Bambinelli Sunday!

 “BAMBINELLI SUNDAY”

Gaudate Sunday (Advent III), 13 December 

Each year on the 3rd Sunday of Advent (“Gau­date Sunday”), children in Rome gather with their families in St. Peter’s Square for “Bene­dizione del Bamninelli.” The children bring with them the “Bambinello” – the Christ Child figu­rine – from their family’s home crèche, and at the noon Angelus, the Pope blesses the children, their families, and the figurines they have brought. On Gaudate Sunday, we will unite our hearts to the Holy Father’s and the children and families gathered with him and bless our own “Bambinelli.” So – whatever your age! – bring your Christ Child and the children will present them for a blessing at the conclusion of Mass on Sunday!

“Advent and Christmas are about welcoming the Word of God into our lives – which means our homes. The blessing of the Bambinelli – which we bring from our homes and return there – is an embodiment of this.”
— Amy Welborn

Learn more!

A Bishop for the Ordinariate & Advent News!

Dear friends - 
To paraphrase the Holy Angels, I bring you good news of two great joys! And some important liturgical notes, as well, so please read below!
I wish each of you a happy and blessed (and well-fed!) Thanksgiving - enjoy!
Faithfully in Christ,
Fr. Allen

Great Joy #1

Pope Francis has appointed Monsignor Steven Lopes as the first Bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter! Bishop-elect Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, has served for more than ten years as an official in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, and has worked on the Ordinariate "project" since its inception, including guiding the commission tasked with incorporating classically Anglican liturgies into Catholic worship. I've had the pleasure of meeting Bishop-elect Lopes and hearing him speak on two occasions, including when he led the Ordinariate's clergy retreat two years ago. I could not be more pleased and encouraged by the appointment. Bishop-elect Lopes will be ordained in Houston on Candlemas (2/2). I will be sending you more news soon, but in the meantime, you can read all about Bishop-elect Lopes and the significance of his appointment here:

“With this appointment, Pope Francis affirms and amplifies Pope Benedict’s vision for Christian unity, in which diverse expressions of one faith are joined together in the Church. By naming Bishop-elect Lopes, the Pope has confirmed that the Ordinariate is a permanent, enduring part of the Catholic Church, like any other diocese — one that is now given a bishop so that it may deepen its contribution to the life of the Church and the world.”
— http://ordinariate.net/press-release

Great Joy #2

Our second bit of good news is that this Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, the Missal created for the use of the Ordinariates goes into use (finally!). Divine Worship: The Missal is a beautifully produced work, truly "a treasure to be shared" with the whole Church. (Our friend Fr James Bradley has some beautiful photographs of the Missal - take a look!)

The arrival of our Missal heralds some changes to the celebration of our liturgy, and Advent itself brings a few changes. So that you may enter fully and actively into worship, please read though these notes:

  • Divine Worship allows Ordinariate communities to say either "Holy Spirit" or "Holy Ghost." In keeping with the language of the Book of Common Prayer tradition, we will say "Holy Ghost" in nearly all instances.
  • The temporary Missal we have been using directed that the response "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my soul shall be healed" be repeated three times. Beginning this Sunday, and as allowed by the new Missal, we will say that formula one time only. 
  • Rather than the "Pew Missals" we have been using, we will have a simple Mass Card which will provide all the responses and texts required by the congregation. Due to the short time allowed for the production of these cards, a temporary version will be used this Sunday, with a more sturdy edition soon to follow. (Hand missals with complete texts of the Mass and other devotions will be produced and made available for purchase.)
  • We will begin singing from a hymnal (The Hymnal 1982, commonly used in Episcopal/Anglican parishes), rather than printing hymns in a bulletin.
  • On the first Sunday of Advent, Mass will begin with The Great Litany.
  • As last year, during Advent we will sing the simple Greek/Latin chants of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Sanctus & Benedictus, Agnus Dei). You can see and hear those chants here. Please do take a look, listen, and practice!

