in the rectory of All Saints, then in the convent chapel of Saint Mary’s Dedham, Father Bradford and a group of candidates for reception into full communion gathered Sunday by Sunday, feast by feast; Father offering Mass as an Anglican priest for them, then the congregation studying the Catechism of the Catholic Church under the tutelage of Msgr Lennon, whom the Cardinal sent for that purpose...

Read the full posting at The Anglo-Catholic blog.