Tomorrow night at St Anne`s Catholic church in Darlington at 7pm sixty or so parishioners and their vicar will be received into the Catholic Church and the Ordinariate. This promises to be a wonderful event and I am intending to be there to see it.
UPDATE: 5.04.2012. Just to say I did get down to Darlington and it was a wonderful occasion. Musically it was more subdued than usual as it was Wednesday of Holy Week so we had Mass with hymns but the hymns were sung with tremendous gusto and at Communion soloists sang three items by Handel ( start of the Salve Regina; `He was despised` from the Messiah and `Soll mein Kind, mein Leben sterben` from the Brockes Passion`). Mgr Keith Newton was the main celebrant. At the end of Mass he gave a useful guide to what it means to be a Catholic in the Ordinariate and how it doesn`t mean they are not `proper` Catholics. Explanations of this kind are useful as there is still a ot of misunderstanding about the whole thing I find. He also spoke of how the moving force for the Ordinariate is the search for Christian unity. The bishop of Durham had been hoping to come but sady could not make it. A number of St James` parishioners who are not joining the ordinariate were in the congregation as well as some Anglican clergy. It was good to meet deacon
James Bradley, the Ordinariate communications officer at the reception afterwards.
Ian Grieves will be ordained priest on May 29th and then will say Mass for the Darlington Ordinariate at St Anne`s on Sunday mornings. The group photo is from the Darlington Ordinariate set on
Flickr. More on the Ordinariate
here.