My goal is to make entering in to our particular form of the Mass as simple as possible for visitors and “regulars” alike, and to produce a minimum of paper to be thrown away each week. Of course, “simple” will have to wait till after this Sunday, due to the Litany and temporary cards.
 
This is an exciting time for the Ordinariate, and I believe that in God’s Providence, the advent of our Missal and the appointment of a Bishop will mark a maturation in our life and turning point in our joyful work of evangelism. Bishop-elect Lopes has taken as his episcopal motto Magna Opera Domini – “Great are the works of the Lord.” Great indeed is God’s goodness to us in Jesus Christ and in drawing us into the fullness of faith in Christ within the Catholic Church. The true “good news of a great joy” is God’s gift of himself to us Jesus Christ. Let us go with gladness and gratitude to the Altar of the Lord and share our good news in all the world!

-PSA

November Indulgences: Help the Poor Souls in Purgatory!

The Church provides a great opportunity to help the departed by performing acts of devotion, repentance and charity. These acts provide remission from temporal punishment and are called indulgences. During the Octave of All Saints, (November 1-8) the Church gives us a special opportunity to gain indulgences for the departed.

A plenary or full indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, is granted to the faithful who,

1. On any and each day from November 1 to 8, devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, if only mentally, for the departed; or
2. On All Soul’s Day, devoutly visit a church or oratory and recite an Our Father and Creed.

A partial indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, is granted to the faithful who,
1. Devoutly visit a cemetery and at least mentally pray for the dead; or
2. Devoutly recite lauds and vespers from the Office for the Dead or the prayer:
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord and let the perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.

It is also necessary to fulfill the following conditions for the plenary indulgence,
1. Make a sacramental confession; and
2. Receive Holy Communion; and
3. Pray for the intention of the Holy Father (no particular prayers are prescribed for the intention of the Holy Father, an Our Father and a Hail Mary are appropriate).

These conditions may be fulfilled several days before or after the visit to the Church. A plenary indulgence can only be acquired once in the course of the day; it is, however, fitting that Holy Communion be received and the prayer for the intention of the Holy Father be said on the same day the work is performed.

Prayers for the dead, especially offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for their eternal repose, rests securely on this truth expressed so eloquently by St. Paul: “Christ died and came to life, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Romans 14:9).

(via charlestoncathedral.com)

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Today in the Ordinariates is the Feast of Blessed John Henry Newman, Anglican priest and progenitor of the Oxford...

Posted by Corpus Christi Catholic Community on Friday, October 9, 2015

Rowan Williams on "Laudato Si"

Rowan Williams, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Emeritus, has written a characteristically insightful appreciation of and commentary on the Holy Father's recent encyclical, Laudato Si: On the Care of Our Common Home:

Perhaps the first thing that needs to be said about Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment is that it is an entirely natural development not only of the theology of Evangelii gaudium but also—as the extensive citations show—of the theology of Pope Benedict, especially as found in Caritas in veritate. Both the pope’s critics and his supporters have often missed the point: Benedict’s Christian humanism, his consistent theology of the dignity of the human person, his concern for a culture in which there is no longer a viable understanding of any given order independent of human will—all this is reiterated with force and clarity by Pope Francis. This encyclical is emphatically not charting a new course in papal theology, and those who speak as if this were the case have not been reading either pope with attention. What is uncomfortable for some is that a number of points clearly but briefly made by the previous pontiff have been drawn out in unmistakable terms. The fact that we live in a culture tone-deaf to any sense of natural law is here starkly illustrated by the persistent tendency of modern human agents to act as though the naked fact of personal desire for unlimited acquisition were the only “given” in the universe, so that ordinary calculations of prudence must be ignored. Measureless acquisition, consumption, or economic growth in a finite environment is a literally nonsensical idea; yet the imperative of growth remains unassailable, as though we did not really inhabit a material world.

(Read on)