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 2, 2012

Former Mount Airy Anglican congregation joins Catholic Church

By Maria Wiering
mwiering@CatholicReview.org

MOUNT AIRY – A third local community of former Anglicans joined the Roman Catholic Church Sept. 23 through the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, established in January by Pope Benedict XVI.

Seventeen members of Sacred Heart of Jesus in Mount Airy were welcomed into the church at St. Michael Catholic Church, Poplar Springs.

Father R. Scott Hurd, the ordinariate’s vicar general and a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, received the congregation’s members into the church on behalf of Father Jeffrey N. Steenson, who leads the ordinariate but was unable to attend. Baltimore auxiliary Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski presided over the Mass, which was concelebrated by local priests of the ordinariate.

Sacred Heart drew members from across western Maryland. Since July 2011, it has been renting the historic St. Michael church – a petite, white clapboard building across the road from the main church – for its Sunday liturgies.

This forged a relationship between the two communities, whose members shared social and educational activities, and now can share Mass...

Read the rest at The Catholic Review

Hat tip to Fr. Scott Hurd on Facebook.
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