Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham: Receptions into Full Communion


15 members of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham were received into Full Communion with the Catholic Church at Newman House, Gower Street, in the Archdiocese of Westminster on Wednesday of Holy Week.

The group included former Anglican priests Mark Elliott-Smith, Peter Andrews and  Alan Griffin, who are preparing for ordination to the Diaconate on the 6th May, and to the Priesthood on 10th June this year.

The Principal Celebrant was Fr Peter Wilson, Senior Chaplain to the London Universities in the Diocese.
“It has been an immense privilege and joy for all of us at the Chaplaincy to be invited to accompany this group on their journey into full communion with the Catholic Church.”



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Monday, April 18, 2011

Holy Week 2011


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Monday & Tuesday
Mass 5.30pm

Wednesday 
Mass with Reception of Members of the 
Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

Holy Thursday
Mass of the Lord's Supper 7.30pm

Good Friday
Celebration of the Lord's Passion 3pm

Holy Saturday
Easter Vigil of the Lord's Resurrection 8pm

Easter Sunday Morning
Mass of the Resurrection 10.30am ONLY


Read our guide to the celebrations of Holy Week here.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Newsletter Issue 6 - Holy Week


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Saturday, April 09, 2011

Raising Lazarus



The Lord does not go to Lazarus immediately after his death. He is making a point: Lazarus is left long enough in the tomb so that when Jesus acts in this extraordinary way, it will be all the more powerful. No-one will be able to say ‘Very clever, but he wasn’t really dead.’ Jesus satisfies the Rabbinical authorities, fulfilling what the law demanded - but transforms its meaning.

We have an incidence of what scholars call an ‘I am’ sayings in this Gospel. ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ Again, this is an extraordinary claim. Even in first century Judaism it was fairly commonplace for people to talk of the resurrection of the dead (with the well-known exception of the Sadducees), but for Jesus to identify his own person, his own being, with this concept is startling.

We might expect Jesus to lay his hands upon Lazarus, anoint him, maybe. He does nothing of the sort. Last week we saw how he took the earth (adama) and applies it to the man’s eyes in order to ‘complete’ the creation of the man born blind. Today we are looking to the creation narrative once again. God said ‘let there be…’, and so there was. Jesus said ‘Lazarus, here! Come out.’ Jesus himself is enough to raise Lazarus from the dead, because he is the very Word spoken by the Father.

Jesus acts in extraordinary ways, with extraordinary deeds: in doing so, he raises our expectation of what is ‘ordinary’. It is a matter of course for us to say during the Creed ‘We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.’ This is not just a metaphor for heaven. It is something more complete, more challenging, more transforming than simply ‘going to another place.’

The raising of Lazarus takes place before the glorification of Jesus. To the eyes of those observing this event, it is Lazarus, as he was, who is raised. To the eyes of those who see from our side of the Paschal Mystery, it tells of a different hope: the body will be transformed. This is the promise of Baptism, because we are washed in the living water that flows from the side of the risen Christ.

And so onwards, towards Jerusalem.
CJC

Friday, April 01, 2011

Papal Audience

Bishop Alan Hopes, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, and Mgr Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham were received in a private audience by Pope Benedict XVI this morning.


They were accompanied by H.E. William Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.