Blessing of St. Columba Church, Victoria, British Columbia

Blessing the Christus Rex

It was a lovely and quite mild evening in Victoria B.C. on April 11 2013 when the congregation and friends of the Ordiariate gathered in little St. Columba’s for the blessing of the Church by The Most Rev. Richard Gagnon, Roman Catholic Bishop of Victoria. There were about forty present for the Service, which included the blessing of the Church, Solemn Evensong, Sermon and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The Church is a former Anglican church (also St. Columba’s) which opened about 100 years ago, and was closed by the Anglican Diocese about four or five years ago. The present congregation rents the Church from the Anglican Diocese. Our small choir of four people did a marvelous job of provid- ing the music (plainchant psalms and responses), and leading in the hymns (The Church’s One Foundation, We love the place, O God, and the evening Office hymn before the Magnificat.) Bishop Richard did the blessing of the Church, Altar, shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, and the very fine new Christus Rex which hangs over the entrance to the Sanctuary. Monsignor Peter Wilkinson sang the Office, the Bishop then preached and officiated at Benediction.

Following the Service, refreshments were served (in the Church, as we have no hall) and a very pleasant time of visiting with friends and visitors ensued. People were struck by the beauty of the worship and of the Church. A former parishioner of Anglican times attended the Service, a retired gentleman who began attending St. Columba’s as a child, and he said that he had never seen the inside of the Church look as nice as it does now. Now, that’s a compliment!

In his sermon, the Bishop reflected on the words of the prophet Haggai read as the first lesson. He spoke of the ruin of Israel, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in Haggai’s time, and his prophecy from God that “the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former.” He left it to our own reflection to see what of this applied to ourselves, but he said he sympathized very much with our own losses and struggles which had brought us to this point of beginning again in faith in our entrance into the Ordinariate. He spoke also of the life and work of St. Columba, and the monastery which he established on Iona, a heap of rocks of the west coast of Scotland, St. Columba prophesied of the destruction of his monastery, but said that before the end Iona’s glory would be as it was at the first.

Monsignor Peter sings the Office

The Bishop has been very supportive of us in our journey into the Catholic Church, as has Fr John Laszczyk, Rector of the Cathedral and Vicar General, and we were exceedingly happy to be able to have both of them with us for this very joyful occasion.

And now to work; for if this house is to surpass it’s former glory, we must all put our hand to the task, that God may be praised out here in Strawberry Vale.

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