The first principle of the Ordinariate is then about Christian unity. St. Basil the Great, the Church’s greatest ecumenist, literally expended his life on the work of building bridges between orthodox brethren who shared a common faith, but who had become separated from one another in a Church badly fragmented by heresy and controversy. He taught that the work of Christian unity requires deliberate and ceaseless effort...St. Basil often talked with yearning about the archaia agape, the ancient love of the apostolic community, so rarely seen in the Church of his day. This love, he taught, is a visible sign that the Holy Spirit is indeed present and active, and it is absolutely essential for the health of the Church.

- Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, Homily on the Occasion of his Formal Institution as Ordinary

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Happy Birthday to the Last Catholic Queen of England

In a historical aside, which reminds me of the paper that Dr. Anne Gardiner delivered at the Anglican Use Conference in June 2010, Stephanie Mann, at her blog "Supremacy and Survival" writes the following:
Mary Beatrice of Modena was born on October 5, 1658. She was the second wife of James, the Duke of York; they married in 1673. He was 25 years older than she and indeed presented her to his children as their new playmate! Charles II allowed his brother and heir to marry an Italian Catholic princess, but demanded that the children of James' first wife, Anne Hyde (who herself had become Catholic) continue to be raised an Anglicans. The succession was already under stress because of James's conversion to Catholicism and word of further Catholic heirs would encourage greater opposition in Parliament...

Read the rest at her very interesting blog: Supremacy and Survival
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